image – Christopher Macsurak

Dear Fran Lebowitz’s Writer’s Block,

I entreat you to leave Fran alone.

Originally, I was contemplating creating a YouTube video that would become an Internet sensation to present my plea for your abandonment of Fran’s body. Then I realized that such a video would be a wasted attempt: we both know Fran doesn’t “do” computers. Thus, I decided to write to you — yet another thing Fran doesn’t do.

It appears that you have established a powerful parasitic rapport with your host-organism. While it comes as no surprise that you don’t want to leave the sullen genius you call home, by extending your Lebowitz lease you are selfishly making the most acidic humorist of our time waste her poison. The woman knows everything, a fact her completely-based-on-reality role in Law & Order elucidates. She even knows that she knows everything. The person you are paralyzing, Fran Lebowitz’s Writer’s Block, has been a longtime inspiration for haters on a global scale. She is a cause célèbre not in spite of her petulant brilliance, but because of it.

Your landlord knows that the opposite of talking is not listening but waiting. I have been waiting with idiotic patience for years, ever since I read Metropolitan Life and first realized sullenness can become the veneration of wit. I realize that you could have been crueler. You could have caused her a moribund career on all fronts, without Scorsese-directed HBO specials or the sporadic expression of her frustration with everything and everyone you have allowed.

Isn’t it funny (not “funny-haha” but “funny-’it’s like rain on your wedding day’”) that the mind you inhabit asserted that the ubiquitous pursuit of fame Andy Warhol introduced trampled on culture? How right she is, once again. Lebowitz’s insight is the best lens to understand her work ethic. Would she have any had she not attained dithyrambic reviews for her first book at 27? If success hadn’t arrived so brusquely, would you have infected Fran? The commercial triumph came with high responsibilities for her: taking care of Checker and — the most challenging — conversing with David Letterman when he pretended he had hair.

To be honest, I think you stay because of the fame. I might be naïve, stuck on the cultural nostalgia of an era I never witnessed, but Fran said everything used to be better. I know that she knows everything, therefore everything used to be better, indeed. You are addicted to fame and nostalgia. Trust me.

Move out, Fran Lebowitz’s Writer’s Block. Go squat in Ann Coulter’s head. It is time for me to see the interior of Exterior Signs of Wealth. I want the contempt, scorn and sneer on my bookshelf to be delivered before all I will be able to read will be The Pale Queen. It is time for someone to come forward and cajole all these “second-hand smoking kills” fanatics to see the light (of our cigarettes).

Leave Fran alone!

Her biggest fran,

Elias Tezapsidis

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I don’t know how to network. We’re taught, especially in New York, that it’s an invaluable skill and a necessary evil in order to be successful but I just can’t bring myself to do it. It’s not that I’m socially inept. On the contrary, I can practically go to any place and chew someone’s ear off, but when it’s under the pretense of networking, I just shut down.

I feel like a used car salesman whenever I try to make contacts. Whenever someone gives me their card within two minutes of meeting me, it’s as if I’ve been fondled inappropriately from underneath the table. I feel silly because I have nothing to give them in return (business cards were made for me months ago but I never picked them up because I can’t bring myself to be on that Patrick Bateman tip) so I just smile politely and make plans for a follow-up, which usually never happens.

How do you network without feeling like you’ve been dipped in a vat of Vaseline and been given a toupee? It never comes off as natural. Everything is forced and clearly done with the intentions of making a contact that will hopefully prove beneficial to you in the future. It’s so thinly-veiled that we might as well just say to someone, “Look, can you advance my career? No? K, GTFO. NEXT!”

I’m bad at faking it. If I like someone, I can be “on” and make instant friends with them but if I get weird vibes, it’s impossible for me to power through it, even if they’re important. I’m sure this puts me at a disadvantage. I barely have any professional contacts as a result of this, but at least I sleep better at night knowing that everyone in my life is there for a valid reason. I don’t have any noise in my social life, no air kisses to give at some silly party.

I don’t mean to shame people who are excellent networkers though. I don’t think they’re all fake and creepy. They just know how to hustle. In fact, there’s a part of me that’s envious of their ability to make connections wherever they go. They’ll undoubtedly have a smoother time making their way up the job ladder than me. But I honestly believe networkers are born, not made. You either have what it takes to give a stranger the chat equivalent of a handjob or you don’t. I don’t. (HJs are tricky anyways…)

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A vacation period as defined by therapists and couples counselors is a time frame that generally occurs at the onset of a romance. It is thought that its actual length is dependent on the two individuals involved — one couple’s may last a week, another’s may last for a year. Therapists and couples counselors characterize the vacation period by referring to an almost desperate euphoria when in each others’ presence, a desire to somehow physically merge, a deep-seated experience of protectiveness. It is thought by some that the vacation period represents Falling In Love; the accuracy of this belief is unverifiable. I was reading a TC submission the other day, in my new apartment, in a new city, and I came across two successive sentences that are, coincidentally, exactly the same two successive lines in a song by WHY? I used to listen to that sometimes made me cry a little. After the vacation period it is generally expected that a couple will experience a “fall from grace” — a dip below equilibrium, two people disillusioned by an unexpected loss of passion and excitement and the awareness of this loss, how disappointing that feels. Then the couples either break up or they don’t; in the latter case they are often heard describing to their couples counselors an abstract “something” that has gone “missing,” their facial expressions earnestly confused and dismayed, frustrated with this unexplainable new presence or lack thereof. The fallout associated with this “something” that goes “missing” is one of the most common reasons post-vacation period couples seek couples counseling in fact. Often therapists must not only attempt to address whatever the couples perceive as having gone missing but also the anger and disillusionment that are consequences of the supposed complexity of the process of how something went missing at all, and how exactly it so suddenly eluded the couple — its disappearance against the will of the couple itself, in direct contradiction to what the couple feels is the point of their relationship. Some couples initially approach relationship therapists unable to articulate that something has been lost, others arrive at their first sessions with theories regarding core personality traits, childhood trauma, and a mess of cause-and-effect logic that’s altogether impossible to make sense out of.

