Who's That Girl?

Photo by DiKLiX
(Click on image to enlarge)



Once again curiosity kills the cat.

Or at least half an hour of our precious time.

See here. The “famigerado” Wes Broadway (one of my many local mentors and a Master pedestrian philosopher) and I decided to take a refreshing walk on a beautifully sunny Spring afternoon.

When, lo and behold, in a New York minute we were amidst what looked like something which might turn out to be a noteworthy occasion.

A horde of marauding paparazzi staging the siege of a high fashion Soho clothier blocked our path.

“This entertains the possibility of some amusing star gazing,” says Wes, also and avid modern urban adventurer as all philosophers are.

Wes is a man who threads the streets of the modern Babylon devoid of fear because he knows that in New York “death is a state of being instead of an imminent occurrence,” or something like that.

Unlike Gracián, an old mentor from the island who never traveled after leaving Spain, his motherland, because, as he used to say: “no matter where I go, things are always a lot better someplace else,” Wes likes to go out and about, an urban nomad at heart.

You see, Wes is a merry fella and always brings along the party, the joy and the good times with him wherever he goes. A budding photo-chronicler, he likes to snap digital pictures of abstract street fixtures, of the capricious shadows cast with ease over the urban sidewalks and of other photographers caught in the act.

Adroitly, he shows me the ways of the land adorned with the most unusual pedestrian philosophy, jewels of useless savvy, the rule of the metaphor and the sharp, yet florid one-liner.

Drawn by the aforementioned and cat(time)-slaughtering curiosity, Wes asks one of the more prominent members of the click-quick fraternity of paparazzi, who was perched vulture-like with his finger practically glued to the shutter, why the commotion.

Wes's tone was gentle and polite, as is the habit of most philosophers, but the vulture with a Nikon didn't flinch, his gaze riveted to the door of the store - and his lips were sealed.

“¿Qué pasa?” Asks again the polyglot Wes, a man versed in many languages as philosophers generally are, in an attempt to bridge what in his book was an obvious matter of linguistic differences. “Guá Sápenin?”

The man, his stare glued to the door of the building in front of him, answers with a dry and mortified “I don’t speak Spanish.”

Quicker with his tongue than most philosophers, Wes sized the man up and down and replied: “Ah, so you just want to be an asshole then.”

Bound by curiosity, we stick around. About a half and hour later, out comes the celebrity, entourage in tow, beefy bodyguards with looks of solemn concern rushing the convoy of black SUV’s down the street to fetch them with flash like speed.

Wes snapped a still of the moment, frozen in time the hurried instant when two obviously important personalities rushed past and into their vehicle. The only problem: we don’t know who they are!

Who is that cute girl so jealously guarded? Who is the lady behind? Why all the fuss?

Which brings us to the moral of the story. There is so much positive stuff happening everywhere: the Spring trip Northbound of the Monarch butterflies, the National Spelling Bee competition, the blooming of the cherry trees, the first rains of May…

There are also more urgent and solemn subjects to ponder like the war, the spread of lethal viruses, drought and famine, global warming, immigration and hate crimes, human dignity, democracy and liberty, yadda, yadda, yadda and yadda and yadda…

To cap off the event, the photographer later got on a yelling match with a comrade at arms who jumped in front of his lens stealing his precious shot, in hunting jargon: obliterating his view. Too bad for him, it is not his fault that he is an asshole, the world is filled with them, at least everybody knows one and it is definitely not a favored subject.

Should we expect more from a society which gives more time in the media to panty-less blonds, dead blonds and jailed blonds and, just to add a bit of variety, they feature with prominence some anorexic brunette here and there and then throw in a drunk redhead passing out on the curb, just to spice things up instead of devoting all efforts to real newsworthy events. Hey, the world is also filled with 20 something’s making stupid decisions. Dumb kids getting drunk and rowdy, drinking beer by the keg and puking their cheeseburger-filled humanities behind the bushes of urban capitals all around this great big ozone depleted planet of ours, hallelujah. And I know, I was one of those.

What are we to expect?

Right now, the least I expect is change…

As it is written in the Talmud: If I will not help myself, who will? If not now, when?

Still, curiosity kills…

If anyone can identify the "celebrity" in the photograph, please send in your answer right away because I for one am dying to know.