The unavoidable cliche; East coast vs. West coast

I first arrived, like so many before me, to the city where that fille de joie, Lady Liberty, tantalizes every immigrant who awaits at her gates. Brought on while I sit in my West coast high-rise apartment, TV Guide on one side, tortilla chips and salsa on the other and having spent the better part of the day observing cable decadence, my mind slipped back a decade or two to that first encounter with the "new world". A compilation of short films on channel 47 ("Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground" the TV Guide reads) stirred those memories. It is of the people of New York that I think today.

Though my recollections generally speak of seven frustratingly ectopic years, something from the scenes of this film dug deep through the layered epochs of memory's sediments and struck ground that rekindled an attraction I felt for the city of New York. Not at all thinking that I have witnessed its essence, I assume it must be something about its gritty surface that has taken to me; that which a good friend calls "people being rude". Features of this surface can be seen in a different light however, especially once the observer is willing to denounce the comfort of familiarity and routine.

I've seen New Yorkers proudly exhibit their disregard for protocol, which often means viewing courtesy with contempt. Unformatted communication can be pretty unsettling and that's what usually comes out; one ends up feeling not at all welcome. But I'm sure you can see the cut-the-crap flip side to this; it saves you from hypocrisy overload! My favorite part of it is seeing NYorkers scorn at the facade of success, a sharp contrast to the fortune-hunter's West were it's a well-accepted, virtually must-have apparel.

"Social analgesia" (which may just as well have been a NY invention) takes on bewildering proportions and sheaths every excursion from one's own niche. Looking closely though, you can observe piercing cracks of radiating empathy every now and again to testify that what we see as social analgesia is in fact a grotesque shielding with the purpose of preserving sanity for the compassionate in a society of such deeply rooted inequality.

To say it plainly, people in difficult circumstances are rugged people and, in NY, they're not ashamed to show it. The up side to this: life is made a lot more interesting. While faced with pressing problems, people swindle around more and find new ways to surface; that's how the alternative and the avant-guard pop-up.

From my short experience, I'd say that on the West-coast everything is so meticulously covered in beautifying substance that behavioral norms are far more homogeneous. Even the heralded multi-culti aspect of Vancouver is not of significance, overshadowed by what the Chili Peppers might call "Californication". Sure, take a look around and you immediately see people decorated with everything the global gene pool has to offer. But what you see is all that you get because people sound scarily alike; same anxieties, same aspirations, same ideas. 'The recipe to success (social as well as professional) is documented; why the hassle of re-discovering it? Focus on doing it rather than on what to do. No time for dilemmas, even charm needs practice!'

Vancouverites are very proud of the fact that racial, cultural or religious background don't matter here. I was told "where you're from is not even an issue in conversation!". That's very relieving when faced with the curses of racial segregation or "misallodoxy" [from Greek: misos=hate, allo=other, doxa=faith], but its hardly the pinnacle of a cultural melting pot; all that remains cosmopolitan in here is the food... and I bet some would say "well, what the hell more do you want!?".

I'll leave you with a quote I ran across from Charles Lamb: "The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive - you are leaking."

In the begining I thought that if he would've had a choice, he'd preferred to live here. He would also jog. But then it occurred to me; expression of such blatant pragmatism... where else than in NY!