MORE FROM THE NEW YORK SCENE, HAD I BEEN THERE TODAY IN ORDER TO EAVESDROP

"She is so hopelessly infatuated with FBI agents that she plans to walk into the FBI office here and ask them to please fingerprint her, in case she gets kidnapped and her kidnappers alter her facial features so no one can recognize her. I told Sally that would be a huge mistake, since she could do the same thing through NYPD. When she enters the FBI office to beg them to fingerprint her, the first thing they'll say is that she should have instead gone to NYPD, so why is she wasting the FBI's valuable time with that type of minor issue? But Sally is determined to visit the local FBI office. She says the FBI guys are a lot more glamorous to her than the NYPD guys are, and she's sure she can find an excuse for having a one-on-one meeting with a handsome FBI agent here."

"My friend Anna is so disgusted by the criminal types here that she placed a roommate wanted ad on Craigslist stating that she would prefer an FBI agent for a roommate. She figures he'll automatically file crime reports for her whenever a serial rapist breaks into their apartment. Anna works 70 hours a week, so she doesn't have time for filing crime reports. This time-saver idea is all good and well, but she will never even get the chance to read an intro letter from an FBI agent responding to her ad, much less interview him in a coffeeshop about his pet peeves. Her ad will immediately get flagged as discriminatory. She's admitting through her ad that FBI agents as a class of people get preferential treatment from her as prospective roommates. And she could also get slapped with a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, since FBI agents tend to be lilly-white."

"I am hoping that the New York Philharmonic will add the automobile horn as a new type of background instrument in their performances. The primary musical sound that we New Yorkers all know very well is the cacophonous sound of car horns blaring outdoors on the streets of Manhattan. So why not make the best of that distinctly New York sound by incorporating it into our city's orchestra music?"

"I would define a New York mayor of integrity as someone whose reported annual income that he files with the IRS is significantly lower one full year after he leaves office than it was in the calendar year just before he assumed office as mayor."

"One advantage to riding the subway here a lot during the summertime is that you are less likely to get a sunburn in that subterranean world. Fear of sunburns is one of my leading fears this particular season of the year. Several of my relatives contracted skin cancer, so I'm genetically susceptible to it."

"I personally worry that New Yorkers who work in a subterranean context, and our subway conductors obviously fit that description, may get depressed from lack of sunshine. And what about those who work in an underground floor or basement of a building? Do they possibly have nightmares during their sleep about being buried alive, since they never see sunlight during their workshift?"

"I hope Columbia sponsors a new study exploring whether New Yorkers who work subterranean-style are more likely to be emotionally depressed than the rest of New York. Is the 'mole effect', if you will, the emotional downer that most of us social psychologists have hypothesized it to be?"