Dateline: New York City

CUSTOMER SERVICE.

I forwarded this piece from the NYT Cityroom blog, “M.T.A. Plans Steep Service Cuts and Fare Increases,” to my friend and co-editor (of The Agriculture Reader) Jeremy Schmall. It’s a short article, but if you want to know why I sent it to him in an email with the subject-line “like being fucked with a laser beam that is somehow also a rusty old knife,” this paragraph pretty much explains it:

>>For New York City Transit, the biggest component of the authority, the deficit-closing plan would eliminate the W and Z subway lines; eliminate service on the M line to Bay Parkway in Brooklyn; shorten the route of the G line, which will permanently stop at Court Square in Long Island City, Queens, instead of 71st and Continental Avenues in Forest Hills, Queens; lower the frequency of most letter-line trains to every 10 minutes from every 8 minutes on weekends; lower the frequency of all trains to every 30 minutes from every 20 minutes from 2 to 5 a.m.; eliminate overnight bus service on 25 routes; and eliminate the X27 and X28 express-bus lines.<<

Anywho, Schmall wrote back the following cryptic musings, and I thought I would share them with all of you:

>>zizek writes that the atrocities of communism are easily identifiable, quantifiable, and well known; of capitalism, however, little is said.

nathanael West told his teacher he wanted to be a writer, and she advised that he would need to get used to being poor. the ensuing great depression made that easy: everyone was poor.<<

A PRIMER FOR THE UNINITIATED BUT CURIOUS.

LOOK FOR THE SILVER LINING.

HAPPY BRAVE NEW WORLD, EVERYBODY!