New York Is The Mind State

OMG. It's soooo cute how Buffalo got featured in NY Mag earlier this last week; I loved how it was all if you can make it there, in Buffalo, you can make it anywhere, there ... in buffalo. So true!

And omg, it's been so totally cute reading the comments. When I first spotted the piece there were, like, 40 comments, and, like, 35 of them were all "yeah, Buffalo rocks. The Chinese food is much-better-than-you-expect and the other day we went somewhere and saw ... *turns to significant other* ... what did we see the other day, dear? Oh yeah that's it, CULTURE. We saw Culture the other night and it was absolutely wonderful and really just as good as any Culture i've read about it in big cites. And, might I add, not as much a drubbing on the wallet. "

Now (as of last week) there's 150+ comments (Buffalo, stand up!), and I can only assume its still about 90% of them hollering for Irrelevant City Buffalo, New York.

Which is really really sweet.

It almost makes me want to get on the first Greyhound to Buffaloville and gather in the Town Square with everyone and celebrate the better-than-you-think culture scene with singing songs.

Maybe ones everyone knows and can sing along with, like this one:



ahhh, those little town blues... nice to indulge those every once in a while.

it's funny cause i shared this article with a friend and she knew i'd been in the dumps about some work stuff recently and she was like, does this mean you want to leave NYC? And I was like, god, heavens no! Shoot, if i need to find lower prices and a thriving, underrated culture scene i can just move to Astoria.

Ha! I'm just joshin' with ya, Buff. Just a lil' good-ol' apostrophe-needin' small-town humor, knowwhaimsayin'?

I mean, I get it. You're not a lesser person just because you live in buffalo.

*cough*

Cause in some very irrelevant sense we all just go to work, talk to our neighbors, take the kids to school, etc. etc. And you can do that anywhere.

Well, anywhere except New York.

New York is tough, you gotta earn it.

Of course i'm a native NYer who has lived here his whole life. i'm obviously biased.



The thing is, it seems to me it's even more than a state of mind. New York is The Empire Mind State ..

Sure the center of the universe is separating into the haves and have-nots, but that doesn't mean rich and poor. NYC is by any means necessary: you don't have to be rich, you do have to be smart.

If you can make it here, it's because of your brain. When Hov says, "put me anywhere on god's green earth, i'll triple my worth." He means Buffalo too.

And I stress it because it's easy to get caught up in the handwringing over the accompanying superficial glitz and glam. And no question, the place is kind of dirty. In some places it's downright nasty even.

But that's just excess, in the Nietzschean sense: "The only proof of strength is excess of strength."

That's why our magazine is doling out props to Buffalo, instead of Buffalafrica Digest, or whatever they read out there, putting people on to Manhattan.

Now I'm pretty sure I'm not bursting anyone's Buffalopian Paradise or anything, and I totes-totally want to visit... I guess reading some of the comments got my greasy, oily NY feathers ruffled up.

I mean really people, if you go to Buffalo you might as well say you're going to Timbuktu, or going to Alaska, or even just going crazy cause all of them are more interesting.

[*rimshot* I'll be here all week ... in Buffalo!]

It's not that I think Buffalo -- or any small-town satellite -- is particularly unpleasant. They're definitely tolerable, like the citified embodiment of small talk... but—

I don't know, I guess I'm just an obnoxious pompous-assed New Yorker.

But I'll take it over Buffalo...



Could Mediocrity Make Someone Want To Leave New York And Move To Buffalo? Why Yes, Yes It Could. [NY Mag]

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