A Congress of Curious Peoples

Thing about New York is that it’s filled with imaginary signposts. I mean – every place is, I suppose, but I notice them more in New York. Something about the sheer number of people and the population density, I guess.

Why does the precise moment of 3:18am merit its own cardboard sign? What’s supposed to happen at precisely 3:18am? Was it supposed to happen only once, or does it go on happening every night, unbeknownst to the thousand or so people sleeping in apartment buildings around it, every night at precisely 3:18am?

Some sort of ceremony, perhaps. Is innocence drowned or congratulated?

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And then there’s the Mystic Insurance sign:



Yes, yes – some hoary old insurance firm operating out of a drab little building in Hartford.

But, you know, you could read it differently.

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New York, of course, is no longer the city I grew up in. Change really accelerates around dense populations, possibly pushed by the sheer force of all those ambitions and suppressed wishes, as though they were some kind of invisible force.

But enough remains so that when I’m here, I’m sometimes gripped with this sense of familiarity that’s so intense, it’s like déjà vu.

And really, I suppose, the person I am now is so very, very different from the neglected child who grew up here, or the self-involved creature snorting coke with various Factory sub-luminaries in the backroom at Max’s Kansas City, or the harried Time Inc executive flying in for her biweekly meeting with the suits, that I could be peering at a diorama of somebody else’s life when I remember those things.

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Anyway, I’ve had a merry time. On Saturday, A_____ and I did the antique and fine arts show at the Armory. A fabulous assortment of the most hideously expensive bling and Regency chairs and Tiffany lamps and early Van Goghs and Civil War recruitment posters. Think Walmart for the one percent!



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Next day, I went to the Brooklyn Museum to hang out with the cat mummies, which are a part of the Museum’s permanent collection, and see the Coney Island exhibit, which isn’t.



Unfortunately, the kitty sarcophagi were nowhere to be found. The Coney Island exhibit was quite good, though. I don’t know whether this gentleman was in residence when HP Lovecraft was first wrestling with psychosis in that dingy walkup at 169 Clinton Street – now, of course, one of Brooklyn’s tonier neighborhoods – but he quite looks like my conception of Cthulu:



I disapprove of Lovecraft’s recent demotion from the pantheon of fantasy greats, by the way. Yep, he was a racist and an anti-Semite (interesting since the great love of his life was a Jewish woman.) So what? No reasonable person can expect humans to be anything but creatures of their times, and racism, anti-Semitism, and general xenophobia were the politically correct postures back in the 1920s.

I similarly descry the attempts to demote Woodrow Wilson and Thomas Jefferson that are happening right now on various college campuses. This type of thing reminds me unpleasantly of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. People are the product of the customs and conventions of their times. To expect more of them, to expect some kind of social prescience, is utterly ridiculous.

This political right-think is being spearheaded by Millennials, who are really into censorship according to this article here.

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At night, after I finish the day’s adventures, I’ve been watching thirtysomething, a TV show I used to love back in the day when I was a thirtysomething.

It’s interesting sociological research, watching this show now. Its denunciation of our parents’ generation, the boring, stability-driven generation that preceded the Boomers. (That was the generation that lived through World War II; of course, they were going to be obsessed with stability.)

Its absolute obsession with the minutiae of small child parenting. By strict chronology, the fictional kids on that show would have grown up to be GenX-ers, a kind of forgotten cohort characterized by skepticism, the absence of organizational loyalties, and a distrust of Boomer values that borders on pathological hatred. But the thirtysomething parents treated them more like Millennials, that intense hovering and protectiveness over every single moment. Millennials are the cosseted generation. I gave birth to one, so I should like them more than I do. But, frankly, I don’t.

I do have hopes for Generation Z, however, heirs to those odious Millennials. Gen-Zers are quirkier, have better senses of humor than Millennials. They like diversity. Millennials actually don’t. Or rather, they only like politically correct diversity.

Max is a Millennial. But RTT is definitely Gen-Z.

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Are Boomers really that obnoxious?

I don’t think so. In fact, I think Boomers were the last generation to have any sense of gallantry, any zeal for exploration and the romantic quest. And those are the only things that make life worth living.

But, of course, I’m a Boomer. So I would think that.

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Yesterday, I spent tromping around BedSty (wonderful architecture.) Which is always an adventure, although probably not quite as much of an adventure as it would have been, say, 15 years ago.

I saw the most extraordinary sunset: