To be broke in New York was to feel a constant, needling sense of failure, as you were regularly confronted by people who had not only more but much, much more.

The tests reflected my ability to reason logically. Either you reason things out or you don’t. Those who do, have high IQs. Those who don’t reach for the mayonnaise when they can’t find the insect repellent. When I became upset over my test score, Hugh explained that everybody thinks differently—I just happen to do it a lot less than the average

When the citizens of New York went looking for a new apartment, they came to us. Some movers charged for their inside information, but, with the exception of Richie, we gave it away for free. Strangers would often flag down the loaded van and ask where we were coming from. “Do you know if it’s already been rented? Does it have a tub or a shower?”

Within a five-block radius of my apartment there are four first-run multiplexes and a dozen thirty-to-fifty-seat revival houses with rotating programs devoted to obscure and well-known actors, directors, and genres. These are the mom-and-pop theaters, willing to proceed with the two o’clock showing of The Honeymoon Killers even if I’m the only one

The tests we took were designed to determine our eligibility for Mensa, an international association for those with IQs of 132 or higher. Its members come from all walks of life and get together every few weeks to take in a movie or enjoy a weenie roast.

With very few exceptions, video killed the American revival house. If you want to see a Boris Karloff movie, you have to rent it and watch it on a television set. In Paris it costs as much to rent a movie as it does to go to the theater. French people enjoy going out and watching their movies on a big screen. On any given week one has at least 250

Somewhere in the back of my mind is a dim memory of standing in some line holding a perforated card. I remember the cheap, slightly clinical feeling it gave me, and recall thinking that the computer would never advance much further than this. Call me naive, but I seem to have underestimated the universal desire to sit in a hard plastic chair and

The Italian nanny was attempting to answer the teacher’s latest question when the Moroccan student interrupted, shouting, “Excuse me, but what’s an Easter?” It would seem that despite having grown up in a Muslim country, she would have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. “I mean it,” she said. “I have no idea what you people are talking

In other parts of the country people tried to stay together for the sake of the children. In New York they tried to work things out for the sake of the apartment.