Hi, my name is Ryan, and –with Rachel- I’m a new intern at Beaufort Books. I just moved here from a tiny rural town in South Carolina, so I guess you could say I’m “transitioning” at the current moment. However, coming from rural South Carolina and moving to the Big Apple, in addition to joining the Beaufort team, has me definitely excited for what the next few months will hold.
By “transitioning”, what I mean is that I feel like a bit of an outsider here in NYC (as happens when moving to any new place). Whether you’re in the Big Apple or not, at some point in your life, you have felt this sensation – this outsiderly feeling of being a person out of place with your environment. When I first came to NYC about a month ago, everything was new to me. For example, riding on the subway during rush hour was like being on a Disney ride – All the people grasping onto the metal rides over their heads and nonchalantly holding on while I worked as hard as possible to plant my knees firmly and dig my feet into the subway floor, to ensure I didn’t get flung into another person at the next platform stop.
Yet, with riding the subway – there was something about the whole experience that really stuck with me more than anything else, beyond just the whole phenomenon of being blasted through underground tunnels, and that was the deathly quietness of the people riding the subway.
I don’t know – call me what you will, but I for some reason had it in my head that the subways would be bustling with noise, like mini over-packed sports bars. People engaged in constant conversation: “How about the elections?” “What did you think of Breaking Bad last night?” I foresaw exotic street performers spinning on their heads while the Q train came to a halt at the Union Square stop. This is what you think of when you have lived in a rural town down South your entire life. I mean, NEW YORK IS CRAZY – LIKE…..IT’S THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS!
Instead, there I was in the subway, finding myself trying to “fit in with the crowd” as much as possible and I found myself, doing what?
Reading a book?
Yes, reading. Everyone seems to be reading – everyone might be an exaggeration, but a lot more people than I was expecting had their little e-readers or newspapers or cell phones, reading away.
And I was taken aback a little bit – to be completely honest. Okay…sure, the silence of the subway happens mainly because not a single person knows another person (Another image I had in my head before I came to the city was that people…friends and family…travel together. I don’t know why I had this image, but I did).
There was a Clint Eastwood-looking man, with unkempt hair and an unshaven face holding a warped copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame…and a younger lady with bright red hair, leaning against the subway doors, devouring a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey. And there I was: reading a book and fitting right into this whole reading frenzy – like a mobile coffee shop, sans the pleasant aromas.
And that doesn’t include the people I’ve seen reading while walking down the streets, crossing the streets…crossing the streets when the big red hand says STAY WHERE YOU ARE and a herd of a yellow taxis are zooming towards the reader like a swarm of angry yellow jackets…there they are, calmly, leafing through a fashion magazine or a copy of Steve Jobs…it’s like watching a man try to balance plates on his head. I just turn my head away, afraid to look.
All is fine, though. It’s New York City. It’s the rhythm of the city, the way it moves, and breathes, and let me just say: I’m happy about that. I’m happy that I can be standing in a moving metal object with a whole lot of people and just read. Yes, all of us subway-riders are very different in who we are, where we came from, how we perceive the future, etcetera. But, at the same time, a lot of us in New York are joined by the act of reading, and for someone like myself – someone who sold everything to move to NYC with the bright-eyed dream of joining publishing- that’s what makes an intern like myself see the glimmer of the future publishing industry.
Tags: Beaufort Books, e-readers, NYC, Publishing, Reading, subway