Gypsies

The worst thing about stereotypes is that they’re so damn accurate, like European white trash beating their wives in the train station at Timisoara, unwashed masses smoking cigarettes to stay warm.  It’s good to see Gypsies begging for coins instead of merely telling fortunes for tunes or fortunes in American sweaty palms, Gypsies in their own subculture, the East European Slavic slavishness.  I wonder what it was that inspired a group of people to migrate from India headed for Europe during the height of the Middle Ages and just keep going, as if there were nothing else to do in the world.  They probably realized early on there’s always work for those willing to do what others are not, and that there’s a sucker born every minute.  Put the two together and you’ve got a winning combination.  These are more than just people fallen through the cracks.  These are masters of the cracks, creators of the cracks.  They keep alive an ancient tradition of shuffling listlessness and creative adaptation that define us as a race, going against the grain and loving every minute of it. 

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