Richard Dansky's Blog, page 28
February 23, 2011
The New Hero
Or more accurately, the table of contents for The New Hero, the upcoming anthology from Stone Skin Press that I've got a piece in, can be found here. Prepare thyself for awesomeness.
February 21, 2011
Rare Exports
I think the "Small Scandinavian Children Menaced By Monsters" subgenre's my new favorite. A while back we had Let the Right One In, and now there's Rare Exports, which I caught at the Nevermore Festival on Friday night. RE is a Finnish movie, developed out of a couple of shorts about feral Santa trappers bringing back their quarry for export to the lucrative American mall market (or something to that effect). The premise is goofy as hell. The infodump during the opening credits is as rushed as anything you get out of a season 6 Supernatural episode. The main character spends much of the movie with a slab of cardboard taped to his butt. In short, it sounds ludicrous. I mean, seriously. Santa?
Except I can't remember anything I've seen in a film that's more menacing than a naked old guy hanging from a butcher's hook and staring at the naughty little boy who is right...in...front of him.
Eating gingerbread, no less.
See it.
Except I can't remember anything I've seen in a film that's more menacing than a naked old guy hanging from a butcher's hook and staring at the naughty little boy who is right...in...front of him.
Eating gingerbread, no less.
See it.
February 18, 2011
Me, Writing About Stuff Besides Vampires
So I had been planning a giant "Hey, here's all the writing I've got coming up" post for a while now, but since the Escapist forced my hand by, you know, actually publishing something, I figured I might as well actually get to it.
March 3, my short fiction piece "There Is No Bird" will be up at Tainted TeaMarch 15, it's looking like storySouth will have my story "And the Rain Fell Through Her Fingers"Sometime in March, Night-Mantled: The Best of Wily Writers will escape with my story "Small Cold Things", not to mention work by Mark Worthen, Jennifer Brozek, Lisa Morton and more.The fine folks at Stone Skin Press will be publishing "The Thirty-Ninth Labor of Reb Palache" in one of their upcoming anthologies.I've got a few book reviews in the chute at Green Man ReviewAnd a couple more in the most recent issue of Bull SpecNot to mention my monthly yammering over at Storytellers Unplugged. That's the 27th of every month, for the curious.And a few more things I can't talk about yet.So...keep an eye out, if you're into such things.
March 3, my short fiction piece "There Is No Bird" will be up at Tainted TeaMarch 15, it's looking like storySouth will have my story "And the Rain Fell Through Her Fingers"Sometime in March, Night-Mantled: The Best of Wily Writers will escape with my story "Small Cold Things", not to mention work by Mark Worthen, Jennifer Brozek, Lisa Morton and more.The fine folks at Stone Skin Press will be publishing "The Thirty-Ninth Labor of Reb Palache" in one of their upcoming anthologies.I've got a few book reviews in the chute at Green Man ReviewAnd a couple more in the most recent issue of Bull SpecNot to mention my monthly yammering over at Storytellers Unplugged. That's the 27th of every month, for the curious.And a few more things I can't talk about yet.So...keep an eye out, if you're into such things.
February 15, 2011
Some Random Website Noise
Saturday, I told my gentle and loving wife that part of my plan for the day was to replace the CMOS battery on my desktop's motherboard.
"Will that," she asked me in the same tone she uses to ask "Why are you waggling around a miniature plastic guitar and shouting 'I'm ZZ Top!' while wearing only your boxers at 2 AM" or "Are you really going to put that bacon cheeseburger in between two Krispy Kreme donuts for the sake of science?" - but I digress - "Will that keep your computer from making that FNNNARRRRR sound it does every time you boot it up?"
"No", I said, because it's the boot drive that goes FNNNARRRRR and always has.
"Right. Get dressed."
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Never you mind," she replied. "Just get in the car."
Which, in suitably edited form, is how I ended up with an iMac.
