"It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur, this warm delicious cellar..."

I get to work with a lot of brilliant people when I visit the Reading & Writing Project. One of the most engaging instructors I've studied under is Colleen Cruz. She is the author of three professional texts, and the young adult novel Border Crossing.

During a workshop last week she mentioned that Elwyn Brooks White had written an essay on New York in the forties and that everyone should read it. She was right on both accounts. Check out this eerie passage from Here is New York:

The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now; in the sounds of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest editions.

All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.

Colleen's mention of Here Is New York coincides with a household obsession with Stuart Little & Peregrine Falcons.

MP3 DJ Danger Mouse - What More Can I Say

MP3 DJ Danger Mouse - Encore*

*I was putting up What More Can I Say from The Grey Album, and Encore came on afterwards and I heard Hova declare himself "Rap's Grateful Dead." If you don't have The Grey Album, listen to these, then get it; but, rock the headphones if you're at work or around kiddies.