Moment Magnitude

Professional Bad Influence

P.B.I.

The PBI crew included, in rough order: Dushan and Henry (the alchemical bartender-owners of Employees Only), Surfer Girl and her motorcycle-racing gal-pal, Liz Taylor Jr., and later, GV-Wonder, who stepped in as Savior, once again.

Maybe my biochemistry had shifted over the last few weeks. The wicked cold inclined me to stay inside. I hadn't been out on my town in a few weeks, much less tossing back the cocktails. Some days I barely got out of my flannel jammies.

The weather warmed for two whole days, and Surfer Girl made the call: (last) Monday night at EO.

It had to be that we hadn't seen each other in too long a while, or so it felt. By the time I walked in to EO, the champagne was flowing. I had a flute in my hand almost before I took off my jacket.

Chit-chat, catch-up. Some minutes later, Dushan fixed his stare on me and announced, "I am going to get you drunk."

Now then. When one of Manhattan's best-known bartenders throws down a statement like that, you know you are in for it. It turned out that I was doomed.

Many mini-dramas occurred during the course of the evening, down at our end of the bar. Someone took a punch to the solar plexus - although I saw no such thing. Some young fellow pulled up his t-shirt, and I (think?) we petted his pretty man-fur. Someone else wound up with a bottle of wine in her handbag.

Outside, a big-rig trailer had tried to make a turn from Christopher Street onto Hudson, and got the back wheels wedged into a pile of curbside-plowed, frozen snow. I think he side-swiped a parked car or two. A police car was locked in just behind, lights flashing. That truck driver was in for one helluva long night. He looked miserable, sitting up in his cab.

I saw all this because Henry told me to have a look, and I realized just then, that I needed air.

From there, I went straight to hell. I couldn't maintain a vertical position. The world was tilting madly. I managed to get back inside EO, asked for water, sat down, and my head dropped, sinking lower, and lower still, into a space that felt like big fluffy pillows.

GV-Wonder and Liz Taylor took note, closed the tab, and got me out of there. Apparently, the rest of our crew had long departed, and I had zero idea of the hour.

GV-Wonder took me into a cab, directed us to my address. I felt very small, curling tinier by the minute, until we reached my block. I nearly fell out of the cab onto the wet street, but somehow righted myself (despite the aforementioned vertical challenge), then leaned forward and vomited - twice - into another curbside, frozen-plowed, snow bank.

GV-Wonder got me upstairs. I made straight for my bed (strange, no spins), and he wound up on the sofa, bless his heart.

I lost all of the next day, Tuesday. I will never get it back. It's gone, vanished - although we did go and watch the film, Babel. (Wow. How?)

GV-Wonder remarked, "I have known you for over twelve years, and I have never seen you that drunk."

Lovely.

I felt eerily washed out the rest of this week, my thinking skills a tad awry. I'm coming back in-line or online, not sure, just in time for the frivolities associated with the ubiquitous film awards pending this weekend: first the Indys, then tomorrow the monsters.

Perhaps I can convince myself that sparkling water is an acceptable alternative for those other golden kind of bubbles. I'm not ready to dive back into the deep end again - just yet.   

Venus and Mafioso

It snowed all day on Valentine's Day. I was out and about in it, from a meeting in Soho to another near Columbus Circle.

After the second, I ducked into Lincoln Plaza Cinemas to catch a 2 p.m. showing of Venus, for which Peter O'Toole has been Oscar-nominated.

It was but moments before the show started, and yet the elderly ticket-taker snarled and ordered everyone to stand back in a line/holding area some dozen feet away from him.

I backed away to stand next to a silver-haired couple. The woman turned and asked me, "What did he say? Are supposed to form a line?" referring to the ticket-taker.

"He told us to stand here. A holding pen for a line, from what I can determine."

Not a minute later, he called out for the the next shows. However, he shouted away from where we were standing. What was going on?

The couple next to me looked his way, and he appeared to be waving us over to him - angrily.

