Andrew J. Lederer

providing the soundtrack to the yellow brick road of samples that was Saturday at Whole Foods, Bowery.

Slices of apple, chunks of grapefruit, popcorn, ginkgo and kombucha beverages, dried bananas, raisins, mango (papaya?) and pineapple, two kinds of sherbet, cookies, a pile of pomme frites accompanied an array of sauces, mango salad, some kind of bean salad, chimichurri london broil (I could've had a second piece if that old guy hadn't taken the last one for his wife) and more.

Happiness-inducing stuff. (Who needs Oz when the yellow brick road is so magical?)

to American ways left me frustrated when I got to the Trader Joe's wine store on (Easter) Sunday and found it was closed. I had missed Purim by a couple of days but it is celebrated later in Jerusalem -- this year simultaneous with Easter -- so I figured I had a chance to revel in the Jews triumph over the evil Haman (make loud noises here) by following the commandment which states that the normally temperate Jews must get so drunk that they can't tell the difference between Mordecai and Haman (good and evil).

I figured I'd drink a whole bottle of "Two-buck Chuck" and my Judaic duties would have been heroically carried out.

Of course, I didn't even remember this by the time I got to the wine store, but I still wanted to buy a bottle of wine.

This time,, as you know by now, the Jews (or this Jew anyway) were thwarted by the Hamans of the world and I could not.

In fact, I didn't get around to buying wine until yesterday. (Award-wining 2006 3-dollar white. Though I'm usually a red guy, I'd purchased salmon to cook in my new, cast-iron grill pan, so I figured what-the-hell.)

Which I'm drinking right now.

And feeling the effects -- and wanting to drink more than I should -- I remembered the lost opportunity to drink a bottle in one sitting and be a better Jew.

And I felt sad.

I mean, I can drink the whole bottle of wine tonight.

But there would be no higher purpose.

via Dreamland transportation, from New York (where, in reality, I was asleep in bed) to London, where I found myself inside a vast, all-night club.

The factory/warehouse space seemed unusually empty for that sort of venue, but I later learned, in the way one "learns" things in dreams, that it was already like 10, 11 in the morning there. (I hadn't taken into account the time difference between the US and the UK.)

Now, as I've mentioned before, I have sleep apnea, with means I periodically snore myself into a kind of asphyxiation throughout the night. And, still dreaming, a part of me began to recognize that my breathing was slowing or had stopped.

But rather than waking up, while feeling increasingly starved for oxygen, I kept myself in that dream, 'cause I saw Downstairs at the King's Head owner Peter Grahame and, well, I wanted to chat.

I think the case can be made that it is not always darkest before the dawn. (In fact, a lighter shade of dark seems to prevail.)

It does, however, seem to be coldest before the dawn, making that last, precious part of night, when you need that last dollop of warmth and comfort, frustrating and unpleasant.

I sang what was probably the grittiest version ever of "Love Will Keep Us Together" last night (though there's probably not much competition for that distinction).

Also earned kudos for my "Ooh Child" and "(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman".

Unfortunately, I tainted "Tainted Love".

Livin' Large.

I've been to the Union Square pillow fight as many times as I've been to the Easter Parade -- twice, as of this weekend.

Last time I went to the parade, it was well into a rainy afternoon by the time I got there and the only people in front of St. Pat's were gay guys in campy hats, not the MGM musical-style assemblage of rich folk in attractive bonnets I had hoped for and perhaps expected. (I gotta say, this sort of evidence would cause some observers to assume gayness was less a matter of sexual orientation than public ostentation.)

This time, the sun-dappled street was filled with nice-looking, everyday people from 57th St down to Rockefeller Center, with colorful flowers, balloons and other hat-adjuncts occasionally visible above the mob.

Many of the more extreme head-coverings were better viewed in this fashion, 'cause when you got close enough to see who was wearing them, the frequently demented faces tended to put a crimp in one's joy. I did, however, love the face of one bird-covered chap, who had a Langdonesque look of sweetness and sadness that was even more poignant in real life than in a silent move. (Of course, I'm not sure that I've ever seen one of Harry Langdon's silent movies.)

I didn't have an Easter-style hat, only a black, cold-weather stocking cap, but what did it matter?

When people filed into St. Pat's, they made you take it off, whatever it was.

found me not far from Union Square, where I seemed to see, from my vantage point, an array of flowing white things, probably being manipulated by one of those Chinese anti-oppression/relaxation dance/protest companies.

In reality, I had stumbled upon the massive, annual, multi-hour Union Square pillow fight.

Feathers floated more than 3 city blocks away, also inside the whole Foods Market across 14th Street, even upstairs in Whole Foods' massive eating area.

I passed people, pillows in hand, covered with feathers on their way from the happening as well as people carrying pillows toward the fracas.

If I'd known about it in advance (and if I had any friends who would do something like that with me), I'd have loved to have participated.