I know this girl who puts spells on things. If we’re having dinner together, she casts a spell over it by insisting that all the plates match, that the glasses coordinate with the plates, that the silverware be set on the cloth napkins, that everything we might possibly need be on the table, that classical music is playing on the radio at the right volume, and that both of us are seated before we start eating. If we have wine together, she casts a spell over it by lighting candles and adjusting the amount of electric light and putting on Pavarotti or Charlie Parker or Nick Drake or Beirut or WHY? and sitting on the couch with her glass and looking out the window and patting the cushion next to her and asking me to sit there. One of the many spells she has for her kitchen is this system for dishtowels in which certain towels, according to where they are located (on the stove handle, on the small kitchen towel rack, on the refrigerator handle), are meant for either drying your hands, drying dishes, or cleaning dirty surfaces. She can even cast spells on mundanities, like walking to the store, by buying a small hot chocolate on the way and insisting on doting over it, sharing it with me in equal proportions. Just like everyone is alone, this girl is alone, regardless of whether or not she’s surrounded by people who love her. She’s going to die, but she’s maybe more aware of it than most others, and putting spells on her most immediate surroundings provides her an aspect of control which I think translates to a feeling of security and “home,” maybe a feeling of distance from death, or the idea that when death comes, it’ll be easier to bear.

Post-vacation period couples typically seek relationship therapy as a last resort, the vast majority having reported feeling “beaten” and “ready to give up” when questioned about their decision to pursue it. This is because seeking couples counseling requires the emotionally difficult tasks of first articulating and accepting the premise that the relationship is “failing” — a term wide open for interpretation — second, admitting to and accepting pathetic feelings of helplessness in regards to their ability to “fix” — a term wide open for interpretation — their problems, and third, placing all their faith in a savior called Couples Counseling, publicly groveling at its feet despite any reservations or embarrassment they may feel about the similarities between their supposed new faith and the bovine attitudes of newly converted evangelical Christians. The song by WHY? that I used to listen to that sometimes made me cry a little, whose two successive lines are coincidentally in a TC submission that I read the other day in my new apartment, in a new city, is called “Light Leaves,” off the LP Elephant Eyelash, released by Anticon in 2005. Additional to the first step of admitting there exists a problem critical to the relationship’s success, often making post-vacation period couples’ therapy-seeking experience even more difficult is problematic indecision regarding which type of counselor to hire. It is believed that there are two types of therapist, both of which can be explained by simple analogy. The “passive” therapist sits in the passenger seat of the car, letting the clients drive. The therapist suggests points of significance along the way and asks the clients if they’re interested in exploring them. The clients can accept or reject the therapist’s suggestions; ultimately, the clients make all the decisions. The “active” therapist drives the car while the clients sit in the passenger seat. The therapist drives to points of significance regardless of the clients’ wishes (unless they are strong), urging the clients to participate as much as possible in exploring these points in an earnest manner. It is not unlikely that one partner of a post-vacation period couple prefers a passive therapist while the other prefers an active one. This discrepancy can produce measurable discord.

I have this thing that happens to me in novel situations, my personality sort of changes. I become a person more similar to my idealized version of myself. I perceive myself as becoming way more charismatic and likable and desirable when for example I’ve just moved to a new city for a job editing a website where I already have a built-in network of individuals eager to meet and like me. Completely new contexts in the presence of consistent validation from new and interesting people seem to free my personality from parts of itself that I detest. I believe that I’ve gained irrevocably enhanced clarity on social interaction, and I forget, for example, that I’ve just broken up with someone with whom I lived in a small studio apartment in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood for three years, with whom I worked on a farm for two years, who cried when she saw flamenco in an impossibly small, crowded jazz club in Barcelona, who I freaked out over and cried about and lied to and whose parents hated me and who loved Pavarotti and Charlie Parker and Nick Drake and Beirut and WHY? with me and shaved me in the shower and worked the farmers market with me and about whom my best friend looked at me serious and said “Don’t be a dumbass” when I was talking with him at the Redwood about maybe breaking up with her and who had this funny system of dishtowels in our kitchen that I could never get the hang of. Somehow I don’t process the loss of anything like that in novel situations, somehow I’m just excited and free — I actually will think things like “Wow I’m handling this well, this is super easy,” and “I did a good job preparing myself.” There is no principle involved; the sudden up in charisma and positivity isn’t by design. But following each of these personality-change events is an eventual but inevitable loss of clarity. As if some program inside my personality had suddenly and unexpectedly shut down, I become aware that I simply don’t know how to think, feel and act as I did not a week before. Things aren’t exciting anymore. All the charisma and positivity just sort of fizzles out.

It is thought by some that one of the concrete manifestations marking the end of the vacation period is the unforeseen arrival of difficulties with sex. As is admitting to needing relationship therapy, this is something that is typically difficult for couples to discuss, and not just because the very suddenness of the onset of sexual problems is itself cause for bafflement. Many couples consider their sex life to be a reliable barometer of the health — a term wide open for interpretation — of their relationship — indeed, many relationship therapists are cognizant of and embrace this notion themselves. Post-vacation period couples can therefore find it extremely troubling to bring sexual problems into the relationship’s ongoing dialogue, whether or not sexual behavior and relationship health — a term wide-open for interpretation — are indeed significantly correlated: to address such issues is to acknowledge that the relationship is perhaps failing in a manner over which the couple seemingly has no control. For post-vacation period couples who are particularly codependent, this can be an extremely frightening thing to do, and so it’s common for them to participate in several therapy sessions before being able to discuss their sex life. But when couples counselors are able to get them to speak candidly about their sexual problems, a blanket-statement is, typically, immediately issued: “I just don’t feel like it anymore,” “It seems like all the passion is gone,” “It just doesn’t feel right,” etc. After further prodding and cajoling by the couples counselor, each party eventually reports specifics: “I don’t know what to do — it’s like when she knows I want to make love she seizes up, she almost cringes now when I touch her–” “There’s really nothing wrong with the relationship — I love him and want to be with him, we’re so good together, it’s why this is so frustrating, because it doesn’t make any sense at all–” “[Speaking to the therapist] You’re not going to be able to tell us to do anything. I mean, you’re not going to be able to be like ‘Instead of trying to have sex next time, why don’t you spend a lot of time on foreplay?’ That isn’t going to work, because it’s like if sex even enters our shared consciousness it’s immediately over, everything shuts off and becomes awkward, it’s toxic, thinking of having sex is basically preventative of having the sex itself–” “I need him to just take me and have it not be full of thoughts, it needs to be spontaneous–” etc. After recounting specific emotional experiences such as the above, couples counselors generally attempt to explore “deeper” issues which may or may not strike at the core of the post-vacation period couple’s newfound problems with sex. Ultimately, it is not yet known if sexual chemistry is tied to logical problem solving, “figuring out” or “accepting” deep-seated emotional complexities and “open” communication — as is promoted by couples counseling — or if it is more positively correlated with sexual hormones released by the body in the presence of fixed triggers that have somehow become inaccessible to the post-vacation period couple.

