May 08, 2006
Few sounds match the horror of the pan flute, the accursed South American instrument that has been misappropriated by New Agers and the feeble-minded around the world. But far worse than the pan flute is an amplified pan flute, which amidst the usual cacophony of Times Square stood out yesterday on a stroll down Broadway. Surely this maddening sound must affect one's brainwaves. In addition to the thousands of tourists walking aimlessly—the way flies buzz around your kitchen in summer, seemingly in random directions—for the intrepid New Yorker who just wants to take a stroll down Broadway, it's utterly riveting to see how many tourists there are on the streets. All the African guys from CitySights and Gray Line were out in force aggressively selling hop-on, hop-off bus tour tickets. They too marveled at how many tourists there are going down the streets.
Interestingly, as the intrepid New Yorker makes his way down Broadway, he notices the ticket sellers size him up quick and ignore him. They go right for the obese white-sneakered and blue-jeaned tourist, picking them out as deftly as the kids in India or Pakistan have trained themselves to do. Which reminds me of a story:
Over ten years ago in Saidu Sharif, a dusty little town in Pakistan, the small children—most of whom were about ten years old—were busy sizing up the tourists in the street (the one main drag) using a smattering of phrases (if one can believe it) in French, German, Spanish and of course English. And they were pretty much accurate in sizing up which tourists were which, based on their shape and egregious infidel clothing. And inside the Swat Valley museum (worth a special trip), a middle-aged fellow came up to me and asked in English if I spoke German. Immediately thinking this was a scam—travel through vast swaths of India the previous year had inured me to the art of the scam—I asked why he wanted to know. "Well actually," he replied, "if you could translate some of these labels and some descriptions of these things into German, why then I could take German tourists around."
Ingenious, I thought. Those poor Germans. I then proceeded to do as he asked, and marveled at how he carefully transcribed everything I said in German, but writing in long Urdu script. With uncanny exactitude, he then disgorged everything I told him. It was rather astonishing, the dexterity with which he did this. Which leads me back to Midtown:
Once you pass the so-called Romulan Neutral Zone or Asteroid Belt of tourists (West 42nd Street), past the visual onslaught of the enormous Times Square tower with its hulking red-and-white Target advertisements, it's relatively smooth sailing. You're basically safe, and can continue your walk unmolested (i.e. not getting constantly bumped into by rubes) down Broadway. Save, of course, for the occasional noisy ambulance hiccuping its way down through the canyons of Broadway.
The walk continues, past all manor of newsstands. Newsstands themselves are in the news once a year or so, generally depicting the plight of the independent news agent, who has around five square feet of negotiable inside his temple of periodicals. Indeed these fellows suffer long hours inside these tiny tombs. But instead I want to mention the mega-news outlets, those of Hudson News and Universal News. Hudson News is all business; they grew fast and opened larger and larger outlets. No way do these people have time for idle chitchat about this and that, or about much other than answering "Do you have this?" by explaining why they don't have that. But Universal News is much different, especially on a lazy Sunday. You can go in and talk with the Egyptian fellows, even if you've never chatted with them before and have a fine conversation as though you were friends since birth. It was just last week I spoke with one of these chaps on at Universal's pantheon of publications on lower Broadway near Broome Street. He was having his lunch, which was an enormous portion of cubed lamb and some very appetizing-looking side dishes. I had to know where he got this lamb. It seems it had come directly from Egypt! We both were excited by this, and he offered me some of his portion.
Truly dear reader, how often does such a thing happen in the big city? As much as I wanted to try this lamb, I had to politely refuse three times. I could not take his lamb. It came all the way from Egypt! When would he get such lamb again in the near future? Who else would be flying in from Cairo to bring him this? I felt he ought to gorge himself on it, because he likely wouldn't be getting lamb (or the accompanying fava beans) again anytime soon. Just as I regretted not accepting his hospitality, I think we were both silently in agreement that his graciousness was extraordinary.
I then went back to being the wallflower by reading Wallpaper. While this never would have happened at Hudson News, I do want to point out there are plenty of newsstands run by nice people from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan where you can have a grand time. For example, our friends from Bombay who used to run Dhaval on lower Second Avenue were very gregarious and gracious. One could hang around for quite some time drinking a soda or a beer (out of a paper bag so as not to cause offense to anyone—myself included), getting the Marathi news first-hand. One could also disappear into the back with the boss, sit on a milk crate and watch a Hindi movie. Those were good days. Now of course we just order DVDs from Netflix.
Tags:
bangladesh, broadway, city sights, dhaval, gray line, hudson news, india, netflix, newsstand, pakistan, pan flute, saidu sharif, swat valley, times square, universal news
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Posted on 5/8/2006
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