Another time, I may discuss why I'm more of a blunt-force-trauma adopter than a bleeding edge kind of guy, but that's neither here nor there. Instead, what Macifying means is that I finally have run out of excuses when it comes to updating my website, among other things. (For one thing, it's a lot quicker when I don't have to wrangle raw HTML as something makes FNNNARRRRR noises in the background.) So, in the near future you can expect:
An updated and revamped Snowbird Gothic, aka richarddansky.comA fresh exhumation of all of the Five for Writing interviews, and, if I'm feeling particularly energetic, a new take on the series.Regular updatesPlus more good stuff.
So if you don't see that within the next couple of weeks, feel free to castigate me relentlessly and publicly.
"Will that," she asked me in the same tone she uses to ask "Why are you waggling around a miniature plastic guitar and shouting 'I'm ZZ Top!' while wearing only your boxers at 2 AM" or "Are you really going to put that bacon cheeseburger in between two Krispy Kreme donuts for the sake of science?" - but I digress - "Will that keep your computer from making that FNNNARRRRR sound it does every time you boot it up?"
"No", I said, because it's the boot drive that goes FNNNARRRRR and always has.
"Right. Get dressed."
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Never you mind," she replied. "Just get in the car."
Which, in suitably edited form, is how I ended up with an iMac.
Another time, I may discuss why I'm more of a blunt-force-trauma adopter than a bleeding edge kind of guy, but that's neither here nor there. Instead, what Macifying means is that I finally have run out of excuses when it comes to updating my website, among other things. (For one thing, it's a lot quicker when I don't have to wrangle raw HTML as something makes FNNNARRRRR noises in the background.) So, in the near future you can expect:
An updated and revamped Snowbird Gothic, aka richarddansky.comA fresh exhumation of all of the Five for Writing interviews, and, if I'm feeling particularly energetic, a new take on the series.Regular updatesPlus more good stuff.
So if you don't see that within the next couple of weeks, feel free to castigate me relentlessly and publicly.
February 14, 2011
The Secret to a Happy Ending
It's a lyric from the song "World of Hurt", and also the title of a documentary on the Drive-By Truckers. Saw the film tonight in the company of the esteemed Badger at the Pinhook tonight, in the company of roughly fifty other DBT devotees of various stripes and affinities. Lots of mesh trucker hats worn unironically, a few worn ironically. Nervous-looking, angular blondes tapping the feet every time a song played during the documentary. Older gents drinking PBR, because what the hell else do you drink watching a documentary on the DBTs? And around us all, the Pinhook's cool stoner cousin's basement ambience, brick walls and old sofas and beanbag chairs, and a hell of a beer list.
The film's a good one. It's clearly done from a fan's point of view, but isn't a hagiography; mostly the director is happy to stand back and let the band, and their music, speak for themselves. Much of the movie orbits around guitarist/songwriter/vocalist Patterson Hood, a giant ball of passion and occasional confusion who's in a band because, as he notes, he's no good at anything else. Mixing up sweat and tears, telling stories that bounce from bashful to the borders of arrogance to the occasional surprise at what the band's actually managing to pull off, reaching for a guitar or a beer bottle to ease along the telling, he's driven by a vision of what the band could be, even if he doesn't always quite seem to know what that vision is from moment to moment. Songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Mike Cooley's more laconic but pithy in his moments. When he plays "Space City" alone in a darkened room and just lets the chime of the last chord linger on and on, it's chilling. And former member of the triumvirate Jason Isbell undergoes a visible metamorphosis across the film's duration. Earlier interview clips make him come across as almost painfully young, enthused as hell about everything and having the time of his life. By the time the doc moves past his divorce, from bassist Shonna Tucker and from the band, he's interviewed as he strides relentlessly away from the camera, uphill through woods and tall grass. He's regretful, and more mature, and moving away.
