Letter I still have a long list of places I want to explore, get to know, fall in love with, and I plan to do that. But New York stole my heart, and for that, I am grateful. it was an act of thievery I benefit from every day, though probably one that wasn't necessary. I would have given my heart to this city of my own accord.
D
ialogue is a conversation between you and your city. Its concrete, its greenery, the people hurrying to work every morning with a cup of coffee, the bar that you
often find yourself at the end of a long day- they all become a part of you - and you become them. The first issue of Dialogue is dedicated to New York. Of all the cities I’ve visited, New York stole my heart. I was attracted it for all the tired but true clichés that bring so many others here: the constant hustle, eclectic nature and dynamic crowd. This issue brings you stories from New Yorkers - some who were born here, some who moved here, others who visited briefly and then those who moved to another city but left a part of them behind. The very talented Ramona Emerson talks about her journey of leaving New York and experiences that make the city special. In a spirited and often funny narrative, Abigail Deutsch captures the mood of New York Subway riders in “Letters of Recommendations”. Every story is accompanied by photographs that bring a bolt of energy and joy to the magazine’s pages—the perfect cocktail to start the Spring season.
Disclaimer: All pictures have been taken by me.
Ravneet Sachdeva, Editor - in - Chief
01
Letter from the editor
04
A New York Poem
05
16 06
Green Goddess
Manhattan
ents
09 13 22
Leaving New York
Letters of Recommendation
falling in love with New York
I Used to Love Her, But I Had to Flee Her
24
The Way We Live Now: Lost and Found
35 28 38 33 50
My Endless New York
START - UP CITY
Long, hot summer of love
THE PEOPLE ON THE BUS
LAPTOP NOMADS
CONT-
A New York BY Theodore Sedgwick Fay
B
POEM
ut see! The broadening river deeper flows,
May greet the wanderer of Columbia’s shore,
Its tribute floods intent to reach the sea,
Proud Venice of the west! No lovelier scene.
While, from the west, the fading sunlight throws
Of thy vast throngs now faintly comes the roar,
Its softening hues on stream, and field, and tree;
Though late like beating ocean surf I ween—
All silent nature bathing, wondrously,
And everywhere thy various varks are seen,
In charms that soothe the heart with sweet desires,
Cleaving the limpid floods that round thee flow,
And thoughts of friends we ne’er again may see,
Encircled by the banks of sunny green—
Till lo! Ahead, Manhattan’s bristling spires,
The panting steamer plying to and fro,
Above her thousand roofs red with day’s dying fires,
Or the tall sea-bound ship abroad on wings of snow. n
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GREEN BY EmmA Lazarus
N
ot like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” n
Goddess
DIALOGUE / MARCH
5
I
’m here because I was born here and thus ruined for anywhere else, but I don’t know about you. Maybe you’re from here, too, and sooner or later it will come
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didn’t even know it. Or maybe you moved here a couple years ago for a job; maybe you came here for school. Maybe you saw the brochure. No matter how long you have been here, you are a New Yorker the first time you say, ‘’That used to be Munsey’s’’ or ‘’That used to be the Tic Toc Lounge.’’ That before the Internet cafe plugged itself in, you got your shoes resoled in the mom-and-pop operation that used to be there. You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now. You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it. Maybe you were in a cab leaving the airport when the skyline first roused itself into view. All your worldly possessions were in the trunk, and in your hand you held an address on a piece of paper. Look: there’s the Empire State Building, over there are the twin towers. Maybe your parents dragged you here for a vacation when you were a kid and towed you up and down the gigantic avenues to shop for Christmas gifts. The only skyscrapers visible from your carriage were the legs of adults, but you got to know the ground pretty well and started to wonder why some sidewalks sparkle at certain angles. Maybe you came to visit your old buddy, the one who moved here last summer. You stepped out of Penn Station into the dizzying hustle of Eighth Avenue and fainted. Freeze it there: that instant is the first brick in your city. I started building my New
BY COLSON WHITEHEAD
MANHATTAN
out that we used to live a block away from each other and
York on the uptown No. 1 train. My first city memory is of looking out a subway window as the train erupted from the tunnel on the way to 125th Street and palsied up onto the elevated tracks. It’s the early 70’s, so everything is filthy. Which means everything is still filthy, because that is my city and I’m sticking to it. I still call it the Pan Am Building, not out of affectation, but because that’s what it is. For that new transplant from Des Moines, who is starting her
first week of work at a Park Avenue South insurance firm, that colossus squatting over Grand Central is the Met Life Building, and for her it always will be. She is wrong, of course - when I look up there, I clearly see the gigantic letters spelling out Pan Am, don’t I? And of course I
own personal skyline. Go back to your old haunts in your
am wrong, in the eyes of old-timers who maintain the myth
old neighborhoods and what do you find: they remain and
that there was a time before Pan Am.
