THE WIT AND WISDOM OF NEW YORKERS: AN IMAGINARY EAVESDROPPING REPORT FROM 2020:

----"I'm not as fascinated by murders here as I am by attempted murders. If I can prevent or block the attempt, no one murders me. That's my outlook as a New Yorker. Someday my epitaph should read, 'That He Died of Natural Causes is Proof of his Genius, in a City where Thousands Schemed and Plotted to Murder Him."

---"I prefer an alternative wording for that epitaph, something like: 'His Life was Truly Miraculous: He died of natural causes in a city where 90 percent of the residents schemed 24-hours-a-day with flagrant and truly outrageous homicidal intent toward him."

--"I would define depravity as a New Yorker who, when asked to cite his accomplishments in his life, states that attempting to commit homicide was the only project from his entire life that he ever put any energy into---and that particular project of his failed, since the intended victim is now being profiled as a hero in a front-page feature story for the New York Times."

---"If I could shake the hand of one New York Police officer, I would choose the detective who solved the largest number of attempted-homicide cases in calendar year 2019. I have a special place in my heart for that NYPD detective. I'm alive today because of truly courageous and brilliant detectives like that one."

---"Maybe there should be a special award for 'NYPD Attempted Homicide-Crimes Detective of the Year'. I would love to attend an awards banquet honoring that NYPD detective. My only worry would be that some organized crime syndicate would learn about the banquet before it takes place, and would attempt to put poison in the honoree's meal."

--"If you want to help deter attempted homicides in New York, you could donate money toward financing a new documentary film exploring attempted homicide in the Big Apple and how to help deter that violent felony crime."

---"I find it tragic that his tombstone epitaph declares that his biggest triumph and biggest accomplishment as a New Yorker was dying of natural causes. That's very grim, if you ask me."

---"Maybe there should also be an annual award for the best training program for attempted-homicide-cases detectives, assuming that NYPD has a separate investigative unit for attempted homicide detectives. There must be lots of angles to investigating an attempted homicide case here that are very distinct from the after-the-fact-cases, as I refer to our city's homicides."

---"Can you imagine being an Attempted Homicide Beat detective for NYPD and glancing nervously at your watch every hour, since you always worry that if you don't solve the most recent case ASAP, the attempted homicide victim will turn into a corpse floating down the Hudson River. So your case you didn't manage to solve on time turns into a Homicide case, and you end up facing an Internal Affairs interrogation provided to you by NYPD."

---"If I were an Attempted Homicides-beat detective for NYPD, I think I would get a heart attack from the severe anxiety of trying to identify the would-be murderer as soon as possible before he can succeed, so to speak, in his next attempt at murdering some unsuspecting New Yorker."

---"One consolation about Attempted Homicide in New York is that the would-be murderer doesn't always exhibit a continued zeal on behalf of pursuing attempted homicide. Maybe he stops doing it because he doesn't want to face the headline in the Daily News that warns everyone that "SERIAL ATTEMPTED HOMICIDE MANIAC STRIKES AGAIN!"
I, for one, am always very grateful when an Attempted Homicide perpetrator in the Big Apple decides to retire from that avocation and takes up gardening instead."

---"If I worked for the NYPD Attempted Homicides Unit, assuming there is one, I would want to have a healthy ongoing dialogue with the best detectives in the Homicide Unit. The attempted-homicide maniacs of New York all seem to follow the slogan for living of 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again!' So the names of suspects I'd be interviewing in the Attempted Homicides Unit would nine times out of 10 end up getting interviewed by the NYPD Homicide Unit."

---"Personally, I pity the fact that New Yorkers who authorized cremation of their body upon their death don't have the chance for a final statement on granite that sums up what their life was all about. To me, a truly wonderful epitaph here in New York should say something like, 'His ESP about the many New Yorkers who sought to harm him explains why he was able to reach age 100. He excelled at thwarting members of the would-be homicidal element."

---"I never wear a necklace, partly because I remember that murder-by-strangulation scene in the movie The Godfather' and it put ideas into the heads of lots of New Yorkers. Wearing a necklace in New York is like an open invitation to attempt to strangle yourself."

---"Donald likes Putin so much that Donald plans to open up a new restaurant here called Putin's Place. If you dine there and you criticize Vladimir Putin to any employee of that restaurant, you get banished to the Siberia Room, where drinking a beverage or eating the food can be a fatal experience."

---"Maybe there should be an anthology of each of the finest scholarly criminology studies on Attempted Homicide as a category of crime. That analogy could then be donated to the New York Public Library, in the hope that it would promote further dialogue about how to help PREVENT attempted homicides here."


---"You would think the anti-stalking laws would help to reduce the attempted homicide rate. If someone is stalking you, you can get a court restraining order against them that identifies them publicly as a leading suspect if anything happens to you."

--"I would love to attend a documentary movie in which New Yorkers who got convicted of Attempted Homicide speak to an interviewer about why, had they done it over again, they would NEVER have even attempted to commit any act of homicide against anyone. That type of documentary movie could then be a mandatory presentation inside the school auditorium of each and every middle school and high school here in Manhattan."

---"One reason for optimism is that our city's many Attempted Homicide convicts are persons who may have subconsciously NOT wanted to actually murder their intended victim. If you put an Attempted Homicide convict in a rehab program that repeatedly highlights the fact that he did NOT, in fact, want to actually murder the cited victim, this might be helpful in preventing recidivism."

---"I tend to look upon attempted murderers as New Yorkers who are not, in fact, cold-blooded killers. They are individuals who secretly acknowledged that their victim has a right to live on this planet, and who reflect that sense of decency through their attempt at murder being, in fact, unsuccessful."