The Last Days Of Other Music: An Ode to an NYC Institution
My parents, like many unaccustomed to the oft-suffocating experience of metropolis life, hate New York City. Hate it. I've lived here for seven years now, and in that time, they've visited for approximately one full day, broken into two half-days: When I first toured the NYU campus (or lack thereof, its classrooms are spread throughout Greenwich Village and beyond) to ensure that it was the university I wanted to attend, and when I graduated.
The latter was more oppressive than the former, with my parents criticizing the entitlement evident in many of my fellow graduates—only the well-to-do, scholarship-less, rich ones—quick to leave, but not before chugging the free champagne placed around us. The apple did not fall far from the tree.
The first half-day was much more hopeful. It was the summer of 2009. We flew in from Frankfurt, Germany after making the two-hour journey from our village of Etschberg in a southwest corner of the country, slightly north of Alsace-Lorraine in France. My parents work for the Department of Defense and my childhood was similar to that of a military child—moving every two-to-three years, the kind of youth that forces you to learn how to adapt, quickly, in both physical and emotional spaces.
Etschberg was a place I'd learn to compare to a suburb of a suburb. There was only one stop light in town, which was in between the church and cemetery. It was a far cry from Manhattan and most of the people within it.
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