Dear Diary: To be filed under "T for That's New Yorkers for ya": Setting: The M4 Limited. Dramatis Personae: the commuting population of Manhattan, and a male writer of a certain age, wearing an insouciantly knotted ascot, who appears to have recently traveled to France. The population throws off dozens of make-your-day anecdotes, which the straphanging scribe strains to sample.
Writer [thinking out loud]: "Oh-la-la, this is great material! Certainement, I could get 3,000 words out of this, pas de problĖme !"
An elegantly dressed Melodie Bryant, seated at the writer's crotch retorts: "3,000 words? Where you from, pal? Take it from me, the Times never runs anything over 150."
There was a sudden silence from the passengers, and then applause.
The sunny Hearst intern who witnessed the incident later emailed her phonecam pictures of the crestfallen writer to Gawker.
new yorker magazine database | writing | posted by greg at April 28, 2003 3:18 AM