He shouted, "Venus! Mafioso! This way!"

I couldn't help it. I laughed as I walked up to him, gave him my ticket, that he vexedly tore in half, returning the stub to me. I shook my head and walked down the carpeted corridor. Mafioso was showing adjacent to Venus.

There were, perhaps, ten people in the theater. And they all looked to be long-time members of AARP. I was, by far, the youngest moviegoer in the house.

Venus is a wonderful film. I agree with the reviewers. Peter O'Toole is amazing after all these years. If Forrest Whitaker was not so dominating in his portrayal of Idi Amin, I'd say the man who embodied Lawrence of Arabia would be a foregone Oscar conclusion.

I had forgotten that Hanif Kureishi wrote the screenplay. I uttered a small "Ha!" when I saw his name on the credit roll, instantly recalling My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, as well as various published pieces in Granta.

As I stood to leave, wrapping my big, red scarf around my neck, re-donning, my slightly wet, black, furry, trooper hat, I heard someone from the back row of the the auditorium. I turned and squinted to from where the voice had emanated.

"How'd it end? I fell asleep. How'd it end?" A retiree was hoisting himself upright in his seat.

A silver-haired woman was standing at the end of the aisle and she looked me, and I at her.

I turned back to the man, and answered, "Much as expected..."

"Well, how'd it end?" He had cut me off before I could complete my sentence.

"He dies."

"Well that was obvious," he snorted. "It took a long time getting there." He sounded angry - at me, like I had something to do with it. "That's why I fell asleep."

"Actually," I said, the storyline was excellent. Hanif Kureishi wrote the screenplay. It was marvelous."

"Enh. It could have been better..."

I had zipped up my parka.

"Well. Everyone is entitled to an opinion," said I.

And then I skedaddled. I sensed this surly snarler wanted to have an extended argument, and he showed no signs of leaving his seat, there in the dark recess.

As for me, I wanted to get back into daylight, gray and snowy still, a song of Corinne Baily Rae's repeating in my mind.

A day later, dining with friends who live up in that Lincoln Center neighborhood, I told then about Venus and Mafioso ("This way!"), and they explained that the daytime shows at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas are filled with ornery senior citizens. They will berate anyone making the slightest peep (I like that), but will make a fuss if they don't like the way someone is sitting in front of them ("Do you have to sit so tall?").

In my mind, however, I was rewinding and hearing Peter O'Toole sonorous voice, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..."

Smart Remark

We are in a deep freeze. For any doubters, winter has hit the city. We are smack in the middle of the annual sub-twenty-degrees Fahrenheit spell that we always get, even when we think we won't.

Last Friday was not so cold, but windy and rainy in advance of this bloody, frigid front.

A hodgepodge gaggle descended on our favorite corner table at Employees Only. I had something called a Grand Fashioned, an old-fashioned made with Grand Marnier and muddled blood oranges. I took no time at all convincing myself that munching on the fruit was healthy, all that Vitamin C, you know.

Anyhow, after a few hours, a smaller group of us toddled off to the new Frederick's outpost, at the location formerly known as Bivio, in the West Village. It took no time at all to realize that I had left the sublime for the ridiculous, and had Liz Taylor Jr. and CeeCee not persuaded me to join, I would not have left the lively sanctuary of EO.

I should heed my own advice about going out, in the winter, on the weekend - unless I am in a tried-and true, reliable, locals-mostly spot.

Liz warned me that getting to the bathroom would be a challenge. It was more like Mrs. PacMan.

The line at the communal all-gender bathrooms proved to be an exercise in discomfort, and not because I had to "go" so badly. The crowd in and waiting for available toilets was horrific. First two Euro-wannabe models were primping forever in front of the mirrors, causing visible irritation to one female customer.

That customer's phone rang, and in that nasal-toned accent most prolific in the Five Towns, turned and asked me(!), "Where are we?"

"Where we are?" I asked, not sure if she was attempting an insult at the primpers.

