ANOTHER VICARIOUS ADVENTURE IN NEW YORK: THE IMAGINARY COMMENTS THEY MIGHT HAVE SAID TO ONE ANOTHER, HAD I BEEN THERE TO JOT DOWN NOTES

 

----"Everywhere I travel in New York these days, it feels like I'm in a seance session attempting to communicate with the dead. So many of my friends and coworkers died from the plague, and I often feel like I had something more I wanted to tell them when I had the opportunity."

---"This COVID-19 crisis has given me a whole new perspective on religious groups. If they object to social distancing, I personally blame them for lots of needless deaths in our city."

---"Maybe there should be a website or podcast in which everyone who feels they had something more they wanted to say to that friend or relative or acquaintance, only to find out that he or she had passed away from the COVID crisis, could do a videotape of what they wanted to say to them."

--"It isn't manic-depressive to suddenly burst into tears when you're waiting for a subway these days and you suddenly remember a friend of yours you used to chat with on the subway who passed away very abruptly. We shouldn't pathologize those moments of grief that can occur very spontaneously when we're standing right there at the subway stop."

--"If it weren't for Norah O'Donnell and her wonderfully concerned and idealistic style for 'CBS Evening News', I might worry that our city lacks heart. But I have to keep in mind that she does her shows in D.C. So we can't completely claim her as our own. I have read that she has a home in New York's West Side, and this proves she has New York credentials.'

--"Maybe there should be a new museum here that profiles the history of philanthropy in New York State. That might help to put some heart back into New York. It would show all the effort here that's gone toward helping others."

---"I'm dreading the first theatrical play I attend where some of the actors suddenly disappear from the stage accompanied by an announcement by another actor in the middle of the play that they had died very unexpectedly from COVID-19, and all that's left of them now is their ashes in an urn."

---"So perhaps the great existential question for many New Yorkers these days is whether you want your personal urn containing your ashes in the foreseeable future to feature a design from ancient Greece, ancient Rome, or someplace else."

---"You remind me that there may be urns with an American motif, something like Niagara Falls in the background. It isn't clear, though, whether having the right motif on your personal urn after you're cremated is what most people will pay attention to at your memorial service."

---"I am sure there are millions of New Yorkers who would love to own a mini-condo of their own, even if it's no more than 200 square feet in all. Just to have a place of your own without having to worry about making rent for next month---that would be complete bliss for a lot of us."

---"How do you host a party, though, if you are living in a mini-condo unit? I guess you just limit your guest list to two persons. So you could host a series of parties, with two persons invited to each of them. Or you could host a party at a neutral site that could accommodate more than two or three people."

---"My only complaint about 'CBS Evening News' is that I would like to see more features profiling accomplishments by Asian-Americans and Hispanic Americans and Jewish Americans. It's like the current message from those feature stories is that 'if you aren't black and are an ethnic  or racial minority, you don't count.'"

---"The underlying causes of racial discrimination are not being explored adequately enough by the news media. If an applicant for a job is unable to speak conventional English, is addicted to verbalizing the 'F' word and the 'N' word and other profanity, and refuses to take his headset off for a job interview, this type of conduct by a job applicant is unlikely to land him a job."

---"I hope that Norah O'Donnell with her strong Irish background will be willing to visit Ireland for a CBS News feature story on the relatives and friends of President Biden there who are elated that he is in The White House these days. It could be a great excuse for a piece celebrating Irish culture. It could also earn Norah O'Donnell an Emmy award, since she could really put her heart into a feature piece set in Ireland. Everyone knows she is passionate about Ireland."