Every now and then I think about moving from Manhattan. Then I'll go and visit other places; ghost towns, practically. They all seem to remind me of my childhood somehow. The streets are filled with long-abandoned businesses or buildings that have been barely kept up, though empty and awaiting sale. It is quaint to get ice-cream at a Dairy-Queen or Carvel, and walk around little shops that sell cute and over-priced crap. There is always a bar that has a blinking video game against the wall, golf, or something else equally absurd and ironic. The bartender: a shattered mixture of assumed world-weariness and local pride.
For all the noise and confusion there is something that still attracts me to Manhattan, this crazy carnival of cities. There is a unique excitement to it, it is palpable. The lights here are bright but the shadows are dark and long. The chasms of abyss in the city seem unforgiving, endless and everywhere. Recovery from failure seems always far off.
I wonder how much the feeling of a place reflects you rather than it, how much of what we are seeing at any given time is internal.
Is it me, or is it Rick's place, Cafe Americano….
