This is a great piece, Roy. I've come to realize "wisdom" isn't some Matrix-like brain download you receive around late middle age, it's a viewpoint you grow into. You find some kind of peace with the past, you see the present with clear eyes (mostly), and you're philosophical about the future.
By the way, I don't know how people put up with me during the first decade after I moved from NYC to Philly. I practically walked around wearing sackcloth and crying "Woe!"
As much as I enjoyed all the Milt Drucker styled satire with the goofy names and outrageous jokes ( and fashion !? What the hell - it works) I think I really enjoy these thought pieces most of all.
When you started talking about, "enlightenment" , " deep serenity" and such where "all is revealed", I thought " Oh, Roy needs a gummy"
Then I read it down about " spectral figures" and "decades passing in seconds" I thought
" Oh, maybe he's already got some gummies!"
I was telling my boss the other day I planned on retiring next spring and reducing my hours down to 2 or 3 days a week. I told him not to expect much out of me though. I'm going to start every day with a gummy and a cup of coffee and haunt this place at the outside edges and quiet corners like some Friendly Ghost. He allowed that would be okay.
Anyway, think great thoughts. Bump memories of the past with reflections of the present and share the results.
I can definitely relate to that! I still struggle a bit with the doubts that some of that bullshit has instilled in me, but I can at least recognize it when it's happening, and I think that's a positive step.
A wonderful piece. In a life that's been roughly the same length as Roy's, I've learned only one thing that might be called wisdom: be kind to all living creatures.
It's been more than 30 years since I last visited my Long Island home. It was completely unrecognizable. The houses had changed colors. Trees had fallen or been cut down and new ones grown in new places. Businesses had closed and been replaced by new ones. It all reinforced the notion that you can't go home again because that place doesn't exist any more.
It was on that same trip that I last visited Manhattan. And while it was slightly different, it was all the same. The Daily News building was still there with its giant globe in the lobby. The UN still stood. McCann's Bar still served, and Smiley's Deli still offered with most flavorless roast beef sandwiches ever created. And just as it had struck me the first time I went to Manhattan alone as a teenager, so it hit me again that all this had been here long before me and would continue long after I'm dust.
So perhaps the roots of wisdom lie in seeing that changes and accepting them, and realizing that despite the changes, some things endure and continue to hold life and meaning far beyond our own short lives.
When I visited my childhood home in Detroit, it was a gutted shell, plumbing and electrical ripped out. I wondered if the piano I learned to play on was still in the basement my dad was so proud of finishing, tile floor, a bar and that fake wood paneling. The house next door was well-maintained and inhabited. What's being called wisdom here used to be called perspective, seeing the Big Picture and your place in it. Insert Total Perspective Vortex joke here.
I can't be the only one who gets choked up when Roy writes a “serious” piece about memory and New York. This one did it, again. I was back in town over the weekend, too. But I still have a way to go on the road to wisdom. I need to get past the bike lanes.
I came to terms with leaving NYC eventually, and now I'm in the slow, probably years-long process of moving back. But certain things still get to me. Roy's pieces, the light in NYC during the golden hour or at dawn. I'm an absolute sucker for the opening credits of Breakfast at Tiffany's, because it reminds me of the NYC of my childhood in the late 60's and early 70's, when my parents would take me from the Bronx into Manhattan for some good adventure.
Ben Gazzara was salting with a purpose. He didn't want to date or be married anymore.
I wrote a few lines on Labor Day in a similar spirit to the images you end with, feelings like a lock the combination long forgotten or old keys we keep in case.
In case we go back and the locks have not been changed? But we have changed, and we no longer fit in those places we once called home.
Seeing an urban space that has changed not as a scar of loss, as a moment of one’s own alienation, but as flow going past of something bigger that never can be lost is seeing one’s surroundings in Legbean terms, as the crossroads of possibility & play. If the space was never yours to begin with, all you can do is join the crowd of ghosts & dance.
That sounds like wisdom to me, so congrats, you made it baby….
[Self-promo PS (… SPPS?)] I’m just a few paragraphs away from finishing my next Substack essay-lette on bees & mead!
Yep, there was a time when gentlemen walked the streets of Olde Manhattan Town with silk stockings and woolen waist-coats. When women couldn't vote. When horse drawn carriages blocked the intersections. It's all gone.
We lived in South Beach (Miami) back in the 1990s for several yearswhen it was still pretty run down (affordable!), and had a thriving arts scene and was being revitalized by gay people moving in for the weather, sand and sea, and the cool old Late Art Deco style. Left in 1999 to return to Chicago for my Real Job Life. I had the same experiences sullenly visiting old haunts on return trips to visit friends. Little by little all my old friends left, too and now I haven't been back in 20 years. It's changed so much, become vastly overcrowded with high rises, choked with traffic, and very, very corporate (GAP, Victoria's Secret, Banana Republic, etc, etc)... and of course is now wildly overpriced. Not to mention that it floods regularly (it did flood from time to time back in the '90s but it is a regular occurrence these days). I will never return, it no longer belongs to me, it's not even the same place anymore.
There's other parts of the world I haven't seen yet, and I'd rather make new memories in my old age. We do still have friends from those days though, that's the kind of thing that lasts... at least of a few decades if we're lucky.
". . . I'd rather make new memories in my old age."
I understand this. I've got limited brain capacity nowadays; not that it was that expansive earlier. I thank Ed Roso for his reminisces (of a place I've never been, and becoming increasingly unlikely to visit).
I don’t know about wisdom, sometimes I think it’s just an excuse to make people respect us olds, no matter how clueless and/or prejudiced we may be. I include myself, happy to regale my kids with advice based on my decades of staying alive, but I’m blessed with a spouse who reminds me that they really don’t get much from ideas that are probably obsolete. Anyway, the other day a newcomer asked me what’s changed in our little burg since we moved here 20 some years ago and I had trouble saying because it’s happened so gradually. But if I go back to any of the towns I used to live in across the country, the changes are dramatic, just like the kid I last saw in fourth grade who’s now six foot four. Then there’s catching a glimpse of yourself in a mirror and wondering who that old guy is; especially since my spouse doesn’t age according to everyone, not just me.
Well, I’m glad you’re not dead yet too, Roy. Also “deshabille” is another one of those words I need to find a way to use more often.
This is a great piece, Roy. I've come to realize "wisdom" isn't some Matrix-like brain download you receive around late middle age, it's a viewpoint you grow into. You find some kind of peace with the past, you see the present with clear eyes (mostly), and you're philosophical about the future.
By the way, I don't know how people put up with me during the first decade after I moved from NYC to Philly. I practically walked around wearing sackcloth and crying "Woe!"
You'll never make it into one of Roy's sketches in *that* outfit!
Honey, I'll have you know I *rocked* that sackcloth.
that last paragraph kind of evoked Whitman's Crossing Brooklyn Ferry to me. whether this praises you or him, I leave up to the gentle reader.
I, as a reader, do not go gentle. YMMV.
As much as I enjoyed all the Milt Drucker styled satire with the goofy names and outrageous jokes ( and fashion !? What the hell - it works) I think I really enjoy these thought pieces most of all.
When you started talking about, "enlightenment" , " deep serenity" and such where "all is revealed", I thought " Oh, Roy needs a gummy"
Then I read it down about " spectral figures" and "decades passing in seconds" I thought
" Oh, maybe he's already got some gummies!"
I was telling my boss the other day I planned on retiring next spring and reducing my hours down to 2 or 3 days a week. I told him not to expect much out of me though. I'm going to start every day with a gummy and a cup of coffee and haunt this place at the outside edges and quiet corners like some Friendly Ghost. He allowed that would be okay.
Anyway, think great thoughts. Bump memories of the past with reflections of the present and share the results.
That's entertainment!
"He allowed that would be okay." are they hiring?
Also thank you
The wisdom I’ve gained in old age is largely realizing how much of what I was taught in my youth was complete bullshit.
I can definitely relate to that! I still struggle a bit with the doubts that some of that bullshit has instilled in me, but I can at least recognize it when it's happening, and I think that's a positive step.
A wonderful piece. In a life that's been roughly the same length as Roy's, I've learned only one thing that might be called wisdom: be kind to all living creatures.
“… I've learned only one thing that might be called wisdom: be kind to all living creatures“
Except trolls, fucking tease the shit out of them
[slaps forehead] so THAT'S it!
It's been more than 30 years since I last visited my Long Island home. It was completely unrecognizable. The houses had changed colors. Trees had fallen or been cut down and new ones grown in new places. Businesses had closed and been replaced by new ones. It all reinforced the notion that you can't go home again because that place doesn't exist any more.
It was on that same trip that I last visited Manhattan. And while it was slightly different, it was all the same. The Daily News building was still there with its giant globe in the lobby. The UN still stood. McCann's Bar still served, and Smiley's Deli still offered with most flavorless roast beef sandwiches ever created. And just as it had struck me the first time I went to Manhattan alone as a teenager, so it hit me again that all this had been here long before me and would continue long after I'm dust.
So perhaps the roots of wisdom lie in seeing that changes and accepting them, and realizing that despite the changes, some things endure and continue to hold life and meaning far beyond our own short lives.
