last night, as mari and i were biking back home across the brooklyn bridge, we saw a manhattan bridge that was half lit, half dark. (the williamsburg was like this as well.) it makes you wonder if this was part of some decades-old agreement: “this bridge is as much brooklyn as it is manhattan.” hence, the perfect 50/50 split of power.
and then you think: wait, we use this word “power”; what does it mean? we use it a lot to mean ‘electricity’ nowadays, but ‘power’ in the old days, in the grander sense, before the widespread use of electricity (and other luxuries) meant something more: the haves versus have-nots.
today, with this frankenstein of a city, where downtown and the riversides are without basics, the word “power” takes on a new meaning. the old-school ‘haves versus have-nots’ don’t mean anything in this post-storm world. nature (not coned) determines who rules.