42nd Street Near Times Square, New York City, September 2015

Published 2016 May 4

Years ago while following a friend to the next stop in a night already colored by lots of tetrahydrocannabinol another acquaintance remarked that my friend was driving the car ahead of us as if pushing a long pole, held with both hands outside the window, against the asphalt — like a gondola. The pole and gondola turned out to be imaginary once we managed to stop laughing, but now I know that urban gondoliers do exist.