After reading the astonishing article about the demise of Catholic schools about which I blogged yesterday, I found another gem of dismay: New Yorkers are having status panic.
"WHEN THE ACTION MOVES ON," bleated the headline, over a photo of an empty Times Square.
The article (or at least the first five paragraphs of it, which, I freely admit, were all I read) proceeded to whine and quaver. All the power has shifted to Washington! Our financial titans are "cowed"! All the important people have left!! New York "is losing...its sense of pre-eminence"!
Well, if that article is any indication, New York is certainly losing something. If the 70s and 80s version of the city could have looked ahead and seen itself going on about how diminished it feels now that some famous people have moved, it would have dragged itself into an alley and beat itself to death with its bare hands.
Actually, maybe that's exactly what happened. It would explain a lot.
Anyhow. If New York City's lip is trembling because Tim Geithner has moved to Washington, then it has totally lost touch with what makes it great. New York is not Versailles, fachrissakes. It's the precise opposite. It is a vast coral reef of anonymous gods, indelible souls whose irreducible selfhood brands all onlookers like cattle. New York is a Victor Hugo novel. Its every person is the bastard child of Dickens and Bukowski. That is something which can never be taken away from them.
It's something only they, themselves, can lose.
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I hope the article went on to repudiate its own premise. A decade of reading the Times, however, makes me fear that it did not. Around the edges, a sensibility has crept into that paper which I feel does not serve the city well.
Example: And this is version 2, by the way; I momentarily edited the example out because I couldn't find the actual quote (one of those little editing things I forgot to do before going live...if this post DID, in fact, go live, which it looked to me like it did, but which my husband swears it did not), but then realized I was looking in the wrong article.
So anyhow: example. In this otherwise heartbreaking article about the 2003 murder of a New York actress, check out the fifth paragraph: before her death, the woman was "stepping onto the fast track as only New York allows." I remember reading that and thinking, oh yeah? It is just possible that Tokyo, Mumbai, Hong Kong and London might have something to say about that.
And even if it was true, what kind of attitude is that? The kind that leaves you withered when hard times hit, that's what kind.
For this dire state of affairs, I blame the song "New York, New York." In my opinion, the city's own unofficial anthem has led it astray, subtly poisoning it over the years.
Things do start off okay. "Start spreadin' the news/I'm leavin' today/I want to be a part of it..." So far so good. "I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps..." Okay, okay.
But uh-oh, here comes trouble:
"...To find I'm king of the hill/And top of the heap."
Whoops. Los Angeles? Paging Los Angeles. Ms. Angeles, your dream has been found in New York City. Please come get it at the Macy's counter and take it back to California with you. Thank you.
Hurry up before we kill it and sell it for scrap. Oh, was that what you were planning to do? And it found out and ran away? The hell did it come here for, is it stupid? Ah, good point. Okay, well, I suppose we could put it on a bus to Miami. You pay the ticket. Right, we'll send you the bill. Oh, we'll find you. Anyhow...kid? Hey, kid. Your ride is here. You...kid? Kid? Wait a minute, what are you doing over there? Wh...SINCE WHEN ARE YOU IN CHARGE? Christ...
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(P.S. I am sure it is just an attack of stupid on my part, but I have been unable to interface with the New York Times website in such a way as to make this article appear. At least not in the amount of time that I have to search for it. It was in the Sunday Styles section, right on the front page. If I ever do find it online, I will come back and link to it. If you find it, please let me know.)
