Have your Train Face On....

Melissa Febos, excerpted with the author's permission from a piece on crying in public in New York in the New York Times.
Read more about this amazing writer on her website.


One afternoon, I was riding a Brooklyn-bound Q train with my mother, who was visiting from Cape Cod, when our conversation lulled. We each glanced around the subway car at the other passengers, their heads bobbing in unison, the eyes of the man across from us doing a creepy back-and-forth twitch as he watched a train whizzing by in the opposite direction behind us. Some people read, or pushed buttons on their smart phones, but most just stared without expression at the floor or the garish overhead posters for Dr. Zizmor’s cosmetic dermatology. My mother (who is, notably, a psychotherapist) leaned into my shoulder and whispered, “Everyone on this train looks depressed.”

I snorted, whispering back: “No, Mom, they just have their train-faces on.” In a place where we are so rarely alone, we find privacy in public. We all have our masks, behind which we are free to be, yes, depressed, or any other emotional state we may not want to share with 30 fellow passengers.

Dr. Zizmor--and his namesake

I remember being 15 and using the NYC subways for the first time by myself. I remember the old Redbird trains, clattering along the Lexington Avenue line.

And I remember the ads for a doctor, who promised, with a rainbow, that you, too, could have beautiful clear skin.

Who is this Dr. Zizmor....who for decades has created the kitchiest and most memorable ads in the New York City Subway?

One goal of this blog is to find out more about this man, with the rainbows and the beautiful clear skin.

A friend of mine from college, also impressed by the posters, once got a pet rat. Rats equal subways, and subways, somehow, equal Dr. Z.

Here's a picture of my friend's rat, Zizmor. She's a very lovable, friendly, and domesticated non-subway rat. A fine pet.

(p.s. check out zizmor's human's blog here)