Yesterday afternoon I got sick of waiting for the L train at Union Square, so I figured I'd walk home from there. On my way out I saw this dude singing Ombra mai fu in the original range! I swear to God that guy sounded like a castrato - I've heard plenty of counter-tenors in my life, but that was something entirely different. I was absolutely blown away and disturbed - I wish that I had stayed longer (in my allergy-muddled mind I had the idea in my head that I had somewhere important to go). At least I should have recorded some of it on my phone, because it was absolutely ridiculous (and I mean that in the "awe-inspiring beyond conveyance" sense).
This morning, I walked down to the 14th St subway entrance (which I do if the weather's OK, it beats walking underground), then as soon as I walked in I completely got turned around and started walking back up underground. I walked past four police officers looking at a backpack that had been left on the ground. The backpack looked nice (i.e. almost new, not abused), it was pretty large and obviously full of something, and it was sitting in an area that, honestly, didn't look like a spot where someone would accidentally lose a backpack - it was just sort of in a random spot on the floor of the middle level (between the ground and the rails) of the subway station. So, if I were a cop, all of those things would be red flags for me. If it was, for example, a purse sitting on the bench at the actual subway level where people wait for the train, I wouldn't be as concerned. If it was a beat-to-hell backpack, I might have thought that someone just got tired of their backpack and threw it right there on the floor (and yes, New York is the kind of town where people just randomly decide "I don't want this anymore" and throw it on the ground, as if to commemorate the spot where they made the decision to finally get rid of the thing). However, if we're supposedly at a level of alertness where we randomly search people entering the subway (and yes, this is still going on, although not as often as before), then I would think that a like-new backpack in a random location in the subway would be considered a pretty significant threat. So, what did the police do? The same thing they would have done before all this terror business began - they cautiously opened it up and took a look inside. I noticed, however, that the cop was careful to put on his gloves before he opened the backpack.
I can't say I watched this for a long time, because 1) I didn't want to be noticed by the cops - if I were one of them, I would have been pretty on-edge at that point, and 2) I hate to admit this, but if there was a nasty surprise in the backpack, I didn't want to be too close to it. However, when I reached the end of the station, I realized that I had been going the wrong way and I had to go back. When I passed by the location again, two of the cops had wandered off, and the other two were walking to the exit with the backpack, so I guess there was nothing scary in it.
I find myself wondering if the NYPD's reaction is a good thing or a bad thing - in fact, I've been thinking about it all morning. What does this mean? I can only think of a few possibities:
- These cops were just dumb and didn't realize that "new backpack, obviously relatively full, in a place where it's unlikely it was just misplaced there" should be some kind of red flag.
- Some precautions were already taken before I happened by the scene - perhaps a dog had been brought in to sniff it, or something like that, although I doubt it (since whatever or whoever had checked it before would probably still be around when they decided to open it).
- This one scares me - maybe the higher-ups in NYC law enforcement realize that this whole subway thing is no more than security theater, but it keeps people feeling that essential combination of scared and protected that's been so beneficial for everyone. Plus, I'm guessing that the NYPD is really using the subway searches to look for illegal immigrants and folks who just look "suspicious" in general, so maybe it's working for them, as opposed to actually checking for terrorists. Of course, I haven't seen any news or stats about the fruits of the subway searches, so maybe it's not really working out for them.
Back to the first thing (the guy singing yesterday afternoon) - I'm going to start filming the really cool subway buskers, maybe I'll catch that guy again and get some footage.
2 comments:
Most folks didn't even pause to listen.
Yeah, I saw that article awhile ago. Although, to be fair, people in the subway are generally on their way (and, more often than not, late) to somewhere else, whereas people viewing a concert have committed to viewing that thing. Perhaps if he had been in a setting where people are more likely to have the time to pause, he would have fared better. Not to mention that most people don't have a very good frame of reference for violin playing and are therefore unlikely to be able to discern "outstanding" from merely "good" playing. As an example, not too many people were pausing to listen to the castrato-like singer, and it only caught my attention because I've heard enough opera singers (including counter-tenors) to be able to tell that this was something really unusual. And, for the record, I didn't really watch for more than 30 seconds or so and I didn't toss in any money (although I would change both those things if I could go back and see it over again).
Post a Comment