Daily Blague

Kathleen, in a moment stolen from studying for the Bar exam. In case you're curious, we both passed the first time. It was one of those fat-envelope, thin-envelope things: you definitely wanted to find your mailbox jammed with a fat one, stuffed with further applications - because passing the Bar in New York makes you eligible to apply for membership. Interviews, character references - a real pain in the neck. But if you saw the thick envelope, you were past the worst. You knew before you even opened it.

To tell or not to tell? Kathleen is thinking of joining the Straphangers Campaign, an organization of subway riders who seek to put pressure on the powers that be. When she mentioned this again the other day, I remembered something that I'd seen at Gothamist and asked myself, should I tell her or not tell her? Not a believer in fools' paradises, I told her. She wasn't happy to hear that the Grand Hyatt, a mediocrity from the 1980's, may collapse upon the northbound Lexington Avenue train - which, according to a piece by the Straphangers leader, Gene Russianoff (he may even have founded it), carries forty percent of the entire system's traffic. And you wonder why we're screaming for a Second Avenue Line.