TT: Lookback

From 2003:

I can't think of another city where it's possible to satisfy so many different obsessions so thoroughly, or to be a member of so many different social groups whose membership doesn't overlap at all. I first noticed this at my fortieth birthday party (one of the very few parties, incidentally, that I've ever thrown, or had thrown for me). I didn't know a room could have so many different corners, much less that each could be inhabited with its very own gaggle of recognizably similar people.

Perhaps all my obsessions cancel one another out and leave in their wake the residue of an approximately normal human being. But I wouldn't count on it....

Read the whole thing here .