HIS PERFECT RECORD OF WRONGNESS IS INTACT.
I've been living in DC for a couple years now, and I don't talk about it much because, well, you know me -- if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything! Kidding, slightly. Our Northeast neighborhood is pretty chill and friendly, except for the white people, and DC certainly has world-class museums and a couple nice bars. But let's be frank: This is no New York. For example, the entertainment "corridor" to which we are closest, the fabled H Street, is a joke. Most of the venues are pitched at kids -- that is, the brown-nosing little climbers who throng DC's "corridors" on weekends -- and since DC's small scale allows rapacious developers to completely overwhelm whatever strip they choose to devour, it has made the street into a Disneyland of crap. Last year some schmo invested what looks like at least half a mil to erect a shiny, art-directed new joint here that sells -- I swear to God -- cheesesteaks and flavored ices. It's a Bennigan's bohemia.
I could go on, but why should I -- Isn't the fact that Andrew Sullivan prefers DC to New York proof enough for you? Apparently he has a long thing about it in the Times of London, to which I'm not going to subscribe but the bits that have been quoted are probably all I should read for my heart's sake:
Every journey to any other place in the city is a battle of wills with everyone else; no one ever steps aside or evinces the slightest shade of civility on the pavement. There are no queues, just teeming masses of selfishness and hostility...
Picture Sullivan pausing to contemplate the muse of centrism on a Midtown sidewalk and getting knocked on his ass by people who have to get to fucking work. It improved my day!
If you think you’ll find intellectual stimulation you’re thinking of another era. The conversations are invariably about money or property or schools.
What else would one talk to Andrew Sullivan about? They were trying to do you a favor, schmuck. Or maybe themselves -- just imagining Sullivan trying to talk about art, for example, makes me cringe.
If you bring up any political subject you are engulfed by a smug liberal consensus that borders on outright bigotry and brutal intolerance towards dissent.
"Oh, so you're that asshole Andrew Sullivan, huh? Well let me tell you something...." -- Overhead at the 92nd Street Y. After years of having his ass kissed, Sullivan probably ran into people who don't care who Andrew Sullivan is. No wonder he fled.
Oh, Sullivan earlier referred to DC as a "Second Brooklyn." This is probably based on brunches in the Heights with Martin Amis. "And over there, Andrew, is where Norman Mailer used to live." "Rather small, isn't it? Have I mentioned my DC apartment? 1500 square feet of a school classroom I got for a steal in 1991?" "Many times."