"We Are All of Us in the Gutter, But Some of Us Are Looking at the Stars"

I was on the train the other day going to work in Manhattan, when I saw a man and a woman who somehow looked Japanese to me. (That probably sounds very un-PC, but I just had the feeling, based mostly on how they were dressed, that they were from Japan, as opposed to China, or Korea, or the Philippines, any of which would be more likely in my neighborhood.)

That impression last a split second as I got on the train. I sat down, started reading my magazine and forgot all about them.

A few minutes later, I happened to glance over at them and I saw that the woman (it was an older woman and a younger man, I assumed they were mother and son) had folded a foil gum wrapper into a tiny paper crane.

Origami. I sat there a moment and contemplated how amazing it was that she had literally transformed a piece of trash into art.

Anybody else on that train would have wadded their gum in it and thrown it on the floor.