Nearly 50 years ago, on January 24, 1961, Bob Dylan first arrived in Greenwich Village [Interferenza]. (Also see Touring Bob Dylan's New York, The Telegraph.)
Now the Village draws a different set, with Craigslist job listings like the one to the left for a High Frequency Trading Developer (Greenwich Village).What more can you say about New Bloomberg City? NYC is Wall Street's mistress, dependent on its mercenary drones and "innovations" like high frequency trading, all geared toward skimming as much as possible before the casino collapses.
Dylan said "New York was a dream... of the cosmopolitan riches of the mind. It was a great place for me to learn and to meet others who were on similar journeys" [Westwood One Radio, 1985; via Interferenza].
There's no room for that kind of nonsense now, when Young Republicans flock to New York dreaming of Bloombergian riches, of going to school and puking "east side, west side, all around the town," before joining the Wall Street fraternity and the shiny lifestyle it buys, eventually settling into suburban luxury in the middle of NYC -- something a Master of the Universe might find deadly boring without the knowledge that this city is always waiting up for him, legs spread, naked in furs, with lines of coke on the coffee table and a music video playing on the wall-sized TV, to the strains of Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" (sample; original lyrics):
When you're lost in the rain in Cancun
And it's bonus time too
And your portfolio fails
And your hedge fund don't pull you through
Don't put on any tears
When you're down on Los Hooters Avenue
You had your way with New York City, bro
– you can do it to Mexico too!
