Personal essays
On growing the magic pie
Welcome to NYC
The Cleveland Guardians travelled to New York City for last night’s deciding game in their best of five series.
A rain delay was called at 7 though it wasn’t raining and the game was postponed a bit after nine because of rain even though it wasn’t raining. In other words the game could have been played last night. Now it is scheduled for this afternoon.
I was thinking about my first trip to New York.
I grew up in a small town of eight thousand people. When I got off the train at Penn Station there were more than that rushing in and out on their way to or from the train and subway.
My college roommate and I made our way to the exit and as we climbed the stairs we looked up to see someone being mugged at knife-point.
Welcome to New York.
That was the late seventies.
Twenty years later I got to cover MacWorld as a freelance reporter. The conference ran in January in San Francisco and in the summer in New York (after moving from Boston).
I usually stayed with a friend of mine in New Jersey and took the train in. I’d get off at Penn Station and walk down 34th Street to the Javits Center.
The city feels different now but I remember feeling that I should be extra careful once I crossed ninth.
Now when I visit New York or any other big city I try to be aware and careful, but I don’t feel threatened.
I’m there to visit someone, see a game or a show, eat at a restaurant, or just walk and sightsee.
Our scene
We open on a montage of familiar locations in your city on a beautiful day.
If the city has a waterfront we cut to boats passing by and people walking along the river if it’s a river or on the sand if there’s a beach.
What’s that? People hiking along a path, kicking through the fall leaves, pausing to look at deer walking by or at birds in flight.
The crack of a bat and we’re in a stadium watching our team hit one out of the park.
We pan past a windmill next to the station on our way to a restaurant district with a close up of a couple enjoying some adult beverages while enjoying shared appetizers.
The sun is low as we see a line outside of a theater waiting for a show to begin. Cut to the conductor motioning for the end of the symphony’s final note as the audience rises in a standing ovation.
An older couple walk back to their car. He opens the door for her as he has for the forty years they’ve been married.
We pull back to see the city skyline at sunset.
Throughout we’ve seen people holding doors open for others, smiling at strangers, and coming together to share these moments.
Associations
I’m not a master of messaging so I don’t know the voice over we’d hear during the commercial.
I don’t know how we counter fear - even with reality.
“My cousin has a friend who said…”
That seems to be a tell.
We can all agree that voter fraud is a horrible thing - but it doesn’t seem to actually exist. But if we can get people worried about it then we can pass laws to combat it that also keep eligible voters away from the polls.
These laws don’t eliminate fraud - they suppress the vote.
“But crime, immigrants, (something something mumble mumble)”
The something something mumble mumble never stands up to scrutiny but the damage is done.
The words crime and immigrants were used in the same sentence so they are associated.
Then we combine crime and people of color, sex crimes and LGBTQ+, sex crimes and Democrats (pizzagate - ‘cause my cousin has a friend who said…), Jews and power, and soon we’ve othered everyone who we don’t want to share the pie with.
The pie is big enough to share.
And it turns out, it’s a magic pie. The more you share it, the more there is.
This is the vision of democracy and freedom. The more that people share in our democracy, the better it is for all of us.
The VO
So the voice over has to tell a story. It has to tell a story of our cities as they are.
It has to talk about the people who enjoy the beach and the trail as well as the people who built them and keep them nice for us.
These things we enjoy in our cities down to the roads we drive on to get to and from events - require a working government that provides for its people.
The threats to us are not the black and white scary scenes of immigrants coming to our borders or of riots in some town other than ours.
It’s one thing to call a rain delay when it’s not raining. It’s another to restrict the vote or eliminate social security when there are no problems.
The threats to us are real. It’s the people who want to take our vote, give tax breaks to the rich, and starve our economy to the point of justifying the end of social security and medicare.
The New York Times ran a story this morning with polling data that showed, “Voters see Democracy in Peril, but Saving It Isn’t a Priority.”
If we don’t act and vote now, there may be no magic pie for Thanksgiving.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 134. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe