An Excerpt

"His first days in the city were like hyper vivid continuations of the urban dreams....Humanity coming from him at every direction. Andean musicians piping and drumming in Union Square. Solemn firefighters nodding to the crowd assembled outside the station house. A pair of fur coated ladies ballsily appropriating a cab hailed outside of Bloomingdales.  Tres hot middle school girls wearing jeans under their mini skirts and slouching on the subway with their legs wide open. Cornrowed ghetto kinds in ominous jumbo parkas. National Guard patrolling Grand Central with highly advanced weapons. The Chinese grandmother hawking DVD's of film that hadn't opened yet, the break-dancer who ripped a muscle or tendon who sat rocking in pain on the floor of the 6 train, the insistent saxophone player to whom Joey gave five dollars to help him get to a gig; Each encounter was a poem he instantly memorized."

Jonathan Franzen's Freedom

And an adequate description of my first few days here, three long years ago....