I pressed myself against the wall, in an attempt to back as far away as possible. I don't like to chit chat with people when I am waiting in line to use the facilities. Ever.

"Ye-ah."

"We're at Hudson and Horatio." The timbre of my voice, I know, tends toward a lower register (and I am a nonsmoker).

"Where?"

That sounded like "Whe-ah."

"Hudson and Horatio," I repeated and looked at her.

She babbled the intersection into her phone. "You know, neah the Meat Packing. A little south of Fawteenth Street. Fawteenth!"

Then, the fellow next to me, with more product in his hair than I would dream of wearing myself, complained, "What's taking that person so lawng?"

He pointed at the closed bathroom door. It had been closed for not more than three minutes, but I had to agree. It felt like an hour.

I refused to comment and dropped my gaze to the floor.

"What," this fellow continued. "Does he think he's in his apahtment or somethin'?"

Now, I had no idea if the person occupying the bathroom was male or female, and I didn't care. At that point, I wanted to do my business as fast as possible and return to my friends at the bar.

I turned and said, "I'm sure he can't hear you."

The guy looked surprised. I stared straight ahead. The second bathroom opened, I got in and got out fast.

Back at the bar, I told Liz, "You were right. What a nightmare. Who are these people?"

"What?" CeeCee asked.

"Look at the crowd. It's like that wretched place in East Hampton. You know, Saracen."

CeeCee compared it to another such spot, whose name I cannot remember right now.

"Ladies, I'm out." It had stopped raining.

Good god. Are we snobs. Good thing.

Hit and Run

I saw this happen with my own two eyes.

Last Saturday night, too early into Sunday morning, close to four a.m., I saw a person get run over. And the perpetrator car, or rather, the typical, too-big SUV raced away down the street - my street.

True, I had been out drinking glass after glass of champagne, celebrating a friend's birthday, from Buddha Bar (good food and service, lousy management, very suburban crowd on the weekend) to Double Seven (its last weekend before it reopens in its new location in about two months).

My feet were killing me. My big toes throbbed, and I was desperate to disrobe and crawl into bed. I was downing about a quart of water, plus aspirin and antihistamine, when I heard the ruckus. I looked out the window to see a group of club-stragglers, drunk and staggering, yelling and screaming - like they do almost every weekend.

In the last two years, a handful of third-tier "lounge" clubs have opened nearby. Around four in the morning, drunk (and too often belligerent) patrons stumble around the corner to the nearest garage, where they have parked their over-sized, ridiculous vehicles.

Yes, it would seem as though, despite that most cannot see straight, they get into cars and drive from wherever they came in the first place.

The garage also houses a weekend flea market, so two levels of the place are filled with what generally looks like trash-for-sale. It looks like the purveyors, if they can be called that, ransack dilapidated homes in run-down, former steel mill towns in eastern Pennsylvania, and drive them to my street, in an attempt to sell them at orders of magnitude more than they are worth. I am astonished every weekend that people (it seems that many are western European, for all the nattering of languages I overhear) continue to patronize these junk-ware booths. Warhol is long-gone already.

Anyhow, the flea market retains an off-duty policeman to stand at one of the garage doors, or so I have been told.

Back to the drunk fight. Two women were screaming in high-pitched tones. Lots of "muthafuckas," the only discernible word to travel up six stories.

I noticed that one fellow may have been brandishing what looked like a shiny silver pipe. Then, I saw another fellow lay down in front of (a non-flea market entry-driveway) one of the garage entry ways.

He was on on his back, spread-eagled, on a slight angle, his legs extended into the center of the driveway.

Why was he laying there? Did he get whacked on the head by the guy with the pipe? Or was he the guy with the pipe? Did he just pass out cold? Or was he just playing an over-dramatic prank?

No one moved to get him up or out of the way. Time slowed.

Then, a huge SUV barreled down out of the garage, and bump-bump, drove right over this guy's legs. The SUV veered hard to the left and sped west down the street. Away.

