Tag Archives: street life

The Scorpion And The Tortoise

26 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by in Life, Magic, Photography, Writing

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81st Street Subway station

New York, New York

Everyone’s favorite conman, Whit “Pop” Haydn, is fond of the tale of “The Scorpion and  The Tortoise.” As time goes on, I have become more and more appreciative of this little instructive fable. It goes like this…

A scorpion asks a tortoise if he could take a ride on the tortoise’s back in order to cross the deep waters of the local river. The tortoise replies that he’s no fool—the scorpion will just sting him as they go across the river. But the scorpion answers, “No, no worries, you’re protected; for if I went and stung you, you’d die, and then I’d drown in the middle of the river. It’s simple logic, you’ve got a fail-safe situation here.”

The tortoise thinks it over for a few minutes and then agrees. The scorpion hops on the tortoise’s back and off they go. In the exact center of the river, however, at its deepest part, sure enough, the scorpion stings the tortoise. The tortoise, in agonized death throes, sputters out, “What in God’s name have you done? We’re both going to die now! How could you?”

And the scorpion, now about to be enveloped in the deadly deep water, just manages to eke out, “I’m a scorpion. It’s my nature.”

 

 

The Nosy New Yorker

21 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Life, Writing

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union square signage

Photo by Ana Paula Nardini on Pexels.com

I have always been an eager surreptitious listener to strangers’ conversations, curious about what other people have to say, and their manner of communication with each other. But nowadays I do not have to strain— on the New York City subways, for example, people no longer have a sense of appropriateness, and they’re as public and loud with their private conversations as a Twitter feed. It’s like the town square. Here are a few snippets that I overheard—or rather that were broadcast—on the subway last week. Each could be a story starter.

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Man to another man: “Just because you look stupid doesn’t mean you have to act stupid.”

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Woman to another woman: “New Year’s with my parents will be sweet, it just won’t be any fun.”

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High school girl to another high school girl: “Every text, make it funny, so that he’ll take you serious; laugh at everything he says. He’ll like that. Just write “Ha-ha.”

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Man to woman: “I wonder if I just need to be less sugar-coated.”

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Woman to man: “Every time my boss gives a presentation, he looks at me. I want to tell him on a scale of one to ten, it’s a two.”

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Woman to another woman: “What was so important that he didn’t text me at all for five hours?”