New York is a jungle, they tell you. You could go further, and say that
New York is a jungle. New York *is a jungle.* Beneath the columns of
the old rain forest, made of melting macadam, the mean Limpopo of swamped
Ninth Avenue bears an angry argosy of crocs and dragons, tiger fish, noise
machines, sweating rainmakers. On the corners stand witchdoctors and
headhunters, babbling voodoo-men -- the natives, the jungle-smart natives.
And at night, under the equatorial overgrowth and heat-holding cloud
cover, you hear the ragged parrot-hoot and monkeysqueak of the sirens,
and then fires flower to ward off monsters. Careful: the streets are
sprung with pits and nets and traps. Hire a guide. Pack your snakebite
gook and your blowdart serum. Take it seriously. You have to get a
bit jungle-wise.
-- Martin Amis, _Money_