Other Reasons to Love New York

This week's New York magazine is the annual "Reasons to Love New York" issue. Last year, Jewcy mocked. This year, we were asked to contribute:

Last year, Michael Weiss, an editor at the hip online magazine Jewcy.com, thought that our list of “Reasons to Love New York” was, to use his word, “malnourished.” So he solicited his friends to come up with their own. Their reasons ranged from simple, straightforward appreciations—“Because New York has the highest per capita rate of beautiful women on the planet”—to decidedly backhanded ones—“Because even the most obnoxious, shallow, empty-headed dickwads around here are at least pretty intelligent.” We asked him to solicit more for 2007. Here’s what he and his readers/friends came up with.

80. “Because understanding the dullness and poverty of contemporary art is made easier once you know that it gestates in Chelsea. But mostly I love New York because there are few places that can make you suspicious of high proportions of 'cool' people, where everybody has an informed opinion about Proust or Gravity’s Rainbow, owns records by Brian Eno or John Cage, and endorses the politics of Noam Chomsky. Once such refinement is revealed as canonical, you’re in a great spot to do the work of locating the space where something truly radical might emerge.” —Josh Strawn, lead singer of Blacklist

81. “Because of the Partisan Review crowd and how the Ansonia reminds me of Bellow’s Seize the Day. Because of the British expats in Brooklyn Heights who try to blend but still occasionally talk as if Zabar’s were located somewhere east of Suez. Because of the late senator Pat Moynihan and the fishbowl-size Bloody Marys at Sarabeth’s (oddly related in my mind). Because Morrissey just decides not to show up at the Garden one night and everyone’s cool with it. Because the subway series extends to presidential races, too. Because my older sister took the Preppy Killer’s high-school-yearbook photo and knew then he was no damned good.” —Michael Weiss, your humble compiler

82. “Because when I’m on the subway trying to read a book about zombies, and a man gets on and starts talking really loudly about how he’s found Jesus and Jesus is what’s kept him from performing fellatio on the side of the BQE, and I say to him 'Excuse me, I’m getting toward the climax of this book, so do you think you can ‘reel it in’ a bit, like, you know, ‘take it down a notch’?' he nods and says, 'Why, certainly, I meant in no way to disturb your reading pleasure,' and continues his spiel in a delicate whisper.” —Eli Valley, cartoonist