Lame. RT “@KBAndersen: Updike: "The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding."”

Just to be clear, my last tweet is not calling @KBAndersen or John Updike lame, but rather New Yorkers who celebrate smug incuriosity.

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.

New Yorkers are never more like the hicks they disdain than when bragging about how they have no interest in other places.

And I've lived for years in New York and among hicks, so I know what I'm talking about.

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.

And yes, all I said goes for smug San Franciscans, Austinites, Londoners, etc., too. I just have more experience with the NY variety.

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!

In short, celebrate curiosity and cosmopolitanism, not narrowness. I love you, NYC. (& Austin, San Francisco, Portland, and Taylor, Texas.)

MT @jndevereux I love New York, lived there 10 years, but smug provincialism is the most tedious thing about NYC's culture.//Agree totally.

@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!