What the media doesn't show us about New York

So, as usual I could not figure out how to work the technology needed for the assignment.  Voicethread duped me, so this is what I have instead.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1024&bih=882&q=upstate+new+york&gbv=2&aq=0&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=upstate+&gs_rfai=

Follow this URL and you will come to photographs of Upstate New York.  Last summer I worked in Upstate New York and was shocked.  My whole life I had only been shown picture of NYC, as most of us have.  As far as I was aware, Upstate New York did not exist.  When I got there I was amazed to see lush fields, valleys, farms, and areas that looked as unpopulated as the most serene areas of Wyoming.  Needless to say, I fell in love.

Later that month I visited NYC and got my fill of what I had already seen on Sex in the City, numerous numerous movies, The Apprentice, and hundreds of commercials.  That was the New York that I knew existed.  Bright lights, loud people, nutso traffic, and a pizza parlor on every corner.  I soon missed the tranquility of Upstate New York.

I spoke to a number of New Yorkers about the term "Upstate".  Most of them said, "Upstate is anything that isn't NYC."  To which I asked, "But there is so much to it!  It is big and beautiful and... well... so much bigger than NYC."  To which many replied, and I am not joking, "But who really cares about all that?  Who cares about anything outside of NYC."  We have everything you ever want right here in the city."  I was shocked.  Now, to be fair, I was talking to folks who had a lot of NYC pride and who looked at me like I was a camel when I told them I was from Minnesota.  "Where?"  "Minnesota."  "West of here, right."  "Uh, yah.  Everything other than New Jersey is west of here."  The people that I spoke to in NYC fit the media representations of the people that I saw on TV and in the movies, unfortunately.  But the land that I saw while biking through Keene Valley, Lake Tahoe, and Lake Champlain were not the media representations of what I saw when "New York" was displayed on TV and in the movies.

Thanks to the media, the name New York has come to mean strictly the Big Apple, not the entire state.  When Alicia Keyes sings, "Let's hear it for New York!  New York!  New York!" I do not think that she means the lush fields with grazing bovine.  And the big NY on the Yankees cap, I am curious as to how many of the quiet and content elderly people who put me up in Keene Valley put that on par with the American flag.  I think it is safe to say that many "New Yorkas'" do.