SECOND DAY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 440, 28 November 1947, Page 12

SECOND DAY

The second of two articles written by a former member of "The Listener" staff, who recently travelled to London

dants in Macy’s are Negroes, dressed in sky-blue livery. They chant a_ sing-song of the names of departments as they go, and do it with touching dignity. In Gimbel’s over the road there are women in cyclamen-coloured uniforms. Above the head of one of them I read a little framed sign: "The attendant on duty in this elevator, Miss F. Edelman, has pledged herself to courtesy and service." One thing you don’t do in Macy’s is ask the clerk for something "cheaper." From the pain I saw in one or two faces when I did this I concluded that the word means "shoddier." Standards of comparison don’t go downwards, anyway, they go up. Macy’s printed guide ("Where to find it") lists two fur departments: "Furs, better," and "Furs, less expensive." Clearly there ~ is nothing inferior about the latter; (indeed, there is a suggestion of virtue, further borne out by the motto "It’s smart to be thrifty at Macy’s"). It’s only that there is something superior about the former. ; Another thing that is not done is to of the elevator atten-

ask a salesclerk (even if you have just bought something) to direct you to another shop which you want to visit. All the other shops are competitors to Macy’s, and are unmentionable. The clerks are fiercely loyal in this matter. On the way out I asked a sour lady: at the Information Desk where I could find a public *phone without having to climb back to Macy’s Balcony and Post Office. "Why don’t you go to the five-and-ten over the

road?" she asked, sweeping a lock of hair from her forehead with a tired wave of the hand. I went to the door and saw that there was a huge Woolworths on, the opposite corner. But I doubt if the name is ever whispered in Macy’s. me * N Woolworths'I bought crisp airmail paper and pleased a salesclerk by offering to change a_ five-dollar bill someone else had tendered. There was enough goodwill engendered by ‘this helpfulness of mine to start a friendly conversation. So far I had been eyed and answered evasively everywhere, except by the news stand man. "You're not Americans, are you?" she said. "No," I said, "and everyone spots us." "It’s the way you say Speahrts," she said. "You say spaats. We say spahrts." a * * HE "Town and Country," a smart restaurant on Park Avenue, where we were taken for lunch by an American woman, is air-conditioned. You ‘step in from a hot street to sweet -coolth; it is magical, and breath-bereav-‘ing. You feel no draught, no initial

chill. Some diabolical scientist has evidently discovered the perfect tem-perature-ratio that makes the change comfortable though considerable, Again, to describe the food that is to be had there is more than can be borne on board this ship, and such standards — of luxury in any case are better forgot- *, ten than sighed for in these times, / because they involve waste. I do like; however, to recall*‘how my New Zealander’s eye was caught by the fact that the right kind of! light bulbs were available for the imitation candles and special lights by which the place was illuminated, and the plates and cups and dishes were of the same set at all the tables. I was startled to find how impressive this seemed, which after all was nothing but a piece of normality, and not luxury. It has been customary for so long in New Zealand to find yourself surrounded with crude makeshifts in hotels and eating-houses and

all the semi-public places where the equipment and décor would be ordered in bulk and maintained as it was first conceived if only the stuff could be got, that I think something has been losta feeling of stability and security, I suppose. Makeshift, when it becomes a habit, can be vicious and demoralising, more especially if there is an aesthetic factor involved. Certainly it has its virtues, and if New Zealanders have a common genius it is for ymaking shift brilliantly, yet I wonder what effect habitual makeshift has upon aestheticm, habits when it pervades life as much as it does in New Zealand to-day. * * EG UR second, and last, day in New York ended (quite rightly, as I thought) like something in the pictures -with a desperate, frantic attempt to get back to the boat in time. I can easily believe that of three cars in New York’s thoroughfares, two are taxis. But try and get one of those taxis on Fifth Avenue up in the Forties after four o’clock on a Friday afternoon when it happens to be the Jewish New

Year that week end. You begin to realise just how far away West 14th Street is (especially when you see a traffic jam only just averted by the police) and you ere too terrified to commit yourself to the subway when you have only used it that day for the first time in your life, Somehow, however, you manage it in the end. The fortieth or fiftieth taxi you shout at stops for you; the driver grumbles when you tell him what you want him to do, and there jis a

shasty moment when % you fear he will refuse. But he fon and you get there. ** * ok Back on the boat, where it is a relief to find everything familiar again, we are all telling our travellers’ tales and ‘showing each other what we bought with the 16 dollars we were allowed to buy when we left (before the ban). People are writing letters with ball-pointed pens, producing new lighters ‘when cigarettes are handed round, fondling new handbags, washing nylons to try and make them look notnew, and reading American magazines. One man has a box of chocolates three feet long, packed with a yardstick bearing the ndme of Gimbels and the slogan "Buy your candy by the "Yard"; and the former Russian Minister is perplexed because he now finds that the expensive things he bought on Fifth Avenue were to be had for half the price downtown in the Common Man’s shopping areas. (No-one had explained this to him before he went ashore.) RR ET AY EN RS CR

= And one man has a little tortoise in a glass dish, which waddles round and round a pink plaster frog; its shell has been painted blue and overpainted with the Stars and Stripes. Happy little tortoise, Everyone seems to have at least one funny story to tell-except the Russian Minister, The one I Jike best is that of Selwyn Bakér, the musician who is going to Belgium to study the carillon so that he can play Wellington’s in a year or two. Mr. Baker went to call on a carillonneur at a famous’ New York church (the name of which I forget), who had once studied in Belgium, too. He found his way to the church, and was asked into the Office. There he met the Manager, He said he had come to call on Professor Lefévre (I think that was the name). So they had him taken in the elevator, to the belfry-on the 17th floor.

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