The morning I moved to my new apartment in the new city, New York City, the girl who puts spells on things and I ate breakfast as we did most mornings, three years, watching her digital alarm clock on her bookshelf next to her couch so we would know when I had to leave so I could catch my flight, and when we were hugging in the middle of the living room after breakfast I looked at the clock and told her it was time for me to leave and she looked at once shocked and saddened, and she looked at me worried and said, “Oh, is it really happening now?” Exactly two months later, in New York, I noticed that I was uncontrollably experiencing nuanced visual images of seemingly insignificant places in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, where I lived with the girl. Specific parts of a sidewalk on the left side of John between 11th and 12th. The way the road slopes diagonally on the northwest corner of Olive and Denny. A beautiful tree next to the tennis courts in the lower part of Volunteer Park. The weird open space on the corner of 11th and Republican. The view in front of The Crescent walking up the right side of Olive toward Denny. The facade of the corner store at Olive and Summit. The foliage on the second roundabout on Summit from Olive. The way the ivy at the Capitol Hill library looks after it’s died off for the winter. The way I’d experience these images was as if I’d just walked face-first into a brick wall; my mind would blank, I’d grimace, it would hurt. If I got these images when I was having a conversation with someone, or if I was having a meeting with my boss, or if I was sitting on the subway avoiding eye contact with the person across the car from me, I’d blink and do a sort of mental teeth clenching, forgetting it as hard as I could, forgetting it, I didn’t want to think about any of it.

“The point” of a relationship is arguably a false construct imposed on a chaotic romantic union between two individuals, by one or both (usually both) of the individuals, in an effort to maintain a feeling of control and place the relationship within a pre-existing narrative that’s proven its long-term ability to comfort and provide security. Some couples who believe that a relationship has a point, a sort-of concrete end-goal, and are able to articulate it, have described it to their relationship therapists as a sustainable, mutual feeling of adoration and love for each other, a healthy sex life, an ability to support each other until death. The general premise is that it’s the couple against the world, that at the end of a day full of adversity they can come home and find their other half in 100% solidarity, that they take care of each others’ needs, that each is completely certain the other is the person they want to love until they die. The general premise — the “point” — is sustainable happiness in the relationship. Fulfillment, a life-long falling into each other, security, a constant merging, stability, home isn’t a place but where you are, comfort, accepting the universe, safety, holding hands, sex, an island for your kitchen, beauty, finally getting a cat together, forever, etc.

One night after the bar during the first week I moved to New York, I was in my new apartment, and I felt great. I felt like I could handle everything I’d recently changed about my situation. I felt happy about my new coworkers. The feelings were unexpected. I had this irrevocable sense of clarity regarding social interaction, and it was like I had completely forgotten that I’d just broken up with someone with whom I lived in a small studio apartment in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood for three years, with whom I worked on a farm for two years, with whom I went to Europe for three months, who cried when she saw flamenco in an impossibly small, crowded jazz club in Barcelona, who I freaked out over and cried about and lied to and whose parents hated me and who loved Nick Drake and Chopin and Beirut and WHY? with me and shaved me in the shower and worked the farmers market with me and about whom my best friend looked at me serious and said “Don’t be a dumbass” when I was talking with him at the Redwood about maybe breaking up with her and who had this funny system of dishtowels that I could never get the hang of. Somehow I wasn’t processing the loss of any of this stuff, somehow I was just excited and free — I was thinking things like “Wow I’m handling this well, this is super easy,” and “I did a good job preparing myself.” I had just gotten back from the bar, and I took off my clothes, in my new apartment, in New York City, and I began reading a TC submission and came across two successive lines that are, coincidentally, exactly the same two successive lines in a song by WHY? I used to sometimes listen to, and that was the first time I cried since we broke up.

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Photos by Alex M. Smith, styling by Lauren Oppelt

Andrew WK is more than just the sum of his parts. His energy, attitude and fierce positivity have all participated in solidifying his status as a hard-partying rock star, but it’s been his unwavering loyalty to his fans and his overall mission that have brought him success in the worlds of music and business. “My music isn’t about communicating an experience; it’s more about trying to conjure up a feeling,” he explains. For Andrew, both his approach to music and the work itself come from very personal place. “When you’re young you have all these emotions — anger, confusion, frustration — bad feelings. I wanted to find a way to not feel that way. I wanted to work on something that had ideals and hopes associated with it, that I could also be inspired by. Something that could build me up to be a bigger and better version than what I would have been otherwise. I had a mission, even if that mission was just making exciting music. Creating that kind of pure joy, which isn’t necessarily associated with any reason, is what I always liked most about music and art; this idea of pure energy. A feeling of possibility that wasn’t necessarily associated to an idea, an opinion, or a belief. An undeniably good physical feeling that you don’t need your brain to process — your body tells you by giving you the chills or butterflies in your stomach. I wanted to immerse myself in that, that physical sensation of joy.”

Growing up in Southeast Michigan, the son of a professor and a “super mom,” Andrew was encouraged to experiment with music at a very young age. By the time he was four, he was enrolled at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, where he began training in classical piano. With no older siblings to guide his foray into popular music, he found other ways to satiate his curiosities. “I would hear something on the radio or see something on television, and my mom would really do her best to try and help me figure out what it was.”

Even without a musical lexicon, one of Andrew’s earliest musical attractions was to a “sort of funk guitar wah-wah sound, like the Shaft theme song.” He articulated what he could to his mother, and found himself with a Led Zeppelin record that didn’t really fit the bill. “I was expecting Barry White or Shaft and was confronted with this strange rock ‘n roll stuff — I didn’t like it all, out of sheer disappointment. A couple years later, I put it on again and it ended up being my favorite album. I was so thankful to my mom — she wasn’t sure if it was appropriate music for me to be listening to, but she never stopped me.”

