A Transplant to New York City Pre-Reflects

Clay Risen, who is moving to New York City to take the last job in town, working on the op-ed page of the New York Times, pens an essay about New York and how it is just a town. In it he displays, I think, a failure of understanding a place that actually is made entirely of money and status and acquisition or lack of such. Speaking against Joan Didion, he writes: “But New York is just a mere city, no more and no less-it’s simply bigger than the rest. It may be the ‘nexus of all love and money and power,’ but there’s no mystery to it. It’s just life, on an exponentially larger scale than most people are prepared for.” I suggest that he doesn’t get it at all now, but he certainly will; I look forward to reading his thoughts in five or fifteen years or so, particularly as he has been engaged to work daily with people using the leverage of the op-ed page to express their power, wealth and agendas.