Humanoid Underground Dweller

I think I may have inadvertently created the perfect discordant experience earlier tonight. I was coming home from work, listening to the Allman Brothers. This alone is rare. The Allman Brothers recorded many, many songs, of which I have exactly two on my iPod (of the 5,814 songs I currently have on there; and no, that number isn’t my usual exaggeration for comical non-effect, it’s just the real number). The songs are “Melissa” and “Jessica,” and I only ever really listen to the former.

But this time, I was listening to “Jessica,” mostly because after staying at work until 8:00, wrestling with demonic Xerox machines when everyone else had been sensible enough to leave for home or perhaps to have minor surgery performed, I was too tired to pull the listening device out of my coat pocket and switch to a song that better suited my mood. If you’re not familiar with “Jessica,” it’s a long(ish), noodling, airy instrumental, with a main guitar figure that is arguably the perfect soundtrack for carefree motion. It could easily and appropriately accompany any of the following activities: driving on an open highway during a bright spring day; running after a frisbee between courses of a picnic in a park; running full stride among a pack of large, happy dogs.

What it does not appropriately accompany, and what made its presence so perversely enjoyable tonight, is sitting on the E train, with its doors open at the Penn Station stop, surrounded by glum, fallen faces like so many broken lamps.

In my search to locate the nexus of my recent (OK, yearlong) ennui, I’ve alighted on the subway. In its way, of course, it’s a marvel. It keeps me from making any kind of car payment, it is (despite the maddening exceptions) fairly reliable, and it is the world’s most dependable designated driver. (You never see the D train off in the corner doing a kegstand after it promised to be your ride home.)

But the commute (about 45 minutes each way every weekday) is taking its toll. Or, as a good friend who was in the city freelancing last week put it to me over lunch, with a smile on his face, “Yeah, I think if I’d been making that commute for the last five years, I would have killed myself by now.” Thanks, JF.

It’s been almost six years, actually.

For some reason, the approaching winter always makes the train population seem that much more...gross. People are splayed all over each other, children piled on top of children, the bass of neighboring headphones seems louder, the ching-ching of cell-phone video games replicates the noise of a Vegas casino floor, even the rats on the tracks seem more put out.

Tonight, on the D, there was a guy sitting in the far corner of the car. I think it was a guy. He was wearing a too-small knit cap pulled tight over his head, his bottom lip drooping down at a remarkable angle even for the sad sacks of Gotham, and he looked legitimately lost more than sad or hungry. He was of indeterminable ethnicity, and very small. If I had to guess, and I'm not joking, I'd say he was a Sherpa who had made a wrong turn somewhere west of Nepal. He was one of these people you see sometimes in the city, and I honestly don’t mean this to be needlessly cruel -- he didn’t appear nearly as destitute as many here do -- who seemed literally out of place, like someone was taking care of him and thought, “Hell, we’ll just throw him on a subway train in New York. No one will think it’s that weird.”

Normally they'd be right. But I’m starting to think things are that weird again. Can’t tell if this is a sign to leave, or a sign that it’s too late -- that I’d look to residents of other places much like that guy looked to me.

No, I Take it Back, City. Ike is Sorry. Ike Didn't Mean it, City.

OK, I can't just complain about rent (see below). I have to balance the scales. I started reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell the other day -- this is going somewhere; take my hand -- and realized five pages into it that I don't have much confidence these days in my ability to finish a 500-plus-page novel that isn't required reading for my job. I know too many assignments will interrupt me along the way. Instead of bemoaning this fact -- or rather, in addition to bemoaning this fact -- I've decided to read short stories. They're perfect for subway rides, and I want to try my hand at writing them again in the coming months, so it seems a good idea. I'm hoping to get to Gogol soon, but I'm starting with Like Life, a collection by Lorrie Moore. And here, to counteract the real-estate taste in my mouth and to accompany the photo above, is an excerpt from the story "Vissi D'Arte."

There is a way of walking in New York, midevening, in the big, blocky East Fifties, that causes the heart to open up and the entire city to rush in and make a small town there. The city stops its painful tantalizing then, its elusiveness and tease suspended, it takes off its clothes and nestles wakefully, generously, next to you. It is there, it is yours, no longer outwitting you. And it is not scary at all, because you love it very much.

New York Public Announcement of the Day

The disembodied voice of the conductor on the F train, around 6:30 tonight:

People, I know it's hot, hazy, and humid. But still, we're human beings, not animals.

Nothing to See Here, People. Move On.

(From top, Empire State Building, Metropolitan Museum of Art, United Nations)






As many of you probably know, the Department of Homeland Security recently decreased New York's anti-terror funds by 40 percent. What you may not have known is that one reason for the cutback was that the department didn't feel New York had any "national monuments or icons" worth protecting. Indiana was given $12 million to protect the world's largest ball of paint in Alexandria (no joke), but the Empire State Building, the United Nations, the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, the New York Public Library, Yankee Stadium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and any number of high-profile bodegas evidently don't qualify as iconic.

