During the headlong rush to Christmas in Manhattan, that clamouring silent cocktail hour of shopping, socialising, networking and working, I'm often distracted as I hunt through a Hallmark store for mistletoe (can't be had for love nor money, not yet), or bounce uptown in a cab, heading home, by the consoling glow of tiny little lights.
They are everywhere, these wee frozen fireflies, and Gotham is lit up like a Christmas tree.
The lights describe stars and festive wreaths in the air, suspended by hidden wires. They hang off grand hotels, and the awnings of the most humble shops. They encircle trees, giving the look of burning, without being consumed. They travel, as those in Herald Square do - also suspended from winter-denuded boughs - in programmed grace notes and patterns: the effect is of light falling, then commencing, then falling again.
The lights are cheering, but also valedictory. The sign of another year over, and what have you done?
I'll resist the temptation to the usual polite self-castigation, but summarise with, 'Not as much as I'd intended.' I will, however, accept the opportunity to wonder about the state of America's economy. It's a large topic for a small blog, and in no way are my meanderings conclusive, but they begin with the lights. As I look at the Christmas lights winking and staring around Manhattan, I think, 'Who's paying?'
The Chinese are, thankfully, but so are you, or you're betting, through your indexed fund, and diversified portfolio, that the Americans will. Or you're betting that they'll figure out a way to make more money that doesn't include just printing the stuff and hoping the world doesn't notice that more = less.
There's a blustering quality afoot here. Last week, before traveling to West Point, where despite appearances, the military doesn't really like its Commander-in-Chief, I listened while a finance guy in a pinstriped suit told me America's debtors couldn't afford to call America on its debts. Thus, US citizens are resigned to be consumers.
Given that consumption is 70% of the US economy, that's good. But it also seems unreal, like an exception to the law of gravity.
There's also an air of gloom. Anecdotally, people are sleeping more. They're fretting about the cost of their holidays. Those who have jobs are nervous. Those who don't are stretched. Between one-in-five, and one-in-six New Yorkers are using emergency food to get by. That means 1.5 million New Yorkers need help to eat.
At a particular time in the evenings that I'm not working, and I'm out amongst pleasant and intelligent people, I find myself drawing a 'V', a 'W' and a hockey stick diagram in the air with my dialing finger, and ask which best describes the current economic malaise. 'V' = a quick drop, then quick rebound. "W" = a dead cat bounce, then another slide.
It's the hockey stick that seems to attract the most agreement, a precipitous fall, then a lengthy arduous, jobless climb to something less than the prosperity we thought we had when real estate was a giant cash-excreting machine.
Last night, as I performed this party trick, a commercial lawyer, like everyone else, opted for the hockey stick, adding that he thought the recession was going to become a depression. We then made some jokes about depression. Gallows humour doesn't imply a gibbet but it does suggest a state of mind.
Evenings begin around 4 pm at this time of year; dark, but not particularly cold (though New Yorkers still stagger around, sweating bugs, creatures of habit in their mobile winter cocoon of coat, hat and gloves) and that's when the lights come into their own. But the human-made constellation is at its most elegaic by around 2 am, when the streets are deserted, when most of the vehicles are cabs, swooping up and down the pretty, spangled, empty avenues.
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