When speaking about his parents, Andrew’s voice softens. His admiration is evident, and his approach to music was obviously affected by the lessons he learned as a child. “I don’t think a parent’s job is to keep their kids from being exposed to the world. I think it’s more about building the capacity and intelligence in that young person, so they can process those experiences themselves in an intelligent way. My mom would let me do anything, like draw naked lady pictures when I was young and not freak out about it! She made me feel like I was okay, and that the world was okay, and she trusted my judgment.”

It’s not hard to see how Andrew WK’s positive message and mission evolved — they were ingrained in him from the start. Like so many creative voices, Andrew had his sights set on New York City early on: “New York was made out to be so exciting in films and television. I liked the tall buildings, the energy. There didn’t seem to be a lot of people in New York that were doing what I was doing. It wasn’t based on one attitude or one shared opinion. New York seemed so volatile. I think I wanted to feel threatened in a way that would inspire me to work really hard. I respect the mindset that you don’t have to move anywhere to realize your dreams, but when your dream itself is moving to New York City it’s a no brainer. I didn’t think it would take moving here to do what I wanted to do, but it seemed more fun to me — it was a pleasure.”

It’s hard to pinpoint why some musicians drown once making the move to New York while others thrive, but certainly work ethic and drive are major components. For Andrew, it seems that his unrelenting positivity and openness to new opportunities have also played major parts in his success. His endless touring, and his willingness to collaborate with fellow musicians on events like the 2012 World Snowboarding Championships in Oslo, Norway, in which he is serving as a rock ‘n roll ambassador, are part of the puzzle.

Another important part of Andrew WK’s success has been his “party hard” message. Unlike other musicians who espouse the use of alcohol or drugs to heighten the party experience, Andrew’s message has always been about the high you get from life, unfiltered, unadulterated. What better way to capitalize on that appeal than to create a nightlife mecca where revelers from all walks of life can get down?

Santos Party House is a passion project between Andrew and a group of friends, who wanted to create the ultimate New York City destination. It opened in 2008. “I like clubs, but I usually can’t get into them,” he says with a laugh. “We all had very strong opinions, and a lot of experiences with venues, bars, clubs, sound systems and everything else. I think we really did achieve what we wanted, which was combining the best elements of all these things. We definitely went big with it. We didn’t want to settle or shoot lower out of fear, because it is a huge undertaking in a big space. It was also really important for us to do it in Manhattan, because there hasn’t been a new, proper dance venue downtown with a real cabaret license in over 20 years.”

“The only way we were able to do any of it was with the support of the city and the people themselves, so creating a space to give back to the city which has given all of us so much was a great privilege and a real labor of love for everyone involved. It’s the most rewarding and the most magical thing I’ve ever been involved with!” Santos has been a success since its inception, and its appeal has extended beyond New York City’s borders. In February, when Andrew attends the World Snowboarding Championships, he plans to bring Santos to Oslo every night. And of course, the completion of a new record set for the end of winter means yet another year of touring is on the horizon. For Andrew, it’s a mission he’s overwhelmingly happy to accept.

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After shooting beer bottles, avoiding hippies, following drunk guys on lawnmowers, stumbling through an Ivy League university and chasing whiskey with pickle juice, I realized that Ithaca, in upstate New York, is the ultimate manifestation of the blog Stuff White People Like. My time there captured the stereotypical joys of white Americans as no other place could. I’ve been to Texas and I’ve been to Paris Review readings; both are white in a very distinct way, but each repudiates the other, thus reflecting only half the diversity of white Americans.

Ithaca, on the other hand, was like a white-on-white ying and yang, one of those black and white cookies but with two kinds of vanilla instead of chocolate. My time there accommodated the tastes of stereotypical gun-toting hillbillies and stereotypical P.C. snobs. I was only in town for a weekend, but these few experiences in Ithaca showed me the full spectrum of white like I had never seen it before.

Stuff White People Like: Guns

To this day, every single person I know who owns a gun (all two or three of them) is white, so it’s no surprise that my trip to Ithaca involved guns… of sorts. I was there visiting a friend who’s currently studying in Ithaca. He owns a German-made bolt-action rifle from WWI and an Enfield revolver, but since his permanent residence is in New York City, it’s nearly impossible to get a license for either. That being the case, he doesn’t like to mess around with his actual firearms unless he gets really drunk. So in an effort to let off that three-to-four-beer steam, he purchased a Daisy PowerLine 953. It’s a pump-action pellet gun made mostly for sh-ts and giggles, but apparently it can also take down small game, like squirrels. We took it out with a couple of six-packs and had a nice time on the range (that is, his backyard).

Stuff White People Like: College

What’s whiter than college kids? Ivy League college kids, and there’s nothing that defines Ithaca more than Cornell. The university’s nearly 23,000 students and staff almost equal the city’s 30,000 citizens (many of whom are likely in the service of the school), and its campus dominates the east side of town. It’s all wide pedestrian avenues and rolling green punctuated by fortresses from the 19th century and modernist white buildings reminiscent of enormous restrooms. Cornell kids spill over the university walls into Collegetown, which is a mixture of bars, restaurants and shops. It looks exactly how you’d imagine — except it’s Cornell, so the students are smarter, less fashionable and, to be honest, noticeably more Asian. (For the sake of the stereotype, let’s say they were just visiting.)

Oh, yeah: There’s also Ithaca College.

Stuff White People Like: Microbrews

This one was actually featured on Stuff White People Like, but instead of sh-tting on people for not wanting to drink bottled piss, I’m going to say yeah, I get it. Cheap beer tastes awful. At best, it’s dirty water; at worst, it’s Natty Ice. It’s fine for the end of the night when you’re too drunk to taste or if you’re 16, but to paraphrase what a friend wrote awhile ago: “Cooome onnn, duuude.” You’re not a dumb teenager anymore and, considering that iPhone 4S, you’re not broke. You’re trying to project some false poverty-stricken aesthetic or you’re being cheap — either way, knock it off. New York is full of breweries that make delicious, affordable beers and a lot of them manage to trickle into the City. If your bar doesn’t stock something without an annual Super Bowl commercial, well, you may want to stop drinking at Applebee’s.

