Motus Mentis

Another long day today – work followed by a long evening of teaching and training down at the kwoon, and here it is pushing midnight and no post written yet. So rather than bloviate into the wee hours, I think I will offer you all instead a glimpse of New York City life, in the form of a conductor’s announcement that I heard on the F train as I was making my weary way home this past Saturday.

The transit system here in Gotham is old – older than yours, most likely, wherever you are – and in need of constant repair. Because it would be unthinkable to do such work during commuter hours, one often finds that on the weekends things are all bollixed up, and last weekend was no exception. A temporary rerouting of the F train over to the G line required passengers to make a complex subterranean transfer somewhere in the enteric regions of downtown Brooklyn, and at every stop along the way – for the benefit of those who had just got on – our conductress repeated, in a stentorian and increasingly exasperated tone, the details of this labyrinthine excursion. The train was crowded, the PA system was set just below “stun”, and each corvine squawk pierced our captive skulls like the tearing of sheet metal.

Needing to distract myself from the urge to leap from the train and bite down hard on the third rail, I realized that I ought to be sharing this quintessential taste of the Big Apple with my loyal readers. So I whipped out my LG vx8100 cellular telephone, and made a little recording.

So here she is, folks – the sultry Siren of the Subways, singing her sweet seductive song. Play it loud.