To a guy like me that grew up in rural Indiana and then suburban Atlanta, I saw New York as the ultimate in cool. Over the past few years living here, I have increasingly seen the class divisions in the city, economic as well as culturally. For me, this becomes increasingly pronounced over the summer more than other times during the year. Summer officially began about a week ago, and I’ve been running into a number of articles about “what is summer” and “what summer means to me.” They have ranged from the typical advice on summer reading to some odd things I haven’t run into and smell of elite New York thumbing their nose at the common folk.
For example, Newsweek had an article recently on The Virtues of a Stiff G&T. I had always thought thought that the gin & tonic was the drink of choice for irritating yuppies. The article goes on for several hundred words and explains the history of gin, but never explains WHY it’s a summer drink. I call shenanigans! Gin is not a summer drink. I’ll stick to my Brooklyn Summer Ale thank you very much.
The other odd piece I ran into was on NPR’s On the Media. They had Malcolm Jones (coincidentally also from Newsweek) on the air explaining that reading War & Peace is a great classic that everyone should read at least once, and that the summer is the perfect time to read it. I have never read the novel, and I’m sure it’s great. However, over the summer, I enjoy lighter reading. For example, I may pick up the new book
So what am I doing over the summer? Not a ton of plans. I am going on vacation the 2nd week of July. I also went to The Mermaid Parade in Coney Island and a Gogol Bordello concert last weekend. I have two posts drafted to write about those, so they are coming! I don’t have a lot of hard plans other than enjoying as much time outside as I can and getting out to the Hamptons a few times this summer. Does that make me a New York elitist?
What are you up to for the summer?