In Newburyport, MA I read an hysterical piece in The New Yorker Magazine by Woody Allen. I, for some reason, never read The New Yorker anymore, but “Bernie Maddoff” captures my eyeballs. And what really captures my eyeballs is the last paragraph of the essay:

“Moscowitz lives to this day with Yetta Belkin, whom he recognized from shopping at Fairway. In life she had always resembled a flounder, and after her fatal plane crash she came back as one.”

You can read the whole piece about two reincarnated lobsters’ encounter with Bernie Maddoff by Woody Allen here.

It’s the “shopping at Fairway” that catches my eye. Fairway on Broadway and 74th Street in New York City is a super supermarket to die for. Not only is there fresh produce up to the wazoo, but there is the ancient, impoverished Afro-American woman along with the waspy, middle aged New York socialite, the impeccably dressed New York businessman, lawyer, banker whatever, along with the pizza guy up the street, all jostling and doing a New York jig, within the hustle and bustle of Fairway. And with a quart of milk that goes for 75cents, what’s not to love?

I look at the new, or now fairly new website for Newburyport Development, and feel, at least compared to an institution like Fairway, that it is, in my mind, politically incorrect.

Newburyport is pictured by Newburyport Development, in my book, as a “Never Never Land” for the waspy, young, only attractive, well to do, American elite. That does not include moi, and I live here. The depiction is sort of the young, gorgeous versions of AIG executives and their girl friends or wives, that are now the recipients of populist rage. It is in stark contrast to the America seen at Fairway, which would, these days, be a politically correct reflection of the America in which we all, like it or not, abide.

This “perfect” Land of Eden, which the Newburyport Development website appears to depict, is in stark contrast to the real life squabbles, let’s say that we in Newburyport, MA are having over the large 292 foot wind turbine located in Newburyport’s Industrial Park.

And what I love about Newburyport, MA, is that no matter how one might feel about the 292 foot wind turbine, the passion is genuine, the “squabbles” are real and heartfelt, not a Madison Avenue mockup. And at the end of the day, or year or decade, there often seems to be a grudging respect for the other side. Often eventually one time “enemies” give one another hugs at the produce department at Newburyport’s local grocery store of choice.