An Instagram photo gallery via Subway Art blog.

While you are it, check out this week’s gallery too.

You’ve had a long day and seen hundreds or maybe thousands of people, faces that you’ve barely registered. You are tired and distracted and then, alone on a subway platform there’s a woman. She’s dolled-up, a vision.

Yes, life is good.

[Picture by Ramin Talaie via the New York Times; thanks to This Isn't Happiness (again and again)]

Today’s New York Minute is brought to you by Ted Berg.

[Picture by the most-talented Larson Harley]

Strawberries on the IRT. Because  sometimes you’ve just got to bring breakfast from home.

The Museum of the City of New York gives us: Stanley on the Train.

I looked up and see a toy Minnie Mouse watch on her friends’ wrist.

Morning train.

Take the train.

Take the train.

The artist was a Black man, around forty years old by my guess, and he wore close-cropped facial hair and an army-green cap. His two front teeth appeared to be wrestling and the right tooth was winning.

My neighbor and I chatted for several stops and I didn’t give the artist another thought until I turned my head and saw that five or six people in our vicinity were holding portraits of themselves. The artist was reaching across the aisle to hand a fresh drawing to a stout, middle-aged Korean man who had his eyes closed.

The Korean man rejected the drawing without looking at it. Generally, this isn’t an insulting move. If you took every piece of paper that was handed to you in this city, you’d drown in the stuff. The artist explained, albeit with an edge, that he was handing him a drawing. The Korean man relented, though I still don’t think he understood what was going on.

And the Korean man’s instincts were at least partially on target. The artist was seeking tips. It was a clever, much more palatable (to me anyway) method of asking for cash on the subway, but it still put the recipient of the portrait on the spot. Some people gave the artist money for the drawing, some didn’t.

I leaned over to see the picture of the Korean man. It was a very good-not-great likeness, but when I considered that it was probably the seventh drawing the artist had done in less than thirty minutes, I bumped up the grade. He saw me looking and asked if I wanted a picture too.

I wanted to say yes, but we were slowing down to arrive at my stop, so I told him that there wasn’t time. He went to work on someone else. Then the train stopped and we waited for ten minutes poised right outside the 59th st stop.  He finished three more drawings in the ten-minute delay.

He didn’t come back to me, but he did catch my neighbor. Check it out.

I found the artist on the internet. His name is Roderick Perry Anthony and he signs “Orin” on his artwork. This is a profile of him from 2006. He’s still (or back) on the subway in 2012, and whatever that means for his career at large, I admire his dedication to his art.

Drawing by Orin

I raised my eyebrows. In my house, I’ve never seen a Lego/Duplo construct retain structural integrity for more than thirty seconds, so this struck me as an overly courageous endeavor. Luckily, the boy got a seat right away and his mother stood over him. I thought he might have a chance after all.

It turns out his luck ended with the seat. Before the next stop, the Duplo tower crashed to the floor of the subway and the blocks scattered across the aisle. The young mother dutifully tracked them down and returned the pieces to her son. I thought it was cool of her not to get upset. After all, if the mother allowed the Duplo blocks on the train in the first place, she can’t really have expected any other result.

As we rode the train downtown, the boy began constructing another tower. The mother watched patiently, but several other passengers were skeptical. Sure enough, before the next stop, down came the bricks. The mother gathered the blocks again, this time with lots of help.

“Maybe not on the train?” said one of the helpers. The young mother smirked and put the blocks in her bag.

I’m not sure what the smirk meant, but I decided she was saying, “Yeah this sucked, but you should have seen what is was like in my apartment when I told him he couldn’t bring them.”

A mother and her two girls got on the subway this morning on the upper west side. I’ve seen them before. The mother has a long, narrow face with big teeth but she isn’t unattractive. The girls are maybe four and six respectively.

The mother had her hands full this morning. The girls shifted in their seats and the young one kept talking like an infant.

“No baby talk, please,” the mother said.

At one point, the two girls were seated across from each other. The older one turned her back on her sister and looked out of the window into the darkness. The seat next to her was open and an obese man sat in it. He took up more than one seat but there was still enough room for the older daughter. Barely.

Her sister saw this and said, “That woman is too big.”

The mother told her to be quiet. But she said it again, loud enough for the man–who was not wearing headphones–to hear: “That woman is too big.”

The man’s expression remained blank. The mother turned the little girl around and distracted her with baby talk.

New York, 1973: another dope Photo Gallery found at How to be a Retronaut.

I saw this when I got on the train this morning and well, you just know it helped start the day off on the good foot, now, don’t ya?

“I’m almost fifty, I can’t be locked up again, what kind of shit is that? It’s ridiculous. I need me a Jew lawyer.”

I looked up. Two women stood above me. The one talking wore black-rimmed glasses, a white turtleneck, underneath a navy blue pea coat, tight jeans, high heels. She and her friend spoke quickly in English and then Spanish. I wished I understood Spanish but I just picked up some familiar words and phrases: siempre, tam bein, mi amore, ay dios mio.

“…Yo, that fucking bitch is fierce as fuck,” the woman said. “I fucking love her.” I looked down and smiled.

Next to me a girl was doodling on the front page of a packet that read: AP Psychology, Mr. Wilson.

The subway was backed-up this morning and the 1 ran from 59th to 42nd, skipping my stop. So I got off at 59th and got on the next train. Conductor says: “If you can’t fit…quit.” Then after the doors closed and we were on our way he read us the riot act but he sounded amused. “And remember,” he summed up. “In order for the MTA to be on our way…you must get out of the doorway.”

I laughed. Nobody else around me did. Maybe they’d heard his act for too long to smile. Nothing but a group of angry, sleepy faces.

[Photo Credit: Jonathan Woods]

A husband and wife on the subway this morning, mid-thirties. The wife sits next to me. She is blond and her face is plain but she’s not unattractive. The husband stands in front of us. He is wearing a baseball cap and his full beard and strong hands can’t hide the fact that he looks like an overgrown boy.

They talk quietly. I read my book. Then I see her take his hand in hers.

“Your hands are so dry”

“They still have plaster on them.”

“You want some hand lotion?”

“No.”

“I have neutoagena.”

“That shit smells.”

“It’s oderless.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

My wife is always on me to use lotion and I still look at her like she’s got three heads. Sometimes, she puts it on my arms anyhow and after I squirm and make faces I feel better.

I look up at him. We exchange a look and a smile. Then I return to my book.

[Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography]

I looked up from my book this morning and saw the man sitting across from me reading “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy. I heard myself say, “Oh, wow,” as I’m always looking for an excuse to engage a stranger in conversation and a book is an ideal opening. But I stopped myself when I saw that he was maybe twenty pages away from the end of the book.

There’s just some things you shouldn’t do. Don’t interrupt an animal when they are eating. Don’t disturb your wife when she’s putting on make-up and getting herself ready. And don’t bother someone when they are almost finished reading a book. It’s not just uncouth. It could be dangerous.

Where a token booth once stood. Downtown side of the 50th street station on the IRT.

Roomier. But makes me sad when I think of the clerks who are out of work in the name of progress.

Coming straight from the underground.

Undercity via The Gothamist.

[Photo Credit: Steve Duncan]

A boy and his mom reading a Tintin comic book.