Stuff White People Like: Lawnmowers

Besides the constant babble of running water from the surrounding gorges and waterfalls, there’s another ubiquitous hum that permeates Ithaca: lawnmowers. It seems we were never more than a backyard away from someone mowing their lawn. Part of the reason is that real estate is so cheap once you leave New York City, that everyone north of The Bronx owns a three-story house and the five acres surrounding it, so they need to be mowing for half the week or their home will be swallowed up by the encroaching forest. But the other reason might be because folks use lawnmowers as a means of conveyance, like the champ pictured below. I don’t know if this has something to do with D.U.I. loopholes (dude seemed super wasted), but people will apparently take these things to the local market for… more beer, I guess.

Stuff White People Like: Hippies

As home to Ithaca College and Cornell, Ithaca’s a serious college town. Dorm-room politics and progressive sensibilities support local head shops and organic burrito shacks, but culminate in tragedy: with hippies, lots and lots of hippies. Due to the influence of Woodstock, which apparently gave hippies license over all of upstate New York as one giant forest-playground, Ithaca is overrun with dreadlocked shoeless stoners. You see them everywhere, panhandling, milling about waiting to sell pot to college kids or doing something predictably cringe worthy, like creating a 6,000-person peace symbol. Walking through Ithaca Commons, a downtown pedestrian strip of restaurants and stores, we saw a couple of hippies selling cassette tapes. Cassette tapes, dude? What, did you smoke yourself back to the ’80s?

Stuff White People Like: Picklebacks

Growing up in New York City on 40s of malt liquor, it’s tough to get exposed to new drinks. By the time you’re actually old enough to go to a bar, you’ve been drinking Colt 45 for so many years that you believe all booze tastes like a homeless man’s piss and you gotta just bite the bullet, so you order whatever’s cheapest and keep the change. Then you grow up and your white coworker tells you about picklebacks, a shot of whiskey followed by a shot of pickle brine. A few days later, you wind up at your white friend’s house party, where he’s coincidentally offering up picklebacks. Then it’s a week later and you’re tramping through Taughannock Falls State Park with another white friend, a flask full of whiskey and a Poland Spring bottle full of spicy pickle brine. This doesn’t intrinsically relate to Ithaca, but apparently white people love picklebacks and the drink’s confused origins manage to bridge the great white divide, with its invention credited to both Texas truckers and Brooklyn hipsters.

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In all honesty, my assessment of Ithaca could be off. As you might be able to tell from the above, I spent much of my time there enjoying the region’s beer, whiskey and pickle juice, and that can blur the vision, tamper with understanding. What I took away from the place is that it’s magical, part haven for academics and families with well-manicured lawns, part playground for stoners and outdoorsmen. A consolation for brothers on the opposing sides of the Civil War, the comments section of YouTube and New Yorker cartoons, it’s a meeting place of popular white culture open to all comers. And boy, is it something to behold.

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A few days before Christmas, HBO announced that what was the second season finale of their comedy-drama How to Make It in America, would, in fact, be the series finale. By pulling the plug on the New York City fake-it-til-you-make-it story of Ben Epstein, Cam Calderon and their fashion co. dreams, they allowed for an entirely new light on the last episode.

The writers of the show used the finale as a hook into the third season, with every character brought to ‘down and out, nothing to lose’ status, still as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as they were in the pilot. As a final kick in Ben’s sartorially-gifted pants, a well-connected fashion rep tells Ben his brand has no future, and although he has talent, he doesn’t have enough. In a season finale, this means more fuel to his fire. In a series finale, this means maybe he just doesn’t have enough.

But of course Ben is fiction and our days are never bookends to seasons but just part of one, very long season. Ben is fiction in his unattainably relaxed attitude to women, success and failure, in his good looks and charm, in his crazy cool friends and associates but not in the ambiguity of his talent and the opaque veil that is his ambition.

In New York City, as in any other city where young and creative folk flock to make it, there are perhaps a nearly infinite supply of Ben Epsteins in art, acting, comedy, fashion, writing, acting and dance and a very finite number of positions in these fields that will result in an exhibit, Letterman special, Spring collection, novel, blockbuster or write-up in The New Yorker. And that’s the secret. Well, the entire secret is that contrary to the sturdy solipsism found in many gifted individuals, they are not outside of the equation.

In other words, it’s possible to have talent but not enough.

Every time a movie character gnarls ‘kid’s got talent’, and we imagine him saying that about us, we always fail to ask ourselves ‘how much talent?’. It’s preposterous, that we could have talent, a lot of talent, skill, some genius, a little spunk and a dab of secret sauce but not enough. And beyond the terribleness of this fact of life is that the one thing stopping you from rubbing the clouds from your eyes and seeing if they clear up or rain is that one other ingredient you need for success is the blinding faith that you can get it.

How to Make It in America was never going to be a hit. Critics saw it as Entourage: New York City (who wants two Entourages?), and couldn’t stop themselves from using ‘loose thread’-related puns. But the show was actually pretty cool and, like its protagonist, strove to put itself out there. And unlike the other two series it got canned with — Hung and Bored to Death — it carried a message to the still-inspired: it’s not always up to you whether you make it, but it is up to you to be young while you figure it out.

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image – How To Make It In America

When I was quite a small child and we had to sing Christmas songs in school, I changed every word regarding Santa Claus to some kind of juvenile slur. Later I made a habit of revealing to other children that Santa Claus was not real, was a contrivance of their parents’. Picture me, a curly-haired, pig-tailed revolutionary in blue-sweater rebellion amid holiday red-and-green: a mouthy little Jewish kid.

I swung wildly between deep disdain and gripping envy for children who had the privilege of the Santa myth. When I was probably four or five I asked my Mom — a woman who was good at brushing hair too hard and untangling knots from jewelry but less so at fussy baby stuff — why Santa wouldn’t come to our house, and if it were really impossible under any circumstances. She was quite firm about us being Jewish and no, Santa was most definitely not coming to our house.

When I was about four or five I had a picture of Santa in a children’s picture book. I stared at the foreign jolly figure’s sympathetic red nose and boundless smile. Santa, who loves all the little kids. I figured I’d show my mom. I got some socks out of my drawer upstairs and tied them to the fireplace and hung around waiting. I think it was probably daytime in the summer. Nothing happened, needless to say.

