"I'm The New Sinatra": Notes on New York

"I'm the new Sinatra/And since I made it here/I can make it anywhere/Yeah they love me everywhere..."

Even for Jay-Z, these lines from his and Alicia Key's love letter to New York are an old-school throwback; they of course directly reference that Frank Sinatra standard, "If I can make it here/I can make it anywhere/It's up to you, New York, New York!"   Jay-Z's lines at once supersede Sinatra (he's accomplished what Sinatra only hopes for) and pays homage (Frankie Blue-Eyes is still the man he must compare himself against).

Though the two songs are separated by over 30 years, they both express that standard idealized vision of New York as fulcrum for all your hopes and dreams, the center of the world that has drawn immigrants from both home and abroad for over 200 years.  An old friend of mine even ran away to New York after graduation without a job prospect or even a place to stay, with hardly more than a savings account and a Bachelors degree, such was the city's Siren Call--and he was neither the first nor the last.

And like most idealized visions, I assumed that this was all just sentimental hogwash.  Far more accurate, I assumed, were songs like Jim Croce's "New York's Not My Home" or LCD Soundsystem's "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."  When friends excitedly gushed about their trips to New York, I only smiled politely and nodded, all while thinking, "That's OK I guess, but, you know, maybe you should actually try and get out of the country next time..." 

Part of it was that I had actually been to New York once, when I was  "15, awkward, and shy" (to paraphrase Morissey), and thus ill-equipped to first encounter the Big Apple.  By way of contrast, I've learned that here in Iowa, the Great Plains are considered ideal for "the very young and the very old."  The "very old" I can understand, as retirees seek to settle down somewhere quiet and calm; the "very young" I'm starting to get--teenagers frankly do not yet possess the cognitive ability to fully comprehend the sublime, to feel the life-force beyond consciousness.  Iowa, where you confront "the utter absence of the sublime," is perfect for young teens who prefer to be big fish in small ponds, where their fragile egos have room to wander. 

Thus, my teen-age visit to New York did not inspire me with its grandeur, but only left me feeling even more awkward, self-conscious, and gangly than usual.  What's more, I was with my family, in the middle of a long, ill-advised "National Lampoons" style drive across America, and by the time we reached the East-coast were already well on each others nerves; plus it was summer and hot and sweaty, and we kept getting lost on the Subway, and we only had one cramped day there, and Mom got a splitting head-ache, and by the end of the day was so grumpy that she straight-up, stone-cold, stared-down a New York cabbie trying to cut us off during Rush Hour (cause us Seattle-ites somehow stupidly forgot that Rush Hour is a thing??).  Suffice to say, my only memories of New York weren't exactly gushing.

Nevertheless, as I later met displaced New Yorkers across Puerto Rico, and as I not only survived but thrived in the endless expanses of Beijing, and as I easily navigated the Metros in Paris, London, Rome, and D.C., I couldn't help but wonder, in the back of my mind, how I would fare in New York if I were to visit again, now that I was a little older, a little more seasoned, a little more confident.  Not that New York was high on my list of things to do; when there's still so much of this wide world left to explore, visiting yet another U.S. city feels downright mundane.

But then start of this semester, a call for papers came for a Graduate Conference at CUNY, in Mid-Town Manhattan.  On a whim, I submitted my writing sample, figuring a paper about the Irish and the Puerto Ricans would be a good fit in New York. 

The paper was accepted.  But then I learned that the Iowa English Dept. doesn't fund travel for 1st year PhD students.  I applied for funding from another source, but it was taking them forever to get back to me.  Also, a professor had told all us 1st years to only do Graduate Conferences to get our feet wet, to otherwise only focus on legit academic conferences.  Moreover, I had just such a legit conference coming up in February, in Florida, and I reflected that I should really be saving up my money for that one instead.  I decided to be financially responsible and drop out of the conference last minute.

Then a funny thing happened: everyone--my friends, my girlfriend, my roommate, my professors, even the one who said to avoid Graduate Conferences--they all encouraged me to go, not cause it was a Conference, but cause it was in New York!  I was the one protesting that I should watch my money, while the most financially responsible people I know all responded, "Who cares?  It's New York!"

I made a Pro and Con list, and every sound reason was against this New York trip.  I frankly felt dumb even expending thought on it--it's just another big, loud, dirty, noisy city!  I only have a graduate stipend right now!  Of course I'm not going!  As recently as Tuesday night this week, I was firm in my decision to stay in Iowa this weekend. 

