High life | 18 April 2013

New York

I chose to live on 68th street between Madison and Fifth Avenue because it’s next to Central Park and is considered as convenient an address as any in the city. Not too far uptown and the DMZ — 92nd street; not too close to the shopping shrines down by the 50s. The house where I live now used to be the Austrian consulate and from my second-floor flat I can look into a grand embassy structure that no one ever uses as far as I’m concerned. It belongs to Indonesia, although when I bought my new flat I was told it was the Polish embassy and rushed to close the deal as I love Poles. No such luck, although the Indonesians have a tendency to take orders, unlike African personnel, who park everywhere illegally, fill up the street with garbage, and play loud Zulu music throughout. Thank God, most of them tend to congregate near the UN building, way down east, a good two miles from Herr Taki’s abode. Not for much longer. Although I love my fellow tenant Tim Atwater, a Brit artist who lives above, I’ve had the horrible luck to get another neighbour, a disgusting individual whom I’ve never met and of course hope never to have to in future. The smell alone should drive me to the burbs, as this bum is the Fertiliser King, in other words, the shit that owns most of the shit in the world. What horrible luck. Of all the streets and neighbourhoods in the world he had to buy into mine. And no matter how you cut it, the baths, the cologne, the sprays, the man still smells. It’s like living next to a public toilet. Mind you, as I’ve already said, I’ve never met him but I don’t seem to be able to get away from the smell.