There's some quibbles one could have with the film - the occasional intrusion of a boom mike, the relative paucity of interview sessions the talking heads segments are drawn from, the sound mix. But they're quibbles. It''s worth a see, and a listen, and maybe a though or two.
And like the song says, the secret to a happy ending is knowing when to say "Cut."
The film's a good one. It's clearly done from a fan's point of view, but isn't a hagiography; mostly the director is happy to stand back and let the band, and their music, speak for themselves. Much of the movie orbits around guitarist/songwriter/vocalist Patterson Hood, a giant ball of passion and occasional confusion who's in a band because, as he notes, he's no good at anything else. Mixing up sweat and tears, telling stories that bounce from bashful to the borders of arrogance to the occasional surprise at what the band's actually managing to pull off, reaching for a guitar or a beer bottle to ease along the telling, he's driven by a vision of what the band could be, even if he doesn't always quite seem to know what that vision is from moment to moment. Songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Mike Cooley's more laconic but pithy in his moments. When he plays "Space City" alone in a darkened room and just lets the chime of the last chord linger on and on, it's chilling. And former member of the triumvirate Jason Isbell undergoes a visible metamorphosis across the film's duration. Earlier interview clips make him come across as almost painfully young, enthused as hell about everything and having the time of his life. By the time the doc moves past his divorce, from bassist Shonna Tucker and from the band, he's interviewed as he strides relentlessly away from the camera, uphill through woods and tall grass. He's regretful, and more mature, and moving away.
There's some quibbles one could have with the film - the occasional intrusion of a boom mike, the relative paucity of interview sessions the talking heads segments are drawn from, the sound mix. But they're quibbles. It''s worth a see, and a listen, and maybe a though or two.
And like the song says, the secret to a happy ending is knowing when to say "Cut."
February 11, 2011
The Ballad of the Sweet'n'Nasty
So we're at a party, me and Jeff Ward. It's the official party for Game Forum Germany*, an excellent conference I was honored to be a part of, and it's an excellent party, but then again the folks putting on the conference were absolutely excellent hosts from the get-go. Great conference, great folks, you name it. I'm very glad I went.
But like I said, we're at this party, at a bar. Jeff orders a Manhattan, which is expertly made and delivered with an impressive bit of showmanship. Very Cocktail, as it were, though the DJ, whose shtick was playing interesting cover versions of old standards, didn't break out the Georgia Satellites, and for that we can all be thankful. The second bartender came over and asked me what I wanted.
I looked at the shelf behind the bar, and I saw whisky. This was a good thing. I also saw Drambuie, which ain't a bad thing either. And I decided, since it was early in the evening and I wasn't quite ready to go straight to straight whisky yet, that a Rusty Nail would be the right thing to order.
A Rusty Nail, for those of you who don't know, consists of two ingredients. One is whisky, the other is Drambuie. It is, as a result, very difficult to screw up, especially when both A)whisky and B)Drambuie are in evidence.
So I order a Rusty Nail. The bartender looks at me, purses his lips, and says "One second." He turns, walks down to the other bartender, and immediately begins an animated discussion with him. The second bartender looks at me, looks at the shelf, looks at me again, and then turns to refer to what I can only assume to be the German equivalent of a Mr. Boston. After a minute of this, he walks over to where I'm standing. "Excuse me," he asks. "What did you order again?"
"A Rusty Nail," I say. "Whisky and Drambuie."
"Ahh." He nods. "What kind of whisky do you want?"
"Cragganmore," I reply, largely because I can see the bottle from where I'm standing. The entire exercise had been conceived to be easy.
He nods again. "OK." Then, he turns and walks off, and snags a bottle of whisky off the shelf. It is not a bottle of Cragganmore.
This, perhaps, should have been my first warning.
Still, it's whisky, and he pours a generous shot into a glass. This is, in a word, Good. Then, he reaches for another bottle, and as he does so, I realize with shock and horror that the bottle he is reaching for is not the one containing Drambuie. The bottle of Drambuie is on the shelf, where it was when I first spotted it. The bottle he is grabbing, and now bringing to the glass and tilting and pouring, is full of something red and viscous and...
