Monday, March 8, 2010

New York Wit

New Yorkers have a wry kind of humor, and sometimes their spontaneous comments are little gems. A middle aged woman who had watched a Broadway show from a balcony seat was was one of the first people out when the performance had ended. She was down the stairs when she remembered she had left her coat on her seat. I watched her turn around and hurriedly run back up the stairs. But by this time, throngs of people were on their way out, and she was swimming upstream against the current. Most fittingly, one of those people turned to her and yelled out, “Salmon!”

10 comments:

  1. Michael, you misunderstood the situation.

    It was a spontaneous comment and perhaps typical for NY as well. But I swear you, it was not at all funny. In fact, it was nothing but a loud shouting from a man to his son Salomon. And by this, Salomon knew he had to hurry away very quickly with the stolen coat (and the diamonds in the pocket).

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  2. Who of you is right?

    This is one of the situations which can show us how difficult, how impossible it is for overeducated people to understand a very simple situation. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is acting in every day life, if only a sufficient number of persons knows the principle.

    Once two men went to the Rabbi because they could not agree in front of a situation. First one of them spoke, and the Rabbi said "Yes, you are right". Then the other man spoke. "You are right as well", said the Rabbi". At this point the wife of the Rabbi from the kitchen shouted "You cannot tell both to be right, can you?!" "You are right either!" the Rabbi shouted back.

    When I read Michael's report, I wondered how skilled Salman Rushdie had become in hiding before the most extraordinary situations; and I was asking myself if the shouting person was really a man or if the woman hurrying up the stairs was a dangerous ventriloquist.

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  3. At the very beginning I wasn´t convinced by Michael´s story. Later, I wondered how Michael could know all those details. The lady certainly didn´t communicate with him while hurrying up the stairs. So, what was she leaving on her seat? In fact, did she really leave it on her seat? Was her quick rush sensible? So I telephoned with the police station near Broadway. Officer Conny told me this:
    “We are happy now to have in handcuffs the well known Salmon-gang. Father David and son Salomon Salmon are specialists in robbing of unpublished manuscripts. They tried to get the Rebecca libretto, which we and they knew, currently is in circulation of some Broadway producers.
    Guess how we got them! This was due to an information we recently got out of the internet. My assistant Ronny is a daily reader of a so called Storyarchitect-Blogger. This internet-writer gave us a rather cryptical hint, that the Salmon-gang is in town. We instantly knew that they would try to get the disputed Rebecca stuff. By the way, the lady who left the papers in the toilet is a gang´s confederate. Her name is Francesca Salmon.”

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  4. Questions of truth which cannot be decided by philosophers risk to be decided by policemen, and politicians manage the transfer from the philosophers' department to the police department.

    It is always someone whose profession begins with a "p"!

    Truth is an unwelcome guest. Like with fish, after three days one tries to get rid of it.

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  5. "Your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth" - Polonius (2,1 Line 70), Hamlet by William Shakespeare

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  6. @cs

    I understand YOUR hint.

    I actually know a Francesca who for 9 years has been living in New York, and she is a very good cook working in a Slow Food restaurant. This is like your story with female sour dinosaurs eating cherries you were trying someone to convince of on february 14.

    Today is Women's Day. This can't be accidental

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  7. No women´s day. No slow food but fast entertainment. I heard her family name via telephone and perhaps it was Zam and not Salm in the beginning.
    By the way, she doesn´t need this robbery because she certainly knows the libretto by heart. Sorry, I couldn´t find a good ending.

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  8. It was a wonderful ending, I even sent an SMS to Francesca!

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  9. storyarchitekt@gmail.comMarch 8, 2010 at 7:20 PM

    Hey, guys, you're great entertainers. I'm glad I got you going.

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  10. Thank you for your great hospitality, dear Michael!

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