Some days, the Times’ Metropolitan Diary feature nails too well the psyche of New York City. This week is a perfect example.
First, the righteousness of liberal guilt:
It was a weekday afternoon. I was on a downtown E train absorbed in my newspaper. The door from the preceding car opened and a bespectacled man entered.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted and, as if reading my mind, added: “I am not here today to ask you for money. I am here to thank you for what you have already been kind enough to give me over the past few months. Your money has allowed me to get these special glasses that I am now wearing. I am still legally blind, but now I can read. This is what has allowed me to get a job. A job! So I thank you! I thank all of you!”
He went into the next car, and I could see him addressing those riders, too. I couldn’t remember encountering him before this, and I certainly didn’t remember giving him any money. But I certainly would like to have done so.
Next, the myth that everyone in the City is cultured and talented:
I was thrilled when a pianist friend of mine offered to sublet his fantastic apartment to me on a delightful West Village street brimming with performing artists. As he showed me around, he told me that during my stay I should feel free to use his piano, day or night.
“Don’t the neighbors complain about the volume?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” he replied. “Though they do complain about tempos.”
Obligatory Corned Beef:
Scene: Delicatessen on Houston Street, crowded at lunch on a recent Sunday, paramedics wheeling out a stricken gray-haired man.
His not-visibly-distraught wife, bringing up the rear, paused at the door, turned to the crowd lined at the cashier, and called out, “It wasn’t the corned beef sandwich!”
Yearning for The Way We Were (otherwise known as Creeping Salingerism):
To help pay my way through Brooklyn College in the 40’s, I had a series of part-time jobs - library clerk, doctor’s receptionist, temple secretary, baby sitter. In all my three and a half years at school, there was only job at which I lasted less than a week.
Most of this work came through the college placement office, and one such referral landed me at Lady Hilda Frocks, One Flight Up.
My first three days as a sales trainee, I found bald, mustachioed Mr. D. all right as bosses go. But on the fourth day, he had a brainstorm.
Apparently the dress display in the window was not enough to entice customers up the long staircase. Mr. D. knew he had to move the merchandise one way or another.
“Shirley,” he said, “I want you should go in the dressing room and put on this number.”
I was a trim Size 10 back then and had no trouble slipping into the fitted and peplumed garment. What a subtle way to feature his wares, I thought. But Mr. D. didn’t deal in subtleties.
“Now climb up to the window I just emptied, and walk slowly back and forth.”
Did you ever watch a model sashaying up and down the runway? Well, now picture the opposite. I slunk along hoping that no one would notice me. When a couple down below pointed up and a small crowd began to form, I caved.
“I can’t do this,” I told my boss.
“Well, you have to, if you want this job,” he said.
So I quit.
Today I think modeling dresses in a window might be kind of fun. But not only has my self-consciousness vanished; so have the offers.
The Red State-Blue State Divide and the Righteousness of the Blue:
On a recent rainy morning in Central Park’s Conservatory Garden, a large group of touring Midwesterners stopped, fascinated by the horticultural activity. Under the direction of the curator, Diane Schaub, volunteers and park employees, many of them protected by bright yellow slickers, were tearing out the annual plants in preparation for bulb planting.
One of the visitors cautiously approached Ms. Schaub.
“Are you in charge here?” she asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, it’s a beautiful garden, but don’t you have any help?”
“Yes, indeed I do,” Ms. Schaub said, gesturing roundly at the volunteers, including one or two grandes dames, authors of books on gardening, retired schoolteachers, Army brass, Broadway veterans - the usual New York mix of volunteers.
The woman came a bit closer, and asked in a hushed tone, “Are they inmates?”
As Ms. Schaub hesitated, for once at a loss for words, the woman added, “They’re what we use in the gardens in our state.”
Straight-Up Class War (Now!):
On a recent beautiful Sunday afternoon, Susan Futter was in East Hampton and found herself walking next to a woman and her daughter (about 4), and overheard the following conversation:
Little Girl (spotting her father across the street): “Daddy! We’re over here!”
Mother: “Honey, please use your ‘inside’ voice.”
Little girl (confused): “But Mommy, we’re outside.”
Mother: “That’s right, honey. But when we’re in East Hampton we have to use our inside voices, even when we’re outside.”
And last, but not least, The Everpresent Threat of Crime:
The Friday night was rainy and cold, and I had had a very long day. I was eager to reach my apartment and leave the long work week behind.
As I trudged down West 43rd Street, I saw the headlights of a double-parked police car through the fog. Suddenly, the officer’s voice crackled over his loudspeaker: “A knife! A knife!”
I looked around. I was alone on the deserted street. Surely an assailant was lurking in the shadows, ready to strike. My pace quickened as I approached the nearest shop, the Little Pie Company. At the entrance I could see another police officer, most likely trying to stop a robbery in progress. Oh my God, I thought to myself, I’m about to be taken hostage at knifepoint!
Again, I heard the officer in the car use his loudspeaker: “A knife! A knife! Get a knife, too!”
I hope they enjoyed their pie.
