Wednesday, March 24, 2004
God Approves New Stadium
Heaven On Earth expected to be visited upon Manhattan by the Jets when their stadium opens. And they don't need no fancy computer graphics, neither:
By the way, it's a horrible, stupid idea. $600 of public money for a stadium. In a city that can't afford to regularly collect recycling. In a city where "affordable housing" means sleeping on the L train.
I'm not reflexively against public money for stadiums -- though I think it's not really necessary, I understand it. But not in Manhattan and not right now. The city's fucking broke, there are no apartments for anyone who isn't the child of a rich industrialist or Ethan Hawke, and Stadiums are big, ugly, hideous traffic-causing things that should be put out in places like New Jersey and the Bronx, where there is more room for them. Please.
Sometimes, I understand the impetus behind things like this. It's something I wouldn't mind at least attempting some time when the NYU administration walks by... or just as often, a pack (gaggle? murder?) of NYU Students (how about, continuing today's joke theme, a Buck and Gag of NYU Students).
Especially when I read crap like this in the Times. Self-serving "how the suicides affected me, as a creative writing student, who was very emotionally affected also by 9/11" bullshit.
I knew the second guy personally. I taught him how the play the ukulele the night before he fell. I worked the library at the time of both deaths. I'm studying writing at NYU, too. And I would never in a million years exploit that just to be published by the Times, which doesn't traditionally print personal musings by grad students. But because this one is tenuously connected to a few tragedies and can string them together with bullshit like "As the questions around each death swirl faster and closer, I feel that we at N.Y.U. are examining the texture of our daily lives in search of answers."
Shorter Humera Afridi: 9/11 made me feel bad because I am very empathetic. People dying at a place I sometimes go to made me feel bad too, when I heard about it third-hand long after the fact because I am very empathetic. Rhetorical question/meaningless cliche. |
By the way, it's a horrible, stupid idea. $600 of public money for a stadium. In a city that can't afford to regularly collect recycling. In a city where "affordable housing" means sleeping on the L train.
I'm not reflexively against public money for stadiums -- though I think it's not really necessary, I understand it. But not in Manhattan and not right now. The city's fucking broke, there are no apartments for anyone who isn't the child of a rich industrialist or Ethan Hawke, and Stadiums are big, ugly, hideous traffic-causing things that should be put out in places like New Jersey and the Bronx, where there is more room for them. Please.
Sometimes, I understand the impetus behind things like this. It's something I wouldn't mind at least attempting some time when the NYU administration walks by... or just as often, a pack (gaggle? murder?) of NYU Students (how about, continuing today's joke theme, a Buck and Gag of NYU Students).
Especially when I read crap like this in the Times. Self-serving "how the suicides affected me, as a creative writing student, who was very emotionally affected also by 9/11" bullshit.
I knew the second guy personally. I taught him how the play the ukulele the night before he fell. I worked the library at the time of both deaths. I'm studying writing at NYU, too. And I would never in a million years exploit that just to be published by the Times, which doesn't traditionally print personal musings by grad students. But because this one is tenuously connected to a few tragedies and can string them together with bullshit like "As the questions around each death swirl faster and closer, I feel that we at N.Y.U. are examining the texture of our daily lives in search of answers."
Shorter Humera Afridi: 9/11 made me feel bad because I am very empathetic. People dying at a place I sometimes go to made me feel bad too, when I heard about it third-hand long after the fact because I am very empathetic. Rhetorical question/meaningless cliche. |