I gasped, reached for my phone and dialed 911. The operator picked up fast, and as I described what happened, informed me that police were coming. In fact, I was not off the phone before police arrived, then an FDNY ambulance, more cop cars, all first-responders.

I hung up and stared down in horror.

Some woman shrieked that the SUV had Delaware tags. Who knows - the car was gone.

The cops ran up into the garage, I presume to grill the attendant about the hit-and-run vehicle. Other cops bent down to the guy on the ground, and what felt like forever, finally wrapped his legs in some kind of stabilizing rods, his head in one of those skull braces. They lifted him onto a gurney, into the ambulance, and raced off.

Pretty much that was it. Cops interviews bystanders, nothing much more.

I wonder why none of the onlookers did nothing to move that guy from out of the driveway.

I felt shaken. I could not sleep, indeed, I shivered hours after. Much later Sunday, exhausted and aching, I did not move off the sofa. My mind replayed the scene over and over.

Yesterday, I tried to search NYC-Manhattan police reports, news police blotters, anything. I could not find a word about the incident.

I often kid that (despite the obnoxious noise from these bottom-feeding clubs) we don't get real crime on my street. Since Law and Order films episodes down here so often, I say that we have fake crime on this street.

But I don't know what to make of this event.   

Updates

I've added a couple of new Photo Albums, round-ups from 2006. I know a few folks have already perused them, given the stat-counters associated here. See the sidebar. Enjoy.

And I figured I'd get a head-start on 2007, given at least one amusing night on the town.

May 2007 bring us closer to the realization of our dreams.

Cheers.

Neighbors and Friends

I just went up to my roof deck, just in time for midnight and the turn of the year.

The street sounds of the ringing in of 2007 sounded muffled. I expected more noise, given the rash of clubs that have popped up around the block in the past two years. Taxi horns honked, and I want to believe they were blasting away for midnight, instead of traffic.

And then I heard a female voice, "Happy New Year, New York!" (I ought to have written that in all caps, but I avoid such excess.) I heard the whir of helicopters overhead, and looked up. As I did, I saw holiday lights and parties in a handful of apartments among the recently erected high-rises along Sixth Avenue.

I looked south and heard the reverberation of loud booms. Explosions. The fireworks on The Battery. I confess, the sound of fireworks explosions coming from the southern end of Manhattan causes my stomach to start, and the rest of me to stop. I lowered my gaze from the sky and watched in the reflection of a distant glass skyscraper the reds and golds of the fireworks display. My breath caught in my throat. I hugged myself. It was wonderful.

I am not much for celebrating traditional midwinter celebrations. A history of lousy family gatherings, the pressure to act happy, the bloody expectation. Every year, now that I choose to spend the holidays quiet and reflecting, small kindnesses come my way.

This year, neighbors (they were friends well before they bought into the building) two floors below invited me for dinner last Saturday. It was lovely. The next day, the same friends hosted an impromptu brunch, and more of our neighbors joined. There are advantages to living in yep, one of these iconoclast New York City loft co-ops.

The following Monday, a "silver fox" friend invited me to his home on Long Island Sound for dinner and a stay-over. I adore the special guest room where the sound of the waves does nothing but lull me to sleep. What a little slice of heaven, the grilled fillet notwithstanding, or the Prosecco, the artisanal cheeses, and yes dammit, the mashed potatoes. Oh, and the vintage Bordeaux, and all that chocolate. Plus, he recently adopted a dog, a five-month-old shih tzu-poodle. A "shih-poo," or as he said, "a shit-doodle." Roscoe is one cute four-legged, with personality to burn. That pup is destined to have a beautiful life.

All week, more friends were in town from out of town. Among them, a long-time genius friend, performance-artist-turned Burning Man "administrator" (oh yeah). And authors, especially the one who penned Blood Diamonds, with his wife, who was my (yes, my) production chief, for those quick years when our imprint kicked some publishing ass.

