Collective Aspiration

"Dusk was falling and the lights of the city were coming on one by one in ways that even Edison hadn't imagined. They came on across the great patchwork of office buildings and along the cables of the bridges; then it was the street lamps and the theater marquees, the headlights of the cars and the beacons perched atop the radio towers—each individual lumen testifying to some unhesitant intemperate collective aspiration."
Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

Clown Car

"Rush hour in the New York City subway can be grueling. Everyone is in a huge hurry to get to work or transition into their evening, and so they pile by the hundreds of thousands into a maze of subway cars, often squished into a space that is way too small, surrounded by the other residents of this veritable clown car."
Jasmin Singer, Always Too Much and Never Engouh

Up to Speed

"New York isn't New York anymore. It's the city that just recently got up to speed with the rest of the nation. New York is the Banana Republic town. A Häagen-Dazs town. Starbucks fucking runs this joint! There are three within four blocks of each other on Second Ave. But dude, I'm not knocking Starbucks, I was just there."
Mike Doughty, New York Rock