Song 3: "Bleecker Street"

Simon & Garfunkel's "Bleecker Street" has the smart lyrics you expect from the first name in that combination. And in lines like "thirty dollars pays your rent on Bleecker Street," it glorifies the New York that existed -- well, a long, long time ago. I spent the second half of last night in the company of a couple of friends, one of whom is an artist who's starting an MFA program upstate in the fall. Like many artists these days, he seems more than OK with the idea of working, living, and breathing outside the exorbitant confines of this city. Shame, that.

Now, there's someone next to me at Starbucks shouting into his cell phone in a most unpleasant way (he seems to be directing workers of his on their routes), so I'm out of here.