All the news that’s fit to… Nov. 20, 2012
The operative line in the poem she posted today is about selling
yourself, “as we all do, as best we can.”
A startling comment inserted deep into the body, something
utterly obvious, yet surprising at the same time.
This is not a new concept for her, since she has spent a
life time selling herself well enough to get in the front door.
But in this case, she may have overstepped a little, seeking
to graduate from our pissant little world into perhaps the most prestigious
publication in the world.
After all of her boasting about our office being a stepping
stone, her applying for a job at The New York Times should not have come as a
surprise.
The poem depicts her journey to The New York Times building,
although the opening details the largely defunct former Times headquarters at
One Times Square, taken over by numerous corporate entities after the Times
abandoned it, only for it become a largely vacant shell of what it had once
been, the exterior turned into a billboard magnet and an on-and-off ticket tape
display after the Times moved its offices down the street from it, recently constructing
a palace on 8th Avenue directly across the street from the Port Authority
building.
She walked straight in, passed the ticket tape and advertising
for turkey into the iconic building of her “childhood scribbled dreams,” with
all the great and near grate in gilt frame on gilt walls.
This is not a depiction of the interior of One Times Square I
recall from my visits there during that brief stint when Newsday occupied the premises
but may well reflect The New York Times palace I’ve seen only from the outside
or in published photographs.
But she describes walking beneath the giant Christmas wreath,
which is typically hung over the front door of the palace on 8th Avenue, up a
golden escalator to a room on the 13th floor where people go to wait and “to
think before to sell yourself in a short time, as we all do as best, we can.”
This implies an interview in which she had to make her case
as to why she thought she deserved a place in the most prestigious of
publications.
She hears the sound of “the best of the best” working elsewhere
in the building around her, and hears in her head “I belong here,” ringing strongly
and calmly above it all.
No doubt, someone encouraged her to apply, most likely our
former temporary boss, who likely promised to serve as her reference if she
did. While she had no journalism degree, she had graduated from one of the most
prestigious universities in New York, and her writing is as good perhaps better
than much of what appears each day in that newspaper. Indeed, others from our
petty little world had made the transition to the Times before her, so, why not
her?
This pending interview may explain her last poem about a
temporary lull, and how she did not see her new found position in the city as a
place she would eventually end up permanently. She did tell The Small Man (and
others) that she had big plans, something the office gossip repeated to me.
The central question of the poem is whether or not she can
sell herself well enough to get her foot in the door.
The poem has a subtext that may or may not be intentional,
negative words giving a negative connotation, such as the use of “Crashed” when
referring to the ticker tape report, and the repeated word “gilt” which might
well be taken for “guilt,” and the sense that deep down she may not believe she
deserves this opportunity, and envisions an eventual crash. The use of 13th
floor in a city where many of the buildings deliberately exclude them as bad
luck also suggest some level of inner doubt. Although at one point, she questions
why she does not have the usual doubts, and the nervousness, and questions why
she isn’t telling herself “You don’t belong here,” after years of being
undersold and underpaid.
On the surface of the poem, she implies confidence the
subtext denies, as she tells herself that she doesn’t belong there. But it is
an unconvincing argument that the underlying negative tone negates.
She might well be talented enough to work there, and yet, there
seems to be something that holds her back, the “gilt” frames in which her
picture will never appear, and the gilt walls she may only get to see once.
By this, I don’t mean her any ill luck. I sincerely hope the
Times hires her. All the doubt is in the context of the poem, even when she
asks herself why it isn’t there, when by asking, she implies that the doubt is
there after all.
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