Yesterday, I posted on the provinciality of New Yorkers, most of whom hail from the provinces anyway.  In my accidental and ongoing series about New York, then, is this piece by Joan Acocella, where she wonders why New Yorkers seem so rude.  Here’s a good hypothesis: the rest of America spends more time in private, and so we’re ready and rested to put smiles on for the rest of the world when we go outside.  New Yorkers, however, have less domestic space to be alone, and so:

[T]hey make less separation between private and public life. That is, they act on the street as they do in private. In the United States today, public behavior is ruled by a kind of compulsory cheer that people probably picked up from television and advertising and that coats their transactions in a smooth, shiny glaze, making them seem empty-headed. New Yorkers have not yet gotten the knack of this. That may be because so many of them grew up outside the United States, and also because they live so much of their lives in public, eating their lunches in parks, riding to work in subways. It’s hard to keep up the smiley face for that many hours a day.

If you’re going to the city anytime soon, or if you live there, read the rest, which suggests why New Yorkers act the way they do, and why they seem smarter than everyone else.