These circles, of neighbors, of friends. I am just happy to be surrounded.

Cheers.

Counting Blocks

Yesterday I walked fifteen short blocks north and four long (avenue) east to the attorney's offices for the closing meeting of the cash-out refinance on my loft. My ass will be out of this financial sling in three days, and I will have breathing room until I establish regular cash flow from the various ventures I am starting-up. After signing and signing and signing some more, I walked home again. In all thirty short blocks and eight long ones.

Two and a half miles closer toward a financial respite.

Later in the afternoon, I received an invitation to see a premiere screening of Perfume, based on Patrick Susskind's novel by the same name. I couldn't resist. I read the book twenty years ago. In fact, I located my copy and realized that the printing is a First American Edition, copyright 1986. Deckle-edged, it has accumulated its own scent.

Like millions of its readers, I have distinct mental images for the story. I wanted to see how the film handled it, now two decades later.

I walked thirteen short blocks south, and four long blocks east to the theater, where I met Catnip, my most frequent movie-going date.  A little more than a mile.

In short, I liked the film. The story is about a serial killer, and more so than Showtime's Dexter - to which I am addicted - it portrays the lead character's absence of human empathy. The murders look like works of art, very different from the recent spate of blood-and-gore, slaughter-style films.

It has that European fairy tale quality, which may elicit guffaws from American audiences, who cannot suspend disbelief required for the final scenes.

Still, the images reflected the ones the book created in my mind's eye. And I like that. It's a beautiful-looking film, and worth seeing for that alone. That, and Dustin Hoffman's turn as the perfumer, Giuseppe Baldini.   

Afterward, Catnip and I walked to Employees Only for Liz Taylor Jr.'s birthday. Counting blocks from the East to West Village is tricky. Arm in arm, Catnip and I pointed out second-story, evening-lit windows to each other. The rows of holiday-festooned townhouses from East Twelfth Street to Hudson comprised six long blocks and another six short. The night was beautiful. Another mile.   

Liz was transcendent, ravishing in her perfectly-tailored white blouse. Hail, hail, the gang was there, of course including Surfer Girl and CeeCee.

Surfer Girl reminded me that one year ago, same place, same reason: Liz's birthday at EO, she and I sat at the bar, and smoked. There is no smoking in NYC bars, especially not the kind of smoke we smoked, and yet we did. We did not reprise that moment, but laughed well in its memory. 

   

After a mere three glasses of champagne, I walked the last twenty short and two long blocks home, the final mile and a half of an excellent walking day.

Perish the Weekend

I read an article in the New York Times Styles section two weekends ago about how native Manhattanites don't go out on the weekends, or at least don't go out - on purpose - to the nightclubs and groovy restaurants of the minute. I agree four hundred per cent. The weekends are for the outer boroughs, something long-called "BBQ," for Brooklyn-Bronx-Queens, which of course is utterly unfair. I have lived in four of this city's five boroughs.

There is something undeniable about the population that hits Manhattan nightlife on the weekends, however. The hairstyles seem about five minutes ago, those, and the outfits that seem more homogeneous. Dare I say it, "suburban?" What seems slick in the wide circulation magazines is always a hint behind the inner-city look. And in such circles, a single day can equate to a whole year - in lateness.

Besides, apart from gaining entrance to a club - and nothing, NOTHING, was sweeter than when Mark Benecke parted the crowds at Studio to usher us in - they all feel the same. Same music, same look, same people. Same.

Dang it. I like the new Jay Z single: "Show me what you got." The backing arrangement is fantastic. Period. Apparently it's a sample from the 1973 soundtrack of the film, "Shaft in Africa." Awesome.

Like New Year's and Halloween, the winter weekends seem better suited to the amateurs.

I often poach a quote from Joseph Mitchell. I asked him once, years ago, when we our families were together at his daughter's house at the Jersey Shore, what he planned to do for the Fourth of July. I think it was an Op-Sail event, so it had to have been 1986. Wow. Anyhow, he drawled, "I believe I shall hide under my bed." For all that deep, resonant North Carolina accent, he was a New Yorker - just like the magazine for whom he wrote for so many years - through and through.

