La gloire ne sait point ma demeure ignorée,
Et je chante tout seul ma chanson éplorée,
Qui n'a de charme que pour moi.
- Charles Brugnot, Gaspard de la nuit.
Je m'en fiche de la gloire; mais en tout cas je me noie dans la musique.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Companionable Copy
Normally, interactions between these two parties aren't too cordial, sometimes outright hostile.
I'm talking about the people who hand out copies of rival free newspapers AM New York and Metro every morning at subway entrances and exits, each trying to out-hawk the other and distribute papers to thousands of commuters in transit. I've even heard of fisticuffs occurring between overzealous newsies. I imagine newsprint flying as two people, perhaps middle-aged, grapple and yell in a whirl of thick coats, sturdy shoes and orange vests - vests in which copies of the day's issue are displayed, and are now getting irreversibly crumpled.
It was different this morning as I got off the train and sloshed through the turnstiles. As I climbed stairs and fought to get out my umbrella, I passed an AM NY guy, who was clearly in the middle of a lively conversation with the Metro newsie stationed at the next landing. He threw a comment I couldn't catch over his shoulder in between cries of "AM New York!" and boisterous morning greetings. I did, however, hear the amusing reply as I climbed past the man handing out copies of Metro:
"Oh man, if I had that kind of money, I'd have six or seven kids running around, and I wouldn't even know where some of'em came from!"
Not sure I want to know....but I'll take that over fights during my morning commute.
I'm talking about the people who hand out copies of rival free newspapers AM New York and Metro every morning at subway entrances and exits, each trying to out-hawk the other and distribute papers to thousands of commuters in transit. I've even heard of fisticuffs occurring between overzealous newsies. I imagine newsprint flying as two people, perhaps middle-aged, grapple and yell in a whirl of thick coats, sturdy shoes and orange vests - vests in which copies of the day's issue are displayed, and are now getting irreversibly crumpled.
It was different this morning as I got off the train and sloshed through the turnstiles. As I climbed stairs and fought to get out my umbrella, I passed an AM NY guy, who was clearly in the middle of a lively conversation with the Metro newsie stationed at the next landing. He threw a comment I couldn't catch over his shoulder in between cries of "AM New York!" and boisterous morning greetings. I did, however, hear the amusing reply as I climbed past the man handing out copies of Metro:
"Oh man, if I had that kind of money, I'd have six or seven kids running around, and I wouldn't even know where some of'em came from!"
Not sure I want to know....but I'll take that over fights during my morning commute.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
The Indigence Monster
"I slept with Lady Gaga last night. Now look where I am."
This was the boast, not of some B-list celebrity or rich socialite, but on the cardboard sign of a man begging for change during lunch hour in the Financial District. He sat, cross-legged in the recessed doorway of a soon-to-be-opened store, in the posture typical of New York beggars in winter: bundled up and hunched over the sign and plastic cup before him.
This is all I can observe of him in the glimpse I have as I, too, hurry by. And I wonder for the umpteenth time where these people sleep, how they survive, and how often a passerby resists the current's flow and the pull of multiple destinations to stop and give some change, or, even rarer, talk with the person. Coward that I am, I don't have these conversations, but I imagine this man's sign would lead to an interesting one.
One thing's for sure, though. He would not be telling me that he was "born this way" to sit on the street risking cold and indifference. No one is.
This was the boast, not of some B-list celebrity or rich socialite, but on the cardboard sign of a man begging for change during lunch hour in the Financial District. He sat, cross-legged in the recessed doorway of a soon-to-be-opened store, in the posture typical of New York beggars in winter: bundled up and hunched over the sign and plastic cup before him.
This is all I can observe of him in the glimpse I have as I, too, hurry by. And I wonder for the umpteenth time where these people sleep, how they survive, and how often a passerby resists the current's flow and the pull of multiple destinations to stop and give some change, or, even rarer, talk with the person. Coward that I am, I don't have these conversations, but I imagine this man's sign would lead to an interesting one.
One thing's for sure, though. He would not be telling me that he was "born this way" to sit on the street risking cold and indifference. No one is.
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