Sinister: falling on 17th street

[P F]

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

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