My friend Tom says “don’t be a hater” (he has teenagers) and normally I agree but I can’t play Pollyanna any longer. I have to say it: I hate the “talking” water fountains on the High Line. The first time I bent over to take a sip of water I practically smashed my camera when the fountain barked back at me. If it quoted Shakespeare’s Cleopatra (“I dream’d there was an Emperor Antony…”) I might feel differently but this stuff is ridiculous. Honestly, what is this all about? Hydration? Really? I hope no one with a heart condition gets thirsty on the High Line.
I can’t remember a time I was critical of the High Line. Maybe I thought my encomiastic posts would last forever; that is was impossible — or at least really, really hard — to find fault with a place where they manage, day in and day out, season after season, section after section, to get things right. But we lost Stephen Vitiello’s “A Bell For Every Minute” and this is all we get in return?
I’m bringing a water bottle from now on. And I’m dreaming of winter when it’s so cold that the audio track freezes. Or the whole frackin’ fountain is just shut down. “Condemning shadows quite.”
