“One need never leave the confines of New York”
North Cove, Battery Park
New York, September 2007
“One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life”
From “Meditations in an Emergency” by Frank O'Hara
7 comments:
That's a funny comment, if also completely off the wall. What a dork! And prejudiced? You betcha!
Why, we out here in the boonies, surrounded by woods and trees, birds and bees, and all the other glories of nature, like snakes and gators ... we do not regret life, we revel in it.
And some of us will never see New York City. Except in your photos!
Sheesh!
;-)
Strange words. Some people are city folks to the hilt (I know people who say there is no life outside of Paris...
I found it funny that these words were on the railings facing Jersey City, like a warning...
I discovered by chance that this was a quotation from a much longer work by a poet I didn't know.
And even here, in the cramped and messy Livorno, there are people who think that the rest of the world is a bluff.
I found this hilarious. It could be taken seriously, or it could be ironic. It's interesting that it came from a poem. I actually like the poem, as it says something meaningful about the person and a type of mentality. This is really something. It's art, with the ambiguity that some of the best art embodies. A nice find, and a nice monochromatic scheme.
The word "confines" is so interesting here, too, as the poet goes on to relate that he does not feel confined in NYC. Again, an elevation to art.
WOW!!!
This is one of my very favorite quotes and I think people have missed the point on this. O'Hara mentions New York City, but to me the point is that as humans, we tend to congregate and do stuff and build stuff. O'Hara's point is that that's not only okay, it's good. We celebrate life, we don't regret it. O'Hara lived in New York City, but he could have lived anywhere and made the same point - it's not about New York in particular, it's about living as a society and not hating it and each other so much that we need to go someplace far away from the subways and record stores of our lives.
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