If something happens somewhere, anywhere, outside the Five Boroughs of New York City, does it make a sound?
Kinda sorta, but not really. Sound bytes and speech clips can sneak inside the walls of the steel canyon, so too a few choice quotations from some man-on-the-street. But for all the politicians' pronouncements about Potomac Fever, there is no place so enamored with its own voice as the Big Apple. So much so that there is no irony in the Brooklyn Industries t-shirt featuring the two vowels replaced with headphones. We seem to only engage with others when we turn off the iPod to tell those surrounding us that we liked that last beat.
Nowhere is this more apparent than outside the echo chamber, which I have been for nearly two entire weeks. I have found that the oxygen is plentiful and the water clean. The night sky has stars and the air below is devoid of the ruthless banging noise comprising so much of daily life in Gotham. Not needing to be heard over taxi horns and scraping rails and police sirens, fighting neighbors and car stereos and ice cream truck jingles, cell phone conversations and Chinatown chatter and Puerto Rican barbecues, the rest of the nation can speak a little softer. It pains me to tell you they speak slower and are probably heard better as well. And they really don't care as much about Brooklyn as we do.
None of the above is news. Or new, even to me. A cursory familiarity with population density is enough to understand the acoustics.
What is new is being outside the castle walls and realizing that this will soon be more than conditional. Just like the past ten days, there will be no texts or infrequent calls inquiring into Evening Plans. I'll delete but not unsubscribe from the nonsenseNYC listserv. The barbs and inside jokes traded on Facebook's walls will be old if not tired and both parties of the exchange left wanting for opportunities to make fresh material. I'll be reduced to recognizing its landmarks on serial programming.
There will not be may sympathizers in the world Out There, as I have discovered. For many, NYC is a place they do not want to be for the perceived frostiness of its people and the unsolicited noise of the aforementioned sources. I'll remember that the taxi horns and scraping rails brought me to and from epic shows and raucous nights. Fighting neighbors made for great stories and some of those cell phone conversations were mine. Chinatown meant dumplings and I'll be damned if an accidental run-in with a Puerto Rican barbecue didn't both fix my bicycle and initiate fruitful access to marijuana. I'll be leaving in search of quiet, so long as it's not too much.
Kinda sorta, but not really. Sound bytes and speech clips can sneak inside the walls of the steel canyon, so too a few choice quotations from some man-on-the-street. But for all the politicians' pronouncements about Potomac Fever, there is no place so enamored with its own voice as the Big Apple. So much so that there is no irony in the Brooklyn Industries t-shirt featuring the two vowels replaced with headphones. We seem to only engage with others when we turn off the iPod to tell those surrounding us that we liked that last beat.
Nowhere is this more apparent than outside the echo chamber, which I have been for nearly two entire weeks. I have found that the oxygen is plentiful and the water clean. The night sky has stars and the air below is devoid of the ruthless banging noise comprising so much of daily life in Gotham. Not needing to be heard over taxi horns and scraping rails and police sirens, fighting neighbors and car stereos and ice cream truck jingles, cell phone conversations and Chinatown chatter and Puerto Rican barbecues, the rest of the nation can speak a little softer. It pains me to tell you they speak slower and are probably heard better as well. And they really don't care as much about Brooklyn as we do.
None of the above is news. Or new, even to me. A cursory familiarity with population density is enough to understand the acoustics.
What is new is being outside the castle walls and realizing that this will soon be more than conditional. Just like the past ten days, there will be no texts or infrequent calls inquiring into Evening Plans. I'll delete but not unsubscribe from the nonsenseNYC listserv. The barbs and inside jokes traded on Facebook's walls will be old if not tired and both parties of the exchange left wanting for opportunities to make fresh material. I'll be reduced to recognizing its landmarks on serial programming.
There will not be may sympathizers in the world Out There, as I have discovered. For many, NYC is a place they do not want to be for the perceived frostiness of its people and the unsolicited noise of the aforementioned sources. I'll remember that the taxi horns and scraping rails brought me to and from epic shows and raucous nights. Fighting neighbors made for great stories and some of those cell phone conversations were mine. Chinatown meant dumplings and I'll be damned if an accidental run-in with a Puerto Rican barbecue didn't both fix my bicycle and initiate fruitful access to marijuana. I'll be leaving in search of quiet, so long as it's not too much.
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