Here's a little story I intended to write a few months ago but didn't get around to. It's on that recurring theme that has been following me around like a puppy, karma vs. coincidence.
But before I get into it, let me remind you that driving a cab in New York City is like being spun in circles on the Wheel of Fortune. We who drive the iconic yellow cabs do all our business off the street. No one calls us on a telephone to get our services. It's just a random coming together of a person on the street - one person out of millions walking around in the city - with one of the 13,187 cabs that are in their own random motion from east side to west, from west side to east, like a kaleidoscope of yellow. So to speak.
So with all this random motion, when something happens that seems to defy the randomness of it - something that would make coincidence seem like a naive explanation - one begins to get the idea that "something's happening but we don't know what it is". It's like sensing that there's a phenomenon going on and if we could just isolate exactly what that phenomenon is we would really be onto something.
In my case, I know that when I have my attention on something - especially when I have started to do something but have not completed it - I have a tendency to "pull in" whatever that thing is. It happened again recently...
My favorite television station is TCM - Turner Classic Movies. Here you can find more great, classic films than anywhere else in TV land. It's a premium channel, but to me it's worth a few bucks a month because I'm a big classic cinema fan. One day last July I was looking over the schedule and saw that a movie I'd always wanted to see but never had was slated to be on the air. So I set my video recorder to copy that movie. Its name is "The Misfits".
Some of the great names of cinema were in front and behind the camera in this film from 1961. The screenplay was written by Arthur Miller. It was directed by John Huston. And it starred Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift, who were all big names then (it was Gable's and Monroe's last movie), and co-starred an actress named Thelma Ritter and an actor named Eli Wallach.
The movie remained unwatched in my recorder for a few weeks, but it didn't matter because I could watch it whenever I felt like it. Finally, one day in August, I turned it on. I watched it for about half an hour and then, although I was enjoying it up to that point, I had to attend to other matters so I turned it off. But, again, it didn't matter because I could continue watching it whenever I felt like it.
Well, two months went by and I still hadn't gotten back to it. I record a lot of movies and sometimes I wind up with a backlog. C'est la vie. Having too many great films to watch is a problem I like having.
Then on October 13th I was driving 9J72 and stopped for three passengers at 16th and Park Avenue South. A 30-something fellow sat up front with me and an elderly man and woman were in the back seat. They were a pleasant group which created an easy air of conversation in the cab. The fellow up front with me would alternately chatter with the couple in the back and with me, talking about nothing in particular at first but eventually mentioning that they were all actors. In fact, he said, the passengers in the back seat were both renowned thespians who'd been in the theater for many, many years. Their names were Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach.
Eli Wallach!
I ask you, what are the odds of watching half an hour of a movie that was made 47 years ago and then having one of the stars of that movie walk into your cab? It was almost like having a character on the screen jump out and sit down next to you in the theater. Or reading a book about the Civil War and then there's a knock on the door and Abraham Lincoln is standing there.
Eli Wallach, now 92 years old and kicking, and his wife, Anne Jackson, were delightful passengers, happily fielding questions from me about their careers. I took great pleasure in being able to tell Mr. Wallach that I was in the middle of "The Misfits" but hadn't finished watching it yet.
"Don't tell me how it ends!" I pleaded.
So what do you think? Was this just a random coincidence? Or was it "something's happening but we don't know what it is"?
.JPG)
But before I get into it, let me remind you that driving a cab in New York City is like being spun in circles on the Wheel of Fortune. We who drive the iconic yellow cabs do all our business off the street. No one calls us on a telephone to get our services. It's just a random coming together of a person on the street - one person out of millions walking around in the city - with one of the 13,187 cabs that are in their own random motion from east side to west, from west side to east, like a kaleidoscope of yellow. So to speak.
So with all this random motion, when something happens that seems to defy the randomness of it - something that would make coincidence seem like a naive explanation - one begins to get the idea that "something's happening but we don't know what it is". It's like sensing that there's a phenomenon going on and if we could just isolate exactly what that phenomenon is we would really be onto something.
In my case, I know that when I have my attention on something - especially when I have started to do something but have not completed it - I have a tendency to "pull in" whatever that thing is. It happened again recently...
My favorite television station is TCM - Turner Classic Movies. Here you can find more great, classic films than anywhere else in TV land. It's a premium channel, but to me it's worth a few bucks a month because I'm a big classic cinema fan. One day last July I was looking over the schedule and saw that a movie I'd always wanted to see but never had was slated to be on the air. So I set my video recorder to copy that movie. Its name is "The Misfits".
Some of the great names of cinema were in front and behind the camera in this film from 1961. The screenplay was written by Arthur Miller. It was directed by John Huston. And it starred Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift, who were all big names then (it was Gable's and Monroe's last movie), and co-starred an actress named Thelma Ritter and an actor named Eli Wallach.
The movie remained unwatched in my recorder for a few weeks, but it didn't matter because I could watch it whenever I felt like it. Finally, one day in August, I turned it on. I watched it for about half an hour and then, although I was enjoying it up to that point, I had to attend to other matters so I turned it off. But, again, it didn't matter because I could continue watching it whenever I felt like it.
Well, two months went by and I still hadn't gotten back to it. I record a lot of movies and sometimes I wind up with a backlog. C'est la vie. Having too many great films to watch is a problem I like having.
Then on October 13th I was driving 9J72 and stopped for three passengers at 16th and Park Avenue South. A 30-something fellow sat up front with me and an elderly man and woman were in the back seat. They were a pleasant group which created an easy air of conversation in the cab. The fellow up front with me would alternately chatter with the couple in the back and with me, talking about nothing in particular at first but eventually mentioning that they were all actors. In fact, he said, the passengers in the back seat were both renowned thespians who'd been in the theater for many, many years. Their names were Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach.
Eli Wallach!
I ask you, what are the odds of watching half an hour of a movie that was made 47 years ago and then having one of the stars of that movie walk into your cab? It was almost like having a character on the screen jump out and sit down next to you in the theater. Or reading a book about the Civil War and then there's a knock on the door and Abraham Lincoln is standing there.
Eli Wallach, now 92 years old and kicking, and his wife, Anne Jackson, were delightful passengers, happily fielding questions from me about their careers. I took great pleasure in being able to tell Mr. Wallach that I was in the middle of "The Misfits" but hadn't finished watching it yet.
"Don't tell me how it ends!" I pleaded.
So what do you think? Was this just a random coincidence? Or was it "something's happening but we don't know what it is"?
********
And if you were to click here for Pictures From A Taxi, would that be karma? Or just following orders?
