Spalding Gray's Love Letter to New York

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9787/

Hi everyone,
Good to see you all this week in Lincoln 205.  As promised, what follows this note is the copy of Spalding Gray's love letter to New York.  It was published posthumously in the New York Times on September 11, 2005 and in Life Interrupted, a later collection of his essays, and some notes of reflection from his friends and colleagues.  If you choose to imitate it, remember that it can be to any place you have known or experienced or even imagined.

I've also included a link above to a New York Times Magazine cover story that appeared after his disappearance in January of 2004, but before his body was discovered in March of that year.  Eerie.  At least to me.

But here's the letter:  

"Dear New York:
For 34 years I lived with you and came to love you. I came to you because I loved theater and found theater everywhere I looked. I fled New England and came to Manhattan, that island off the coast of America, where human nature was king and everyone exuded character and had big attitude. You gave me a sense of humor because you are so absurd.

When we were kids, my mom hung a poster over our bed. It had a picture of a bumblebee, and under the picture the caption read:

'According to all aerodynamic laws, the bumblebee cannot fly because its body weight is not in the right proportion to its wingspan. But ignoring these laws, the bee flies anyway.'
That is still New York City for me.

--SG"