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James Lileks on Berlin.

Understand America? You can’t understand the world without understanding the history of New York. It’s not the only city one should study, of course. I mean, there’s Berlin. (“And on this site in 1932, chalk-faced Communists premiered a musical devoted to exposing the horrors of the international rubber trade.)

I’ll resist the overpowering temptation to add anything other than the fact that I don’t agree with his major premise about New York. Lileks isn’t God, but I’d love to be able to light a votive candle bearing his image and be able pack so much irony and meaning between two parentheses.