A Quote by Michael Portillo
As a politician, I spent a lot of time in Washington and New York, cities that are familiar to Europeans.
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I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.
I spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.
A lot of the stories about urban America tend to be written on the margins. We focus a lot on these big global cities - New York, San Francisco - or we focus on cities that are having the toughest time - Detroit, Newark, Camden.
I was raised in New York and spent two years in Rio. My parents met at the University of Southern Mississippi, and they had me there, and then we moved to New York. I'm not very familiar with Mississippi.
I obviously spent a lot of time in New York City, and I loved it, but Chicago has a very different history than New York City does.
My heart and my love is in the country because something feels pure and noble and good there, but at the same time, obedience draws me to cities, which are full of cultures that are interesting and fun. I always swore I hated New York. Since having this revelation that cities are where people are, where the need is, I'm growing to love New York.
A lot of people who voted for Barack Obama expected and were led to expect something new in politics: a new tone of political discourse in Washington. And I think - I think they're disappointed, because Barack Obama is not a new kind of politician. In fact, he's an old Chicago politician.
Animation had been used only for things like King Kong and the destruction of cities, which was very popular in the 1950s. I got tired of destroying cities. I destroyed New York, I destroyed San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, Rome, and Washington. I was looking for a new outlet, and I came across the Sinbad legends.
Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are 'story cities'- New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco.
Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent. Whereas other cities flaunt there history - their presumed glory - in vividly placed monuments, squares, parks, plaques, and boulevards, such history as New York has been unable entirely to obliterate is to be found, mainly, in the backwaters of Wall Street, in the goat tracks of Old and West Broadway, in and around Washington Square, and, for the relentless searcher, in grimly inaccessible regions of The Bronx.
But 'This Town' is official Washington. It's political Washington. It's not the Washington that clogs New York Avenue. It's not the Washington that lives in Gaithersburg. It's not the Washington that accounts for most of the population. 'This Town' refers to the people who think they run your country.
My father came from Germany. My mom came from Venezuela. My father's culturally German, but his father was Japanese. I was raised in New York and spent two years in Rio. My parents met at the University of Southern Mississippi, and they had me there, and then we moved to New York. I'm not very familiar with Mississippi.
Washington - having spent a lot of time there, I grew up there and have spent a lot of time there recently - is largely defined by detailed analytical views and policy choices that are not very good. You know, each policy choice has a winner and a loser, right? Somebody's ox is getting gored.
I am finished with cities. I spent four years in New York, ten in Paris, and I was in Belgrade for a while. To me now they are just airports.
I spent a lot of time in Brooklyn as a kid. I was born in New York, and my grandmother lived in Crown Heights, so there's a part of it that I feel this connection to.
I spent a lot of time in the trenches in New York doing a lot of off-off-off Broadway theater.
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