Posts tagged NYC

“That Sinking Feeling,” part 1 in a series of vignettes/flash fiction about New York City.

Nothing ever happens quite the way it is expected to out here. Take subway watching: the metallic, caterwauling arm of the working world and those finding the overwhelming affluence of the Upper West barely—or entirely—unavailable, it rattles into the station opposite the idle car downtown commuters find themselves in. With a jolt, this resting train to Midtown and beyond runs the opposite direction, and it’s like falling out of a dream, waking up twitching and confused in the same place they were before distracted by their own slumber.

This feeling happens all the time, every day, to everyone far more than once. This city is flooded with that frenetic continuity, like water rushing to the necks of everyone brave enough to go outside until they are wading into a riptide, forgetting to breathe as they try to salvage cases full of bad memories, old habits and the vaguest glimmer of survival like a couple of dimes in a Financial District gutter.

This pristine, gray monolith has been ransacking youth and anyone with a penchant deep enough for desperation or a bump of coke since it clamored up from the shambles. It’s been housing petty miscreants and the “undesirables” ever since people of the world heard that Lady Liberty said something about huddled masses.

Huddled, though, implies a flock-like travel between its denizens, but if it’s one thing that it teaches them, it’s how to be lonely and how to live off it—similar to how it forces people to think smart about where they’re getting their next beer. There’s something about that deadening skyline—a bombardment of light and faint sounds someone could recognize even while trapped in the wilds of Jersey—that inspires the most primal bouts of lust and happiness as it’s slowly shrouded by an impending winter, and the streets and residents grow colder than a dead man dropped into the gaping mouth of the Hudson with a poisonous melancholy.

People here, though, have that one saving grace: They dream. Sometimes they get stuck—and some never get out. Sometimes they don’t sleep long enough, sometimes they don’t remember when they wake up, and ultimately, it’s part of that lonesome walk into the riptide holding ratty suitcases over their heads, but they still dream. Dreams in New York usually start when the sun sets and doesn’t get into REM until about 11. These are the kinds of dreams that quicken and become more tangible like the daylight itself. It all ends so abruptly, like the kind of nightmare that stirs the sleeper awake in a cold sweat, but something about it leaves them in a pleasant euphoria bereft of context. It’s fragmented, and the only reference point is falling out of a taxi, the neck-high floodwaters pushing someone out into the street, clutching a fistful of crumpled $1s and slurring about “having everything.” Of course they always have everything, even things as unattainable as the Upper West. If it is to be had, it’s here—if only just in a falling dream.

By Megan T.,
paperdemons.tumblr.com

So lots of people started following me this month and now I have 330 followers and have yet to do a giveaway.

I was thinking and thinking and thinking until it came to me: Only In NYC.

Now I have a question for everyone:

If you had a friend visiting NYC and could bring you back only one reasonably-priced item (shippable food counts), what would you ask for?

Someone at Macy’s Herald Square just shouted “Justin Timberlake!” That person they were referring to was not actually Justin Timberlake.

I fucking hate tourists.

Hey, guys. Don’t mind me. Just making a reference post for days when I feel like going out/taking my visiting friends somewhere/trying something new/Becca and I’s foodporn blog, etc. But if you wanna click on the links to the pages to look at cool menus and see pictures of excellent foodporn, that’s cool, too.

Five Points
Neighborhood: NoHo
Address: 31 Great Jones St. Btw Broadway/Lafayette
Known for: Churros and Mexican hot chocolate brunch
Yelp page: [X]

A Salt & Battery
Neighborhood: West Village
Address: 112 Greenwich Ave.
Known for: Fish and chips/being on Throwdown with Bobby Flay (they won) 
Yelp page: [X] 

Murray’s Cheese Bar
Neighborhood: West Village
Address: 264 Bleecker St.
Known for: Cheese and wine
Yelp page: [X] 

Cafeteria
Neighborhood: Chelsea
Address: 119 7th Ave.
Known for: Comfort food
Yelp page: [X] 

Lombardi’s
Neighborhood: Nolita
Address: 32 Spring St.
Known for: Pizza
Yelp page: [X] 

More to come soon. Anything to add, followers?

The best part about living in a Latin@ neighborhood is that all the non-Latin@s know Spanish, too. So when I’m sloppy and ordering food at 4 a.m. in slur-y Spanish, it’s not a problem. They can’t answer me, but they sure as hell know what I’m saying.

Sometimes I shock myself when I remember I live in the greatest city in the world.

Dear Virgensita and the Big City,

Please drop all the hateful conservatives into the craziest part of NYC so they will see that they are not the only people who matter. Please show them what it’s like to have your humanity tested every day, and to not have everyone pander to your stupidity all day—let alone give even one iota of a fuck about you or what you think. Show them how infinitesimal their existence is in this universe.

And Columbus

During every subway ride downtown
and back,
there is a window,
a pocket of time where I remember,
whether you are here
to set the city aglow
or casting your light
a distant while away

And by the time I see it,
it’s been years;
that star is dead,
and you long abandoned that place

But I will always think of you
in those seven paces
counting down from 100
and vice versa

-paperdemons.tumblr.com
Dec. 7, 2012, ~9:30 p.m.