don't do that

maybe these things don't come in threes after all.
some fairly major New York City passings in the past week or so: Brooke Astor (8/13), Phil Rizzuto (8/14) and Max Roach (8/16).
and now Leona Helmsley (8/20) really screws up the math.

and in other news . . .
exhibit #37 in our continuing series, Why The Upper West Side Is Whacked:

woman with a Kucinich 2008 button is talking across the aisle to a man, most likely her husband, on the downtown 1 train. between them is the beginnings of a rose bush that they're obviously hauling from a way uptown nursery. but where to?
they discuss, loudly, who will be taking it, and where (his office? her office? how about home?), once they reach the West 4th stop (and the 1 train doesn't stop at West 4th).
but the train lurches and a youngish woman falls backward, tripping over the beginnings of a rose bush that is blocking the aisle. as in, her ass is less than a foot away from the ground (with her head soon to follow) when her companion makes a shoestring catch.
woman with Kucinich 2008 button says to the falling woman: Don't do that.

currently listening to: Max Roach's We Insist! - Freedom Now Suite, The Fiery Furnaces' Gallowsbird's Bark and Gigi Gryce and The Jazz Lab Quintet.