When I visited my childhood home in Detroit, it was a gutted shell, plumbing and electrical ripped out. I wondered if the piano I learned to play on was still in the basement my dad was so proud of finishing, tile floor, a bar and that fake wood paneling. The house next door was well-maintained and inhabited. What's being called wisdom here used to be called perspective, seeing the Big Picture and your place in it. Insert Total Perspective Vortex joke here.
I AM ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX!
I can't be the only one who gets choked up when Roy writes a “serious” piece about memory and New York. This one did it, again. I was back in town over the weekend, too. But I still have a way to go on the road to wisdom. I need to get past the bike lanes.
I have noticed that two-wheelers, motorized or not, have gone feral in Manhattan. I felt like a kitten in a lion cage.
So...lions be gently carryin' you 'round between their teeth? That is SOOOO CUTE!
I came to terms with leaving NYC eventually, and now I'm in the slow, probably years-long process of moving back. But certain things still get to me. Roy's pieces, the light in NYC during the golden hour or at dawn. I'm an absolute sucker for the opening credits of Breakfast at Tiffany's, because it reminds me of the NYC of my childhood in the late 60's and early 70's, when my parents would take me from the Bronx into Manhattan for some good adventure.
This was profoundly beautiful and yes, wise. Thank you —
Ben Gazzara was salting with a purpose. He didn't want to date or be married anymore.
I wrote a few lines on Labor Day in a similar spirit to the images you end with, feelings like a lock the combination long forgotten or old keys we keep in case.
In case we go back and the locks have not been changed? But we have changed, and we no longer fit in those places we once called home.
This is a lovely set of reflections.
Seeing an urban space that has changed not as a scar of loss, as a moment of one’s own alienation, but as flow going past of something bigger that never can be lost is seeing one’s surroundings in Legbean terms, as the crossroads of possibility & play. If the space was never yours to begin with, all you can do is join the crowd of ghosts & dance.
That sounds like wisdom to me, so congrats, you made it baby….
[Self-promo PS (… SPPS?)] I’m just a few paragraphs away from finishing my next Substack essay-lette on bees & mead!
This is why I pay for the (cheap!) subscription. Wonderful piece, Roy.
Yep, there was a time when gentlemen walked the streets of Olde Manhattan Town with silk stockings and woolen waist-coats. When women couldn't vote. When horse drawn carriages blocked the intersections. It's all gone.
We lived in South Beach (Miami) back in the 1990s for several yearswhen it was still pretty run down (affordable!), and had a thriving arts scene and was being revitalized by gay people moving in for the weather, sand and sea, and the cool old Late Art Deco style. Left in 1999 to return to Chicago for my Real Job Life. I had the same experiences sullenly visiting old haunts on return trips to visit friends. Little by little all my old friends left, too and now I haven't been back in 20 years. It's changed so much, become vastly overcrowded with high rises, choked with traffic, and very, very corporate (GAP, Victoria's Secret, Banana Republic, etc, etc)... and of course is now wildly overpriced. Not to mention that it floods regularly (it did flood from time to time back in the '90s but it is a regular occurrence these days). I will never return, it no longer belongs to me, it's not even the same place anymore.
There's other parts of the world I haven't seen yet, and I'd rather make new memories in my old age. We do still have friends from those days though, that's the kind of thing that lasts... at least of a few decades if we're lucky.
". . . I'd rather make new memories in my old age."
I understand this. I've got limited brain capacity nowadays; not that it was that expansive earlier. I thank Ed Roso for his reminisces (of a place I've never been, and becoming increasingly unlikely to visit).
Well said. Perhaps wisdom is also an understanding that comes to one sooner if unencumbered by false or overindulgent nostalgia.
Beautifully said, Roy, as always. Thank you.
I don’t know about wisdom, sometimes I think it’s just an excuse to make people respect us olds, no matter how clueless and/or prejudiced we may be. I include myself, happy to regale my kids with advice based on my decades of staying alive, but I’m blessed with a spouse who reminds me that they really don’t get much from ideas that are probably obsolete. Anyway, the other day a newcomer asked me what’s changed in our little burg since we moved here 20 some years ago and I had trouble saying because it’s happened so gradually. But if I go back to any of the towns I used to live in across the country, the changes are dramatic, just like the kid I last saw in fourth grade who’s now six foot four. Then there’s catching a glimpse of yourself in a mirror and wondering who that old guy is; especially since my spouse doesn’t age according to everyone, not just me.
These days, when I'm in a group photo and afterwards look to see myself, I keep looking for that guy with the black hair. He's not there any more.