Mentor Text #1: “Language Choice” by Young-Jin Park

There is something highly unconventional about the style of writing imposed by Young-Jin Park. In high school, it’s rooted in a student’s mind to adhere to a strict flow of writing. Students are taught there is only one “plug and chug” formula for sentence structure that’s to be recycled for any type of writing, essays, analyses, and more. I recall a few of my teachers year past that encouraged my classmates and I to avoid being creative in our sentences; they wished to scan simply for content, if XYZ topic was mentioned, and as long as that was there, that’s all that was of concern to them. Never mind the student that wished to express themselves but was inhibited, despite “[wanting] to be acknowledged as an individual”.

Park is an excellent example of writing desired in college, especially New York University. Park employs an especially articulate sense of style to his writing, going so far as to bring in voice and personality to his paper to help the reader truly understand the message being conveyed. It helps the reader not only get the idea but then create an opinion of their own in which they connect to the essay even further. There is the need for words, like any piece of literature, to “be a thing of beauty” instead of merely just remaining a useless, nameless “tool or method” as Park says, that the Writing curriculum at New York University tries to incorporate, and does so practically seamlessly. This is especially apparent in the samples of work from students like Park.

Why I Chose "Here is New York"

Think about the feeling of holding your breath for a long time, the release. There is a freeing feeling about familiarity. When you have a routine, an action, or a thought engraved within you, a conscious being, it means that your body is actively recognizing how comfortable it is with the ordinary going on around you. If a person were to change this monotonous activity, to my chagrin, you have what many would call a disparity between the two. That is change.

            Several people find themselves in the heart of New York from the need to cure their wanderlust, or their thirst for luck, or even just the desire of trying something new. That in itself is, for lack of a better word, not enough reason for one to completely pack up and start a new life, but people do it anyways. The shock factor when one finds themselves in a new place, especially a city as large and as vast as New York City, is immense. It’s frightening. There is a level of preparedness one must encompass within themselves to avoid completely and utterly ruining the happiness they originally were out in search for.

            When you want to learn about something new, you find yourself researching the subject. You use search engines online or you go to a library and you immerse yourself in information in hopes of furthering your information. This is especially helpful when learning about how to do particular things. As helpful as all that may be, they lack the emotional integrity needed to fully understand the subject. Take for example the city. You can study the architectural design of the city’s landscape for years, go as far as memorizing key figures that have walked in its streets, and the numerous amounts of key events that have occurred for decades long past, but they will not be equivalent to the stories of actual people doing all they can to survive in one of the most expensive areas in the country. They will surely pale in comparison to the tribulations felt by families getting by on necessary amenities.

            The city is beautiful; the city is practically perfect. It has all you need, congested and filled in a copulated center waiting to be stumbled into. One has to find their place, and that struggle is very difficult, but once found the shroud of helplessness and desolation gets peeled off leaving behind riper dreams waiting to be acted upon.

My Primary Text

"On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy."

"The capacity to make such dubious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destory an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck."

"New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute."

"The quality in New York that insulates its inhabitants from life may simply weaken them as individuals. Perhaps it is healthier to live in a community where, when a cornice falls, you feel the blow; where, when the governor passes, you may see at any rate, his hat."

"Many of its settlers are probably here merely to escape, not face, reality."

"Although New York often imparts a feeling of greet forlornness or forsakenness, it seldom seems dead or unresourceful; and you always feel that either by shifting your location ten blocks or by reducing your fortune by fiver dollars you can experience rejuvenation."

"Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last- the city of final destination, the city that is a goal."

"He fished in Manhattan's wallet and dug out coins, but has never listened to Manhattan's breathing, never awakened to its morning, never dropped off to sleep in its night."

"The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines."

"By rights New York should have destroyed itself long ago, from panic or fire or rioting or failure of some vital supply line in its circulatory system or from some deep labyrinthine short circuit."

"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 main idea of this essay, Here is New York, is concentrated around the idea of New York City, its fascination, its vibrancy, and its bittersweetness. The adoration the city has from many is comparable to none; the city itself takes on life and has its own struggles that are felt by the citizens that walk within it, and their day to day routines reflect their desires and turmoil much more exquisitely than anywhere else.

OWS Protests

“There's no better symbol of the gloom and psychological repression of modern America than the banking system, a huge heartless machine that attaches itself to you at an early age, and from which there is no escape. You fail to receive a few past-due notices about a $19 payment you missed on that TV you bought at Circuit City, and next thing you know a collector has filed a judgment against you for $3,000 in fees and interest.”

“People don't know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.”

“Eventually the Occupy movement will need to be specific about how it wants to change the world. But for right now, it just needs to grow. And if it wants to sleep on the streets for a while and not structure itself into a traditional campaign of grassroots organizing, it should. It doesn't need to tell the world what it wants. It is succeeding, for now, just by being something different.”

Habits are ridiculous. It’s commonplace for a singular activity to be embedded in an organism, be it for days, months, or years. Humans are, sadly, no except to this point. The MOEs pointed out by Taibbi talk of the importance in the Occupy Wall Street Protests more than an analysis could decipher.

            America is founded upon the idea of living the dream. This dream can be big, to live in a lavished home ordained with beautiful artifacts, or small, to simply get a job and sustain oneself. Capitalism, a principle established for the economy, is misconstrued extremely. The economy takes the face of the school system, with big businesses acting in the place of bullies holding up smaller students, ordinary citizens, against their lockers and demanding lunch money. When an individual tries to fight this system, they are knocked down time and time again.

