Where is the laughter?
I was walking home from Union Square yesterday afternoon, after I spent far too much money that I don't have at Virgin Megastore (all worth it for my new Motown collection), and this song by the fantastic band Low came on through my earphones. Ever have one of those semi-religious experiences, that if you believed in religion, you'd be convinced someone was trying to tell you something? This was one of those moments.
It seems as though whenever I read a Chuck Klosterman book, I regain my love for writing. I don't know what it is about this guy, but he seems to hit at the right nerve of inspiration. For the past year I've had an internal debate about whether or not I want to pursue this whole writing endeavor. Whether or not I was good enough, knew enough, could suffer enough as one of those tormented souls with the ashtray full of cigarettes and the blank computer screen. I know myself. A life as a writer wouldn't be enough to keep me satisfied. But more and more each day I miss it, and find myself looking back at old projects, and brainstorming new ones.
So I was walking home, listening to this song about New York and everything all of a sudden began making sense. Well, not really. Nothing ever makes complete sense in my mind, but for those seven minutes and fourteen seconds, I felt a wave of content. I wanted this to be a character in a novel, or a play walking down 2nd ave on a brisk fall day, with millions of people around them and this song in the background. It has to be at that pivotal part in the story, where everything seems ridiculously wrong and you are sick and tired of turning the pages, but you must. There's something that keeps you plummeting through all the misery and sarcasm, because like all New Yorkers, there's got to be a light at the end of the sea of black wardrobe and loneliness. And there is. Because of all a sudden that character is walking down the street in a sea of people they'll never meet or know and there is a chuckle.
There is a chuckle because in the end this is all just a world of ridiculous encounters. It's a unexplained mess, without rhyme or reason and yet people are paying thousands of dollars to have someone tell them that what they are feeling is okay, or buying pills that temporarily makes them forget what was okay in the first place. Especially in New York. Of all places, surrounded by everything we'd ever need at any time of the day, and yet we're constantly looking for more -- the huge rent controlled apartment, a cup of coffee, the right door on the subway for easy exit, etc. All these things become regular conversations amongst a group of people that cannot and refuse to relate to anyone outside of the island. We've chosen to be stranded here, all for the same reason that none of us want to admit. It's this entire search for the greener grass, and yet in New York, grass is minimal. We know that. That's why we live here. And that is why we must chuckle.
Where is the laughter?
Low - Broadway (So Many People)
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