At this point, you can safely assume a "Slow motion No" moment.
Because it's grenadine.
And then the bartender does his thing with the shaker, and pours the result into a martini glass - neat, no less - and presents it to me with a smile.
And I think, "Awk-ward," and take the glass, because, hey, fully fifty percent of the liquid in there is whisky, and surely whisky is stronger than grenadine just like Evil Will Always Triumph Over Good Because Good Is Dumb and...
No. Not so much.
The drink is viscous, in a way nothing with scotch in it should ever be. It has bubbles. It is a deep reddish pink redolent of the sorts of things you imagine being kept in strangely shaped vials by minor characters in Jack Vance novels. And it is terrible.
Naturally, I pass it around the table. Jeff tries a sip and makes a face like someone's just tased his odd-numbered taste buds. Ryan Challinor from Harmonix takes a sip and immediately dubs it the Sweet'N'Nasty. A few others take sips and agree - there's something unique and deadly about this beverage. Ryan takes a second sip, and sagely says, "Yup, it's as bad as I thought it was."
Ron Gilbert and Noah Falstein are smart enough not to drink it. This makes them smarter than we are. Ron, however, goes one step further. He threatens to order one in every bar he goes into, just to spread the legend.
Be afraid, people. Be very afraid. And be very careful of your whisky.
*Let me reiterate that the organizers and hosts for GFG did an absolutely amazing job, and I cannot recommend the conference highly enough.
But like I said, we're at this party, at a bar. Jeff orders a Manhattan, which is expertly made and delivered with an impressive bit of showmanship. Very Cocktail, as it were, though the DJ, whose shtick was playing interesting cover versions of old standards, didn't break out the Georgia Satellites, and for that we can all be thankful. The second bartender came over and asked me what I wanted.
I looked at the shelf behind the bar, and I saw whisky. This was a good thing. I also saw Drambuie, which ain't a bad thing either. And I decided, since it was early in the evening and I wasn't quite ready to go straight to straight whisky yet, that a Rusty Nail would be the right thing to order.
A Rusty Nail, for those of you who don't know, consists of two ingredients. One is whisky, the other is Drambuie. It is, as a result, very difficult to screw up, especially when both A)whisky and B)Drambuie are in evidence.
So I order a Rusty Nail. The bartender looks at me, purses his lips, and says "One second." He turns, walks down to the other bartender, and immediately begins an animated discussion with him. The second bartender looks at me, looks at the shelf, looks at me again, and then turns to refer to what I can only assume to be the German equivalent of a Mr. Boston. After a minute of this, he walks over to where I'm standing. "Excuse me," he asks. "What did you order again?"
"A Rusty Nail," I say. "Whisky and Drambuie."
"Ahh." He nods. "What kind of whisky do you want?"
"Cragganmore," I reply, largely because I can see the bottle from where I'm standing. The entire exercise had been conceived to be easy.
He nods again. "OK." Then, he turns and walks off, and snags a bottle of whisky off the shelf. It is not a bottle of Cragganmore.
This, perhaps, should have been my first warning.
Still, it's whisky, and he pours a generous shot into a glass. This is, in a word, Good. Then, he reaches for another bottle, and as he does so, I realize with shock and horror that the bottle he is reaching for is not the one containing Drambuie. The bottle of Drambuie is on the shelf, where it was when I first spotted it. The bottle he is grabbing, and now bringing to the glass and tilting and pouring, is full of something red and viscous and...
At this point, you can safely assume a "Slow motion No" moment.
Because it's grenadine.
And then the bartender does his thing with the shaker, and pours the result into a martini glass - neat, no less - and presents it to me with a smile.
