Bless this mess

With a record crowd predicted in Times Square last night, I figured I needed about 2 hours for the drive from Sleepy Hollow to Tribeca in lower Manhattan to see my old friend Fausto and his band ring in 2007 at Walker's Restaurant. That's roughly twice the normal travel time; and as it turned out, I wasn't too far off the mark.

Not that crowds in Times Square had anything to do with delaying my trip. In fact, if it hadn't been for an accident creating a bottleneck at the merge to the West Side Highway from I-95, I probably would have arrived with an hour to spare.

As it was, the ride down, minus the delay caused by the fender-bender, was amazingly smooth. I also found easy on-street parking within a block of N. Moore St., where last night the landmark building housing Walker's had its painted, tin ceilings crowded with silver and black helium balloons dangling shiny strings. Thus I had ample time to not only grab dinner beforehand but also to catch nearly 3 full sets of the Fabulous Faustones playing gritty, garage band quality rock 'n roll, swing, and roots music.

Yogi Berra once said, in reference to a popular restaurant, "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded." Certainly a plausible corollary is if everyone understood that to be true you'd probably have no trouble making a reservation. And that's what I, having lived in and witnessed the ebb and flow of New York City for 14 years, find is often the case with driving around Manhattan on holidays like New Year's Eve, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving: many people expect lots of traffic and choose not to drive, which clears the streets for those of us willing to test that assumption.

So much relies on perception. The New York Times recently ran an article entitled, “Saying Yes to Mess.” (Unfortunately to access the story in the Times archive you need to subscribe to “TimesSelect.”) Published in advance of Get Organized Month, which begins today, the story spotlights a growing “anti-anticlutter movement” that “urges you to embrace your disorder”:

"Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat ''office landscapes'') and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It's a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands.

"'It's chasing an illusion to think that any organization -- be it a family unit or a corporation -- can be completely rid of disorder on any consistent basis,’ said Jerrold Pollak, a neuropsychologist at Seacoast Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, N.H., whose work involves helping people tolerate the inherent disorder in their lives. ‘And if it could, should it be? Total organization is a futile attempt to deny and control the unpredictability of life.'"

Imagine if the New York Times applied this same line of thinking to the current situation in Iraq. In effect, it would be subverting the assumption popularized by its own editorial writers and columnists: that the Bush Administration, in its often sloppy and bungled efforts to establish representative government in Iraq, have perpetuated a hopeless, irremediable mess.

My hope for 2007 is that more Americans will acknowledge to themselves what history tells us: that war is always a messy affair requiring unwavering commitment and a constant testing of assumptions for victory to prevail. If we can do that, and if we choose victory, I believe we'll find the long, often agonizing road to a free, self-sustaining Iraq is ultimately worth every effort, perfect and imperfect, of our collective will.

Addendum:

I highly recommend Bill Roggio’s blog for perspectives on Iraq and the war on terror you’d be hard-pressed to find in today’s mainstream media. His post, “The State of the Jihad,” provides startling information on the scope of the war against western values being waged by Islamic fanatics. As a companion piece, I also recommend this revealing interview with an Iraqi journalist.