METROPOLITAN DIARY
The Super Sings
Dear Diary:
I often play Latin music when I’m at home in my apartment in Inwood. Once, after he heard La India coming from my stereo while he was at my place fixing a light, my super, Fernando, who mostly speaks Spanish, asked whether I spoke it too.
“Solamente un poco,” I said.
He nodded.
A short time later, Fernando was back for another task. This time, my piano tuner was there and started to play “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème.
Fernando began to sing along. In Italian.
— Tom Beckett
Sassy Poses
Dear Diary:
On a sunny day in 1994, my friend Rachel and I had a half day of school, and she suggested that we go to Brighton Beach.
As a Queens girl, I was used to going to Far Rockaway, but I was game to try something new. Rachel, our friend Crystal and I made the long trek on a slow-moving F.
Once we got there, we laid out our towels and set up our boom box, switching between Hot 97, Kiss FM and WBLS. We struck sassy poses in our bathing suits, taking overexposed pictures to be developed at Fotomat in an era long before selfies and social media posts.
The beach was nearly empty, except for one man. He was lying in a prone position with his pants down. In a flash of teenage boldness, I told him his rear end was exposed.
“I have rash!” he said in heavily accented English. Apparently, the sun was a curative and he was not going to pull up his pants. Needless to say, we avoided looking his way for the rest of the afternoon.
Nearly 30 years later, as summer approaches, I have not forgotten that man or his rash. And that is my Brighton Beach memoir!
— Alyson Myers
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/08/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html
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