With his energetic, appreciative Talk about the opinionated newsbarker and savvy Times analyst Carlos, Ben McGrath rights some of the balance jarred by that odd, embarrassing piece by Alec Wilkinson in last week’s section. That was the arm’s-length account of a young black guy on the subway—”Clearly he belonged to the tribe of extroverts”—who tries to sweet-talk an upstanding woman with Coldplay on her iPod. McGrath manages a nuanced, three-dimensional profile in 870 words. Wilkinson doesn’t do his subject much justice, and the results are dramatically unfunny:
“Barkley, he’s a basketball player. I didn’t think you could be listening to Barkley.†His smile was lavish and sympathetic, indicating that he was glad they had sorted out their misunderstanding. “Barkley didn’t make no recordings, far as I know,†he said. His remarks were addressed mainly to the side of her head. “He likes to talk a lot, but, see, he just plays ball, and don’t even do that no more. Unh-uh.â€
The young woman turned halfway toward him and smiled, but the smile was brief and made no commitment.
The young man asked again what she was listening to. Her reply was barely audible. “Old Day?†he said. “I don’t know Old Day. Must be some new kind of thing. Have to find out about Old Day.†He leaned in. “I might like to know about Old Day,†he said.
The young woman smiled again. She changed the position of her hands on her bag.
An idea seemed to occur to him. “How about you tell me about Old Day,†he said. He put one hand under his chin and the other under his elbow, as if he were being judicious and patient in awaiting her reply.
And so on. It’s off-putting. Carlos is a real person with a context who tells his own mysterious story; the cajoling young man as Wilkinson sketches him is a throwback, not to mention a caricature, and all we have is a simplistic reaction to the idea of him, the wild, overfriendly dude from the hood who makes some people (who, I wonder?) uncomfortable and maybe even scared. I’m sure the story is meant to be one of those extraordinary ordinary moments, an Overheard in New York throwaway—I love this crazy town!—but Overheard doesn’t use stuff like this in a trifling way. It uses snippets like this not just to illustrate Life in Our Lovable City of Nuts but to insult everyone involved in a sophomoric, laughably crass headline. It’s a kind of humor, over the top and unabashedly mean, and I don’t go a day without it. If we knew more Carlos-ish details about this guy it might come off as more humane, even affectionately parodic. In any case, at the risk of sounding prissy, this guy’s circumstances aren’t likely to be so hilarious (can extroversion really be the whole story?). Anything can be made funny, of course, but this isn’t. It reminds me that I don’t much like “funny bum” cartoons, which I’ve written about. It’s a tired genre, and this Talk, too, feels uncomfortably out of place.