This really encompases the way I feel about New York, and the way I feel about this “Depression” we are apparently moments away from entering.
“Which kind of neatly underscores an important truth of this city: we are here for the “action.” We are not here for the riches or because Guiliani made it so tidy and safe and Singaporean like our relatives always annoyingly assume when we so graciously leave it to endure family gatherings. I mean, if our relatives ever visited us they would know that New York is still fundamentally gross, and THAT’S SORT OF WHY WE’RE HERE. It is fucked up, but we chose to live among the tenements and the rats and all that once-proud peeling buckling infrastructure and all those whiffs of strangers’ body odor because something about it makes us feel alive, even as the constant unquenchable thirst for that feeling also exposes the parts of our insides that we’re slowly choking to death. But look! The New York Observer reports people are actually talking to strangers on the subway again. It’s a paradox, and creative destruction, and possibly sector rotation — so the action leaves the Street for a little while, it will return in some gross new neighborhood the haters will instantly hate just as much. In the meantime, it’s like that time all the power went out! Everyone loved that, remember? Oh and remember the subway strike? People loved that too. Shit, they probably secretly loved the cholera epidemic. Moral of story: we love that the economy is as fucked-up as we are. Like, there is a reason they call it “depression” duh!” [Full Text Here]
I heart Moe at Gawker. She is truely hilarious.