So yes, I often say, "I'm going to hide under my bed."

Last Saturday was a huge exception. Liz Taylor Jr. called out the troops, which included a would-be absent Surfer Girl (dammit already), CeeCee, and Prima Downhill, but mostly the fellows: the Brits and the French. We started at Thom Bar, a great lounge-boite. The boys at the door were professionally cute, polite, and schooled in cool.

Somewhere in the course of Thom, a fellow with a Cat-in-the-Hat inspired scarf (shorter and more subtly striped), and skinny jeans (that worked) passed by and said, "Like your hat." Cool. Dude. It felt like weeknight people hiding in a weeknight-like enclave. And it felt better to kick back and have real-live, grown-up, catch-up conversations.

And then we went off to the next place, Room Service. Never mind that the taxi driver took a longer route back up to the Flatiron - almost to "my" neighborhood.

We waited outside the club long enough to watch the door-girl in the huge, steppe-style, furry hats see so often during recent NYC winters. Some guy stumbled out of the club - in an ill-fitting white blazer - and said loudly to door-girl that a cluster of people behind the rope were his friends, that they went to high school with him. High school. Made me wonder right then and there how many illegal drivers' licenses were scanned.

And there they were: the suburban-looking throngs. I stared at the ground. The velvet ropes parted and we went in - to the same club, the same kind of club everywhere in the city. Same music, same scene, filled with the dreaded week-enders. I left inside fifteen minutes, but not before I bopped in place to that Jay Z hook.

But I did leave and in a hurry. Cute Boy left at the same time. As we walked out, I said, "That had to be like prom night in Nassau County."

Furry-hat door-girl may have heard me. Or not.

The next day, I woke up and hit the Palisades trail that I've hiked for years. It felt great.

         

Horse Latitudes

I could call it the doldrums, but horse latitudes has that Olde English sound to it.

When just about everyone seems to be feeling grey, if not living grey (or gray- never could get that quite right, evidently grey is a variant of gray, making gray the preferred usage, ah, pedantry), what else can you call it?

It is the hey-day (hey-grey and day-gray) of the season, and we ought to be filled to the brim. Filled with the potential excitement of every day, the surprise warmth of the select few days of early fall, before the inevitable hiss of steam heaters, and thick socks and wishing for the summer that just ended. The last day when you can sit outside in Madison Park and sip on a frozen black and white custard from the Shake Shack.

Only five months until spring.

We all of us seem to be in a kind of...stasis. Me. I need investors to get this new company off the ground. In the meantime, I push my personal network for any and all freelance writing, editing, and various other media work. Scary. As yet, I am still sleeping through the night, but the hovering, the grey hovering, it looms, it threatens.

I am not alone.

Monsieur is waiting for investors, those who said they are ready, ready to embrace his concept for changing the company for whom he works, driving forward, making it a viable entity in this mad, vast, media world.

We're in New York. Walk the street. This is where it happens.

We talk, Monsieur and I, the grey tones in both our voices. I am deciding to be upbeat in the face of uncertainty, and after, I leave him funny voice messages. Heck, I laugh as I leave them. I laugh after I've left them, a lighter shade of grey.

Hot Momma and I spent Halloween - one of the handful of amateur nights in the city - she on my sofa with her funny, little dog, and me with Jake the cat, who was slouching in the background, all of us sneezing. We were happy in each other's company. We could not muster the energy to dress up and go out. And it was nice. Geez: the season finale of Weeds! Better than grey.

Datomantrix has burrowed under too. She's not been out on the scene so much either, cleaving to work and family. Sometimes, I wish I could do exactly that.

GVWonder is closer, or further. He's been using that big brain of his. He's on the precipice. His success will color the rest of our outlooks.

