2006-12-18 Metropolitan Diary analysis

Continuing my catch-up, but this has disappeared into the Times Select netherworld. I quote it in its entirety below but if you have Select you can see the original.

DEAR DIARY:

It happened one rainy morning on the bus going down to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cast of characters:

My cousin Blanche, a friendly, great-grandmotherly woman.

Young mother with two very young children in tow: approximately 4-year-old daughter, approximately 2-year-old son.

Blanche to little girl: ''What are you doing on the bus on such a nasty, rainy day?''

Little girl: ''We're going to the museum.''

Blanche: ''Oh! I'm going there too. What are you going to see?''

Little girl: ''We're going to look at the broken statues.''

Blanche: ''Oh my! Broken statues! I wonder who broke them!''

Little girl: Pointing an accusing finger at her younger brother: ''He did!''

And cousin Blanche met me at the museum and we looked at broken statues, too.

Category: Precocious NY Kids (no other explanation is necessary)

Dear Diary:

Seen on the marquee of the Midway Theater in Forest Hills:

WE NOW SERVE COFFEE

STRANGER THAN FICTION

Category: Amusing Misspellings (it's really an "Unamusing Juxtaposition" but you gotta stick with what you got for categories)

[terrible poem comparing Tiffany's to a dragonfly]

Category: n/a (I don't do poems)

Dear Diary:

On a Third Avenue bench, I am enjoying a bright warm afternoon viewing the constant passing show of life in New York.

An older woman (my age) approaches with arms akimbo asking (demanding), ''Where's the bus stop?'' (As in, ''What did you do with the bus stop?'') I ask, ''Which bus?'' (There are many on Third.)

She said, ''You know, the one that goes UP and DOWN.''

Although buses only go UP on Third, I instantly know what she means: the bus that goes UP Third, DOWN Second.

''Fiftieth Street,'' I direct (Know-it-all!).

''Harrumph!'' says she on her way UP Third.

Category: New York Eccentrics (a category often used to capture annoying and tiresome interactions with old people such as this)

Dear Diary:

An elderly friend of ours is a resident of the Mary Manning Walsh Nursing Home at York Avenue and 72nd Street. Recently I took her out for her weekly ride in her wheelchair in the neighborhood she has lived in for more than 50 years.

As we crossed York Avenue at 71st Street, we passed in front of an M72 bus stopped at the light. Suddenly the driver began to tap on the windshield, waving enthusiastically at my friend.

When we reached the sidewalk, he opened the door. ''Where have you been?'' he asked. ''I haven't seen you in a long time. You look great. You always do!''

With that, the light changed. A final wave, ''Keep well.'' The door closed and the bus proceeded up York Avenue.

Category: New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All! (the nice bus driver remembers the old lady)

Dear Diary:

After the New York City Ballet's opening-night performance, the promenade lobby at the New York State Theater was beautifully set with decorated tables for the gala dinner. Exquisitely dressed patrons and socialites were making their entrances, and lovely music set the scene. The tables were adorned with sprays of delicate flowers, and waiters stood at attention to serve the guests.

We ordinary audience members from the upper rings passed by this lush setting, and a mother with two 8- or 9-year-old girls was overheard to say, emphatically, ''There are a lot of speeches, very little eating, mediocre food, and we're not invited.''

Category: Precocious NY Kids (for a second I thought the kids had said this, which would have been a slam-dunk for this category, but I'll leave it in, as the mother is saying this to the kids, which tends to indicate that they will either grow up precocious or full of class resentment. Either way, Precocious it is.)

Dear Diary:

Leaving a delightful concert at Carnegie Hall recently, I walked to the 57th Street station to catch the F train back to Queens. In the station, I first heard and then saw a man playing Vivaldi on his violin. A group of young people were gathered around the older man, quietly listening to the lilting sounds.

When the piece was finished, one young man admiringly said, ''Yo, you play that violin like Tupac raps!''

Category: New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All! (uh, because the obviously "urban" kids are enjoying the violin player)

Dear Diary:

The other morning there is the usual purposeful chaos at the corner store's deli counter on 14th Street.

The counterman shouts, ''What you want?'' and people shout back, ''Black with a buttered roll,'' ''Two, light and sweet,'' and so forth.

A young guy in construction-worker clothes steps up to the counter. The counterman shouts, ''What you want?''

Young guy answers in a thick Eastern European accent, ''I - want - coffee.''

Counterman shouts, ''How you like your coffee?'' The young guy looks puzzled.

Counterman shouts louder, ''HOW YOU LIKE YOUR COFFEE?'' The young guy doesn't understand, so the counterman really shouts, ''HOW - YOU - LIKE - YOUR - COFFEE?''

The young guy now understands and is pleased to answer with complete confidence:

''I like my coffee very much!''

Category: Amusing Misspellings (though not a misspelling, this category is frequently used to indicate "foreigner misunderstands something")

Note: I am withholding the totals for a future "January 1st 2007" entry.

