How many New Yorkers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One, you fucking asshole.
If ever you doubt that stereotypes have a basis in fact, come to New York.
I went to a café to write a paper tonight, and for a couple of hours it’s going well; I hadn’t written much, but I managed to turn out an outline and a few opening sentences. Then this group of bourgeois New York intellectuals occupies the tables next to me - in fact, they occupy the table I was in; nice guy that I was, I moved so that all of them could sit down. Shortly, there are five or six them, all dressed in black, all smelling like cigarette smoke, all speaking in witticisms and talking candidly and disaffectedly about their sex lives.
What bothered me, and what really put the New Yorker cherry on the situation, was that the woman immediately next to me leaned over my should to read my paper, and promptly said, “That’s not very interesting.” What the fuck? Does she think she’s being clever? Is she trying to impress me? Is she trying to show me she doesn’t care what I think? Then, as I’m taking a break from writing and checking my email, she leans over again and says, “Shouldn’t you be working on your paper?”
A few lines from the night, just to illustrate how lame and unoriginal these characters were:
“They dress in all white. I refuse on principle.”
Three get up from the table, holding cigarettes.
Pretentious jerk 1: “Smoking is bad for you.”
All laugh haughtily.
Pretentious jerk 2: “I’ll call the media.”
PJ 3: “I’m starting to feel like a romance novel editor.”
PJ 2:“How awful.”
Fucking tools. Whatever becomes of me - if I never leave New York again, if I get a job at some local literary magazine, if I become a goddamn writer - I swear that I will never, ever, ever be as lame and self-absorbed and prententious as these assholes. If I do, and you can show me that I have, I hereby acknowledge your right to jack me in face and pour PBR down my throat and sit me down in front of Sports Center for 48 hours straight. With guards there that won't let me fall asleep.
I went to a café to write a paper tonight, and for a couple of hours it’s going well; I hadn’t written much, but I managed to turn out an outline and a few opening sentences. Then this group of bourgeois New York intellectuals occupies the tables next to me - in fact, they occupy the table I was in; nice guy that I was, I moved so that all of them could sit down. Shortly, there are five or six them, all dressed in black, all smelling like cigarette smoke, all speaking in witticisms and talking candidly and disaffectedly about their sex lives.
What bothered me, and what really put the New Yorker cherry on the situation, was that the woman immediately next to me leaned over my should to read my paper, and promptly said, “That’s not very interesting.” What the fuck? Does she think she’s being clever? Is she trying to impress me? Is she trying to show me she doesn’t care what I think? Then, as I’m taking a break from writing and checking my email, she leans over again and says, “Shouldn’t you be working on your paper?”
A few lines from the night, just to illustrate how lame and unoriginal these characters were:
“They dress in all white. I refuse on principle.”
Three get up from the table, holding cigarettes.
Pretentious jerk 1: “Smoking is bad for you.”
All laugh haughtily.
Pretentious jerk 2: “I’ll call the media.”
PJ 3: “I’m starting to feel like a romance novel editor.”
PJ 2:“How awful.”
Fucking tools. Whatever becomes of me - if I never leave New York again, if I get a job at some local literary magazine, if I become a goddamn writer - I swear that I will never, ever, ever be as lame and self-absorbed and prententious as these assholes. If I do, and you can show me that I have, I hereby acknowledge your right to jack me in face and pour PBR down my throat and sit me down in front of Sports Center for 48 hours straight. With guards there that won't let me fall asleep.