The New Yorker's The Talk of The Town section normally features 4-5 short writeups on many everyday events and occurances, from the perfectly ordinary to others of some weight and importance: they could contain a description of rickshaws in the city, an account of a restaurateur who is battling some city ordinance, a description about the visit of some dignitary, even some political comment...
More often than not, it is the write-ups on mundane city events and sights: new traffic signage, rickshaws, new species of birds etc: that come across as miniature masterpieces. Such portraits are not out to prove anything, they only hope to record an occurrance faithfully, even sympathetically...
The piece "CROSSTOWN BUS" in the latest New Yorker is a work of such masterful observation and sincere recording that it transmutes a perfectly ordinary event in a city bus to a study in human communication, reaching-out and touching attempts at conversation. I reproduce it verbatim here, for fear that a link might not be valid after a week or two:
Posted 2005-08-01
Among the passengers the other afternoon on the Ninety-sixth Street crosstown bus was a young black man in bluejeans and a white T-shirt. He wore a black brimmed hat, with earflaps that were pulled down over his ears, despite the heat. He was thin to the point of being scrawny. His narrow shoulders swayed as he walked up the aisle. He had a large gold chain around his neck. His teeth were slightly bucked. He took a seat and looked around, smiling. Clearly he belonged to the tribe of extroverts. The eyes of the woman across the aisle from him were fixed steadily on her paper. The man next to her scrolled through messages on his cell phone. Beside him, a little boy laid his head in the lap of his sitter. The young man slumped in his seat. He spread his long legs. His head bobbed slightly.
At the next stop, a young Latina woman came walking down the aisle. She was wearing a sleeveless green dress and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She carried a handbag with a pattern of flowers on it. Wires from the bag led to little earplugs. The expression on her face was remote. The young man occupied an outside seat. The seat next to him was one of the last left vacant. The young woman stopped beside him, a gift from life, and he looked at her and jumped briskly to his feet, then stepped aside to allow her to sit by the window.
She placed the handbag on her lap and looked straight ahead. The young man tilted his head and nodded several times. “Got your music,” he said.
The young woman looked at him and smiled politely but briefly, then she returned to staring straight ahead.
The young man touched the brim of his hat. He smiled. “What’re you listening to?” he said.
The young woman said something quietly, which gave him the opportunity to lean closer to her. “Barkley,” he said.
The young woman shook her head.
“Barkley, he’s a basketball player. I didn’t think you could be listening to Barkley.” His smile was lavish and sympathetic, indicating that he was glad they had sorted out their misunderstanding. “Barkley didn’t make no recordings, far as I know,” he said. His remarks were addressed mainly to the side of her head. “He likes to talk a lot, but, see, he just plays ball, and don’t even do that no more. Unh-uh.”
The young woman turned halfway toward him and smiled, but the smile was brief and made no commitment.
The young man asked again what she was listening to. Her reply was barely audible. “Old Day?” he said. “I don’t know Old Day. Must be some new kind of thing. Have to find out about Old Day.” He leaned in. “I might like to know about Old Day,” he said.
The young woman smiled again. She changed the position of her hands on her bag.
An idea seemed to occur to him. “How about you tell me about Old Day,” he said. He put one hand under his chin and the other under his elbow, as if he were being judicious and patient in awaiting her reply.
The young woman smiled again and shook her head.
“Don’t be stingy with Old Day,” he said. “Share Old Day.”
The young woman turned toward him and shook her head. She said something quietly.
The young man said, “How’s that?”
“Coldplay,” she said. “Not Old Day, Coldplay.” She looked down at her bag and seemed to blush.
“Coldplay, then,” the young man said. “I’d definitely like to know about Coldplay. How about you teach me about Coldplay.”
The young woman lowered her head once again and smiled, but she said no.
The young man tapped his ear several times. “Come on,” he said. “Share Coldplay. Let me hear some sounds.” He smiled broadly. The young woman removed one of her earplugs and said, not unkindly, “No.”
The young man sat back. “Oh, it’s like that,” he said. He nodded. He tugged the brim of his hat. He looked out the window. “I’m going to have to learn about Coldplay on my own,” he said.
He faced forward and rested his hands on his knees. The bus stopped and the young woman turned toward him with one hand on the back of the seat in front of her, and he rose and stepped to the side with a courtly, scarecrowlike elegance. Then he sat down again and stared straight ahead.
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