go out and get stiff as a board. I seek out companionship, and if I do not find friends, I make them. A wonderful, grand old Babylon.” And that is exactly how I feel being here at the NewYorker. A wonderful grand old magazine that winks at me and invites me to write. I think I will go out and get stiff and tomorrow I’ll write something. I miss you, honeybunch.
xoxox,
Larry
What to write?
I roamed around Manhattan, looking for little vignettes of life, and found them, and sat and wrote and rewrote and agonized over details, writing sentences on Post-its and sticking them to the wall like paragraphs and they stuck there until the glue dried and they fell like autumn leaves.
A water main breaks and police cordon off the block, lights flashing, traffic barriers, people stand in little groups talking about it.
If the Algonquian Manhattan Indians had invested the $24 they got from the Dutch back in the 17th century, they’d have $13 billion right now.
Enormous corporate buildings including a black-marble tower with THE WALL STREET JOURNAL over the door and not far away are cheap walk-up hotels that probably don’t offer room service and hole-in-the-wall shops where you can get passport photos or have something copied or get your nails done or cash a check or purchase incense or maybe all five.
A NO PARKING sign is like an eye chart. The big letters at the top “No Parking Anytime” and then in smaller letters “No Standing, 8 A.M.-4 P.M.” and under that “Alternate Side Parking Tuesdays and Thursdays” and under that “Wednesdays and Fridays, 8 P.M. to 6 A.M.” and under that “25 cents per hour” and under that “Except Between No Parking Signs.” That’s why most New Yorkers don’t own a car.
The ads on the subway aren’t for BMWs or ski resorts, they’re for hemorrhoid treatments and what to do about sore feet, bunions, bad skin, bad teeth, drug addiction. One for Tide detergente, with the phrase blanquier tan blanco (“whiter than white”), not such a useful phrase to know in New York. ‘
Where Broadway slices across 44th and Seventh Avenue, you can look into six different canyons of glass and stone hundreds of feet tall and covered with brilliant flashing signs, news banners, rivers of people moving along, it’s the most amazing sight in America. It’s okay to be gay here. It’s okay to be a dancer or a writer. Okay to wear black. Black jeans, T-shirt, sandals, black toenails. It’s okay to be a billionaire. In the Midwest we despise the rich but New Yorkers don’t. And it’s okay to be alone. You can sit in a café and eat alone and not feel weird, or go to the movies and buy one ticket. Delis sell half a sandwich, one small brownie. Lots of studio apartments. Women go around alone, day or night, and as a defense they develop an expression that is the facial equivalent of a wall. If you come from Minnesota where you expect people to smile at you, this can be a jolt. And it’s meant to be.
In other cities, when the president comes to town, people feel sort of happy and honored and wonder if they’ll get to see him. In New York, people feel a sense of dread, especially on the East Side where the UN is and the Waldorf and there is only one subway line. The arrival of the president is, for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, a natural disaster, a sort of blizzard.
The word minority comes from the word menorah, it means stock up on candles, you may need them, those people are likely to come after you at any time.
I kept putting notes on the wall and nothing added up. The New Yorker certainly wasn’t in the market for starry-eyed tourist post-cards by a Minnesota guy dazzled by Times Square. I got a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant that said, “There is yet time for you to take a different path.” I began a piece about old Indian trails in Manhattan and the dirt road called Broad Way and the herds of milk cows grazing among the apple orchards on the farm of Daniel Hors manden
xoxox,
Larry
What to write?
I roamed around Manhattan, looking for little vignettes of life, and found them, and sat and wrote and rewrote and agonized over details, writing sentences on Post-its and sticking them to the wall like paragraphs and they stuck there until the glue dried and they fell like autumn leaves.
A water main breaks and police cordon off the block, lights flashing, traffic barriers, people stand in little groups talking about it.
If the Algonquian Manhattan Indians had invested the $24 they got from the Dutch back in the 17th century, they’d have $13 billion right now.
Enormous corporate buildings including a black-marble tower with THE WALL STREET JOURNAL over the door and not far away are cheap walk-up hotels that probably don’t offer room service and hole-in-the-wall shops where you can get passport photos or have something copied or get your nails done or cash a check or purchase incense or maybe all five.
A NO PARKING sign is like an eye chart. The big letters at the top “No Parking Anytime” and then in smaller letters “No Standing, 8 A.M.-4 P.M.” and under that “Alternate Side Parking Tuesdays and Thursdays” and under that “Wednesdays and Fridays, 8 P.M. to 6 A.M.” and under that “25 cents per hour” and under that “Except Between No Parking Signs.” That’s why most New Yorkers don’t own a car.
The ads on the subway aren’t for BMWs or ski resorts, they’re for hemorrhoid treatments and what to do about sore feet, bunions, bad skin, bad teeth, drug addiction. One for Tide detergente, with the phrase blanquier tan blanco (“whiter than white”), not such a useful phrase to know in New York. ‘
Where Broadway slices across 44th and Seventh Avenue, you can look into six different canyons of glass and stone hundreds of feet tall and covered with brilliant flashing signs, news banners, rivers of people moving along, it’s the most amazing sight in America. It’s okay to be gay here. It’s okay to be a dancer or a writer. Okay to wear black. Black jeans, T-shirt, sandals, black toenails. It’s okay to be a billionaire. In the Midwest we despise the rich but New Yorkers don’t. And it’s okay to be alone. You can sit in a café and eat alone and not feel weird, or go to the movies and buy one ticket. Delis sell half a sandwich, one small brownie. Lots of studio apartments. Women go around alone, day or night, and as a defense they develop an expression that is the facial equivalent of a wall. If you come from Minnesota where you expect people to smile at you, this can be a jolt. And it’s meant to be.
In other cities, when the president comes to town, people feel sort of happy and honored and wonder if they’ll get to see him. In New York, people feel a sense of dread, especially on the East Side where the UN is and the Waldorf and there is only one subway line. The arrival of the president is, for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, a natural disaster, a sort of blizzard.
The word minority comes from the word menorah, it means stock up on candles, you may need them, those people are likely to come after you at any time.
I kept putting notes on the wall and nothing added up. The New Yorker certainly wasn’t in the market for starry-eyed tourist post-cards by a Minnesota guy dazzled by Times Square. I got a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant that said, “There is yet time for you to take a different path.” I began a piece about old Indian trails in Manhattan and the dirt road called Broad Way and the herds of milk cows grazing among the apple orchards on the farm of Daniel Hors manden
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