Fish And Fear

Here is one from the pet store, which earns a thumb's up for weirdness from Madeleine and Eitan.

We catch the North White Plains line from the 125 Street Harlem station, which is yet again an entirely different world. NYC has cleaned up considerably since my first arrival in '89 when the city seemed dangerous above 95th ... this imaginary boundery gone, enforced by Columbia Business School expanding up to 140 Street. Sure, there are dilapidated pockets but these mostly isolated to Harlem and the Bronx though I admit my window from a taxi. I read that certain New Yorkers nostalgic for '70s urban grittiness - like having black-outs and a heroin problem a good thing - you know, Pop-Eye Doyle or Travis Bickle and all that. There probably was a creative and artistic environment, sex and drugs and rock and roll - but the city was bankrupt and pity those poor middle class honkies cowering in their flats. Or fleeing to the suburbs. And what about Times Square which is now owned by Disney and nary a porno theatre nor prostitute to be seen? Can the under-belly of Gotham really be one giant, police controlled pedestrian walk? But to Harlem: there is no longer racial tension that once made this place simmer and a no-go zone for the post-college, professional types I hung with .. nor is there a hint of drugs or violence which was on offer 20 years ago - 1990 being the year New York set its record for annual murders at over 2,000. We, the people, were bombarded by this news every day and though Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side, where I lived, perfectly safe it did not feel so. Humans have a great ability to misjudge a risk based on repetition or scale of threat - death by murder being an extreme worry, I might suggest. How simple a time, then, when the only thing to fear a mugger or graffitti covered subway after-hours. At least the bogeyman was tangible, unlike what we have been sold since 9-11.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
-- H.P. Lovecraft.