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shit on the streets is crazy, but not as crazy as whats goin down in my brain
Sometimes it is important in life not to think of everything as a conspiracy to make your life difficult and boring; but to take every random experience and see the deeper meanings and ironies hidden beneath the surface. In Ian Frazier’s “Gone To New York” the author accomplishes the masterful feat of turning everyday meaningless experiences into important anecdotes about the meaning of life in New York City from the 1970’s to the present day. Whether discussing the nature of the shape of the island of Brooklyn or talking about devices that grab plastic bags out of tress, Frazier takes a humoristic yet passionate approach to explaining life in the big city. His essays talk about the important shit, and I purposefully use the word shit, that no other author that I have read has chose to attack as important topics. He puts into words the daily parapraxes that New Yorkers experience and does so in a way that is both passionate and absolutely hilarious.
Being a New Yorker from the beginning, as I was born here, I have toiled in the unbearably hot summer day, I have heard about the disgust of the gowanus canal, I have taken a bus to Jersery and witness the glory and pride that America has manufactured in our never ending goal to “advance”. I see Frazier as a man who was just bored and feeling funny one day, and decided to write about the ridiculously ridiculous unheard of experiences that one encounters in a day simply walking the streets of Manhattan. One sees more and experiences more in New York than any other major city in the US and maybe even the world. Nothing happens in other places in the United States, but in New York there is an infinite amount of absurdity occurring just outside ones doorstep and beckoning them to come outside and just live. Frazier has inspired me to write down just a few of these incredible images and experiences that have happened to me in the few years I haved lived in this wonderfully disgusting city.
1. The always present stain of puke on St. Marks Place as I walk to class or just about anywhere.
2. Bums passed out with their pants down who sometimes like to sleep in the vestibule of my apartment
3. The disgusting people who walk into head shops to get tattoos of nautical stars and other stupid bullshit that they don’t realize will be on the body for the rest of their life
4. birdshit all over the place
5. trash everywhere; sometimes good trash that ends up becoming your furniture
6. people bumming cigarettes left and right---not saying I’m not guilty of this
7. the snake man in Washington square park
8. public displays of affection that sometimes evolve into full blown sex acts in parks-specifically Tompkins square---might have been guilty of this as well
9. sex on rooftops
10. sex
11. people staring at you in your apartment----just after you stared at them
12. feeling uncomfortable on the subway, not because of it being crowded, but because you’re a white jew with a fro
13. urinating in public---getting a ticket for public urination
14. smoking weed and doing just about anything else that involves narcotics in Washington square during the summer—no comment
15. lastly walking into a freaking corner story buying a pack of cigarettes, a roll of toilet paper and a vitamin water---and walking out unable to pay your rent
(Make-up post. Excuse the
(Make-up post. Excuse the awkward lateness.)
For this comment, I thought I'd elaborate on your list, particularly #6 and possibly #8-10 and #14.
Once every few weeks, I will have a day where I will constantly get asked to bum someone a cigarette. As a smoker, you always get asked occasionally. But these days are different (everyone asks!), and I don't understand why. Did I do something different? Do I look less mean than usual? I don't understand it.
Today was one of those days. It was an especially odd one because the bum(mer)s stuck around for a chat afterwards. My silent stare must have been inviting, or they were just having a bad day and needed to vent. One man said: "When I see a lady walkin the street, I only have one question: What do women want? I've been at it my whole life and I haven't figured it out." I told him that if I found out, I'd give him a call. Another man had been in prison for 12 years (which I found out because I asked if he could roll his own cigarette, which he could because that's what he did in prison). He used to "own the park," referring to his days as the narcotics kingpin in Washington Square Park. He was solemn and deliberate, and had trouble rolling his cigarette. He asked me what I was studying.
Though I do not ask for these moments, they are pleasant, if only for a reminder that I am in New York. Anywhere else, these sorts of things would tweak me a bit, though here it comes with the territory.
word.
I totally agree that Frazier does a great job taking the everyday occurrence and using it to open up New York for his audience. He talks about what's really important even when he uses a less than intriguing happening as the path to do so. As I more or less said in my blog post, Frazier's writing makes you look a little closer at the people around you. And that's not the easiest task when we're a city full of "lonely people" who rarely look at those around us unless it's to make sure we don't get poked in the eye by their umbrellas. We may be slightly disjointed, but Frazier shows how we do have our own type of urban community. And you certainly see more crazy things on the streets of Manhattan than probably anywhere else. Where else do you see a girl on a date with a male blow-up doll, casually dining in a random pizzeria?
I also like your list approach, I considered doing the same, actually.