ALIVE IN PLACES WHERE THEY SAY IT'S EASIER TO DIE I didn't once know, I once didn't know, once I didn't know, that New York used to be the capital of the USA. Did you? Of course you did, you're American. Like 'blue jeans and chinos'. As the Face put it in June 1989, 'Holly Would'. FOR A COUPLE OF HUNDRED DAYS C19 New York had this character called Washington Irving after whom Irving place, but not Washington Square, is named. You can see his portrait in the 'Met', an awfully vague three-letter appellation with so many other applications. Edna Welthorpe would be interested to hear about the geezer Irving and his 'knickerbocker group', who sounded to me like forerunners of Myles nagCopaleen, and thus - 'natch', as they say in Gramercy - of Perelman and Barthelme. Or rather, you would think that La Welthorpe would be interested, but she isn't. Welthorpe was once, I recall, interested in - was it? - Edward Gorey, who is also commemorated some way or other somewhere over there. Not the same, of course, as S&G's 'Richard Corey'. AND THERE'S NOTHING LIKE A BLIZZARD C19 New York was also called 'The Great Emporium'. I am not quite clear why, or why New York State should be the Empire State at all. New Yorkers don't know either. Do they? IT'S A SKETCHY AFFAIR Barnes&Noble on, um, 5thAvenue and 18th(?)Street claims to be The World's Biggest Bookstore. It may be the world's biggest Bookstore, but I'm sure it isn't the world's biggest bookshop. For one thing, I didn't find it that big. For another, I didn't find it that good. The one really notable thing I saw there was a bunch of copies of a Hugh Kenner volume I'd never even heard of, The Elsewhere Community, which sounds halfway to essential before he 'pegs it'. Believe it or not, Kenner has embraced the net and its own 'elsewhere communities', and he says so plain enough in this new little tome. He's not such an old curmudgeon after all. That's *my* job. ENOUGH TO START COLLISIONS Yanks make out that they drink loads of coffee, but they don't. The English think that they (we) drink a lot of tea, but actually the Yanks are tea-obsessed. It's practically a Wildean inversion. AND BARS AND STARS AND STUFF In chickfactor#10 "Stephin" 'Merritt', who is a journalist for the Independent on Sunday, flatly declared - I won't say '*roundly* declared' - that he didn't have a kitchen. I always thought this a whim as absurd as saying 'I don't have a front door', or 'My house doesn't have walls'. But it's actually *true*. They don't have kitchens in New York, save - one has to assume in the restaurants. THAT'S WHERE WE ALWAYS GO Lloyd Cole sings on 'The Paranoids' - sorry, 'The Polaroids' - oops! I mean, 'The Negatives' - 'You gave me a smile / Got off at Astor Place'. I know for a fact that that line has been misheard, but no matter. I went to find out what LC was on about. There are two Starbucks outlets in Astor Place. Two! And it's not that big a road. And all this when the Yanks don't drink coffee anyway. AND TIMES SQUARE, YOU'RE NOT UGLY ANYMORE Knitwear is very important. Said that. I SUPPOSE I'M GOING OVER Who would think of taking a bomb to the top of the World Trade Centre, until the idea had been planted in their head by polite guards demanding their baggage and overcoats at the foot of the building? I nearly wrote a song about it. But that 'bomb' thing has been kind of done to death in pop, hasn't it? Remember Bragg: 'I used to want to plant bombs / At the last night of the Proms'. And don't remember Kingmaker, please, really, don't. SHE KEEPS HER HELLOS AND GOODBYES MINIMAL Folk in New York have heard of la Welthorpe, by the way. But they can't put a face to the name. Can you? OR RIFLED THROUGH THE TELEPHONE BOOK I bet that folks will leap to agree with me if I say that strangers in New York - random characters on the subway and in the shops - are friendlier than round these parts. This one lady pleasantly bawled at me not to me to leave my wallet on a counter. And you would not believe - you really would not believe - how strangers, sane enough people as far as one can tell, will come out with nice comments about your *clothes* over there. AND THE PEN'S ABOUT TO DIE _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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