And I think, "Awk-ward," and take the glass, because, hey, fully fifty percent of the liquid in there is whisky, and surely whisky is stronger than grenadine just like Evil Will Always Triumph Over Good Because Good Is Dumb and...
No. Not so much.
The drink is viscous, in a way nothing with scotch in it should ever be. It has bubbles. It is a deep reddish pink redolent of the sorts of things you imagine being kept in strangely shaped vials by minor characters in Jack Vance novels. And it is terrible.
Naturally, I pass it around the table. Jeff tries a sip and makes a face like someone's just tased his odd-numbered taste buds. Ryan Challinor from Harmonix takes a sip and immediately dubs it the Sweet'N'Nasty. A few others take sips and agree - there's something unique and deadly about this beverage. Ryan takes a second sip, and sagely says, "Yup, it's as bad as I thought it was."
Ron Gilbert and Noah Falstein are smart enough not to drink it. This makes them smarter than we are. Ron, however, goes one step further. He threatens to order one in every bar he goes into, just to spread the legend.
Be afraid, people. Be very afraid. And be very careful of your whisky.
*Let me reiterate that the organizers and hosts for GFG did an absolutely amazing job, and I cannot recommend the conference highly enough.
February 4, 2011
A thought on my content
Folks who've read my blog for a while have probably twigged to the fact that there are some things that I do talk about on a regular basis. Things I do discuss include, in no particular order:
SorbetThe Drive-By TruckersBooks, particularly mineThe latest amazing cool thing done by my wifeThe latest horrifying thing done by one of our catsTravelCommercials that annoy meWhy I made a lousy Santa ClausOther stuff of my choosing
Things I generally don't discuss include:
WorkMy thoughts on competitive products in the video game market that could conceivably be misquoted or taken out of contextBusiness & financesFamilyBad newsOther stuff of my choosingThis may make me a bad blogger, as I understand part of the unwritten contract is that you're supposed to share all of your feelings, all of the time. And I know that works for a lot of people, and more power to them. That being said, there are things I'm not comfortable or interested in sharing. It may be for professional reasons - my relationship with my employer and my coworkers is a professional trust, for example - but largely it's because I'm a pretty private person when it comes to a few important things. Family business is, as they say, family business, and sometimes it's just none of your damn business, no offense intended. You get the idea.
So if this blog goes dark for a while, it may be because I have nothing to say, or it may be because the things I feel like saying aren't appropriate for this space. (And before anyone feels the need to wave the banner of Blogginess As The Place For All Things, let me say simply this: this space is my space, and I decide what's appropriate for it. You get to decide what's appropriate for your blogs. 'nuff said.) And there may be times when the stuff you see here, or on my Twitter feed, or wherever, is theoretically at odds with how I am Supposed To Be Feeling, based on privileged knowledge. Well, that's part and parcel of the whole thing - if there is stuff that I don't feel like talking about and I don't want the feed to go dark, I reserve the right to stick to whatever lighthearted material I see fit, regardless of whether I myself am feeling particularly lighthearted at the moment. It is, at least in my understanding, part of that whole "writer" thing.
All of which brings us back to the core point, which is to say, that I hope you find my blog entertaining, and interesting, and amusing, and whatever else. But there are some things it will never be, and a complete and accurate guide to everything going on in my life is one of them. If that violates some unwritten contract between blogger and reader that I never bothered to sign, well, I'm sorry. Hopefully you've enjoyed the content so far for what it is, hopefully you will continue to do so. And if I ever do sort out my feelings of the last few weeks above and beyond the humorous anecdote about the creation of the whisky-and-grenadine abomination called "The Sweet'n'Nasty", then I may even write about them here. (It was a busy couple of weeks. Highs. Lows. All that sort of thing.)
Then again, I may not.
You have been warned.
