NYC

I've been riding the NR into work everyday while I've been in NYC, and without fail, everyday, I've been hearing what sounds like two railroad workers hammering ties into an old timey railroad track when I stop at the 14th St station to transfer. It's the sound of a metal hammer hitting a stake, followed by a wooden hammer hitting a stake. And it's loud. Plink! Plonk! Plink! Plonk! Rinse Wash Repeat.

The first day I heard this, I assumed it was some construction being done on the other end of the platform. After I heard it for a second day, I got suspicious it might be something else. On the third day, I walked down to the other end of the platform (as I watched quite a few other people walk away from the noise,) only to find the oldest lady in the world, who looked like something out of a european refugee camp, hitting a symbol with a piece of wood, then hitting a piece of wood with another piece of wood. Over and over, in the same rhythm. She even had a few dollars in her busker hat.

The racket she was making was some kind of inhuman torture. There was no rhyme or reason to her banging. There were no melodic intonations. Just Plink! Plonk! Plink! Plonk! Plink! Plonk! Plink! Plonk! It was absolutely maddening. It was like having a toy monkey banging in your ear, then hitting you with a hammer, but never running out of battery. I immediately headed back the way I came before she could use her voodoo to drive me to the brink of madness.

The next day, two significant things happened. For about a minute she stopped, and for another minute she speeded up. I can only assume that she stopped when someone gave her a dollar, and that she sped up when someone questioned her abilities. The way she was playing, she was most likely a war supporter endorsing torture.

On a side note, I mentioned this to my friend Lauren, whom I'm staying with, and she informed me there is also a elderly Chinese lady who does a similar thing at the 456 14th St stop with a Chinese drum, who never actually plays in rhythm. Perhaps there is a cabal of old lady percussionists trying to terrorize NYC one person at a time.