The DHS isn't all about ignoring us, though. The original ABC report says:

The formula did note a commuter population of more than 16 million around the city twice struck by fundamentalist terrorists and twice more targeted in plots halted in pre-operational stages. It noted the more than eight million residents and the largest rail ridership in the nation -- more than five million. It is those commuters and rail riders who are expected to suffer most from the cuts since mass transit is listed on most DHS alerts as the top terror target.

From one of sixteen million: thanks, guys.

Mayor Bloomberg dares to suggest this isn't about protecting the ball of paint:

I think the facts are clear. What they've really done is taken what was supposed to be threat-based and just started to distribute it as normal pork.

Or, as a commenter over at The Stranger put it:

using "homeland security" to dole out cash to battleground house and senate races. despicable.

(Via The Stranger, via Modern Art Notes, via Daily Kos (the link to follow for the ball of paint and other jaw-droppers))

The Yin and Yang of New York (both photographs immediately below representing the yin, to keep things pretty)

(Apologies ahead of time for the awfully generic observations found below, but I made a promise.)

One of the funny things about spending significant time in the south is that you meet a lot of smart, well-traveled, interested people who ask for a defense (of sorts) of New York. I’ve been here almost six years now, and one of the deepest truths of the place is the fervent belief among young(ish) people who come here that it’s where they need to be. They complain about the more taxing aspects of the city on occasion, but you get the sense that they couldn’t live anywhere else (at least for a while). So the longer I stay, the odder it seems when someone -- especially someone who has a lot in common with my Yankee friends -- asks me to describe why I choose to live here. But I’m glad they do, because, probably more than the average place, New York causes you to take stock every now and again, and rededicate yourself to the project of hanging in here (or to the project of fleeing in some way that won’t feel like giving up).

As the humid season approaches, when I spend every other day wondering why I don't move to Saratoga Springs (aside from dearth of employment opportunities, lack of social options, and a better than even chance that I would become a degenerate horse gambler within a year or two), it's time to briefly answer a friend's recent question about just what's so great about living in the city. (Calling New York the city is a pretty surefire way to piss off people who live elsewhere. It's fun. Try it.)

First, if you love street living -- walking down the block for pretty much every practical need, and several highly impractical needs as well, at just about any hour -- then there's nowhere else in America for you. In this sense and others, the positive aspects of living here are so broad as to verge on cliche. Just think of the communal, continually adolescent group fun fetishized in shows like Seinfeld and Friends, but with real beauty around you instead of plastic L.A. sets, and with, you know, real people, too. (The beauty, of course, takes the form of the pristine -- Lincoln Center, the Chrysler Building, the bridges, the broader skyline (see above), residential streets (also see above) -- but also what one friend calls "picturesque urban decay." The perfect phrase.) Not excluding myself by any stretch, I've found that New York is an incredibly provincial place for a certain group of people in their 20s and 30s, where they can extend their college experience to its breaking point (which point, for many, doesn't seem to exist). This is enjoyable and incredibly annoying in all the ways you would expect, but you can wring a lot of the former feeling from it before you hit the latter.

Every day, there's something to seek out. My recommendation today (though it doesn't actually happen for another couple of weeks) is the opening of the redesigned Morgan Library and Museum. And every day, something seeks you out. Another friend recounted a cab ride last week, during which the Russian driver had a fender bender with a Chinese counterpart and ended up screaming at him, "I will kick you in your brain! In your brain!" If that doesn't sound like a good time, don't come here. It might come down to this: New York is perfect for people who need constant stimulation, regardless of the type, and probably ruinous for anyone else.

I walked along the east side of Central Park the other night for the first time in a long while, for the last hour or so of sunlight, and was giddy. That said, I needed the reprieve it gave me. Because here's the yang: yes, the place can drive you crazy.

Sleep Delays My Life (Get Up! GET UP!)

Got in fairly late last night from a friend's party right around the block, and ended up watching a bit of a truly terrible movie on cable (Serendipity) before finally turning in around 3:00. So, like many weekend mornings, I was planning on dozing until an embarrassingly late hour.

This is going somewhere, trust me.

I love the street I live on in Brooklyn. It's near the park, it's lined with beautiful buildings, it's conveniently situated right on the subway line. It's also twice as wide as the average street in this neighborhood, which makes it the perfect location, right around this time every year, for the borough's Little League parade to kick off the season. A real rite of spring.

A real rite of spring that involves incredibly loud music. The thing is, I forget about this every year in an Eternal Sunshine-meets-The Bad News Bears kind of way, so it's always a fresh surprise when I'm jolted from bed early(ish) on a Saturday by kids playing brass instruments about 30 feet outside my window. They might as well be in my bedroom. And every year, the first thing I do upon opening my eyes is laugh out loud, because there is something very, very funny (not to mention definitive, and kind of decadent) about being woken up by a marching band.

