the world has turned and left me here

yet another post with new york in the title

To the curious: yes, I am moving to New York.

Come visit me! Well, let's wait until I find an apartment that isn't a broomcloset where I will have to sublet a corner behind the cleaning agents from 5 Romanians and their extended families.

Actually it's not going to be that bad. I've already done some apartment shopping this past weekend, and while it's pretty expensive, it's not as bad as you've probably heard.

See the thing is, when you're not living in NYC you get all this hype qualified with an even bigger dose of FUD from the people who already live there, because they want to convince you that (1) they live in the coolest place on the planet, and yet (2) you wouldn't be able to hack it there, so stay away and keep down the density. Too expensive, too dangerous, no room, unfriendly people, hostile people in business suits copping monster attitudes blah blah blah. Yet it's the coolest place, it's got everything, center of the universe blah blah blah. They're just protecting their territory I think. But they're right about one thing: it's damn cool territory. Worth protecting.

I've been ping-ponging back and forth between the coasts for the last two weeks and here are, in no particular order, several observations I made this past weekend in NYC:

People are friendly. They are actually friendly! Now I'm sure there's a lot of variation on the friendly axis--there are unfriendly places no doubt--but almost everywhere I've been in New York it has been easier to talk to people than here in Seattle. There really is no ignoring your fellow man like we manage to do so well here in Seattle.

It's dirty. There are rats in the subways and huge mounds of garbage bags on the streets (well, at least they're in bags). My first NYC subway experience was getting on the E line in a car where a bum had--I think, it's almost too unbelievable to be true--pissed all over himself. The urine was trickling down into the rest of the car. Some people sniffed, made a face, and headed for the other end, but most just plopped down without giving the urine rivulets curling around their shoes a second thought.

Honking your horn can mean any number of things. There's a lot of honking. The majority seems to convey your impatience to other drivers, but there's also little honks the taxi drivers give you to get your attention. "Hey, aren't you tired of walking?" The strangest use of a honk I witnessed was from an elderly couple in a car who were watching a young couple cross the street with their little kid. The honk was brief and light-hearted. In this case, the honk meant "We think your kid is cute."

The degree of diversity makes racism...impractical. It's just not much of a thing. I was talking with a pianist in a Cuban music group about this. Incidentally the guy looked whiter than me if that's possible. Picture the nicest band geek you knew in high school. Yet this dude plays in Latino clubs and spends most of his time surrounded by Latin Americans. "Back in Texas, I grew up in fear," he said. "I don't feel that here. Yeah, there's been a couple of times over the last ten years that I've realized I was in a dangerous situation, but that's generally because I was in actual danger. It was a rational thing--that's the difference. And both times I got out of there okay."

The panhandler headcount is surprisingly low. Again, maybe I haven't seen the right districts in New York, though I find that hard to believe since I walked all over the place. The whole weekend I had to ignore maybe 3 of them. Last night, when I got back into Seattle, I went up to Broadway to get something to eat and was hit up 3 times in the span of a single block. And one of them was sketchy...two guys who looked like they would jump me if only there were fewer people around. Of all the places I've been to--with the exception of Amsterdam perhaps--Seattle still takes the cake for me when it comes to unpleasant street encounters.

There are microscenes. Walking around, I suddenly found myself in Little Italy, where I got some amazing pizza from a motherly Italian woman. Everyone was speaking Italian. I left and was in a Chinese district in less than a block. I went to a jazz joint no larger than our living room at 8th and G, where a jazz trio played literally right under my nose. If I had leaned too far one way I would have gotten a drumstick in the face. In addition to some original stuff, they covered Bill Evans, Bartok, Bjork's "Come to Me"...man that is a great upright bass line if ever there was one.

On a completely unrelated note, this is what happens when grandpa turns into a squirrel. In case you were wondering.