SorbetThe Drive-By TruckersBooks, particularly mineThe latest amazing cool thing done by my wifeThe latest horrifying thing done by one of our catsTravelCommercials that annoy meWhy I made a lousy Santa ClausOther stuff of my choosing
Things I generally don't discuss include:
WorkMy thoughts on competitive products in the video game market that could conceivably be misquoted or taken out of contextBusiness & financesFamilyBad newsOther stuff of my choosingThis may make me a bad blogger, as I understand part of the unwritten contract is that you're supposed to share all of your feelings, all of the time. And I know that works for a lot of people, and more power to them. That being said, there are things I'm not comfortable or interested in sharing. It may be for professional reasons - my relationship with my employer and my coworkers is a professional trust, for example - but largely it's because I'm a pretty private person when it comes to a few important things. Family business is, as they say, family business, and sometimes it's just none of your damn business, no offense intended. You get the idea.
So if this blog goes dark for a while, it may be because I have nothing to say, or it may be because the things I feel like saying aren't appropriate for this space. (And before anyone feels the need to wave the banner of Blogginess As The Place For All Things, let me say simply this: this space is my space, and I decide what's appropriate for it. You get to decide what's appropriate for your blogs. 'nuff said.) And there may be times when the stuff you see here, or on my Twitter feed, or wherever, is theoretically at odds with how I am Supposed To Be Feeling, based on privileged knowledge. Well, that's part and parcel of the whole thing - if there is stuff that I don't feel like talking about and I don't want the feed to go dark, I reserve the right to stick to whatever lighthearted material I see fit, regardless of whether I myself am feeling particularly lighthearted at the moment. It is, at least in my understanding, part of that whole "writer" thing.
All of which brings us back to the core point, which is to say, that I hope you find my blog entertaining, and interesting, and amusing, and whatever else. But there are some things it will never be, and a complete and accurate guide to everything going on in my life is one of them. If that violates some unwritten contract between blogger and reader that I never bothered to sign, well, I'm sorry. Hopefully you've enjoyed the content so far for what it is, hopefully you will continue to do so. And if I ever do sort out my feelings of the last few weeks above and beyond the humorous anecdote about the creation of the whisky-and-grenadine abomination called "The Sweet'n'Nasty", then I may even write about them here. (It was a busy couple of weeks. Highs. Lows. All that sort of thing.)
Then again, I may not.
You have been warned.
January 20, 2011
Some Days Defy Easy Description
There's a black widow spray-painted on the wall on my walk to the Metro, and a coiled ammonite shell in white done on the church steeple across the way. I saw people scalping opera tickets and others drinking boxed wine at an art gallery opening near Chatelet. Asking random passersby the way to Place de Carrousel while I was standing in it, and getting different directions from each. Dinner at the Louvre with a charming and gracious new friend, and 45 mintues in the cold watching light-up spinning toys shoot up into the air and drift back down to the ground outside the pyramid that guards the Louvre. Work accomplished, work piling up. Lunch with a friend from the main office; we swapped stories of hotel horrors from Santa Monica in the heart of Paris, and he talked about wanting to vacation in Arizona.
And then life back home intrudes in a way that can't be discussed or ignored, and all the little pieces remind you they're just that. Little pieces. Moments. Worth savoring, worth recording, but only as part of the greater whole.
Which goes back to last night, and walking around a glass pyramid at the cold, looking at strangers' faces.
And then life back home intrudes in a way that can't be discussed or ignored, and all the little pieces remind you they're just that. Little pieces. Moments. Worth savoring, worth recording, but only as part of the greater whole.
Which goes back to last night, and walking around a glass pyramid at the cold, looking at strangers' faces.
January 18, 2011
The Terror Of Paris
One of the most horrifying things in Paris is the likelihood of being subjected to a roving accordionist.
They routinely haunt the Metro, slipping into a crowded-but-not-too-crowded car at the last second, and then waiting for the train to pull away from the station before unleashing their unique skills on the trapped passengers. It's the wait that's particularly devilish, you see. There's that moment of hope when you're allowed to think that maybe, just maybe, this time the guy is tired or has made enough money or whatever and won't launch into, well, whatever the accordion equivalent of "Freebird" is.
