The BEER Group Read: Who's asking anyway?

[Curtis Rawling-Endicott]

Aye, makes sense. Not unlike living in Los Angeles- it is a choice.
There are a lot of positives, but also a lot of negatives. Hopefully,
you love it because you choose it, but you also hate it because it is
in flux, the things you love are in danger, the traffic is terrible,
potholes, pollution, gentrification, corruption, exploitation, etc.
But how could you ever leave? It is the old "front row seats at the
apocalypse" dilemma.

On Sun, Oct 13, 2013 at 8:09 AM, Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com> wrote:
> So, Mark, though I seem to contradict myself, my point is that the
> NYC, NJ, Long Island ...is made a Dystopian Zone, not because P
> doesn't love the City, or City Life,  but because he does and doesn't
> like what he sees happening to it and the people who live there.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 13, 2013 at 8:31 AM, Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hey, P finds cities, esp NY, not cool. Any different here? Because it is set
>>> here and Maxine lives here (with kids)? As
>>> P does with his wife and kid?
>>
>> I doubt that P finds city life, and especially life in NYC, uncool.
>>
>> 1. NYC is the coolest city on the Planet
>> 2. why write a novel that satirizes what is wrong with the City if you
>> don't think it has something worth saving, returning to, improving
>> upon?
>> 3. he lives here still.
>> 4. the eclectic mix, the organic melting mosaic salad bowl richness of
>> NYC is a positive value in P fiction and prose.
>> 5. his son is quite young when we consider his P's age, and, though
>> this is not that unusual anymore, at children come later and later to
>> the career trajectory that continues for women in one direction, men
>> in another here in NYC and in the country, many of P's neighbors have
>> kids when a bit younger, even now, but 20 years ago, more so, so
>> people his age have kids Maxine's age, grandchildren P's son's age.
>> Most of the the men and women,Maxine's age, including the Jewish men
>> and women in the area, Maxine's age, contrary to what has been
>> asserted here, are professionals who earn big bucks, not
>> philanthropists and artists and teachers, and many are married to
>> people who work in finance, tech-land, etc. wall street, and to people
>> who are more like Gatsby then white shoes wasps.  P nails it with
>> Maxine by marrying her to a commodities broker. This is not only
>> historically accurate but works in several thematic ways as we will
>> see later. The street fighters who own the pits are not what many of
>> you think--not those banksters at GoldMan.
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/The-Asylum-Renegades-Hijacked-Worlds/dp/B006CDD95M
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