Likelihood of Success

East River at 42nd

Jan 29, 2008 Heart and spirit, Metropolis

East River at 42ndOriginally uploaded by Ron Coleman.

After the 1 PM minyan around the corner this afternoon I kept walking east on 42nd to my old haunt, the East River, which I used to visit further uptown, hoping for a little inspiration. Here now at this latitude along Gotham’s grid I am in the shadow of the wicked United Nations, but the day was suitably gray and drab anyway such that I did not need the black emanations of that marble slab of hate to drive the darkening of my affect.

Okay, it’s not that bad. It’s been a lot worse. But I should have gone straight to the office and just sat down and simulated work until it turned into real work.  I didn’t. I proceeded past the News Building, where my phone rings, across the Murray Hill neighborhood, probably passing into Kips Bay depending on your interpretation of the matter, with my top button secured and, nouveau-noire enough, my BlackBerry as my only companion.

As I walked east a soft mist covered my face and threatened my camera, and my reverie, but there was something decent enough about being removed from the more businesslike aspects of the marginally corporate block where I now work, if only just long enough to wet my felt hat and the shoulders of my all-weather overcoat with the gentle rain. There was no reason to stay there by myself, anyway.

I can’t tell you the reason my crude BlackBerry camera returned a pink-tinged overcast to the sky over Queens. But that’s what I came back to the office with. And that’s what I wanted to share with you.