Hope, as a friend of mine says, is the beginning of unhappiness.
The train rolls out. The music starts. And as the accordionist moves from one end of the car to the other, passengers slip him a little cash in order to keep him moving. It's a very simple equation, and I've seen people literally fling themselves out through subway doors that were closing in order to get off a car with an accordion player in it.
So imagine my surprise the other day when, instead of an accordionist, an alto sax player got onto the Metro in my car. Sax strikes me as more dangerous than accordion on the subway, for the simple reason that you're actually sticking a pointy piece of plastic into your mouth, pointed at the back of your throat, and Metro trains are known for abrupt stops due to congestion, people throwing themselves onto the tracks, or regularly scheduled transit strikes. The only thing an accordion player has to be afraid of is being bludgeoned to death with his own instrument; the saxaphonist has to worry about suddenly having his trachea punctured front to back by a Mitchell Lurie #3 reed.
But that being said, sax guy was on board. He was reasonably natty, wearing a baseball cap from some golf tourney or other, and his sax looked well cared for. People stared at him, the train pulled out, and he started playing some kind of soft, arrhythmic jazz.
And nobody cared.
He strolled up and down the car. People got out of his way, but nobody paid attention. Nobody paid coin or cash, either. After one stop, he gave up, shouldered his way forward, and went to the next car. I don't think he had much success there, either.
Maybe it was the choice of music. With the clackity-clack of the tracks, something with a little more of a driving beat would have been good. Something with a recognizable melody, even. And something a little louder. Personally, I kept waiting for him to look around, say "the hell with it", and cut loose with an almighty chunk of "Baker Street", but it was not to be.
Just quiet jazz, and then he moved on, and not much changed at all.
They routinely haunt the Metro, slipping into a crowded-but-not-too-crowded car at the last second, and then waiting for the train to pull away from the station before unleashing their unique skills on the trapped passengers. It's the wait that's particularly devilish, you see. There's that moment of hope when you're allowed to think that maybe, just maybe, this time the guy is tired or has made enough money or whatever and won't launch into, well, whatever the accordion equivalent of "Freebird" is.
Hope, as a friend of mine says, is the beginning of unhappiness.
The train rolls out. The music starts. And as the accordionist moves from one end of the car to the other, passengers slip him a little cash in order to keep him moving. It's a very simple equation, and I've seen people literally fling themselves out through subway doors that were closing in order to get off a car with an accordion player in it.
So imagine my surprise the other day when, instead of an accordionist, an alto sax player got onto the Metro in my car. Sax strikes me as more dangerous than accordion on the subway, for the simple reason that you're actually sticking a pointy piece of plastic into your mouth, pointed at the back of your throat, and Metro trains are known for abrupt stops due to congestion, people throwing themselves onto the tracks, or regularly scheduled transit strikes. The only thing an accordion player has to be afraid of is being bludgeoned to death with his own instrument; the saxaphonist has to worry about suddenly having his trachea punctured front to back by a Mitchell Lurie #3 reed.
But that being said, sax guy was on board. He was reasonably natty, wearing a baseball cap from some golf tourney or other, and his sax looked well cared for. People stared at him, the train pulled out, and he started playing some kind of soft, arrhythmic jazz.
And nobody cared.
He strolled up and down the car. People got out of his way, but nobody paid attention. Nobody paid coin or cash, either. After one stop, he gave up, shouldered his way forward, and went to the next car. I don't think he had much success there, either.
Maybe it was the choice of music. With the clackity-clack of the tracks, something with a little more of a driving beat would have been good. Something with a recognizable melody, even. And something a little louder. Personally, I kept waiting for him to look around, say "the hell with it", and cut loose with an almighty chunk of "Baker Street", but it was not to be.
Just quiet jazz, and then he moved on, and not much changed at all.
