Number Madness Page 2   That’s all.” Although there are a handful of number spots in L.A. (360, Club 7969, 26 Beach Cafe, and 72 Market Street), and a handful in San Francisco (One Market, 1015 Club, and 330 Ritch), these cities do not come close to comparing with number-manic New York. I haven’t heard of any number spots in Chicago or Boston. Nothing like this exists across the Atlantic in Paris, London or Milan. (Except for the British prime minister’s home being called 10 Dowing Street) Vietnam, however, deserves all the credit for inventing the name-number system. In downtown Saigon, dozens of Pho shops (cafeteria-style restaurants serving the famous rice noodles in broth) dot the busy Pasteur Street, each named “Pho” followed by its street number (i.e. Pho 585, Pho 245). But how could chaotic New York, the city that stands for individualism, entitle its diverse places with such uniform numbers-names? It could be that business owners have simply become lazy with thinking up new names, but with all the money and creative energy invested into slick New York interiors and elaborate menus, I highly doubt it. I think this number madness might be a symptom of a deeper phenomenon. It might very well be that numbers have finally won the ultimate victory over words. In the Metropolis of American capitalism, where deli workers and taxi drivers invest in the stock market and everyone anticipates the reporting of quarterly corporate earnings as if they were the Oscars, numbers have proven to be the one important thing in our lives. Today, words are considered fluff, almost too artsy for serious consideration. “Money talks” they say,