I once stayed in the Chelsea Hotel just to hear the limousines wait in the street. It was 12 storeys high, red-bricked, and scaffolded, and the builders' plastic sheeting billowed about in the cold January air. We stayed in a strangely lit room, with mustardy walls and thick brown paint on the woodwork, it seemed as if everything was seen through American Tan stockings. Half the bathroom tiles were missing, and through the dimpled glass of the side window could be seen several years' worth of pigeon droppings. I recall lying on the unmade bed watching a talk show hosted by a man named Maury Povich, while we waited for the rain to pass. It was an unexceptional afternoon, in the kind of hotel room you overlook, but I think of it quite often.