words about new york
Clay Felker died today. He was the founding editor of New York Magazine and had immense influence over the way that New York City was covered, obsessed with what Kurt Andersen calls “our local pageant of ambition, the yearning and hustling and jostling for power and—even more—status.
“For hyperambitious provincials like Harold Ross and Clay Felker, the impulse and ability to deconstruct this city’s life entertainingly was a result of their outsiders’ unjaded shock and awe at the spectacle, their clarity of vision. What people born and raised here understand intuitively and tend to take for granted—the precise paths to glory, the unspoken demarcations of power and status—are secrets that an émigré must puzzle out for himself when he arrives from the sticks. Probably all outsiders (if they are, in White’s genius phrase, “willing to be lucky”) mentally compile a New York City field guide and playbook when they’re in their twenties and thirties, but Felker did so literally, and published it in weekly serial form.
Lately I’ve had a better persepective on what it is that I “understand intuitively and tend to take for granted” about New York. I can’t imagine having to learn the ropes as an adult. Though it might be more exciting to visit Manhattan if I did. Imagine, visiting Manhattan is a chore. I think I need a vacation.