When I was 13 I had this Bat Mitzvah, right? In October, which is when my birthday is. I think that year was like, the only period of my life where I felt devoutly religious. My Grammy was dying in the summer before that. I remember the warm air, the sound of her wind chimes, the quietude of the little ranch home where I’d spent so much of my childhood. She was lying on her silver leather couch in a cloth turban, and I’d come in with my hair up how she liked and the prayer book that I got from Hebrew school and I’d read my Torah portion for her. She’d smile like no one ever would smile at me again.

My Mom said to her mother something like, “you know, we can have Leigh’s Bat Mitzvah earlier,” and my dying Grammy said something like, “nonsense, I’ll be there.”

I had my Bat Mitzvah in October. She wasn’t there. At the part where I had to carry the Torah between the aisles of the synagogue for everyone to touch all I remember is fixing my mind’s eye on her face. My gaze blurred with tears. She would have smiled so much.

After that I was troubled. Once I ran away from home, I guess — I mean, I think I must have just walked out without permission and stayed with a nearby friend for the night. I only know this because I later found a card in my little sister’s room that she had written: On the back it said “Dear Santa: Please bring my sister back.” I asked her about it later, and she conceded that she figured on trying everything, even the spirits that were not for us. She had placed her missive underneath her pillow.

I am a secular adult. I don’t really respond to ‘Merry Christmas,’ but I don’t especially care as regards ‘Happy Hanukkah’ either. When it comes to gift-giving I live in a certain limbo; I will buy gifts for favored acquaintances if I see something that makes me think of them, but freeze in ambivalence when it comes to those that are part of my daily life. I don’t really know how to receive holiday gifts. I know of families well into adulthood that still put cards on their under-tree gifts that read “From Santa,” and I understand it’s some kind of precious relic of their childhood, but I feel the distinct unease of a nostalgia I do not share.

I think about getting married in a church like a Disney movie, but I wouldn’t know what to do in a church. I’ve only ever been to one for funerals, maybe for other people’s weddings.

I like the Chinese food jokes. I make a lot of Chinese food jokes at Christmas, about how heartily I plan on eating Chinese takeaway during that one strange, post-apocalyptic week of New York City when all of my friends and neighbors and virtually everyone in sight vacates to the places they call home, leaving me alone in a neighborhood of corrugated shutters and chilly, empty sidewalks. People ask me what my plans are; I don’t say ‘oh, I’m Jewish,’ I say ‘my family’s Jewish.’ I mean, I don’t have any plans, really.

But I like the season, you know? I like Christmas trees. I even like the consumerism, because I like occasions where all of my nation’s society unites for some reason. I think I’d feel sad in a world where I didn’t have to listen to the tinny echo of a million pop versions of Christmas carols pumped through a crowded mall, underlaid gently with the artificial scent of baking cookies. Beautiful nausea, beautiful dysphoria.

I talked to my mother today about how I felt weird I hadn’t really bought any presents for anyone I know. “It’s because you’re a single adult,” she reasons. Hanukkah was a holiday for kids. We really had nice ones, when we were kids, a dining room table covered in presents for my sister and me where we used to open one every night. One year my mother gave me a lunch box and a hair dryer. We still laugh about that. Aw, man.

Already the air around me feels different. If you are a secular adult and you want to know limbo, stay in New York City for Christmas. There is nothing but silence. On the next block from me are a number of identical apartments. This time of year, they seem to strive to differentiate from one another through their displays of Christmas lights, blue and white and pink and rainbow, wound round the porch stair bannisters, hung lattice on the brickfronts. One of them plays music as it blinks on and off.

When I dress up to go out at night, for those last, urgent-feeling and winter-dark festivities before everyone vacates, I walk fast for the train. My heels ring out like gunshots on the pavement, echoing in the chilly desert silence that is already encroaching. My breath turns to smoke in my mouth.

Then I hear that music, you know? I notice myself haloed in the orange light of streetlamps and a certain innocence washes over me. I feel for a moment like one more stranger following a star. I usually hold still. I am aware of everyone.

