A friend posted something about
[Friend], you and I bond through negativity — I think because we both know the profound freedom to be found in holding on the skepticism of a fading age in this world of shallow, self-regarding sh*t. Some may dismiss that as the inevitable ravings and ragings of an aging men, but to them I say: “At a time when men like Trump and Boris dominate the world stage, the world actually, empirically is sh*t.” So, in that spirit, let me say this: I hate “Manhattanhenge.” It pains me just to type it. Why? Because there was a time when the underlying phenomenon was nameless — and being without a name, it appeared under the sign of serendipity. It reaffirmed the wondrous, accidental nature of this world, even on the crappiest side streets of Manhattan. That was when the biggest cultural threat the city faced was Eurotrash: empty-headed, idle, affluent people with Mediterranean tans, creamy sweaters draped over their shoulders, and inexplicably dimensionless wallets. Their appearance was like stadium lights going on in your favorite dark bar: OK, the fun’s over, time to move on. Now, though, the city has been overrun — and I use that word without a hint of overstatement — by their soulless spiritual heirs: Globotrash. They can be from anywhere, and indeed most are from the Good Old USA. They’re the spoor of world consumed by corruption and rentier forces: they’ve never known a world in which wealth wasn’t a magical ambience because their parents, through a mix of ignorance and shame, hid that world from them — never told them what it was like, never even told them where the flows comes from or how they keep coming. It just is, and now the world is yours, so go: go to the great cities of the world and send us the bills. So they do — in numbers beyond ken. Like an invasive species, they make humanity’s greatest achievement, the cosmopolitan city, a hell of vapid, useless props for their hedonistic, transgressionless fantasies. They consume everything, and most of all the secret fabric of the city itself: they discover it, buy it, evict it, replace it, rebuild it, redesign it, promote it, distress it, whatever — that abject litany could go on forever. But the one thing they don’t do, and will never do because they cannot do it, is let it be — let it be an accident, a secret wisp of joy, a thing you spy from the corner of your eye. And so the everlasting gobstopper that is the city, whose subtle flavors you neither could nor would dare anticipate, becomes some confected pink-slime ‘topping’ to be paid for by weight, by time, by space, and — ultimately — paid for with the diminished freedom of the people who live – live, not live in — the city. Under the skin, it’s all just Santacon now: a moment of authorized, scheduled, synchronized ‘fun.’ And THAT is why I hate — truly hate — ‘Manhattanhenge.’ Plus I can’t f*cking stand Neil deGrasse Tyson.