Quote:
Originally Posted by Segun
NYC will continue to be #1, but at the rate its going, it will be transformed into a boutique museum of a city like Paris. Just my take on things.
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the last few times i have been in paris, i have been struck by the opposite feeling. new york feels more museum-like than paris in most areas. paris seethes and its spirit is joined to the middle east in a leaky way, in a bidirectional way. paris has more than a shiver of instability to it.
when paris burns, its public intellectuals poke at the issues, satirizing and joking and complaining. they advance opposing views and fight. sometimes they get shot.
who would shoot jon stewart? it's anodyne. and if he isn't the guy, who is the guy? who is new york's trickster figure?
louis ck? he plays with words but ultimately thinks the approved thoughts on all the big america issues, the ones you really get in trouble for mocking.
who in new york's mainstream cultural life would find a way to cackle at ferguson, at isis?
even vanity fair's caitlyn jenner cover somehow escaped a vicious high-profile parody, and it was basically a double dog dare on the part of the media class.
new yorkers in 2015 are publicly pious, with a few shock jocks maybe scattered about downstairs for the plumber to giggle at.
the conversation that is paris is very bitter and edgy and unsettled by comparison.