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a nutty novel

It's got to be the stupidest car ever made. Look up "Nouveau Riche" in the dictionary, and you'll find a picture of a guy standing in front of one. And yet there it is, a stretch Hummer, shiny and white in all its phallic, bird-flipping glory, right there on North Second Street. It's parked in front of a trendy new spot called Deuce, which bills itself as a “Las Vegas-style" lounge. Deuce, in turn, shares a building with several dozen just-built "New York-style" loft.
It's nighttime, but I blink as if blinded by the sun, trying to comprehend how this postmodern cosmopolitan overload—which didn't exist even five years ago— could have landed not two blocks from my little 1830s "Philadelphia-style" rowhouse. It costs more to fill up the Hummer than to heat my place for the winter, and I'm a little worried the wheeled beast is going to open its grill and swallow my happy home in one big bite.
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