and just like that, it's about new york, grounded in geography and action but – you realize only at the end – unmoored from time. i know more about these faces and places than some of my friends. staying at the algonquin was a bucket-list item i satisfied as covid began to recede. i kept checking my phone as jazz tunes were named. but i'm no historian, and the fluidity of time snuck up on me.

'we now take liberties with the script', @sarahpinsker@wandering.shop wrote at the start, just before putting an f-bomb in george gershwin's mouth. it would take a year of research, the year she probably spent, to determine exactly what those liberties were. it's a lot easier to just let it envelop you, like the tickling of ivories up an air shaft on a hot day.