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 Union
Square is located at 14th Street between Park Avenue
South and Broadway, in New York City, USA. It
extends to 17th Street.
It was the middle of Manhattan about 100 years ago;
before large scale machinery made it possible to
gouge big dumb straight streets in a mind numbing
grid that cars could zoom up and down on.
The upper East Side is a ghetto of people trapped
in a Speedway Nightmare. Cars zoom up and down 2nd
and 3rd Avenues desperately trying to get somewhere
faster than the other guy. People roaring into town.
People roaring out of town.
Into the SUBURBS. Out of the SUBURBS. What for?
South of 14th Street the City slows down. Streets
meander.
At sometime in the near future. Everyone in America
is going to stop and ask themselves: "What is the
rush?".
THE ANSWER WILL BE CLEAR: "THERE IS NO RUSH!" Back
to Union Square.
It has highly varied flora and fauna. It has a Farmer's
Market that is more country than country!
It has trees. I counted over 50 trees: Pin Oaks,
American Elms, Siberian Elms, Japanese Pagoda trees.
How many trees does a person have to have in his
or her life?
There are squirrels, mice, rats, pigeons, sparrows,
wrens, robins, nuthatches, cockroaches, etc..
Squirrels have learned to balance themselves on
the fences with their front feet like tight rope
walkers, eating food that has been proferred them
by passersby .
They like varied food items. Most of the time they
are not interested in peanuts. They get too many
peanuts from people who do not understand that they
are New York City Squirrels. They are not country
bumpkin Squirrels. They love cherries!
Seventy years ago the wilderness was too frightening
to enter.
Now there is blood lust to rape and plunder the
earth of all its resources, to hell with the consequences.
Ski Resorts don't bother with natural occurring
snow fall any longer. They manufacture snow on demand,
for people who roar into the ski resorts, roar up
and down the slopes for a few quick runs, and roar
back to their suburban fortresses.
The consumer society depends upon people living
in a state of Panic! People thinking:"I MIGHT MISS
SOMETHING," and in the fear of missing something
they miss everything.
Life isn't lived in packets of Travel Brochures.
It's lived in tiny moments that follow tiny moments.
Every event is a fabulous event or nothing is a
fabulous event. Drinking a glass of water is a fabulous
event.
I was walking up 3rd Avenue yesterday and I noticed
a man, a well dressed man in a dark suit with french
cuffs, sitting in an expensive restaurant eating
a salad and smoking a very large cigar.
I thought that if he were smoking a salad and eating
a cigar it would be the same thing: STUPID!
If you are going somewhere to have a wonderful time,
when you get there you're not going to have a wonderful
time:
BECAUSE HAVING A WONDERFUL TIME IS ALL ATTITUDE
AND ACCEPTANCE. THIS IS IT! THE TIME IS NOW!
Copyright © 1999 Robert D. Brown
Robert D. Brown was born in Colorado in 1930.
In 1952 he received his B.A. from UCLA. In 1956
he received his M.A. from the same school. He moved
to New York City in 1959. He founded the First National
Church of Exquisite Panic in 1964. His work is represented
in the collections of (partial list): The Museum
of Modern Art, New York City; Smithsonian Institution,
Washington D.C.; Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado.
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