But then Tuesday night, I couldn't sleep.  This feeling kept bothering me--you need to go to New York is all it deigned to tell me.  Try as I might to reason with it, this feeling just wouldn't leave me alone.  Each time I thought of staying in Iowa, I felt reasonable but empty; each time I thought of New York, I felt insane but brimming with light.  These same sort of promptings have wound me up in Rexburg and most recently in Iowa before, so I was determined to ignore them for once, though deep down I knew I wouldn't.

For I've read enough Emerson and attended enough Sunday School lessons to know that one should never ignore persistent promptings like that; so finally, against my better judgment, but knowing that one can't place a price on peace of mind, I rolled out of bed, flipped open my laptop, and booked a last-minute flight to New York LaGuardia.

The plane seemed to circle the city in a guided tour of the night skyline, like I'd never seen the city before, such that I even got a full view of the Statue of Liberty far below.  The lady I sat next to was full-blooded Irish-American, and hence was deeply interested in my conference paper topic.  When she learned that I was raised in Washington and lived in Utah, she, this life-long Chicagoan, openly asked how I could possibly stand to live in the Mid-West after such beautiful states, and it was refreshing to give an honest answer for once.  We continued chatting amiably as we disembarked, when she offered to let me ride in the Taxi with her.  "You want to split the fair?" I offered.  "No, my company's paying for it, don't worry about it!" she said.  And that's how I scored a free taxi-ride into Manhatten.

When we were dropped off in front of her Hotel, I asked the doorman--who really was charmingly dressed in a full suit and military hat, like how I'd never assumed was a real thing--how far I was from Times Square.  He gave me directions in a dialect delightfully free of "r" sounds.  The kind lady even offered to have the Taxi take me to my hostel, but I already intuited, I already knew as I looked up at those sky-scrapers and around at the throngs of humanity, that part of why I was there is that I needed to walk those streets right that instant.  

I thanked her for her generosity as we shook hands.  I began wending my way through the intersections towards 49th Street and 6th Ave.   I plugged in my ear-buds, gave in to my most sentimental impulses and put on some Jay-Z and Frank Sinatra.  And I finally understood.

"These little town blues/are melting away..." "...These streets will make you feel brand-new/Big lights will inspire you..."  Actual New Yorkers are friggin' sick of these songs, but only because they already knew, and needed no one else to tell them. All my cynicism and my full knowledge of this place's crime-rates and homeless problems and outrageous costs-of-living were rendered moot.  I get it now I said to myself without even realizing it I get it.  New York.

Because of the CUNY Conference, I really didn't have time to do any proper sight-seeing, or do anything else really, but just walking these streets was enough--no, more than enough, it was exactly what I needed!  If nothing else comes of this trip, the mental-health-holiday was worth it (even that son-of-the-Midwest Kurt Vonnegut told a friend teaching at Iowa that "the corn fields get to you").  I think it's like my girlfriend who once interned in Manhattan said: in New York, everyone is there for the action, everybody is looking to do something--in short, I think she's saying that everyone there is alive.  You feel yourself amidst the life-force beyond consciousness.

Here's what stunned me the most about New York: the sudden realization that I could live here--maybe not my entire life, maybe for only a year or two--but I could belong here.  The feeling I immediately felt in New York was the same I'd immediately felt when I first arrived in Paris, in Florence, on Huang Shan when the cloud lifted, in Puerto Rico, and when I first arrived in Salt Lake City, that I've been frustrated to have never felt in Iowa City--that feeling that here is a place I could love forever, that here is the place, at this precise moment, that I need to be.  It was a feeling I'd forgotten how to have.

I certainly can't explain it.  It sounds like nonsense to say it aloud.  In fact, I'm not entirely sure that the trip happened; the all-too-brief experience was so surreal, that I'll have to check my pictures for proof that I didn't just dream it (though whether my photos or my memories are less reliable, I can't say).  It was like whatever the opposite of disillusionment is, like the reverse of a child finding out his favorite TV shows are just cheap sets played by actors.  I wrote once that visiting Paris was like finding out Middle-Earth actually exists, and they speak Elvish on the Subways there, and Minus Turreth is a real building, with an observation deck open to tourists, right in the heart of Metropolitan Rohan.  Similarly, New York is like a jaded adult learning that the Universes of his favorite shows are actually real places and the actors aren't acting.

New York is probably lethal to the naive, but rejuvenating to the brooding, and both for the same reason: the city gets you outside of yourself.  My anti-Consumerist self should've been repulsed by Times Square, but Alicia Keys was right--these streets will make you feel brand-new, big lights will inspire you.  The next time someone gushes to me about their recent trip to New York, I will respond with the proper gravity.  Here, we are all the new Sinatra.