![_[UPDATE] Allegedly Drunk Brooklyn Woman Plows Benz Straight Through Long Island Home](http://gothamist.com/assets_c/2012/05/052912benz1-thumb-250x250-717343.jpg)
Everyone has heard of quiet cars (even if it's sometimes hard to define "quiet"), but what about conversation cars? That's the question posed by a piece in the News today. The idea is to reclaim the lose art of conversation, and to disconnect ourselves from our iPods, iPads, smart phones and obsessive self-interest. "What if, instead of treating your morning commute like a yoga retreat, you actually wanted to take a (wholesome, noncreepy) interest in one or two of the several thousand human beings around you. Where's the car for that? Where, on your bus or train, do you go for decent conversation?" We like the idea of it, but we wonder if it would descend into something more akin to a "pickup car" for singles (not that this would necessarily be a bad thing). Would you ride in a conversation car?
Should the Subways Have Conversation Cars?
NJ Transit To Pilot "Quiet Commute" Program
Beginning in September, certain Northeast Corridor NJ Transit trains will have "quiet cars"—the first and last cars of the train—as part of a 90-day pilot program to see if offering some people sanctuary from their fellow riders' cell phone yakking is worth the effort. Officials are confident; executive director Jim Weinstein told the Star-Ledger, "It’s one of the things people ask for most often. We expect it to be very popular."
Silent Rave Hushes Over Union Square Tonight
The countdown is on, and even the pickiest of neighbors can't complain of noise at this evening's public rave. An "exchange student who only moved here from London a few months ago!" is behind the outdoor public and SILENT rave (yes, of course there's a Facebook page dedicated to it).
The basic premise is thousands of people turn up in a public place, plug in their own iPods, listen to their own music and dance and rave for hours!This is pretty much what it looks like. Into it? Take some invisible E, bring your dimmed glowsticks, and don't worry if you don't have rhythm because no one else will know what you're listening to! The organizer endorses his event by calling it: "a bloody brilliant" idea.
Wednesday Food News: Early Edition
Today the Times’s Keith Dixon, a self-described “clumsy, overambitious cook,” offers tips for cooking dinner in a crowded city apartment made even more cramped by a newborn baby. Dixon has adapted his cooking technique to accommodate a light-sleeping baby who, awakened by a clattering spatula, derails dinner plans as he and his wife “labor to get her back to sleep.” So he’s evolved into a “Silent Chef” with “ninja stealth” and suggests, among other things, avoiding meats that tend to smoke the place up, trading metal utensils for plastic, and using the stove’s exhaust fan as “a makeshift white-noise machine.”
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