How do you write about the city? On "Here Is New York"

I read E.B. White's "Here Is New York" for Deal Me In 2017.

White wrote this sprawling essay in the 1940s. NYC has changed quite a bit since then, and was changing moment-by-moment even as he was writing about it. That quality is something he tries to capture in the essay - that even as he sits alone in a stifling, hot room, all the city’s activities swirl around him.

A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry…

What I liked best about this essay is how it shows the challenge (futile, perhaps, but worthwhile) of trying to tackle a subject as big as the city. White is trying to capture what the city is and what it means to people, but there’s so much of it, so what does a writer do?

He approaches the city from different angles - making observations about various groups of people, neighborhoods, the way you can remain fairly insulated from major events if you want. He’s trying to throw a net around a massive fish, and in the dark it struggles and eludes capture. Now and then he records glimpses of its body and sometimes clues as to what it is as a whole, but it slips away.

(These are issues general to writing - what details do you focus on, and what do you leave out? When is a work of writing complete?)

White glides from general statistics to descriptions of specific streets. He discusses a trend and tosses out an anecdote. He breathes the romance of the city and lays bare its darkness (“the cold menace of unresolved human suffering and poverty”). You get a sense of what the city is, while realizing that there’s so much you still don’t know. And I like how White does this - with the essay unfolding not so much as a walk, but as if White had wings and were hovering here and there, pointing things out, before going off to have a drink.

All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.

Whatever the city is, humanity and its burning questions are caught up in it. (For instance, how can so many people live more or less peacefully in a cramped space?) He hopes that the city will endure. It must.

Week in Seven Words #322

austere
The immaculate bareness of a garden with its gates closed.

clattering
"Please, no quarters," the cashier says. "A lady came in this morning and paid me 56 dollars in quarters."

larynx
They dial up the excitement in a game of Twister by trying to put each other in chokeholds.

smoother
I keep thinking this is going to be an awkward, painful conversation, made more uncomfortable by the fact that it's over the phone - not face-to-face or by email, which is what I prefer. But it goes well. There are no leaden, sinking silences.

striven
Reaching a private, hard-won milestone that gives me hope.

thumb
It hits me that I don't look like anyone in the room. Superficially, I could say I have the same hair color or skin color as most of them. But I couldn't blend in if I tried. One after the other, hair, clothes, gestures, unblemished sameness, and I'm amazed and a little afraid sitting there sticking out.

tints
Colors creep into a brisk, cold landscape. The shades of blue in the reservoir, the green tint to the gray plants by the wayside that hold out for warmer weather.

"The water sustains me without even trying..."

A beautiful duet. Have listened to it over and over again. The lyrics are poetry.

Week in Seven Words #321

fawner
Finding something I wrote in all earnestness when I was young, when I so earnestly wanted to please.

putrefaction
Cleaning deep under my desk, I find something that makes me wish I'd cleaned sooner.

racket
Connect Four pieces clattering on the table like a slot machine jackpot.

respiratory
One guy grunts at the weights, another groans at the weights, a third vacuums the carpet, and a fourth gasps on a treadmill.

spillage
They'd like me to be a receptacle for their unpleasant emotions. A sponge that will soak up their excesses.

taboo
The standup routine is raunchier than anything they've watched before, giving them new words to mouth in wonder.

tumble
In every season there's something to make you slip: ice, leaves, a slurry of mud and motor oil, blossoms rotting.

Deal Me In 2017 - Short Nonfiction Version

Over at his blog, Bibliophilica, Jay has announced the 2017 "Deal Me In" Challenge.

Pick a bunch of short stories, assign each of them to a different card in a deck, and each week pick a card at random. Read the story and share your thoughts about it. (If you don't want to do this on a weekly basis, use only two suits from the deck or something like that.)

The thing is, I don't read short stories based on a pre-planned list. But I'd like to participate. Given that the challenge allows for variations, I'm focusing on essays, feature articles, letters, and speeches. I've been making a list of my own anyway as part of my effort to study more short nonfiction.

So here's my list. I plan to comment on these here or at Words in Bold, depending on the topic.

(If you're interested in participating in this challenge, whether with short fiction, short nonfiction or a mix, go for it, and let Jay know.)

Week in Seven Words #320

crisply
It's a crackling park. Branches bristle, evergreen needles scritch, mulch grinds underfoot.

enchanter
The branches wave about the tree's crown as if it's casting a spell.

frantic
In everything, she chases love, sincere unflinching love, withheld from her as a child and longed-for decades later.

loosening
Shoulders relaxing as I settle at the table with a glass of sparkling wine.

masquerade
Forehead-slapping moment when the words I've rehearsed come out costumed in a different meaning and tone.

nonfulfillment
"They don't know how to write," he says of his students. "They don't care. They think they have nothing worth sharing. Maybe they don't!"

worrying
Sucking on cough drops as the wind nips my cheeks and throat.

"I see you when you're sleeping..."

Before I go off to light the first Hanukkah candle, I wanted to share this, as it gave me a much-needed laugh earlier this week. Happy holidays, folks.