2006-12-11 Metropolitan Diary analysis

As I am catching up on old entries, this one has already become hidden to those without Times Select. For those who do have it, here is a link to the column. I have quoted it and expect that my responses and/or parody represent "fair use". I've also removed the author names because if any of these individuals end up "ego-surfing" I would prefer that their search not result in my puerile japes at their expense.

DEAR DIARY:

On a recent Monday evening my girlfriend, Thania, and I were walking home from a birthday party in Morningside Heights. It was well past our curfew, and we were a few blocks away from our normal territory.

I had just begun to complain about waking up the next morning to move our van when, much to my disbelief, I spotted it -- 12 blocks from where I had parked it! It was attached to a New York Police Department tow truck, and though I've had my share of parking tickets, I was positive that I had left it on the proper side of the street.

Astonishingly, the truck wasn't towing it away, but was easing it back and forth into a new parking spot! Because of an impending movie shoot on Riverside Drive, the city was moving all vehicles and pasting on them a ''48-hour-immunity sticker'' -- protecting them from the alternate-side parking rules for the next two days.

''Would you like to just take it right now?'' the officer asked. I didn't have to think twice.

''No thanks,'' I said. ''It's all yours.''

Category: New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All!
(that is, moving the cars and providing alternate-side parking immunity showed compassion on the part of the officer)

Dear Diary:

Dad to young son as they strode, hand in hand, on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope: ''Hey! Don't interrupt me when I'm ignoring you!''

Category: Precocious NY Kids (though I may someday move to Park Slope, I will now snidely note that that part of New York City breeds precociousness in both kids and parents)

Dear Diary:

As I walked south on Broadway on the Upper West Side, a man pushing a shopping cart approached me and said, ''I'm hungry.''

Having been taught as a child not to give cash to ''street people,'' but also not to ignore a hungry person, I replied: ''I won't give you money, but if you're hungry, I'll get you something to eat. There's a greengrocer across the street. What do you want?''

''Vegetables,'' he said.

''Vegetables?'' I repeated, somewhat taken aback.

''That's right -- vegetables; I'm a vegetarian,'' he explained, as we crossed Broadway.

Entering the store together, I asked him what he wanted, and he told me, ''Kale.'' My eyebrows climbed higher and higher on my forehead as my surprise deepened.

''Kale,'' I repeated. ''What are you going to do with kale?''
''I'm going to steam it and eat it,'' he replied, looking at me as if I were an idiot.

From then on, I kept my mouth shut and just did as I was asked, which was to pay for the two bunches of kale he picked out with tender loving care from the pile on the shelf.

As he took his leave, thanking me profusely, I muttered to myself, ''Only in New York!''

Category: New York Eccentrics
(referring to the fussy, vegetarian homeless man)

Dear Diary:

For my friend Roslyn's birthday, I got her a gift certificate to Paragon Sports. She e-mailed that she couldn't wait to show me her new birthday running bra.

The next day, as we were approaching each other along the Hudson River Walkway, she flipped up her top to reveal her new bra. I smiled in surprise, but not as much as the businessman walking near me and talking into his cellphone.

His eyebrows rose as he exclaimed into the phone: ''This woman just flashed me! And I thought New York was supposed to be a GOOD city!''

Category: New York Eccentrics (the businessman could be considered a rube but I think flashing your sports bra to your friend places you securely in the NY Eccentrics category)

Dear Diary:

As I was leaving the 86th Street subway station the other evening, I found myself a little confused by the sight of a well-dressed older gentleman with his fingers plugged firmly in his ears. My own ears were stuffed with iPod headphones, so at first I had no idea what was causing his displeasure, but since there weren't any trains in the station it obviously wasn't the high-pitched brake squeal that everyone knows and hates.

Upon looking around a little more carefully, however, I spotted the source of the man's displeasure across the tracks on the downtown platform: a cellist playing Bach. Oy!

Category: Jaded New Yorkers
(a toss-up between this and NY Eccentrics but I will call it jaded due to a) iPod headphones to block out unpleasant subway noises and b) annoyance with subway musicians, who for the most part annoy me, too)

Dear Diary:

I was waiting for the Second Avenue bus when a well-dressed woman, probably in her 70s, joined me in the shelter. When the bus arrived and opened its doors, she asked the driver if he stopped at 19th Street, just four blocks away.

Assured that it was the next stop, she began to board the bus. She had such tremendous difficulty climbing the steps that I instantly understood why she took the bus to travel such a short distance.

She got off at 19th and from my seat I watched her hobble slowly down the street in obvious pain. Then I noticed something I had missed before. She was wearing black, calf-high leather boots precariously balanced on 4-inch spike heels.

Fashion is a cruel and apparently unrelenting master.

Category: New York Eccentrics
(wearing painful spike heels at age 70 is the sign of an Eccentric in my book, though this trait is not solely confined to New York)