Saturday Afternoon

Based on an essay by Edmund Wilson.

In Jackson Square, the spidermums, spotted in Newport ash, are blooming like supplicants.

A pack of cougars, celebrating a second marriage at the Magnolia bakery, are flaunting plastic diadems.

In Central Park, the Bethesda Angel is currently hosting a number of Asian weddings.

In the Meatpacking District, a plenary of pigeons pecks at a pile of last night’s throw-up.

On Hudson Street, a rider, straddling a pastel Vespa, is winking at a pedestrian in a leather jacket; on a miniature bicycle, a fair-haired boy is remembering not to pedal north of Fourteenth Street.

A well-heeled couple is carrying Big Brown Bags filled with Jersey sheets; a tow-truck is carrying a rust-colored Ford with Jersey plates.

In Madison Square Park, two labradoodles are unsuccessfully trying to fuck each other without the proper equipment.

Somewhere in Murray Hill, two former college roommates are eating frozen yogurt in lieu of breakfast and lunch.

Beyond its Doric columns, the old regional bank on Eighth Avenue now yields high rates of interest from men seeking back waxing; across the corner, a slate-colored bank now sells twenty-four dollar hunks of cheese.

On West Twenty-Third Street, a twenty-four-year-old girl with an Electra Complex still expects her father to pay her thirty-five-hundred-dollar rent.

In the West Village, the only bistro not named for a Left Bank café is waving a white paper surrender napkin.

Outside of Les Deux Gamin, a bag-eyed playwright is balancing laptop with cigarette in one hand.

A diminutive woman is carting organic produce into the Apple store.

According to local canvassers, the average passerby does not have thirty seconds for the environment, gay rights, or the homeless; according to labor statistics, the average employee does not have the energy to take work home with them.

The students at New York University are making a loyal effort to pretend that Marc Jacobs isn’t their campus.

Another man in Herald Square is waiting for a handjob.

The Jackson Square fountain, spitting water up against the drizzle, becomes the first photography subject of a teenage girl; in Jackson Sqaure, a derelict’s mouth, dribbling water of unslept reverie, will become the fiftieth photography subject of another teenage girl.

On Horatio Street, a man in a red shirt, arm-linked to a man in a blue shirt, is on his way to make purple.

On the Upper East Side, a delusional young lawyer is trying not to equate responsibility with banality.

In the East Village, an unemployed filmmaker rightfully thinks that he’s real.

Someone on their way to Williamsburg is wearing oversized sunglasses in the overcast; someone on their way from Williamsburg is wearing oversized reading glasses without prescriptions.

At a crosswalk on Spring Street, two American men in topsiders stop to discuss a televised debate neither watched; two English women, crossing the intersecting street, are buying the country at half price.

The window designs of the new condos rising on Greenwich Avenue are going to quell the fears of public speakers.

At the Port Authority, an Arab in Yankees cap presses on; a man in a Metropolitans hat awaits the worst.

Each news channel is pouring out a bottle of Newman’s salad dressing on the air.

On West Fourth Street, the vegan shop is fresh out of alfalfa sprouts.