The World of Stuff .com

I don’t want to be a part of it

I’ve always been interested in going to New York, even with a foreign-language guidebook that I could only kind of understand. The sights of the city speak for themselves… or so I’d like to believe. I’ve never actually been to New York, but I do know how many amazing things there are to see and do. I don’t even know how long it would take to “do” New York. I’d say a week at the very least.

I’m sometimes wary of feeling like a tourist, although I don’t worry about it too much. Whenever I’m traveling anywhere, I like to look around like I’m seeing everything for the first time — because I usually am. (It’s a funny thing, if you’ve never noticed. I noticed this the other day. You can tell if someone’s walking into a room for the first time because they have to scan the whole place, often with their mouth hanging open. If they’ve been there many times before, they know there’s probably nothing new to see, and they keep their eyes in front of them.)

Anyway, I’m not afraid of looking around in wonder and taking pictures of things. Of course, I do it all the time anyway. (Speaking of which, I should probably set up a Flickr account to share the photos I’ve taken over the years.) Even sights that should be familiar to me still invoke awe. I’m talking in particular about Century Tower on the UF campus. I walk by it a lot, but I still find myself glancing upward. At apparently 48 m tall, it’s simply imposing.

Of course, New York (and any other big city) has buildings that are much taller. I would gawk at them shamelessly. I know from reading Overheard in New York for years that tourists do too. But I don’t really want to go to New York anymore. In fact, I’m convinced that New Yorkers, as a whole, are the worst people on earth. They don’t care about anyone but themselves, and they don’t mind letting you know that, tourist or not.

Sure, I wouldn’t wear a Hawaiian shirt or ask for directions to 9/11, but I still wouldn’t feel welcome as a tourist in New York just because I know that the New Yorkers would not provide a friendly answer if I did have a question. If I sat on the subway looking around, I know they would sneer. As interesting as Thoughts of a Crazy RedHead is, I can’t help but wonder what this world is coming to when the titular blogger boasts about elbowing visitors and kicking things that they drop. If I were in New York, I would probably get elbowed and have my stuff kicked.

We’ve all heard of New Yorkers being rude to tourists and each other, but now I realize it’s true. And of course, I could dedicate another whole post about nosy, small-minded people in small towns. (I have a feeling I got some strange looks at a country butcher shop the other day.) With city dwellers indifferent and small town folks too interested, where is it safe to go? Probably the ‘burbs, where there’s minimal human contact.

And now, the links.

As border security agents increasingly become copyright cops, and as auto manufacturers increasingly claim copyright over people’s photographs of their cars, you had to figure this would happen: “Keene Valley resident Jerilea Zempel was detained at the U.S. border this summer because she had a drawing of a sport-utility vehicle in her sketchbook.” It’s not even a good drawing.

I’m glad someone is leading a campaign like this: Don’t Say “That’s So Gay”.

Here are some of those contradictory literary rules. Avoid clichés like the plague!

[Update Sat Nov 29, 2008 15:18 EST (UTC -5): Read my follow-up post.]