I've been house-and-cat-sitting for my friend Tricia, who lives near Tompkins Square Park. I went there Saturday afternoon for awhile with a magazine, and from behind me I started noticing a familiar musical pattern. Dun. Dun, dun-dun, dun. A woman singing and a dude semi-gruffly "rapping." Dun. Dun, dun-dun, dun. A Latinish percussion pattern under kick drum, blipping synth horns. Really familiar. Dun. Dun, dun-dun, dun. It was, of course, C + C Music Factory, only there was a different singer and "rapper." Then I tuned in. The woman was singing: "Come on, let's pray! Pray-ayyy! Let the spirit take control! Let the spirit move you!" The "rapper" was "rapping" something about the positive aspects of prayer inna Freedom Williams-stylee. It was surreal, and not just because I was stoned. The song finished and there was a couple mintues' silence--for me, way over on the other side, on a bench; I'm sure the entertainers were talking to the crowd, though I couldn't hear them. I concluded this because they began another song: a bible retelling set to the tune of . . . "We Didn't Start the Fire." That's when I got up and left, though not before calling my man Rod and telling him about it.

The next day I walked by Tompkins Square Park again and heard a death-metal band playing in it. Make up your mind, park.