Drifting Into Fall

It’s been very calm here in New York this week, drifting, as we are into what seems to be a premature autumn. A year ago the temperature was in the 80’s. Today we are in, may be, the 50’s.

We have gone in two short weeks from sultry to chilly. For some reason the city seems to be reveling in it. We are, I think, hoping that the change in temperature might mean a change in precipitation. Perhaps it won’t rain quite as much.

The leaves have just started to turn and the airwaves seem full of tours – bus, rail, and ship – offering a good view of fall foliage. You can train up the Hudson Valley to see the leaves, bus up the Hudson Valley into New England, sail up the Hudson River for fall colors. Or you can cruise through New England and into Canada for an international view of fall foliage.

It is a quiet sort of time. It is almost as if everyone has decided to exhale, all at the same time.

The city is actually quiet, news wise.

There is in the media community a quiet sort of patter on the streets about whether or not the advertising market bubble has burst. Rumor has it NBC is selling scatter ads at a flat to discounted rate. That’s big news on Madison Avenue, given all the media inflation of the past year.

Media columns are also flogging the fact the new fall season on the broadcast networks have failed to provide anything that resembles a break out hit, either in ratings or critically. It seems that hope is muted in mediaville this year. That, and the fact erosion has continued, with audiences flowing from broadcast into cable for the umpteenth quarter in a row.

The news is focused on the odd sex scandal – a probation officer offered a good review in exchange for sex and now may go to prison. There is the celebrity break-up – anyone surprised Halle Berry and her husband are going separate ways? Pink danced on tabletops in a club here in the city, which inspired Page Six. As did the fact her hair is now platinum.

Everyone in the city seems pretty focused right now on the right now. There are no huge issues facing us that are demanding our civic attention. The rebuilding of the World Trade Center is, for the moment, only back page chatter. Iraq is a constant drumbeat; we are noticing but seem unemotional about the President's slow fall from favor.

What civic attention we have to give seems to be directed at giving attention to the Governor’s race in California. It is surprising to me how much attention our local media is directing, up and down the state, on that relatively faraway political race. Methinks it has to do with the symbiotic relationship that has evolved over the decades between New York, particularly the City, and the State of California, all of it.

There are, among our friends, those who think: California deserves whatever it gets, including and especially Arnold. There are others who are feverishly working to raise money to help prevent it. My goodness, the number of New York cocktail parties for California gubernatorial candidates has been astounding this past week. It almost seems as if the California campaigns are being funded with New York money.

But outside of that particular flurry and the media noise about the evolution in network television, the sex scandals and the partying, there isn’t much that has been grabbing our attention.

For a moment, we are catching our breath, watching the seasons change and remembering that for everything there is a season. And it is now the season to watch leaves turn and to turn attention to the Holidays that are coming.

We are drifting, like slowly falling leaves, into the fall, peaceful, almost, for a moment.