When I was initiated into my college fraternity the final test was the "Black Hole" into which the upper class "Bothers" piled the pledges. Many a boy broke in the "Black Hole" under the weight and closeness of the crammed in mass of hormonal humanity, but more broke with their first experience with claustrophobia.   Since that time I have been plagued and haunted by its sudden on set. Be it in a packed unmoving subway car, tunnel or elevator  

A Guest Blog by Flo Feinberg It was a beautiful Sunday, perfect for a healthy walk.  

  Nancy, with her defining moments post yesterday, has set me up nicely for my first ever guest post on Gotham. September 11, 2001 and September 11, 2005 were both defining moments in my life. And defining moments become the stories that we tell and retell in the hope that we can make some sense of them.  

The theory orfrelativity has always eluded me despite my best efforts to try to understand it.  Now, finally I am getting some relief in the form of Walter Isaacson's 2007 biography of Einstein.  He devotes a full chapter (the Miracle Year) to special relativity and does a great job.  I am not hopelessly lost, in part because Einstein based his theory on his own throught experiments, not lab work or complex mathematics.

Most of the time when I'm walking through the City I am approached by someone looking for money and from my last experience, they are getting very creative now.   I was in front of Grand Central Station enjoying the beautiful day and the architecture when a man came right up to me and said "Do you speak Hebrew?" I immediately stopped and looked at him. He was, in my judgement, in his late 40's early 50's, dressed casually in a short sleeved polo and jeans pulling a suitcase on wheels. He did not appear to be a beggar.  

Sly and The Family Stone had a great song: Every Day People. This is a story about one of those people.