The mole rats all have double chins. I see them standing around, curiously shaped, oddly curved, radiating a combination of health, consumption, and accent. I can’t hear them, yet I know they have annoying accents by the simple look of them. On the streets of New York City, you often find them: ambiguously young, clustering about, talking simultaneously to each other, to cell phones, to themselves, to the air, whatever–just yammering away like narrow waisted curiously large rumped hairless rodents wearing fright wigs. When they swarm, you have to be sure you have a ready exit, or you can be caught in the vortex of their vacuousity.\n<\/p>\n
\nTrust me on this one.\n<\/p>\n
\nThey all have chin wattle. It comes of unhealthy yet spare diets and a lack of exercise. Ladies, much as it pains me to break it to you (it doesn’t pain me a bit), I have no choice but to inform you that shopping is not an aerobic exercise.\n<\/p>\n
\n…\n<\/p>\n
\nSome nights there’s a special smell to the air of New York City. \n<\/p>\n
\nOf course, there’s always<\/i> a smell to the air of New York City. It’s virtually indescribable to the uninitiated. Denizens of any large city know that downtowns do not smell pleasant. New York City, however, has a special smell all its own. I shant attempt to describe the melange of street vendors’ and restaurants’ dubious food offerings, engine exhaust, ocean air, industrial output, electricity, ozone, and the sewage of roughly twenty millions of people. It is not describable. It’s only experienceable.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut some nights there’s a special smell to the air of New York City.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis special smell is to the regular New York smell as the smell of any other major city is to the smell of the air in the Himalayas. It only occurs after dusk, after the trash bags have been placed on the sidewalks but before they’ve been picked up. The air is clammy–cool without being cold and filled with a cloying humidity which soaks into your bones leaving one feeling cold and hot all at the same time–and still. The lack of circulation allows a buildup of scent like the stacking of sound waves in front of an accelerating plane right before the sonic boom. When you first step foot in it, it clubs you across the face like a week old rotten fish, and by the time you’ve made your successful exit indoors, one feels overwhelmed by the urge to bathe.\n<\/p>\n
\n…\n<\/p>\n
\nThe damnedest bit of all wasn’t that he was roller blading down sixth avenue. Traffic was heavy and relatively slow, and the skater was more than fast enough to keep up with the ocean of taxis. Not that I can recall having seen it before, but the sight of a roller blader rocketing down sixth fails to be more than whelming. What caused my profound consternation was that this man–tall and muscular–managed, in the process of rocketing down sixth, to appear to mince.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe was mincing. He exuded minciness. He minced. At no point did he manifest the classic ice skater’s gait necessary for one on roller blades to maintain speed, yet he rocketed down the lane at a good twenty mile per hour clip. Minced down the lane. Minced rocketingly. Rocketed mincefully.\n<\/p>\n
\nYou understand my consternation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The mole rats all have double chins. I see them standing around, curiously shaped, oddly curved, radiating a combination of health, consumption, and accent. I can’t hear them, yet I know they have annoying accents by the simple look of them. On the streets of New York City, you often find them: ambiguously young, clustering about, talking simultaneously to each other, to cell phones, to themselves, to the air, whatever–just<\/p>\n