In a
visit this past week to a Barnes & Noble store on 82nd Street
and Broadway, near the heart of the Upper West Side, I found myself doing what
I love best to do in a bookstore. I just
strolled across the shelves and let the books speak to me. I’d see a random cover and pull the book off
the shelf, contemplating its adoption. I
repeated this act dozens of times. To do
just that, without reading or buying a book, is an act of fulfillment. I’ve been doing this my whole life and few
other experiences equal the satisfaction this delivers to me. Don’t get me wrong, eating chocolate, reading
The New York Post, having sex, daydreaming about sex, or watching Zach Wheeler pitch for the Mets could rival or
exceed the act of browsing books, but the open discovery of ideas and knowledge
one comes across by walking just a few feet is really amazing.
I ended
up pulling a half-dozen books off the shelf for further skimming. I looked
through them as I sat in the upstairs café and imbibed on green tea that was
accompanied by a triple chocolate brownie.
The first book I examined was The
Little Red Book of New York Wisdom.
Catchy title, glossy colored pages, and a paperless cover drew me
in. Then I saw the author was Mayor Ed
Koch, now deceased by a couple of years. The book came out in 2011.
The back
cover quote from Koch says: “I’m not the type to get ulcers. I give them.”
Koch represented the real New Yorker in an era of financial troubles,
rampant crime, and racial division. But
he was a true leader and a real character that even people who disliked his
politics could still appreciate.
Oddly,
Koch acted more as a curator for this book, sharing hundreds of quotes from other famous people about the greatest city on
Earth, including real New Yorkers such as Spike Lee, David Letterman, Woody Allen,
Donald Trump, and Joan Rivers. Of the
three Koch quotes included in his book, this one shares a true insight as to
the city’s significance: “New York is where the future comes to audition.”
I met
Koch on a number of occasions. Once at Book Expo, the annual trade show for the
book industry, he was sitting slumped in a chair, seemingly exhausted from promoting
one of his books. We chatted about his earlier books and whether he missed
being mayor. On another occasion, I ran into him coming out of a movie theater.
He used to review movies. I asked him what he had just seen and what he thought
about it. I then asked him about some movies that I enjoyed to get his take. He
was a friendly guy who could talk about anything – as long as he was talking.
A quote
that now seems dated, given how safe America’s largest city is, can still make
you laugh. Jay Leno said: “The crime
problem in New York is getting really serious.
The other day the Statue of Liberty had both hands up.”
Something
that still holds water was said by writer and journalist Jack Anderson: “The
networks don’t recognize a story until it’s in The New York Times.”
Sex and the City’s lead character, Carrie
Bradshaw, is quoted as saying: “New York City is all about sex. People getting it, people trying to get it,
people who cant get it. No wonder the
city never sleeps. It’s too busy trying to get laid.”
Kurt
Vonnegut called New York “Skyscraper national park” and Woody Allen noted “This
is the town that never sleeps. That’s
why we don’t live in Duluth. That, plus
I don’t know where Duluth is.”
Quotation
books make for a quick read. You can just pick one up, find something you agree
with, put it down, let it marinate, and then move on to the next quote. This
book made me long for a New York City that used to be. There’s nothing wrong
with the 2014 version, but the book pushed my thoughts back into the 1980s and
70s, when there was a grit to the city that is now softened by its
Disneyfication. But who cares what I have to say, for as Russell Baker quips in
the book: “The most irritating thing of all is that New Yorkers really don’t
care what you say about their city.”
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog
are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest
book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him
at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person.
This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014
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