The Bright Side of the Strike

After walking about 30 blocks on my way to a holiday party after work tonight, I decided to grab a cab. I had about 30 blocks left to go, and it wasn't getting any warmer out. Nor was my head cold abating.

I was walking because New York City's public transportation workers are on strike, in case you didn't know. I'm not being sarcastic -- I imagine those of you in other cities have too much on your mind to worry about whether or not my transit needs are being handled with appropriate care.

Anyway, because of the strike, cab drivers are advised to pick up as many people as they can fit in their car -- ranging from three to sixteen depending on the dietary habits of the passengers. It's the kind of emergency measure that New Yorkers are urged to view as a charming opportunity to "bond," something we evidently don't get enough of when we're armpit-to-nostril in a rush-hour subway car. My cab driver didn't only seem to not understand the temporary rules (which benefit riders, several million of whom are suddenly competing for a few thousand cabs), I'm not sure he knew there was a strike going on. When I got in to the cab, which was empty at the time, he shook his head and said, "So much traffic. Too much traffic," as if wondering what could possibly explain it.

When two women loaded down with shopping bags wanted to get in just two blocks further south, he rolled down the window, deferentially pointed in my direction, and said, "Someone's already in here." Not to be dissuaded by the cabbie's ignorance of the city's current Mad Max situation and what it required of him, they hopped in the back, and their numerous bags made it a cozy fit. I didn't want to judge, but they seemed straight out of Sex and the City. When they started discussing the men in their office with phrases like "he wasn't cute before he had a girlfriend" and one of them said, "I feel like I'm in an episode of Sex and the City," any guilt I felt for judging exited the cab posthaste.

They told me they work in advertising, and I told them I'm a book editor. "Oh, we send things to editors all the time," the blonde said. "But not editors like you; editors of fashion magazines."

Later on (it took us about 25 minutes to travel 11 blocks, and if you're wondering why we bothered with the cab, join the club), I told them I was headed downtown to a party. "It's the Harper's Magazine holiday party," I said.

The brunette perked up.

"Not Harper's Bazaar," I said, "just Harper's."

"Oh," she said, visibly deflated.

The highlight came in the final moments, though, when the blonde was describing her 11-year-old daughter's newfound desire for independence, and how she couldn't help but think said desire would be more tolerable outside of New York City. "It makes me want to live somewhere else," she said, "where people play sports and things. Where sports doesn't mean getting a credit card."

And though I wasn't sure quite which planet these two women had recently arrived from, it was a blast to hear them talk to each other in my presence as if I was an old friend. New York does provide tableaus like this that would be inconceivable elsewhere, and they can be strangely enlivening as often as irritating. Earlier in the day, the last leg of a three-hour commute required me to walk about 25 blocks from Penn Station to my office, and I couldn't wipe a smile off my face the whole way. The day was brisk and bright, the tourists utterly undeterred by the transit strike, and my fellow residents were energetically griping about the transportation union's demands. ("Like a three or four percent raise a year isn't enough?") And maybe I knew that a few hours later, I'd be sharing a cab with people willing to entertain me like Sarah Jessica Parker without the cost of HBO. Hard to imagine living anywhere else if I'm honest...

Living in Fear Update

For the past several years now, New York conversations have often veered towards considerations of apocalyptic scenarios. Even before September 11, New Yorkers were a pessimistic breed. Then came the anthrax and the blackout and the London subway bombings, so now we’re essentially a city of eight million paranoid freaks. We’re all like the man muttering to himself about the FBI on the 6 train at three in the morning, we’re just better at hiding it.

Yesterday I had separate conversations, with friends Nick and Jon, about how many different things could happen that would send me immediately scurrying from NYC. Another major attack of a landmark might not do it, at least not for reasons of physical fear, but I mentioned that a subway bombing might do the trick, which led to this uniquely New York exchange:

Nick: Just one (subway bomb)?
Me: Probably.
Nick: What if it wasn’t on your line?
Me: I’m not sure that would make a difference. It might.

While we all remain wary of potential human enemies, though, it’s those pesky birds we need to look out for. I say that freedom must yield to caution during dangerous times, so I’m demanding that every third bird be searched before getting on mass transit systems. I know this will make me unpopular, but I’ll stand by it.

Last night, I pointed out to Jon that the 1918 influenza epidemic killed 14 billion people worldwide (I was exaggerating to get his attention), but he reassured me that any mega-killer flu, like the everyday variety, would mostly affect the old and infirm. But I read on the web today (and like most, I believe everything I read on the web) that: "The (1918) flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of morbidity was unusual for influenza which is usually a killer of the elderly and young children." Hmm. Never have I so wished to be elderly.