But I continued on my way.

Hours later, I passed the site again.

From the window of the M6 bus, as darkness descended, I saw a guy sweeping up feathers in the more or less empty square.

I've been making pasta. (Whole grain, sometimes with flax seeds.)

And London Broil. (A lean cut of beef, cooked fast over high heat. Yes, I know they don't have it in London.)

Occasionally drinking cheap, good wine.

And walking a little in cold, sunny New York

But I like to think that somehow this will get me to success ahead of people who are actually working.

I am once again reporting from deep within the bowels of the Tea Lounge in Park Slope. (Comedian Eugene Mirman is working with an not-too-slender, balding, gray-haired guy at a table not far from me.)

Two mothers with babies were near me a short while ago. Actually, they may have been the third mother/baby shift in that couch position since my arrival.

Verbatim (or very close) quotes:

Mother #1:
"I've lived here for ten years and I never realized it would be good for children."
(Those of you who know Park Slope understand why this is the height of obliviousness.)

Mother #2:
"I haven't eaten red meat in 15 years, so if I ate it, I would get sick."
(Of course! What could be more unnatural to a human body than red meat? It's one of those things you have to train yourself to tolerate, like tobacco smoke. Once your body returns to normal, it will be incapable of processing this deadly, alien matter.)

someone I spent a lot of time with over the last months doesn't really tell me anything anymore.

Admittedly, I am now geographically distant but I would still be interested in hearing about things I know are meaningful to her. I don't think that should stop just because I no longer need the information to figure out when we can get together.

Makes me think my primary appeal was merely being around. I'm away and so I don't matter.

I'm not there, so I don't, in some sense, exist.

There's no shortage of urine-scented people at Jack's 99 Cent Store.

(a gray, rainy day, which, nevertheless, did not remind me of England, being, in a meteorological sense, somehow, happier) with a girl I was frustrated by a few years back when she met my interest with an almost equal measure of elusiveness.

Later, her spirit was willing but my flesh was guarded.

She's leaving her job and heading off to India for God knows how long and our simultaneous vulnerability made for a rather fascinating hunk of interaction.

It was fun. And part of my program of tending to unfinished business now that I'm back in New York.

But while the woman in question was getting something, I texted Elise that I missed her.

Had a triumphant singing engagement last night.

Well, that's what I like to think it was. Actually, I went to "Joe McGinty's Keyboard Karaoke", but I didn't put any money in the jar and that made it into a real gig.

During the latter '80s, I think, Joe was a member of The Psychedelic Furs, so my musical accompaniment was at the high level an artist of my standing requires. (Yup, it's true -- I didn't sit for any of the songs.)

And the tumultuous cheers that erupted when I finished "I Touch Myself" were more than enough to make up for the sting of failure I experienced when undone by the midsection of The Temptations' "Just My Imagination".

But my most moving performances were of the Carpenters classics with which I began and ended the night -- "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "Superstar" (which I sang with the the clarity and perfection of a future anorexic).

The lead singer of the band "Moi?" even said that I was good. (Well, he said that it was good to see me.)

And a bearded guy said I really hit some high notes.

And a loud-voiced guy who knows Question Mark of Question Mark and the Mysterions and whose uncle or cousin or something composed the music for "Gypsy" and "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" and who sells vintage vacuum tubes over the internet and is trying to get work as a cruise ship singer asked me if I wanted to get something to eat sometime 'cause he needs to stop spending so much time indoors.

So, the signs are I might be as good at this singing thing as I am at comedy.

I went to bed about 11:30.

Around 12, I woke up, tasting a mix of gastric juices and blood, my nose increasingly stuffed, unable to breathe without coughing.

The air smelled poisonous.

My roommate away, I'd closed the window he keeps open in the other room so it would feel like I was sleeping inside for a change. Had it been open for a reason?

Had I sleapt in a way that would court the breathlessness of apnea, which my father and I share?

Was it the massive quantities of coffee I'd drunk, along with that Cadbury's Dairy Milk Bar, pasta with crushed, dried peppers, crispy pretzels, and cream cheese-laced English muffin, not to mention the tuna with mayo and cold cuts and mustard?

I ate some more chocolate. Perhaps the creaminess would save me.

Couldn't lie down. Had to sit up.

Coughing.

Breathing still impeded.

Was I dying?

My torso, somehow, didn't feel emergency-room ready.

So, I opened the window, took Tums to thwart my gastric juices, tried hard to breathe, and sat 'til I was able to lie down.

Still tasting digestive fluids, with a soupcon of blood, I petitioned Morpheus for relief and eventually, he received me in his arms again.

A few hours later, I awoke, feeling great (though with irritation and a cough not far beneath the surface).

The air still smells wrong. What are they pumping into this place?

I turned up the air purifier.

Should I make some coffee? Breakfast?