One thing about living in the city is that you run into a lot of people whether you like them or not.....
all fit and cheery in Old Navy
waiting to cross the road on 6th Avenue
repainting the white crossing lines (the thing the guy on the right is holding is the street equivilant of a blow-dryer)....
walking past a truck on 23rd Street
and endlessly doing things to leaky windows.
So, after a bit, it all gets too much....
and one turns to inanimate objects like a door on 20th Street
a nice austere window on the same road
with the rusty urn by the rectory
or even the shadows falling on an old house on Long Island....
ps Am reading Anatole Broyard's 1993 Greenwich Village memoir Kafka was the Rage --such a vivid evocation of the post World War II art scene in New York. Highly recommended.