The city toyed with us last week, showing that when you live in New York, any morning can be the beginning of the day your life changes forever. One minute you’re a stockbroker waiting for the subway at the Wall Street station; the next minute you’re clenching your body between the rails, trying not to get run over by a Brooklyn-bound 2 train, as Daniel Silverio did. (He’s fine.) One minute you’re Diana Taylor, the mayor’s girlfriend and a shoo-in for the FDIC chief’s job; the next minute the NRA scuttles your nomination to get back at your guy. One minute you’re billionaire wannabe-politician Tom Golisano; the next you’re . . . just billionaire Tom Golisano. One minute you’re married to the man of your dreams; the next he’s engaged to your old boss, Lizzie Grubman. One minute you’re the overcarbed ex–Friends cast member Matthew Perry (pictured), with all of one episode of Scrubs under your belt in the last few years; the next minute you’re the “It” boy of pilot season, having scored a gig on Aaron Sorkin’s show about a TV show that sounds a lot like Saturday Night Live. One minute you’re a very important Realtor lunching at Jean Georges, and three years later you decide to sue the place for half a million dollars because a blackberry pit in your $16 dessert broke your dental bridge. One minute it’s a seasonal 24 degrees; then before you know it, it’s an unnerving 64. One minute you’re Mike Piazza, ultimate Met; the next you’re packing for San Diego. One minute you’re the Son of Sam, minding your own business in an upstate prison; the next thing you know, your damn lawyer is writing a book based on your old letters and crap. One minute you think the entertainment world has given up on complicated films about actual humans in favor of computer-generated epics about monsters and elves; the next thing you know, the Oscar nominations prove that even in the second term of the 43rd president, the Academy is willing to celebrate movies about doomed gay love, underdogs, reformed racists, liberals, and pimps. Which is wonderful. Even if you didn’t totally understand what (Best Supporting Actor nominee) George Clooney’s character was up to for the last half-hour of Syriana.

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Table of Contents: Feb 13, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!