Tomorrow, I'm co-hosting an event for a snowboarding film: Snow Blind. It's Prima-downhill's gang - and they are a good lot. The venue has wall-to-wall plasma flat screens, and every one will run the film in a run-time loop. Gotta wave the guns.

Spare the costume and make-believe festivities. I gotta put on the snow dog. For now.

Personal Space

On a fourteen-mile-long island of eight million full-time residents, you'd think we would be better at paying attention to personal space, both our own and other's.

Permit me a little self-indulgence.

I know, that as a native - four generations on one side, three on the other - how to weave my way through a jammed sidewalk, subway, or event at a nightclub. It's almost second nature. I say to myself, you can always tell the non-natives: They seem oblivious to their surroundings. And in this town, that can spell anything from annoyance to downright danger. Not that all non-natives are so unmindful, mind you.

(An aside: The word, "annoy" and its variants, "annoying," "annoyance" seem to be the word(s) of the moment. It's annoying.)

For some screwed-up reason, I find it most glaring when I work out, at The Gym.

After almost thirty-five years of working out in this city, from crazed-competitive aerobics classes in the early eighties, to holistic-spiritual aerobics classes and personal trainers into the 90s, to the realization that I was just better off doing my own thing, in the twenty-first century, I think I have a handle on work-out etiquette.

I go off-hours, since the after-work rush makes getting on a preferred heart-thumping machine, or wiggling in to an available space on a communal mat almost impossible. 

At The Gym, the key offenders of oblivion, and worse, the willful takers-over of space, are the personal trainers. Like water, they spread and seep into all available corners.

A word on some of the other patrons of The Gym. During the relative peace of the mid-afternoon hours, I have seen Kyle MacLachlan work out. He wears a bandanna and glasses, spends most of his time on weight machines, and has very skinny calves.

I have seen Matthew Modine too, who looks great. He is bigger and taller than I realize - every time.

(All we would need to complete this holy trinity is Campbell Scott.)

And then there are the too-thin, tallish, wannabe models. Ah, the dears, with their squeaky, high-pitched voices, chatting among themselves (I have seldom, if ever, seen any break an actual sweat) about this or that fashion magazine, or the E! Entertainment re-run about Demi Moore's boyfriends and husbands. Yes, The Gym has flat-screen televisions all over the place.

Nope. It's the trainers, walking purposefully in their black outfits, the word "Coach" stenciled in orange on their chests and backs. They are a mostly young set, and judging from overheard conversation, they have come to New York from other States. They cannot make two sentences in a row without saying "I was like...," that great substitute fill-in for "I said," or "I thought." These people are not rocket surgeons, no.

So often, when I am on the mat, going through my self-taught, old-fashioned, mat-Pilates sequence (I loathed the way William Gibson attempted to exploit the practice by assigning it obsessively to his main character, in his novel Pattern Recognition. I remember harumphing at first, then cursing it later. Awful, trite, annoying.), a trainer, client in tow, will take up all available space, without making the slightest acknowledgment that hey, there might be another person there, on the floor.

Call me kooky-obsessive, but I always eye-scan and check for available space, making sure that once down on the ground, there is sufficient space all around, for one very simple reason: I don't want to kick anyone in the head.

Today, at 2:15 p.m. the worst. I was mid-way through the core sequence (the midsection), when a trainer and three others took over half the mat, to conduct a chat - about shoulders? - when one opened a container of food, and started to eat. I think they were all trainers. But food? Distinct garlic-smelling food, on the mat - when someone less than a foot away is simply trying to complete their daily workout?

The Gym ain't cheap. I have never registered a complaint. Until today. I left the mat, and padded to the manager's office, to say something. And then I returned to the mat, where the kumbaya-kids were still sitting. Another trainer came over and told them they could not eat on the floor (news flash), and they looked at me funny. Clue-free and living in the big city.

I picked up my stuff, walked off to another mat, completed my workout, and left.

These people need to get some city smarts. Yesterday would be good.