Metropolitan Diary analysis: 2006-05-22

OK, it's only Thursday, so I'm catching back up. If they print one on Memorial Day, I'm not working, so maybe I'll actually get one of these out day of print, a rare treat for my reader(s).

Anyway, only one shocking coincidence this week. So maybe my life isn't turning into the Metropolitan Diary after all. Whew!

• "Attractive young girl" grabs old man to help him across the street. He asks if she is trying to pick him up, but she says she's trying to keep him from falling down. Ha ha, he's old! Category: New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All!
  
• Clueless dowager asks neighbor where laundry room and also how to operate the machines, because her "housekeeper is ill". Category: New York Eccentrics
  
• Grandmother disparages crowd of tourists in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to young grandson as worse than the subway. Category: Jaded New Yorkers
• Litigator's use of fancy words confuses operator at cable company. What has our society come to, that someone who answers the phone at the cable company doesn't understand the word "germane"? Category: Amusing Misspellings Not sure why this one annoyed me... I guess it's that on the one hand, the writer attempts to be somewhat humble ("Often we forget to put aside our newly acquired legalese when we engage in everyday conversations") but really it seems to me that the point of this is to make fun of a cable company operator for confusing the term "germane" with the name "Jermaine". As in, "Oh, those uneducated phone operators; they just can't understand English like we Columbia Law graduates!"
  
• 3.5-year-old says "Abracadabra!" when asked for "the magic word". Cheeky little devil! Category: Precocious NY Kids
  
• Writer's kids learn the word "escargot" from their New York grandparents. Precocious NY Kids The kids are not from NYC, but they are beginning to pick up the pretentions of a New Yorker.
  
• This week's poem is perhaps the worst piece of doggerel I've yet seen in the Diary, and I wouldn't normally bring it up, but it references a movie being shot on West 92nd St a few weeks ago, and how bright the lights were. Reason to feel that my life is becoming just like a Metropolitan Diary entry: I remember that movie being shot, and the bright lights shone in my apartment, just like the author of the poem!
  
• Young boy screams for his Metrocard, is given a discarded one from the floor of the bus, shuts up, bus passengers are happy. Category: Precocious NY Kids
  

Totals for this Metropolitan Diary:
Amusing Misspellings: 1
Jaded New Yorkers: 1
New York Eccentrics: 1
New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All: 1
Precocious NY Kids: 3

Totals YTD:
Amusing Misspellings: 12
Jaded New Yorkers: 23
New York Eccentrics: 22
New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All: 13
Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!: 11
Precocious NY Kids: 27
Precocious NY Pets: 6
Rubes in the Big City: 15
Single New York Woman's Perspective: 3
WTF: 2

Metropolitan Diary analysis: 2006-05-15

Sorry for the lateness and the skipping of 5/9's entry, I was in Spain. I know I'm a week late with this but I didn't want to let it slip since there is a crazy coincidence on the last entry... anyway, here's last week's Metropolitan Diary, and here's my commentary:

• Hostess of "Upper West Side brasserie" does not associate "fresh fish" with "cooked". Category: Amusing Misspellings Tough call, but if you assume that the category takes into account those entries where a "foreigner" misspells or misinterprets something incorrectly, this is not so much more of a leap.
• Person leaves flowers outside building (very near my building, I might add) for Titanic victim. Category: New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All! This is sort of turning into the Upper West Side Diary...
  
• Woman overhears a woman say to her companion that she "went through [the Metropolitan] museum with a fine-tooth comb" in only 2.5 hours. What a dilletante! Category: Jaded New Yorkers This category will have to stand in for "Pretentious New Yorkers"... it's not fair to say that a repeat visitor to the Met is a Rube in the Big City, and I don't know what else to call this one... actually I kind of didn't get the joke because I am a video-game-playing, science-fiction-reading plebian.
  
• Man runs through stalled traffic requesting a cold beer from other drivers. Category: New York Eccentrics More like New York Drunks, am I right?
  
• Lawyer is told that an appeal is "not lost, just pending". Category: Jaded New Yorkers Coincidence #1 (not the "crazy" coincidence, keep reading for that one): The writer works in the building next door to the one I work in.
• Woman attempts to teach the Latin roots of words to fourth-graders, and one precocious little devil mistakes a "cantor" for a "chanteuse"! How droll! Category: Precocious NY Kids
• I never write anything about the poems in the Metropolitan Diary, though I have noticed that they have two things in common: they always rhyme, and they always are slightly-but-not-all-that humorous. Often they are written by a wistful older person. Review this week's poem for an example.
• Tourist teen remarks that "there are more stoplights at this one corner than in our whole town". Category: Rubes in the Big City Coincidence #2: I bought my apartment from the writer and she still lives in our building. So does this mean I have become such a New Yorker that I have something about the city to relate to everything in the Metropolitan Diary? I live on the Upper West Side and work in Midtown. Wow, I'm a real New Yorker, for sure!

Totals for this Metropolitan Diary:
Amusing Misspellings: 1
Jaded New Yorkers: 2
New York Eccentrics: 1
New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All: 1
Precocious NY Kids: 1
Rubes in the Big City: 1

Totals YTD:
Amusing Misspellings: 11
Jaded New Yorkers: 22
New York Eccentrics: 21
New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All: 12
Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!: 11
Precocious NY Kids: 24
Precocious NY Pets: 6
Rubes in the Big City: 15
Single New York Woman's Perspective: 3
WTF: 2

Metropolitan Diary Analysis: 2006-05-01

Sorry for the lateness. Three days in St. Louis this week. Here's what I'm talkin' about

• Mother tells child she'll email the Easter Bunny. Category: Precocious NY Kids
  
• "Destitute-looking people" make fun of writer's friend who tells coworker he'll "be available all day". Category: New York Eccentrics
  
• Busybody theatregoer with many stories to tell about the musical "Gypsy" at Metropolitan Opera butts in on a conversation and is snapped at. Category: New York Eccentrics
  
• Brat (amusingly) ruins Passover seder by referring to the Haggadot as a "menu". Category: Precocious NY Kids
  
• Woman finds daffodils amid trash-strewn LIRR underpass in Forest Hills. Category: New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All! (A bit of a stretch in which maybe the underpass is the "New Yorker" which unexpectedly demonstrates beauty? What do you want from me, this is one of these supposedly heart-lifting Metro Diary entries...)
  
• Woman is able to determine that the word "Pie", when spoken by a Japanese tourist with very poor English, means "Empire State Building". Category: Rubes in the Big City
  
• Child is asked to name his sponsor for his (Catholic) confirmation, and suggests "Nike". Category: Precocious NY Kids
  

Totals for this week's Metropolitan Diary:
New York Eccentrics: 2
New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All: 1
Precocious NY Kids: 3
Rubes in the Big City: 1

Totals year to date:
(Sorry these might have been off the past few weeks, I had to adjust my spreadsheet a bit)
Amusing Misspellings: 10
Jaded New Yorkers: 20
New York Eccentrics: 20
New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All: 11
Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!: 11
Precocious NY Kids: 23
Precocious NY Pets: 6
Rubes in the Big City: 14
Single New York Woman's Perspective: 3
WTF: 2