27th
Shut Up, New York (I Will Call San Francisco 'The City' If I Fucking Feel Like It)
Let me say something up front: I like New York City, very much. It’s a big, exciting city full of interesting people and engaging things to do. And because I like it, because—like a lot of people—I’m fond of it and enjoy visiting and may even live there someday, I’m going to offer New York a bit of unsolicited advice: Shut Up.
You know that person in your life who talks about herself constantly? The person who, in high school, made sure you knew she got an ‘A’ on a test or, in college, had to take her many—so many!—personal calls in the presence of other people just in case they didn’t appreciate how many friends she had? The person who treated any experience, no matter how pedestrian and unremarkable, like something that had never happened to anyone else ever before in the history of humankind? Don’t be that person, New York. You’re better than that.
You are better than that, and the New York Times has done you wrong by printing this unbearably tiresome article. Don’t click on that link, because I can save you a few hundred words with this summary: Lots of people move to New York from other places and sometimes they find it difficult because they’re lonely and poor, but fortunately lots of them eventually adjust to the city and live happy, productive lives. Yes, really, that’s the article:
“But for many, the thrill of arrival is often tempered by the sinking realization of what an alienating place the city can be, especially for those who are not wealthy or who do not have a pre-existing network of friends. Nothing comes easily, even if one can get past the dauntingly high cost of living. The subway maze seems indecipherable. People are everywhere, but ignore each other on the street. Friends might live in distant neighborhoods, and seeing them often requires booking time, like an appointment, weeks in advance.”
Weeks in advance! Can you imagine? Unlike other cities, where people enjoy the simple pleasures of domesticating livestock and irrigating things, New Yorkers have to contend with appointments and something called a “subway,” which sounds so complicated that you probably shouldn’t even look it up.
I guess it isn’t surprising that the Times is the world’s undisputed leader in producing articles about how awesome New York is, but it does surprise me that with all the resources at their disposal they couldn’t produce something better than this:
“They find themselves walking and talking faster. The subway begins to make sense. Patience is whittled away; sarcasm often ensues. New friends are made, routines established, and city life begins to feel like second nature. In other words, newcomers find themselves becoming New Yorkers.”
New Yorkers, you learn, practice a form of humor called “sarcasm” which is actually so advanced that it ensues. They also make new friends and establish routines, a testament, surely, to the caliber of person New York attracts. It’s fortunate, too, that New York brings in such a hardy bunch, because they have to contend with problems the rest of the country can’t even imagine, problems like high prices, loneliness, and public transit. It’s not for sissies.
Nothing exemplifies New York’s sick self-absorbtion as well as the defensiveness New Yorkers display when people from the Bay Area call San Francisco ‘The City.’
“That’s not a city,” they say. “You come to New York, I’ll show you a city.”
I’ve got a better idea: You come to San Francisco, and I’ll show you a coastline that isn’t smothered in gigantic Dunkin’ Donuts cups and hypodermic needles, and then, after we’ve acknowledged that New York is big, and important, and full of energy, and that that’s all just fantastic, really, we can also go on calling San Francisco ‘The City’ because that is what it is called.
One of my favorite pieces of writing ever is ‘Goodbye to All That,’ by Joan Didion. I’m always confused, though, when people tell me ‘Goodbye to All That’ is an essay “about” New York. It is manfestly not an essay about New York; that just happens to be where she was when those things happened. The city is the backdrop to what the essay is actually about, which is the experience of being young and moving somewhere new and having a hard time of it, but also having some good times and being—on the whole—a little mixed up and confused. That’s also known as: the universal experience of young people everywhere, at all times, as it always has been and forever will be.
So really, New York: just let it be.
