New York

Please keep in mind that the offensive slander posted by my friend Andy just below is grossly misinformed. I would never consider chopsticks to be inferior to silverware. Wielding a pair of chopsticks requries dexterity, grace and precision. It's almost an art. With a fork, you're basically puncturing your food.

That said, the rest of that post seems embarassingly accurate.

Anyhow, during my obsessive research for the road trip this winter (mentioned in a previous post), I was suddenly reminded of a writing assignment from high school which I enjoyed a great deal(Yes. I enjoyed high school writing assignments. Who gives a flying fuck. All high school students are, by definition, hopelessly uncool anyway).

The assignment was to write an imitation of Carl Sandburg's "Chicago." I, of course, chose to write about New York, the city that was most familiar to me at the time. The writing, even for something written a million years ago, is frivolous, juvenile, and cliched. Still, I'm fond of this piece for some reason.

So here it is, for your enjoyment. Please feel free to post scathing, taunting comments.

New York

Designer for the World,

Art Trader, Builder of Skyscrapers,

Player with Finances, and the Nation's Glamorous Runway;

Rugged, urbane, pulsing,

City of Many Faces:

They tell me you are heartless and I believe them, for I have seen your rich elite

walking past the limbless veterans sitting on air vents.

And they tell me you are violent, and I answer: Yes, I believe you, I know that death

and rape are no longer even worthy of the evening news.

And they tell me you are haughty and my reply is: On the faces of cosmopolitan

singles and businessmen I have seen arrogance towards southern drawls.

And having answered thus I look once more at those who dare to challenge this

city, and I challenge them in turn, and say to them:

Very well, show me another city so revered by the world, for it is stylish and

intelligent, eccentric and cunning.

Sculpting the nation's culture amid the chaos of brute labor and lofty art, here is

an icon glowing and overpowering the vain, insignificant cities;

Mad, as an artist throwing paint against a canvas, thoughtful, as an old gentleman

walking a dog through the neighborhood,

Muscular,

Chiseling,

Erasing,

Sketching,

Painting, tearing, repainting,

Beneath the smog, buttoning his impeccably tailored Armani with callused fingers, breathing with a

proud puff of his chest at every breath,

Under the stress of work and development and expectations, breathing as a proud

asthmatic runner runs on the last lap,

Breathing even as an inspired sculptor breathes who has been hit by a sudden wave

of creativity,

Flexing and breathing for in his body is life, and in his mind the ideas and thoughts

of the people

Breathing!

Breathing the mercurial, excited, laughing breath of Creation,

well-dressed, shouting, proud to be Designer, Art Trader, Builder of

Skyscrapers, Player with Finances and the Glamorous Runway of the Nation.