>Metamodernism in a New York Moment

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 Imagine being in a garden terrace where American ‘90s jazz plays and the art that hangs on the walls is a menagerie of midcentury color-swerving, obviously Picasso inspired. One particular painting strikes you, this one more Fauvist: a purple blonde clutches a pearl necklace as she emerges, orange-nippled and open-mouthed, from a parlor with sitting chair. Now imagine yourself as the painter, or voyeur or whoever, sitting comfortably in another chair watching self-satisfied. This is how I felt as I ate the steak au poivre avec pomme frites. This reminded me what it was like to be in love.

And I wish I could transmit the same feeling to you – it is so luxurious, so serene. So I looked up to the sky through the swinging beech branches that clamber over the black fire escapes and brown brick apartments and stored in my memory what New York was like.

Maybe I would do better to show you in a story of my own, how it feels to be in love. But that’s so 20th century, not metamodern at all. Or is it?

By Daniel Ryan Adler

Daniel Adler writes fiction and nonfiction and is finishing his MFA at University of South Carolina.

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