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Sometimes when you think you love something what you really love is not the thing itself but just some small and inessential part of it: you think you love banana splits but really you just love the maraschino cherry on top and you think you love autumn but really you just love getting a Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks and you think you love Shrek but really you just love that montage near the end after Shrek and Fiona have their falling out when he’s sitting in his swamp all alone and she’s getting ready for her wedding and Rufus Wainwright’s cover of “Hallelujah” is playing in the background, and you think you’re in love with him but really you’re just in love with the smile that pops onto his face when he spots you in the Think Coffee near Washington Square Park, in love with the way it makes you feel to see someone look at you like that, look at you like you’re the only real thing in the entire world, even though he only looks at you like that because he just moved to the city a month ago and doesn’t know anyone and because he saw you on the subway reading the same book that he was reading, which made him think of a New Yorker cover by Adrian Tomine that he once saw when he was in high school, except on the New Yorker cover the boy and the girl were on different trains, and when he saw you reading the same book that he was reading he thought “Here’s my chance to make it right” as if the boy and the girl on the New Yorker cover were real people, since in high school he liked thinking of himself as the sort of person who thinks of fictional characters (especially tortured young men like Hamlet and Raskolnikov and Stephen Dedalus) as real people and never quite got out of that habit, just like he never quite got out of the habit of fantasizing about his middle-school crush or the habit of starting up a multiplayer game in a first-person shooter just to wander around the level all alone or the habit of coming downstairs in his pajamas on Christmas and sitting cross-legged on the floor opening his presents and smiling involuntarily because “Santa” brought him just what he wanted or the habit of sometimes waking up in the middle of the night with a nameless fear lodged in his heart and crying out, in the quietest whisper, for his mother, and because since moving to the city he’d started feeling that fear even in broad daylight when he saw an ambiguity on the subway map that might make him late for work or an abandoned shopping cart filled with dirty plastic bags or when he thought about how maybe this morning he left his apartment door unlocked or maybe today he’ll be talking with someone and they’ll bring up a movie he’s never seen or maybe someone is mad at him for doing something he doesn’t even remember doing, but really feeling that fear all the time and just being reminded of it at certain moments, reminded that it had become his default state, not a fear of something so much as a fear of the lack of something that he felt in the center of his stomach as if there were no center there at all, as if he were built around nothing but an emptiness and had to exert a constant effort just to keep from collapsing inward like a black hole, and he would lie awake at night feeling the emptiness gurgle up and down inside him and sometimes feeling what he thought were the inside surfaces of his stomach rubbing against one another and saying “ouch, ouch, ouch” and twisting his face like he would cry when stomach acid refluxed into the lower part of his esophagus and sometimes being afraid that he had stomach cancer but then seeing you reading the same book that he was reading on the subway that he hadn’t yet realized was the wrong subway, which he got on because of an ambiguity on the subway map, seeing you reading the same book that he was reading and thinking of that New Yorker cover and thinking “Here’s my chance to make it right” except he didn’t realize he was thinking either of those thoughts but thought he was just thinking “I’m going to go talk to that girl” and then getting up from his seat and walking over to you and saying “Hey is that a good book?” and laughing and not feeling embarrassed at all even though he knew the other people on the train would see what he was doing, and seeing you nod and laugh and thinking about how the two of you already had an inside joke, and then seeing that he’d gotten on the wrong train and would be late for work because the train had gone past his stop and the stop after and kept going and going and going, which was exactly what he’d been afraid of when he saw that ambiguity on the subway map and now the thing he’d been afraid of was happening, except now that it was happening he wasn’t afraid at all because on the wrong train he found a girl who was reading the same book that he was reading and went up to her and talked to her and made her laugh and they already had their little inside joke together and they were already talking about where they lived and where they were from and what they did and when the train stopped at 125^th St. he said he had to get off and go back downtown but did she want to grab coffee sometime and she said yes that would be great and he said okay how about six o’clock tomorrow at the Think Coffee near Washington Square Park and she said that sounds great and he said okay see you then and walked away feeling better than he had ever felt in his entire life because he’d been in the city for a month and hadn’t made a single friend and had spent every night just drinking alone and watching porn and masturbating over and over and over until it hurt to come as if there was something inside of him that he was trying to get rid of except that thing was not something but the lack of something but now all of a sudden there was another human being in his life and life was going to be okay after all, life was going to be better than okay, life was going to be everything he ever imagined it would be, except better because it was going to be not imaginary but real, after all these years of living out his life in fantasies it was finally going to be real, and he spent the next day and a half not thinking any thoughts except “IT’S GOING TO BE REAL IT’S GOING TO BE REAL IT’S GOING TO BE REAL” over and over and over until six o’clock the next day when he walks into Think Coffee and looks around and then sees you and thinks “IT’S REAL” and the thought registers on his face as a smile, a smile that says, with absolute clarity, “You are the only real thing in the entire world,” and that smile — not him, but that smile — is what you’re really in love with, and you think you love Jameson but really you just love that time when you were home for winter break your freshman year of college and your dad poured you a glass of it like it was no big deal, like it was something he did all the time, even though it was the first time your parents had ever given you alcohol, and you sat on the couch by the fire and drank it and it burned but you’d already been in college for a semester and you were getting used to the burn of alcohol, even getting to like it, and you liked thinking of yourself as the sort of girl who likes whiskey, and you sat by the fire and listened to your dad read “’Twas The Night Before Christmas” out loud and drank just enough, just enough to feel like every cell in your body was buzzing with happiness, and later when the fire had turned to embers you and your parents watched The Snowman on VHS and you were still feeling just drunk enough that during the “We’re Walking In The Air” part, for the first time in maybe eight years, or at any rate for the first time since whenever it was that you turned into a surly teenager and started wearing dark lipstick and hating your parents, you lay your head on your mom’s shoulder and you didn’t feel embarrassed at all when she put her arm around you and kissed your head and didn’t even feel embarrassed when you cried a little bit into her hair at the end of the movie and she stroked your hair and rocked you back and forth just a little bit and maybe even said “shhh” really quietly and kissed your head again and you just let her do it because you didn’t feel embarrassed at all because you were just drunk enough, just drunk enough to feel, for just one night, like a child, and you think you love Animal Collective but really you just love that one moment in “In The Flowers” when the beat rises up out of the swirl of noise and Avey Tare sings “Then we could be dancing, no more missing you while I’m gone” and you feel like oh my god I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, which is why you play Merriweather Post Pavilion right after sending the boy you met on the subway, the one who was reading the same book you were reading, the last text you will ever send him, and why you wonder why it isn’t making you feel any better.

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image – Merriweather Post Pavilion

I don’t drive. It freaks me out. Knowing how oblivious I can be, I imagine that I would die a fiery death the second I pulled out of my driveway. Surprisingly, living la vida no license hasn’t been a problem for me. In high school, my friends loved to drive and had no problem picking me up. Then I moved to San Francisco for two years and have lived in New York for the past four. The only time it really becomes an issue is when I live in LA for brief periods of time. If you added up the summers and the semester I took off of college, I’ve probably lived in this city for a grand total of a year and a half. During that time, I’ve had to navigate the city without a license and let me tell you, it’s been a frustrating adventure.

Nobody walks in LA. Missing Persons was right. The only time you really see people on the street is when they’re exercising or walking their dog. Other than that, it’s just barren. I walk down major streets like Melrose and Sunset Boulevard in the middle of the day and am just surrounded by the sound of whizzing cars. It’s mortifying when you’re at a crosswalk and people are staring at you from their cars like, “WTF? Is that guy homeless? He’s wearing Marc by Marc though.” You feel very exposed when you’re the only person on a street and sometimes I feel like running to a side street and just hiding out. Most of the time though, it’s actually not that bad. When you live in LA without a car, navigating each day is like a challenge that you need to enjoy. You’ll go to dinner with your friend Diana at 7:00 in West Hollywood if she can pick you up. Otherwise, you’ll go to a restaurant you can walk to and meet someone else. At times, you’re entirely reliant upon the generosity of others. You structure your days around when people can give you rides. It’s certainly a far cry from living in New York where I have the freedom to go anywhere anytime. LA forces you to get creative. I have to pack a book, my iPod, my phone charger, and my computer every time I leave my brother’s house in the morning because, since he lives in the Hollywood Hills, I know I won’t have the luxury to go back and forth.

I take the bus a lot. Apparently that’s something you just don’t do in LA but I actually don’t mind it. They’re spacious, air-conditioned, clean, and arrive in a timely manner. Plus, it’s fun to spot the one other babe on the bus, the one other person who’s like “WTF AM I DOING ON THE BUS? SERIOUSLY?” I live for that person. That person gets me through the daze.

