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| Michael Moore |
There's something in the bones about New York. For me, something in a hint of a memory of 335 E. 86th Street, where I was hatched. Something borne in one. I think of it mostly as I walk and ride the city every day. I think mostly about those for whom this city would definitely not work. My family. The girl I went to Europe and Africa with. Nearly everyone I knew in Vietnam, and most in Korea as well. The rest of the world. It's not for everyone, yet everyone is here. People from 100 countries, and more. It's the only city in the US I knew would be international enough for me to feel at home. In a recent post, Seth Godin reasons because "It's Different Here" and he recounts:
- It’s different here (as in not the same)
- You can find someone to have an argument with, about just about anything
- There are fringes--cultural, educational, architectural, societal
- More than 42 languages are spoken at the Queens public library
- You can get something that’s not the regular kind
- There are profit-seekers who will happily sell you something, anything
- There are many who do things for no profit at all and will eagerly entertain, entrance and change you for the better
- You will find a diversity of religious belief like no other
- It’s changing
- The food hasn't been entirely homogenized
- People are active
- A stranger will go out of his way for you, perhaps, and more often than you expect
- There is more information per minute, per meter and per interaction
- Neighborhoods are more important than homogeneity, and co-existing is most important
But there's more. Compared to Asia (and even to Paris) the subway is a dirty smelly hellhole that would be an embarrassment to any developed country - but New Yorkers like it that way (most of them haven't seen Asia or Europe).. It wouldn't be NYC without it. Conversations pass daily on how organized crime controls government and government controls the people - but that's how it is. Sadly. One guy tried to impress me recently with the idea of how much better the US is than Somalia right now. Interesting. We now have to compare ourselves to underdeveloped third-world nations in political turmoil to be better than someone. But that's how it is.
Yesterday Michael Moore showed up at the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park. This morning it was Susan Sarandon. Tonight I listened to Professor Cornel West from Princeton University. Inspiring. Yes, it's different (and fucked-up) here, and I love that. The Wild Wild East has now inhabited Asia, Europe, Africa, the Wild Wild Upper East Side of NYC and even Wild Wild East Broadway and things are just fine. Recently a girl commented on my "A Suspension of Disbeliefs" blog that my writing has become more "America-centric" since returning, and she surmises, that, "that makes' sense. Before I wrote about America from afar. Now I write to afar from America. It's a small world in any case and I am now your correspondent in NYC.
