Here they come, as prophesied. Already, three old friends I had given away entirely to New York City’s insatiable human appetite are back in the ‘hood, and not just for a visit. It’s as though the boroughs are already under water, half a century ahead of schedule.
Questions about where New York City goes from here are pressing but unanswerable. If the city loses its exceptionalism and its mythic global lure, if it can’t shake a certain sense of taint and viral nesting, perhaps it is finally time for me to move there.
Yes, says Liz. We can walk our carts over the rusting Williamsburg Bridge to lower Manhattan on water-collection days. It will be nice.
Well, that’s not funny. But, in any case, it is nice to have Johnnie Wang back in town. The guitarist-songwriter from such Hudson Valley bands as Poureurik, Wooden Rope, and A Black China, and from the tragically under-exposed Brooklyn band All Forces, rebranded himself as BK concern more than a decade ago and had a great run there as a beer professional, restaurant manager, and part-time musician.
Now he is back in the Village of New Paltz. The eras collapse and collide, and tonight we meet for a beer. All my lovelies return.
Read more installments of Village Voices by John Burdick.
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