There’s an estimated five other people who don’t drive in LA and I know all of them. I don’t know why that is. Do we just attract each other like a bunch of lost souls or what? A good percentage of my friends in LA seriously don’t drive so I sometimes go weeks without seeing them. Yesterday I just so happened to be in Beverly Hills where one of my good friends without a license lives and we walked down Doheny to a coffee shop and stayed there for five hours until someone could pick us up. It was a lot of fun obviously but, jesus. I felt like I was in middle school waiting for my mom to pick me up from the movies. But such is the life of someone without a license in LA. You spend most of your waking moments just waiting.

I just realized how awful this makes LA sound so I feel like I have to note that I don’t actually mind not driving in LA. Sure, it can be annoying, and I certainly am in no rush to move back here, but not having a license allows me to have a lot of downtime. I’m stuck (literally) most of the time I’m in LA so I use it as an opportunity to read or listen to music. Living in New York, you don’t have time for anything, but when I’m in LA, I have nothing BUT time. It’s refreshing. That being said, counting down the days till I’m back in New York…

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When I look over, the man’s hand is already stuck, locked at the wrist between the subway doors.

At first, I just see the hand, like I’m looking at it through a telescope. It looks foreign and it takes a moment for me to realize that it’s a hand, alone, by itself, I guess, because I’m not used to seeing one disembodied. My gaze rises and through the glass, I can see the hand is attached to a raggedy man. He has a beard and torn clothing. He is black. He is unshowered and unshaven. His right hand is on the inside of the train. His body is on the outside.

I blink.

Then, I look around. The train, an A uptown local, is pretty full even though it’s approaching midnight. Everyone has a seat and there’s room for people to stand comfortably. No one is looking at the man and his hand.

“Help!” the caught man yells, but it’s weak. About a dozen riders near by hear it though because they slightly turn their heads. I can see clearly that he’s homeless, but because of his almost non-reaction to his own danger, it strikes me that it’s also possible he is mentally ill: He realizes his hand is caught, but he seems to lack the necessary panic to know he’s in more than passing trouble. “Help!” he says, again. It’s quieter, but still not that desperate. The train is still silent.

I edge forward on my seat. It’s been a long three minutes and the doors have not opened to release the man’s hand. Maybe the conductor doesn’t know what’s happening.

Open, in my lap, is a comic book by sociopolitical commentator Warren Ellis, one that illustrates the grime and crime of a futuristic dystopian city. The protagonist is an eccentric journalist who regularly serves as a lone vigilante. Like Rorschach from ‘Watchmen,’ he opines on the dark, filthy aspects of humanity, lamenting the dead eyes of city dwellers. It’s a sort of, “My city screams in the night” aesthetic. It’s a cliché in graphic novels.

The caught man calls out again. My heart starts to pound. I shove my book in my bag and stand up.

“He’s stuck!” I yell. “His hand is stuck!” I’m met with silence and confused stares.

The train lurches forward a bit and I’m terrified. It’s going to start moving! Then, it stops.

I imagine what’ll happen when we move: the train will probably drag the guy down the platform for a few seconds by the arm until we hit the concrete tunnel wall. Then, his body will either be smashed between the train and the tunnel, crunching his bones flat, or his wrist will snap, leaving his body on the platform and our subway car with a bleeding shoddily-severed hand for a passenger. There’s a possibility the impact and dragging could kill this man too.

My vision swims. I walk to the middle of the train. “Someone get the conductor! Can you guys see the conductor? Is there a button or — his hand is stuck! Can someone get the conductor?!”

The eyes that meet mine convey one thought: Why is this crazy woman yelling?

“Okay, I’m gonna go head up and get the conductor to open –” I scream, when the doors suddenly do open. The whole ordeal took about ten minutes. The guy’s okay and he doesn’t thank me. For some reason, I’m embarrassed for “bothering” all these people on their rides home.

I sit down. I go to re-open my comic book and I realize I’m shaking.

“i’m all messed up about it,” I later type to a friend on Facebook chat. “i get it. bystander effect, but damn. he would’ve died and they all were looking at me like i was crazy to react.”

“stupid new york,” he simply writes back. Maybe.

“The bystander effect” is a classic psychological term, coined in New York, after all. I remember an old college journalism professor trying to freak us freshmen out by telling us the story: a young woman named Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death and raped near her apartment building. She screamed for help and no one who heard her called the police.

It was a cold night in 1964. One neighbor leaned out his window and yelled, “Leave that girl alone!” That was it.

The New York Times article had the damning, legendary headline: “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police.”

“I didn’t want to get involved,” a neighbor was quoted as saying.

A few years ago, a study showed the number of witnesses may have been exaggerated because the layout of the building was such that all 38 people could not have seen the entire attack, but in the end, enough people heard something — and did nothing.

Harlan Ellison called them all “mother-ckers” in an article for Rolling Stone. I think that explanation is too easy to fit such a large number of bystanders. My friend Jason suggests that maybe people didn’t react or help because the man in my story was clearly homeless. Maybe they thought he didn’t matter. What if it was my hand — that of a young white woman — that’d gotten caught? Would the conductor have noticed faster? Would people have responded with concern? Would Nancy Grace have been called? I consider it. One study on Kitty Genovese’s case suggested no one helped her because in the early ‘60s, people were afraid to intervene in what they could have mistakenly thought was a domestic dispute. No one wants to make a fuss and be wrong.

In short: Don’t get involved if the danger meets the status quo. A woman screaming for help is probably just fighting with her boyfriend. A mentally ill person stuck in the train doors will probably be released by the conductor. Don’t the conductors have mirrors so they can see the doors? We don’t need to help. Seconds tick by. Minutes.

Someone will do their job. Someone else will help. I don’t have to get involved.

When I leave the train station, my cheeks are red from riding eight more stops with people staring at me for reacting. Everything outside is wet from the rain and it’s very late. I walk home in the dark, the way Kitty Genovese did in 1964. The two events are hardly comparable. In one, a woman died and in another, a homeless man was once again ignored and a twenty-something was startled out of her commuting stupor. Nothing to see here.

When I get home, I strip my clothes off and wrap myself in my comforter. I am grateful. For hours my eyes are wide open, pointed up at the ceiling. I try not to vomit.

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