Union Square Station
Malone
5/8

Like Being Lakeside in the Adirondacks

Finally, in just the past few days, the city has seen some springtime worth mentioning. It took a blast of hot air last week to put an end to the dying vestiges of that longest winter. And now it's just glorious, as I write, like being lakeside in the Adirondacks with the air perfectly sweet. When New York's air gets that way it reaches down into memory and gives the present an entirely different feeling from what you routinely get in the city, which is a continuous flow of nervous energy.

With the windows open to all that sweet air this morning it made it particularly sad to hear the news that People magazine is coming out with its edition featuring the "50 Most Beautiful People." Of the thousands of awful magazines published in the U.S., People is one that I make a conscious effort to avoid. Its 50 most beautiful people are actually the 50 most obviously hot celebrities without serious facial scarring. But as to really beautiful people, I could hit the streets in the morning and by the dinner hour have 50 everyday folks more beautiful than any list of celebrities selected by People. The magazine's editors apparently labor over their list as though it were a serious affair of culture.

I would start my list with the two sisters of my building's super, one in her 40s, the other her 50s, who come by several times a week to care for their elderly mother. I always feel lucky if I run into them because while they are self-effacing to a fault, they absolutely radiate kindness, grace, and beauty. They're the precise opposite of People magazine's pantheon of celebrity, and there are people just like them wherever you go, mostly unnoticed in the rush of things.

The ads for the issue show Julia Roberts as one of the chosen 50 this year, and that's O.K. But the woman she played in her Academy Award-winning film performance has a spark of beauty that overmatches Julia's. I wonder if the real Erin Brockovich made People's list. I doubt it. She might be too much competition for the lovely Miss Roberts, who notably did not thank her when accepting the Oscar. Just as my attorney had predicted.

Speaking of my attorney, on Sunday, in the midst of the aforesaid Adirondack-like sweetness, she took me to lunch at the Cedar Tavern on University Place, which is one of those last joints around town where you can get authentic bar atmosphere. The reason you want authentic bar atmosphere is that there is no pretension to false ambiance that wants to get under your skin and crawl around.

We both ordered the fried calamari. My attorney drank a Margarita and I took a Manhattan, not badly made but not as swell as I like them. One cuts a place like the Cedar plenty of slack, however.

This kind of weather calms the city down as much as that first prolonged burst of withering heat drives it out of its collective mind. It's funny how the same place can appear one day like a positive patch of paradise and the next like a stretch of mad highway replete with carnival attractions somewhere between hell and Las Vegas.

Thinking back across the longest winter it was the first time I've seen the cold bite that hard in the city. I've seen it bite deeper, but never just hold on so long and so hard like that. Folks seemed to gain much flesh across it and maybe a certain hibernation reflex kicked in from which not everyone is quite awake.

But these last few days, they've just remade this gangster city into a quiet afternoon with fragrant winds rustling along through your fingers. And it's all something for the mind to hold onto when high summer comes by with its Blade Runner weather of deep sulking hazes and nasty coughing heat and even the librarians look like maniacs.

© Union Square Journal 2001

Previously by Malone...

Get Off Him (04/04/01)

They Ran the White House Like a Chop Shop (02/28/01)

Hannibal: The Silence of the Critics (02/16/01)

Reagan's Two Terrible Mistakes (02/06/01)

The Return of the Hero (01/19/01)

The Hero of Chappaquiddick (01/11/01)

Real Millennium Strange (01/03/01)

Smoke 'em if you got 'em (12/21/00)

Union Square Station (12/11/00)

Union Square Station (12/3 back to 11/24/00)