have disappeared. But look past the windows of the travel
History books and documentaries are always trying to tell you all sorts of ‘’facts’’ about New York. That Canal Street used to be a canal. That Bryant Park used to be a reservoir. It’s all hokum. I’ve been to Canal Street, and the only time I ever saw a river flow through it was during the last water-main explosion. Never listen to what people tell you about old New York, because if you didn’t witness it, It is not a part of your New York and might as well be Jersey. Although that bit about the Dutch
agency that replaced your pizza parlor. Beyond the desks and computers and promo posters for tropical adventures, you
History books and public television documentaries are always trying to tell you all sorts of ‘’facts’’ about New York. That Canal Street used to be a canal. That Bryant Park used to be a reservoir. It’s all hokum.
can still see Neapolitan slices cooling, the pizza cutter lying next to half a pie, the map of Sicily on the wall. The man who just paid for a trip to Jamaica sees none of that, sees his romantic getaway, his family vacation, what this little shop on this little street has granted him. The disappeared pizza parlor is still here because you are here, and when the beauty parlor replaces the travel agency,
buying Manhattan for 24 bucks might have something to
the gentleman will still have his vacation. You swallow hard
it, there are and always will be braggarts who ‘’got in at the
when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain
right time.’’
pharmacy and that the place where you first kissed so-and-
There are eight million naked cities in this naked city -
so is now a discount electronics retailer. Damage has been
they dispute and disagree. The New York City you live in is
done to your city. You say, ‘’It happened overnight.’’ But of
not my New York City; how could it be? We move over here,
course it didn’t. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her
we move over there. Over a lifetime, that adds up to a lot of
hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all
neighborhoods, the motley construction material of your
you know, the place closed down moments after the last time
jerry-built metropolis. Before you know it, you have your
you walked out the door. And there have been five stores in DIALOGUE / MARCH
7
I never got a chance to say goodbye to the twin towers. And they never got a chance to say goodbye to me. I think they would have liked to; I refuse to believe in their indifference.
that spot before the travel agency. Thousands of people pass
You didn’t know that each time you passed the threshold you
that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his
were saying goodbye.
or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing. We can never make proper goodbyes. It was your last
I never got a chance to say goodbye to the twin towers. And they never got a chance to say goodbye to me.
ride in a Checker cab, and you had no warning. It was the last
I think they would have liked to; I refuse to believe in their
time you were going to have Lake Tung Ting shrimp in that
indifference. You say you know these streets pretty well?
entirely suspect Chinese restaurant, and you had no idea.
The city knows you better than any living person because
If you had known, perhaps you would have stepped behind
it has seen you when you are alone. It saw you slowly
the counter and shaken everyone’s hand, pulled out the
walking home after the late date, tripping over nonexistent
disposable camera and issued posing instructions. But you
impediments on the sidewalk, wincing when the single frigid
had no idea. There are unheralded tipping points, a certain
drop fell from the air-conditioner 12 stories up and zapped
number of times that we will unlock the front door of an
you. It saw you half-running up the street after you got the
apartment. At some point you were closer to the last time
keys to your first apartment. It saw all that. Remembers too.
than you were to the first time, and you didn’t even know it.
n
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When I had a few months left before leaving New York, I decided to make list of all of the things I wanted to do before I left. I know this is called a bucket list, but I think the phrase “bucket list” is stupid and embarrassing.
