To the Man Standing in Front of Me During the Iron & Wine Set

Hi. Remember on Sunday night when Iron and Wine played their solo set? You seemed to be enjoying the show. I did, too, except for about three songs when you were standing right in front of me. You're taller than I am. It seemed for a while that you were the tallest person in the crowd, that you were the apex of crowd-height and everyone else diminished around you. I'm not so tall, see, and I never wear heels. So there I was, and there was your head, big and present and unyielding before me.

I wasn't always standing behind you, you know. Earlier, I was standing right next to you, watching you attempt to sketch something while watching the show, but then somehow the crowd morphed imperceptibly and there you were in front of me. And all I could see was your head. I think it was the fault of the amorous couple that pushed their way next to and then in front of us a few minutes before the shift. I think they caused everyone to move just a bit without even knowing it.

You're not even that tall, I realized later. There were certainly larger people in the audience, but that fact mattered not at all when my view was blocked. You were the only person in the audience I was aware of for as long as you stood in front of me. When Calexico was on stage, it wouldn't have mattered so much, because there were so many people on stage playing so many different instruments that your head could not possibly have blocked more than four of them. I would have had at least two musicians to train my eyes on. But you were in front of me for Iron and Wine, when it was only Sam Beam and his sister (who had a new boyfriend in attendance! Wasn't it sweet that he told us that?) and then when it was just Sam himself, so your head made things more difficult since it was in the line of my direct view of him.

There was a moment, though, when you bent down to get your camera out of your bag, and I could see what the room would be like without you in it. The whole world seemed to open up as the blue lights from the stage shone on my face. I felt like I was being lifted up above the crowd and it was glorious. Sam Beam looked me straight in the eyes and sang.

And then you stood up again, right in my stage lights. And then you swayed your head from side to side. Which made me have to move my head from side to side, too, in an opposite rhythm. It was in that moment that I wished you didn't exist. I'm sure you are a lovely person with a lot to offer the world, but for those three songs, I wanted you dead and gone. I wished you had never been born. I wanted you to DIE.

But after his set, mercifully, you somehow drifted to my left. The crowd ate you and gave me a good view of the joint Calexico and Iron & Wine set. And, during the encore, it seemed the whole crowd parted for me, and everyone in both bands, all 12 of them, were before me on stage. It was beautiful. So you didn't ruin my whole night and I left Webster Hall not hating you at all. (Who I hated were the aforementioned couple, the female of whom flicked her ponytail in our faces several times, oblivious.)

Still, I shouldn't have wished you dead even for a minute. That was wrong. Every day I incubate hate toward strangers who get in my way on the sidewalk and subway and I know this is unhealthy.

To make up for wishing you dead, I thought I might point you in the direction of a recorded broadcast from a different night's performance so you can enjoy the night all over again. And not block anyone's view while you do it. I'm going to listen to it right now as I sit down to draft my proposal to organize all general admission shows by height.

Addendum: I haven't written that proposal yet, but here is something no doubt better. Brilliant! Thanks, Daisy!