I'm not sure yet, but I think the city is emptier than before 9-11. The subways have seats available at times that last August you wouldn't dare try to bring a cup of coffee on for fear there would be no room for your hands. I'm doing less zigging as I walk through Gramercy or Chelsea, there is room to swing your arms on the sidewalk outside of Staples at Sixth Avenue. Ok, I say, people are going on vacation, they are going home from college instead of staying here to work the summer. Ok, I say, more for us. More tables on the upper Westside at 7:30, less trouble getting a movie ticket, no lines at Dag's. Ok
So, why do I feel left behind?
The civilizations bash into eachother and who's still standing?
Suppose the worst happened, the bombs start going off in the trains and we retalitate with the big bombs and smart bombs and the rocket propelled bombs at which point they start setting little bombs off every hour of the night until we all drop to the sidewalks exhausted but which civilization would be better off? Us, the techno-pop-wired-electro-GPS guided- ones or the squat in the dirt and scrape a life out of the filthy 14th century ones. I'm thinking that there wouldn't be a lot of change for the Afghans or the Iraquis, but what would life be like for us here in the city without the subway? or cellphones. or lattes?
Okay, what's this look like?
Hunting, holding your breath and learning the difference between depending and deep ending.
The city, this city, New York, has an empty feel on holidays, especially summer holidays. Yesterday morning you could get a seat on any subway. There was no line at the coffee cart, even at 7:34. The knots of people at the corners waiting for WALK were smaller, looser and on the way across you had to do less zagging then usual.
Are they gone for the weekend already? Yes.
Are they just staying home instead of going to work? Yes.
Are any others out here hunting like me?
I have an interview style of hunting, I ask people questions.
"How are you?"
"Can I see that section of your paper?"
"Is there another jug of non-fat."
"How are you?"
The answers can be revealing.
I asked a psychologist yesterday afternoon if he thought people, the people, had been changed in any fundamental way.
( Sorry, but isn't fundamental a weird little word -if you only spoke French or Tagalah, would you think that it had something to do with money and brains?)
He said, and I quote because it is revealing,
"It depends."
He then went on, and thank God because I love to hear people talk, went on and on about how it depends on whether they lost someone at the WTC Towers, and it depends on how they were before it all happened and it depends on whether other factors mmmmmjjjjhhhhhhmmmmming in my ear.
I said I've noticed something over the past few years and I wasn't trying to crackwise, but I said that I've noticed that the more education someone has the more they use the words "It depends." Ignorant people always know what they know, they are sure as hell about things and what to do about them and you can't change their minds no matter how much you try, but educated people are pliable, plastic, moldable, open to new ideas and opinions, as soon as you hear the words "It depends." you know you have a change to make some headway. And that is the deep ending for today.
Ear to the sidewalk.
We are supposed to be looking out for terrorists, aren't we? I don't recall anyone ever saying that out loud amongst all the "Watch the bridges, watch the boats, watch the apartments, watch out, watch out, watch out." but I think we should. The problem here is New York is trying to decide which terrorists to watch out for, we have them all here in some fashion. All you have to do is go to the UN and look around, you'll see members of the IRA and Hamas, the PLO and whatever is the current group of freedom fighters in Croatia or Chile or the Sudan. Actually, all you have to do is get on the A train or any crosstown bus, on they come. They look just like us. They do. They are black or kind of dark in some way and they have an accent and they wear clothes that are out of the norm, unless they are in the IRA and then they are white, like the Serbs and they speak English with an accent so thick that if you didn't know it was supposed to be English you wouldn't catch a word.
The real problem with New Yorkers finding any terrorists in their midst is that they don't pay anybody any attention. A seven foot man dressed as Snow White could get on a subway car and no one would look up from their books. Pan handlers face this challenge on a daily basis. I've seen the begging guy. This guy litterally gets down on his knees and keens out his pitiful story with his hat in his out stretched hand, nothing, no reaction from nine out of ten on the car. Not even a grimace, that would be depressing, to not even rate a smirk in your direction.
But I want to be on the lookout, what shall I look out for? More to come.
Lines.
I'm standing on line at the Pick a Bagel, the one at Third and 23rd, when I hear the line of the day:
Ist woman: I hate coming here, there's always a line.
2nd woman: Are you kidding? I never eat anywhere unless they have a line.
Lines
There are a thousand lines per day. this is one.