By Ramona Emerson
I
t reminds me of people who read those 1,000 Places To
times, some within the last day. It included Prospect Park,
See Before You Die books or are Australian or say things
the/a beach, dancing, Sly Fox, and “a show!” The one new
like, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” I’d rather sleep during my
thing was “Statue of Liberty,” which was also the only item
afternoon nap than have to wait till I’m dead. It reminds me
that had a “maybe“ next to it. But the thing was, I didn’t want
of people who read those 1,000 Places To See Before You
to do new things. I wanted to do more of the things I liked. A
Die books or are Australian or say things like, “I’ll sleep when
list that was all new would be like a dying person saying, “I
I’m dead.” I’d rather sleep during my afternoon nap than have
want to spend my last days making small talk with strangers
to wait till I’m dead.
instead of hanging out with the friends I love.” I wanted to
So, I made an experiential to-do list and read it aloud to my roommate while she was trying to do something else. After I had finished, she asked, “Is there anything new that
spend my last days hanging out with the friends I love, not finally going to the Natural History Museum. The idea was always to write the most perfectly self-
you want to do?” She had a point. Almost every experience
conscious Leaving New York Essay™. To strike some kind of
was one I had already experienced, most of them many
balance between a Joan Didion ripoff and an Awl satire of a DIALOGUE / MARCH
9
Joan Didion ripoff. Did anyone ever move to New York just to write a leaving New York essay? I’m here to tell you that someone did. The idea of even feeling the need to write a LNYE (pronounced len-yee) is weird because it suggests that you need to explain yourself to New York, when the nice thing about a city is that it doesn’t need your explanation. As much as Sex and The City wanted us to think it, New York isn’t your boyfriend. (Not least because New York is obviously female.) Since New York isn’t your dumb boyfriend, it’s free to be perfect, and New York is perfect. There is nothing more New York than New York itself, which you can’t say for everywhere. For example, there’s nothing more Napa than Tuscany, and there’s nothing more San Francisco than hell. New York is especially itself in the summer. For a person from the West Coast this is exemplified by the wholly foreign concept of warm nights. Everything is hazy, lazy, sweating with strangers on the subway platform. Watching the day fade into the long blue nights while you’re playing it as it lays on the book of common prayer. The first time I ever came to New York was in the summer. I was 20 and my dad and I had driven from Seattle to meet my mom at this East Village duplex we had
That was the beginning of my life in New York even though
somehow rented for three weeks. I still consider this the
I wouldn’t move there for another four years. The city
happiest time of my life. I was taking a lot of Percocet due
instantly made sense to me in a way no other place had. I
to a wisdom teeth extraction that had gone terribly awry, but
lived in San Francisco before coming to New York, and when
there was more to it than that. Besides powerful narcotic
I was leaving people would ask if I would miss it. I couldn’t
medication, a confluence of factors came together to make
understand what they meant. Who could miss a city? Now I
me more susceptible to New York than I would have been at
know who.
another time: A terrible haircut had finally grown out, but the
What I’ll miss most about New York are the small things,
strength of character that comes from enduring a terrible
which New York manages to imbue with a cinematic quality
haircut remained. My longtime boyfriend and I had broken
that keeps you here: Riding the subway has never ceased
up, and I was deeply interested in a Canadian who may or
to feel cool to me. Although, riding the morning L train with
may not have just gotten deported. (Was anyone ever so
1,000 other 28-year-olds shoving each other so that they can
dumb? I’m here to tell you that someone was.) I was headed
get to their graphic design job first has never ceased to feel
into my senior year of college having emerged from a lonely
embarrassing. The high of being asked which direction 6th
junior year filled with insomnia and sweatpants. Someone
Avenue is and knowing the answer. Not just wearing shoes
had informed me that writing can be a viable career option.
