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Julien's rant about smug New Yorker provincialism

I liked it so much I saved it here.

  1. jndevereux
    Lame. RT “@KBAndersen: Updike: "The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding."”
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  2. jndevereux
    Just to be clear, my last tweet is not calling @KBAndersen or John Updike lame, but rather New Yorkers who celebrate smug incuriosity.
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  3. jndevereux
    I love New York, lived there nearly ten years (through 9/11), etc., but smug provincialism is the most tedious thing about NYC's culture.
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  4. jndevereux
    New Yorkers are never more like the hicks they disdain than when bragging about how they have no interest in other places.
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  6. jndevereux
    It's like the famous Steinberg poster, which I read as slightly barbed satire, but some people seem to think is a guide to right thinking.
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  7. jndevereux
    And yes, all I said goes for smug San Franciscans, Austinites, Londoners, etc., too. I just have more experience with the NY variety.
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  8. jndevereux
    I got angry when people in NYC would tell me "only tourists look up at the buildings." ONLY A BUFFOON IGNORES THE BUILDINGS! LOOK UP!
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  9. jndevereux
    In short, celebrate curiosity and cosmopolitanism, not narrowness. I love you, NYC. (& Austin, San Francisco, Portland, and Taylor, Texas.)
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  10. KBAndersen
    MT @jndevereux I love New York, lived there 10 years, but smug provincialism is the most tedious thing about NYC's culture.//Agree totally.
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  11. jndevereux
    @austinkleon Ha, thanks! It always bugged me: you live in a fantastic city, but you're supposed to act bored about it and the world? F that!
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