Standing Still in a Concrete Jungle

Ever spend 14 hours straight on the New York City subway? Justin Nobel has a simple philosophy: the best way to know a city is to stand in one spot and observe it, for a VERY long time. In "Standing Still in a Concrete Jungle", Justin "stands" in some of New York's most famous spots-Central Park, the subway, a Park Slope coffee shop-but also grittier places no tourist would ever go-a street corner in a rough part of the Bronx, a forgotten cemetery, an ER waiting room. Justin peels away the surface of the city to find a chattering nether-metropolis, where nothing is normal. He meets deranged mailman, his child doppelganger, a rare insect vendor and under a full moon on a beach in Brooklyn has a shamanistic experience with an evil genie. If you've ever been fascinated by the public spaces where so much of our daily nothing, that might actually mean everything, goes on this book will surely make you howl. And who knows, perhaps you're in it.