Really? Well... Your Cheese Sucks!

Memories of the Summer that is now gone, as the rain glugs down the spouts and the streets are slick: One morning in August, I passed by this beautiful idyll (above) in Central Park, and attracted by the soft sighing of the water, I sat a while to listen...

Then: "Mister. Mister! Excuse we, Mister."

The 'we' were two young women waving a camera at me.

"Will you please take a photo of us, Mister?" They were aged... oh Lord — well, they aren't within earshot, so generously, they were maybe 23 at the very most. And from the Netherlands. And they made me walk.

After saying, "sure, I'll snap your photo," I then found myself following them and their camera up from the susurration of my babbling brook, across a stretch of grass, across the East Drive, across some more grass, across the West Drive...

Finally they spun slowly around, and struck a pose. I took four shots, and as they pouted at me, as though wearing signs that read: 'too inscrutable for your small American minds,' I asked how they liked New York City.

"The men are.. they are..." (giggling at each other) "total jerks."

"And your, how do you say it, your subway and your traffic is shit. It is shit."