Anything But Silence

I never travel without music or podcasts anymore. My iPhone needed service and so I was to be without media player for three days. It's embarrassing to admit the idea of silence had become a bit spooky. So filled with anxiety was I over the prospect of having to travel the city without the ability to jam sound in my ears I didn't put the iPhone into its shipping container until I'd actually arrived at the drop off.

But New York City is anything but silent, it teems with sound ... people, traffic, machinery. I'd forgotten the sounds of the subways ... the squeal of brakes, the screech of wheels on rails, the hiss of compressors, the lurch of the cars. Mechanical things always fascinate me.

And I'd forgotten the little games we play on public transportation ... "Guess My Ethnicity" ... "How Stupid and/or Crazy Am I?" ... "Eavesdropping as a Public Sport". The small sounds of the passengers and the loud sounds of the crazy passengers were all fresh again, like when I was new to the city. And I remembered what it felt like to feel connected to the diversity of humankind in a city brimming with people.

The experience has been interesting and not so scary after all. I finished reading the book I'd put down a few months ago. And I found a welcome calmness that I'd perhaps forgotten.

On the whole, I prefer having my media. But perhaps in the future I'll leave my iPhone home once a month, just for the human experience of it.

Egad! There are Jawas on the A Train.

Dale's new rule of public transportation is ...

... if you're gonna be this hot on the subway ...



... I get to publish your photo on the Internets.

Dorks on Subway Art

Alright ... dorks? Definitely. But art? Well ... you decide.

A Man With His Own Medium

Today on the A Train I met a man who makes sculptures out of used
Metrocards. He was very sweet and flattered that I wanted to take a
photo. He gave me the one he is holding in this image.

Cubism

Avoid Transfers?

You mean Jacoby or Texas?

(Gold star on your forehead if you actually get this lame joke. Also ... you're a nerd.)

Want A Comfy Seat On The Subway?

Bring your own.

Dale Visits The Bronx

This week I decided to go to The Bronx for a couple hours.

Well ... "decided" may not be quite the right word.

I went to The Bronx, at 3:00 a.m., wearing a really, really gay shirt, which made me feel really out of place, really white and really ... well ... gay.

I do this about once a year, in the wee hours of the morning. These adventures are usually the result of alcohol combined with an iPod and Palm games. This deadly trio of distractors tends to cause me to not look at the train when it pulls into the station. Rather, I just blithely climb on board the first train that arrives and ride it for an hour or so until I notice out of the corner of my eye that the stations don't look familiar.

Usually what finally makes me realize I'm far, far, far from anywhere I want to be or should be is the color of the tiles on the walls. This triggers a sinking feeling as I calculate just how long it will take me to get my sorry ass home.

The adventure before this most recent one took me to Queens for about three hours in the middle of the night.

I'm going to have "Look at the fucking train, Dale!" tattooed on the inside of my eyelids.

I am such a space cadet.

Stand Clear of the Sweaty Riders, Please

Ahhhhhh, the subway at rush hour. On the D Train today, a woman bashed me in the crotch with her laptop bag as she exited and didn't even notice. Whaddaya supposed to do? Go running after her and say, "Excuse me, Madam, since your Dell Inspiron with Mobile Centrino Technology and my gonads are intimately acquainted, perhaps we should be?" I decided to just let it go.

Go MTA!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the NYC Subway?