New York City Ballet, All Russian Program

Lincoln Center, New York, Tuesday January 19 2010

I had a lovely evening at the New York City Ballet watching deliriously beautiful new works plus one old one by Balanchine who learned it from Fokine.

The mid town dame on my right said “Do me a favour and slap me if I snore” and the Polish Jew on my left nudged me and said “so far I am not asking for my money back eh?”

At interval the mid town broad woke up and put on her lipstick and said of the ballet we’d just sat through “that was DISGUSTING.” The Polish Jew’s wife yelled at her husband how appalled she was that she saw the rabbi eating a ham sandwich in the diner on 2nd Avenue and the mid town woman said “WHERE on 2nd Avenue, where EXACTLY?” and then leaned across me and discussed tuna melts for about ten minutes before she said to me “and what’s YOUR story?”

One is never alone in New York, yet never intruded upon. E. B. White said it all.