Daily Blague

Yesterday, I had a lovely walk, tracing a fattened square down to 67th Street, across the Park to Broadway, and home from Broadway and 86th. It was a lovely spring day, the air on the crisp side but not too chilly, the verdure in full first flush of green, and everyone more or less elated by the end of the nameless fifth season that stretches between genuine winter and now. You could call it "Lent," I suppose. In any case, it's over. Color has returned to life.

I had two errands, the first a long-standing but twice-postponed appointment at the allergist's. I don't have any allergies, it seems, but we're trying to figure out what I do have. I came away with some prescriptions, walked half a block south on Second Avenue, and turned around: the bus stop is right at the doctor's door. But I've never taken the M66 crosstown bus before. I will say that the ride through the Park is much nicer than it is on the the M86. The southern transverse road is much higher relative to the park, and there is no stoplight for the Park Precinct station house.

When we reached Columbus Avenue, I got off, as did almost everybody. I crossed over to the other side of Broadway with mounting enthusiasm. I had forgotten about Tower Records until just then. I rarely go to bookshops and record stores for a very good reason, and yesterday's haul was proof of why. I had to see what was out there. And what was out there? Two new-to-me CDs of Rossini songs (the funniest music ever written, and also some of the prettiest). Right next to the Rossini, the Rorem section. I ought to know the music of Ned Rorem better, and there was an ancient (1973-4) recording of chamber music for violin and piano. Buying a CD that I may not like was exactly the sort of thing I oughtn't to do. What I ought to have done long ago and finally did was fill the hole in my collection where Schumann lieder ought to be. Two disks of major stuff, interpreted by Anne Sofie von Otter and Matthias Goerne, went into my basket.

The second floor at Tower used to be given over to the classical section, boxed into one corner for quiet, and then, occupying the rest of the space, everything that isn't rock, from From Barbra Streisand to Broadway to Thelonious Monk. This space is now occupied by DVDs. I swear, I'd never have sought the DVDs out; they were just there, a Forest Perilous through which I had to pass in order to escape (not strictly true). Somehow Brokeback Mountain, Match Point, and Vargtimmen wound up in my sac.

I was on the West Side to drop off a CD that I'd burned for a friend. Hating the Post Office and packaging in equal measure, I found it much easier simply to slip the CD into a small Met gift bag and pay the four dollars for crosstown transport. That's the beauty of doormen! It never even occurred to me to take the subway from Lincoln Center to 86th Street, not on a day like this. I looked longingly up the graceful boulevard, which is always a little spiffier than it was the last time I walked it. From across the street, I took in the building that houses the Beacon Theatre, and realized that it wasn't just the theatre that has been spruced up. New windows, snappy blue awnings at the mezzanine, and a cleaned-up façade all made the old dump look better than new.

My friend's building is new. It's twenty years old, actually; I remember when it was put up, in the mid-Eighties. But it still looks new. (Richard Meier has yet to design anything quite so large as a full-block frontage uptown.) Unloading the small Met bag containing a sole CD did not significantly lighten my sac, but I noted that this is one of the cardinal conveniences of New York life: without getting into a car, you can drop off a bag across town at somebody's place whether he's home or not. Bus drivers and doorman are there for you.

I used to avoid the bus, but with age has come a certain patience. It is better, I find, to sit on a crosstown bus than never to cross town at all. But I'm still amazed by folks who get onto the eastbound bus at Lexington Avenue. Even more amazed by the folks who get on at Third. Seeing a clump preparing to board, I remembered another errand and jumped off a block ahead of time.

I don't know that I'd have taken pictures if I'd remembered to bring my camera. They'd have been of the people on the sidewalks and the songbirds in the trees. They'd have been unsatisfactorily still. My trip around (a small part of) town had a lilt to it that no camera could capture.