It just occurred to me that how much I like a city has a lot to do with what I can find on the ground there. On the ground or in the trash.
I think that’s maybe ultimately why I appear to have formed a pretty negative opinion of New York City. I’ve been here like a week and the only noteworthy things I’ve found on the ground are a red feather-y thing which I’m going to try to make into jewelry and a magnet with a kid eating drumsticks and wearing a bib that says, “I heart grandpa’s chicken.”
Shit, I was in Venice Beach for a week and I found two almost-full packs of cigarettes, a couple of grams of pot, a Tom Robbins book, a pair of Converse and a ton of other stuff that I’ve already forgotten about. And I found a bunch of delicious food, a nalgene and a french press in perfect condition in the trash.
The only thing I’ve found in the trash in New York is a beer that I had put there five minutes earlier when a cop made me throw it out. Oh yeah, and a stack of pornos.
To be fair, I’ve mostly only been in Manhattan and a little bit of Brooklyn, but still. With however many millions of people walking all over this city at all hours of the day every day, you’d think there would be more interesting shit dropped all over the place. Maybe New Yorkers hold on to their stuff better than Californians. Or maybe it’s just that other New Yorkers are finding all the good stuff before I get to it.
Whatever the reason, I’m pretty over this city now. I would like to get back to San Francisco where people regularly put stuff they don’t need anymore out on the sidewalk and you’re always walking by stereos and nice furniture and piles of clothes and books and anything else you can think of.
everythingiscircles 