*Everyday Chatter

I'm not the only one who thinks this economic downturn has a strong upside--Kurt Andersen at TIME magazine agrees: "it's time to ratchet back our wild and crazy grasshopper side and get in touch with our inner ant, to be more artisan-enterpriser and less prospector-speculator, more heroic Greatest Generation and less self-indulgent baby boomer, to return from Oz to Kansas, to become fully reality-based again." [TIME]

A voyeuristic look at our "New Glass City"--maybe New York should change its name to The Big Fishbowl. [NYT]

Take a tour of the destroyed Upper West Side with Tom Dispatch: "you might say that an economic dirty bomb did go off in downtown New York and this city (not to say, the nation and the world) has been experiencing a second 9/11 ever since, even if in slow motion." [TD]

Take a peek back at a time when the city was covered in psychedelic murals and gay men baked casseroles. [ShadowS]

When Wal-Mart comes, there may be a lot of arrests--New Yorkers like to say "fuck." [Consumerist]

Fans of underground New York, check out The Future Beneath Us. [NYPL]

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