A SESAME STREET MOMENT

I was waiting for my boyfriend, Mike, outside of the Housing Works Bookstore in SoHo. I saw some guys walk up the street carrying human-size orange letters. They slipped into a warehouse space next door. I got up the nerve to go over and if I could photograph one of them with a letter so that I could put the photo in a book I was was making for my nephew. "It's a book about New York City," I explained, "because my nephew lives out west."

One of the guys said "How about if we pose with all of the letters? We could make them spell out RAT!"

I countered with the idea that they could also spell out ART.

While I was taking the first picture, a taxi driver who was watching from the curb yelled "Hey! There's not enough [skin] color in that picture!" And the other three guys shouted "Okay, then get over here!"

A little later on, Mike and I were walking by an antique store a few blocks from the bookstore and I did a double take. There, in the window, were the same letters, only smaller and yellow, spelling out the word ART. I couldn't believe it! So I went in the shop and asked the owners if they knew anything about the larger orange letters. Turns out they had just sold the orange ones to a guy who wanted them mounted to spell out ART on his livingroom wall.