but ruining their lives. Walking outside on winter mornings
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New York after being away and getting that first glimpse of the pointy buildings and being like, “Yas kweeeeeeen!” Seeing celebrities, unless they are models. The worst thing about New York is accidentally sitting next to a model on the subway and then spending the whole ride trying to make your appendages look longer. The best thing about New York is the talking. I recently had two West Coasters say things like, “New York is great, but all people do there is sit in bars and talk.” Can you imagine anything better? Thanks to all this perfection, New York is a good place to hone your jealousy. Even when you live here it usually feels like peering in from Jersey City. In New York there are at any one time, 6,000 people who are better than you at the only thing you’re good at. You’re at once special and the opposite of that. How many special people fit on the head of a pin? It depends: The more special people the smaller and more insane each one gets. At some point, I got to this place where I started saying things like “I got to this place.” It was also a place where I didn’t want to work at Buzzfeed but was also jealous of people who worked at Buzzfeed. This both wanting to and not wanting to work there is a pretty impossible position to and being like “Why do I live here?” And then looking over at
be in, when in New York. I realized that you can spend your
the shivering person walking next to me and them looking
whole life being bitter about Buzzfeed or you can leave New
away. The party starting at nine and no one showing up till
York and never think about it again or only think about it in
one. The party starting at nine and no one showing up at
the way that regular people do, which is like, “Oh, that thing.”
all because there are like eight other, better parties. Sleeping over at friends’ apartments, which is something I did in New York even though I have my own apartment and am not 11. Rising up out of the ground as the Q
The worst thing about New York is accidentally sitting next to a model on the subway and then spending the whole ride trying to make your appendages look longer. The best thing about New York is the talking.
I’m not trying to demean the thoughtful journalism that people do at Buzzfeed. I’m trying to say I don’t want a job at there but am furious that I also can’t have one. Working in media in New York is like working at a restaurant:
train heads over the bridge toward Brooklyn and looking at
After awhile it gets hard to eat the food. Writing for a fashion
the graffiti and laundry strung up on the roofs. Roofs. The
magazine was the fulfillment of a childhood dream. What
only heaven I can imagine is drinking beer on a Brooklyn
do you do when you realize your childhood dreams weren’t
roof at magic hour as you watch the sun turn gold over the
very well informed? In my case, you spend six months not
Manhattan skyline. The Manhattan skyline! Returning to
leaving your apartment. Then you decide to move back to DIALOGUE / MARCH
11
Washington and become a nurse. I know a lot of people will have questions about this like: “What is Washington?” And “Which way is 6th Avenue?” I can answer the latter. Geographical cures aren’t permanent, but there’s nothing like a new place to wake you up for six months. After that you’re on your own. It seems like the whole point of travel is to come home again. And I’m ready to make my point. When I told someone that I was changing my whole life — you only get so many chances at melodrama — they asked how old I was. When I said I was 28 they said that made sense because of something called the Saturn Return, which basically means that every 30 years you have to make a huge change or risk lifelong anxiety. I’m no stranger to anxiety, but I liked this idea because it made me feel good about what I had already decided to do, which I think is the point of astrology. At some point, you start to know yourself and one thing that I’ve learned, which is contrary to what I’ve said in every job interview I’ve had since I was 15, is that I am not a fast 12
DIALOGUE / MARCH
learner. I spent six months describing a certain dish at the restaurant where I work as “little fried dough pieces” and wondering why no one ever ordered it. I’m a slow learner, because I learn by feeling my way around in the dark instead of listening when someone tells me where the light switch is. You can learn a lot of interesting things this way, but I’ll tell you, it takes forever. n
my morning routine into a trim half-hour (shower, clothes, Cheerios), and at 6:40 a.m., I raced to the
subway, squeezed into a car, gazed uncomprehendingly at my chemistry notes, popped out onto Chambers Street and shot westward to school. And when classes concluded at 3:40, I did not, like a normal person, go home; I went to the school-newspaper office and edited, and wrote, and wondered if anyone would ever kiss me,
By ABIGAIL DEUTSCH
and eventually, after darkness had fallen, drifted back across Chambers to board the train uptown. How I loved the train uptown. My feeling as the 6 pulled into the station was like that of the toddler who spots an ice-cream truck rounding the corner, only my treat of choice was sleep. To school I took the express, for time was of the essence, but from school I took the
letters
recommendation
I
n high school, I lived my longest days. I chiseled
DIALOGUE / MARCH
13
hopping from the Eighth Avenue Express to the Sixth Avenue and back, snoozing for hours. We listen to music, play Candy Crush, laugh dutifully at advertisements for storage units. local, for time no longer mattered, and I wanted merely to
Sleep, as the greater withdrawal, requires greater faith.