            To fight the routine instilled upon the economy, many take up arms in protest against any and all actions set in place. The power to do such as a thing in itself is remarkable. There are countless places on the planet that limit one’s right to free speech and active protest against the government, so America and its inhabitants are very lucky. Movements act to cause change, and the momentum they gain can do worlds of wonder.

Here is New York

“By rights New York should have destroyed itself long ago, from panic or fire or rioting or failure of some vital supply line in its circulatory system or from some deep labyrinthine short circuit. Long ago the city should have experienced an insoluble traffic snarl at some impossible bottleneck. It should of perished of hunger when food lines failed for a few days. It should have been wiped out by a plague starting in its slums or carried in by ships' rats. It should have been overwhelmed by the sea that licks at it on every side.”

“The oft-quoted thumbnail sketch of New York is, of course: "It's a wonderful place, but I'd hate to live there."”

“Behind me (eighteen inches again) a young intellectual is trying to persuade a girl to come live with him and be his love. She has her guard up, but he is extremely reasonable, careful not to overplay his hand.”

The city is beautiful. There are several manufactural feats that have been accomplished for a city such as New York to be in existence. These MOEs I selected highlight various points made by White that speak of New York City’s congestion and all that ensues.

New York City, crafted into the most highly sought after area in the world, encompasses enough genius, art, and extravagance for a person to experience for multiple lifetimes. Coming from a life suburbia for example, it’s quite a place to be in. A startling difference would be the experience of stepping outside a door into busy street traffic, rather than a group of neighborhood boys playing football or the mailman doing his rounds. There is a comfort aligned with the solemnness of that environment that is hard to find in New York. Anywhere a person may find themselves will be a niche, the question is just whether or not they can assimilate themselves within said niche.

The city is bittersweet. There is a wonder associated with it, whether you are from a completely different country learning about it in class, or on the west coast wishing to be on Broadway; when you find yourself here, you are walking along the dreams of those come and past that wish to be in your shoes. It’s very daunting. The city is a living, breathing being that is excessively overwhelming that is oh so beautiful. 

The Secret Life of Bees

“Seeley thinks that this convergence between bees and brains can teach people a lot about how to make decisions in groups. “Living in groups, there’s a wisdom to finding a way for members to make better decisions collectively than as individuals,” he said.”

“A group of people can propose many different ideas—the more the better, in fact. But those ideas will only lead to a good decision if listeners take the time to judge their merits for themselves, just as scouts go to check out potential homes for themselves.”

“Seeley advises that people should be made to feel that they are part of the decision-making group, so that their debates don’t become about destroying the enemy, but about finding a solution for everyone.”

          Humans are jigsaw pieces. Each piece is vital, unique, but as a whole are there for the bigger picture. Every life has a person experiencing the normal humdrum of ordinary activities, but when composed together with other lives, there is a beautiful myriad that is formed. These MOEs I selected speak specifically to the idea of groups and working in them.

          I had the belief of discrepancy when I thought of groups. When created, they seemed to unrealistically get a life of their own. Take into consideration a friend group. Each friend within this group invests time and energy, love and compassion, into the idea of a network of support. This investment gives the group meaning, and this meaning gives the group life. The pessimistic side to this ideation is the selfishness, as people may often chose themselves instead of a greater entity. This disparity breaks the framework of groups.

          When looked at positively, there is a wonderful greatness about group work and what it can possibly entail. Ideas from different individuals get scripted together to make amazing pieces of work. This applied to concepts like governments can create unity between people of varying opinions and backgrounds and cause enormous amounts of change.

The Mannahatta Project

"The patrons, that morning, consisted of a group of summer campers engaged in a scavenger hunt, and a fleet of hospital patients in wheelchairs, attended by a few nurses. A man drifted by on a bicycle, with “Brick House” playing from a boom box. As tempting as it was to rue the absence of otters, egrets, and acres upon acres of spartina grass waving in the breeze, there was something beguiling about this assemblage in the Park on a summer weekday morning."

"Looking down Sixth Avenue, Sanderson gestured toward the herds of pedestrians stretching away from us and said, “You see all those heads, and you think that the six hundred Lenape who used to live on Manhattan could have fit on that one block.”"

"We tried to explain. He said that he knew nothing about any pond and then gave us a look suggesting we’d better just move along."

                Life is fleeting. Its active nature carries us, the many entities, around and around, often clashing with each other and bringing out a multitude of change and variation. New York, the focus of extravagant difference reached from differing ideas or opinions, has progressed through life, changing similarly to the life of a human being; New York took on its "birth", crashed through its gawky adolescence, and glided into its newfound adulthood. Paumgarten, through several pieces in the work The Mannahatta Project, expresses the idea of self-possession, overabundance, and tabled attempts and actions. This MOE is done through the concept of the idea itself, self-possession in humans brought about the eradication of the native New York environment, impacting indigenous species, both people and not, both living. The MOE more personalized through human interaction between themselves and each other  is particular to me specifically because of the foreign concept of such a congested area. There are very few places in the world quite like New York, and once you find yourself in the area, you become enthralled in a way, be it to a particular feeling that rings from inside, like the idea of inescapable companionship but still apparent loneliness. Do you know the feeling of having something on your mind you would like to say, but decide to not say it? There is a failure at the missed connection we as humans have when conversing with each while second guessing ourselves and our thoughts.