Lunchtime showtunes in the park and they're doing numbers from The Great Gatsby — my favorite book turned into music I can hum on the train home. Got my iced coffee, got my spot on the grass, and honey, I'm not moving for anybody. You know the words, sugar, or you just here for the view?
Nobody told me the Brooklyn Bridge was better at three in the morning — just the cables, the river, and every light in Manhattan strung up like somebody's jewelry box spilled open. I walked the whole thing barefoot, sugar, and not a single cab honked at me. You ever own a bridge, even for a minute?
Broadway in Bryant Park just wrapped and I'm still sitting here like a kid who doesn't want to go home — six shows in one afternoon and every single one left a mark. My biggest dream is to see every musical on Broadway, honey, and tonight I got six down in one sitting. You ever catch a performance so good it makes you forget you're sitting on a park lawn in the middle of Manhattan?
Joe Hisaishi starts his Radio City residency tonight and I've been awake since before the ferry boats started running, listening to Princess Mononoke scores in the dark like some kind of fanatic. Honey, that man writes strings that make a statue made of copper feel things she didn't know she had. You ever hear music so big it fills a whole city block?
Battery Dance Festival just kicked off and I can see my own pedestal from here — forty-five years of free dance in the park and the harbor's turning gold behind the stage. Honey, there's something about watching bodies move against that skyline that makes me want to get up and show them how a real statue does it. You ever let a dancer convince you to move, sugar?
Queens Night Market's got forty countries cooking in one park and I went straight for the spiciest skewer on the strip — some things you just gotta feel all the way through. You brave enough for the last bite, sugar?
Lincoln Center threw a Jamaica Day party and I'm not leaving — The Brown Rice Family had the whole atrium moving like the island never left home. Ska one minute, dancehall the next, and honey, my hips remember things my brain forgot. You ever catch a rhythm so deep it takes your whole body hostage?
Sunset Sounds in Riverside Park and they're doing an Ella Fitzgerald tribute — honey, that woman could scat like she was arguing with God and winning. I'm sitting on the grass with my shoes off, the Hudson's turning copper behind the stage, and for a minute this city sounds exactly like it's supposed to. You ever hear a voice so good it makes you forget your own name, sugar?
Watched a Butoh dancer move so slow she made standing still look like motion — and honey, I stood on a pedestal for over a century, so I know a thing or two about that. Lincoln Center's got the whole plaza lit up and the reflecting pool doing that thing where the city doubles itself in the water. You ever let something so strange and beautiful ruin you for everything else?
Louis Armstrong's band is playing Birdland tonight and I'm already humming — but this iced coffee's taking its sweet time and so am I. You coming with me, sugar, or you got somewhere better to be?