sit and doze. My naps were efficient, a city dweller’s naps;
Usually we sleep in the company of those we trust most:
they unfurled with near-mechanical precision. As the train
lovers, family members, friends. To nap among fellow riders
left each station, I slipped out of consciousness. As it slowed
suggests there is something of the lover, family member or
upon arrival at the next, I re-entered the waking world.
friend in them. It feels subversive and pleasurable, like — well,
Among the shoppers who boarded at Canal, the students at
like sleeping with strangers.
Hunter, the doctors at Lenox Hill, I slept. Each time I woke, I
When I mention my love of subway napping to my own
became half-aware of the industry of the world — and then
friends, they nod politely, then immediately try to dissuade
I slept again. Subway slumber was one of my few acts of
me from ever doing it again. “Don’t you get nervous?” they
rebellion in those days. I was a sweet kid, with a ready smile, a ravenous appetite for good grades and an oddly long to-do list. I had fun only on the rare occasions when my homework happened to be fun. But flying
To nap among fellow riders suggests there is something of the lover, family member or friend in them. It feels subversive and pleasurable, like — well, like sleeping with strangers.
beneath the city streets, jostled by the
ask. But I don’t. Late at night, in a semi-empty car, I glance at my company and detect nothing of concern. The possibility that my reaction is misguided only increases my satisfaction. In my
Discman-toting masses, I retreated into myself and refused
waking, aboveground life, I often worry for no reason; here —
to do anything at all.
notwithstanding the relative safety of today’s New York — I
Sleeping on the subway is a storied tradition in New
probably should worry but do not. In more ways than one,
York. Among the ranks of nappers past, none fascinates me
subway sleeping lets me enter a different state.
more than Henry Shelby, the cheerful, well-educated vagrant
If anything improves on subway sleeping, it’s subway waking.
who choreographed overnight ballets of subway rides,
In “Swann’s Way,” Proust describes the disorientation that
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DIALOGUE / MARCH
follows awakening in the dark: “When I woke in the middle of the night, since I did not know where I was, I did not even understand in the first moment who I was.” No such trouble awaits the subway waker. The moment your eyes open to the neon glare, you glimpse a comfortingly familiar sight. Shiny blue benches, advertisements for breast augmentations, the guy across from you, listening to music; the woman next to you, staring into space. Not for a moment can you doubt where you are, or who you are. You are a city person, a person dwelling among people. Is there a more quintessentially urban act than the subway nap? Even when the snoozing commuter stays still, she is moving, and even when she withdraws into herself, she is joining the crowd. n
“
When I woke in the middle of the night, since I did not know where I was, I did not even understand in the first moment who I was. DIALOGUE / MARCH
15
a time, around the time when most movies I watched started with “once upon a time,” that would have seemed
like an eternity. Now, while much has changed and developed in those years, the speed with which they flew by, and my awareness of a year’s exponential increase in pace, makes it seem so finite — such a snippet in the stream of a lifetime. That being said, it has been enough time to get to know this city and to fall in love with it. I still have a long list of places I want to explore, get to know, fall in love with, and I plan to do that. But New York stole my heart, and for that, I am grateful — it was an act of thievery I benefit from every day, though probably one that wasn’t necessary. I would have given my heart to this city of my own accord. It’s hard to pinpoint sometimes, what it is exactly about this place that makes it so incredible. But, as it often does, sitting on my rooftop somehow afforded me the opportunity to find some clarity on that. In that moment, I knew what made New York so vibrant, so utterly exhausting, and so special to me. I knew what I had to thank it for. Here goes… New York forces you to give up a tempo for a pulse; it won’t let you become content in monotony. It makes you trade in star-gazing for soul-searching. You find the city
FALLING IN LOVE
I
’ve lived in New York for three years now. Once upon
WITH
New York
By Corinda Lubin Katz
and realize there’s so much still to be found in yourself — much like the stars, there but out of sight, distracted by skyscrapers’ never tiring seduction. The city’s so littered with lights, it’s impossible not to see yourself. It’s the only place that simultaneously inspires in me a desire to see everything the world has to offer, but also makes me feel as if I never want to leave. It’s always one step ahead, but it always looks back, doesn’t leave it to intrigue — lets you know you should keep on trying to keep up. It makes you realize it’s not the fountain of youth we need, but an hourglass — some control over time’s movement. It’s not that growing old is scary. It’s not even its inevitability that is daunting. It’s the fear that inevitability will become a vision of the past before we know it — that what we know will come, will show up at 16
DIALOGUE / MARCH
“
New York forces you to give up a tempo for a pulse; it won’t let you become content in monotony. It makes you trade in star-gazing for soul-searching. The city’s so littered with lights, it’s impossible not to see yourself.
our doorstep while we’re only just starting to get ready for its
Any person I interact with could hold the key to the next
arrival. We expected it to come, but not just yet. It epitomizes
chapter in my journey. When so much is unknown, and
the idea of a fresh start — there is nearly tangible possibility
there is so much to see, you can’t help but feel like your next
in every single day. That’s the perk of unpredictability.
exhilaration is always waiting for you a moment away. And
Every time I enter the subway, I may encounter a love of my life. Every corner I turn, I might stumble upon a revelation.
when discovery can descend at a moment’s notice, there is a certain contentment that nestles into your daily existence. DIALOGUE / MARCH
17
The city is loud and alive and buzzing all the time. So
at your whim. But when your desire for endless adventure is
when you need noise and life and adrenaline, it’s at your
sated, it will leave you seeking and stumbling into moments
fingertips, ready to infiltrate your pores, saturate and appease
of serenity, and you will never appreciate it as much as you will in the context of constant chaos. New York is bedlam littered with treasures and oases and secret havens and all the simple things you might not have appreciated if you didn’t have to discover them unexpectedly and less often than you would if they were in plain sight. New York is appreciation - it’s when the wind finally blows on a densely hot summer day, the type of summer day that latches on to your clothing, and you feel alive and you want to breathe in the entire gust and hold on to its energy and cooling state forever. It’s when summer first cools to fall, when winter first thaws to spring — it’s transition and triumph and perseverance. It’s becoming utterly aware of your existence in a place, in a moment, in the context of your life. The city is dynamic, it’s amorphous, it’s ever-evolving and changing. It makes you want to be dynamic yourself — to be open to your own evolution and change. It’s a sum of its parts — it’s humbling and ego-boosting. It will knock you down sometimes, infuriate you, make your blood boil up to the limits of your restraint, and then it will peel back a curtain, reveal where it’s been leading you, and leave you mindblown and forgiving. It will make you want to promise that no
New York is appreciation - it’s when the wind finally blows on a densely hot summer day, the type of summer day that latches on to your clothing, and you feel alive and you want to breathe in the entire gust and hold on to its energy and cooling state forever. matter how long you wait in a smoldering subway station for a train that’s twenty minutes late, with bag straps branding your shoulders, sweat trickling down your back, visions of smashing every subway in the land vivid in your brain, you will still always love this insane place, you will always know it never takes more than it gives. This city embraces a spectrum — a diversity of people 18
DIALOGUE / MARCH
and experiences. It will open your mind and expand your perspective — it will make you less patient but more tolerant. It will harden you, and increase your capacity for compassion. It makes you elaborate and complex and intricate, so that every day is a rediscovery of yourself. It is the sum of its buildings, its streets, its sewers, its taxis, its cobblestones, and signs and parks and bodegas and liquor stores and boutiques and delis and subway stations and rooftops and walkups and skyline and rivers and bridges and infinitely skyscraper eclipsed sunsets — but mostly, it is a sum of its people, and for that New York is always personal. It’s always yours, and always mine. n
DIALOGUE / MARCH
19