ON AND OFF THE AVENUE - Top of the Class

Whenever I consider “taking a class,” as a grown woman living in New York City, my mind immediately turns to “The Ladies Who Lunch,” the show-stopping number from Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical, “Company.”

- -Rachel Syme

In that song, Joanne, a surly, vodka-pickled woman (originated on Broadway by the late, great Elaine Stritch) delivers a scathing indictment of the Manhattan leisure set, mockingly raising her Martini glass to the “girls who stay smart” by spending their days “rushing to their classes in optical art.”

Joanne’s implication—that classes are merely time-wasters for unserious dilettantes—put me off drop-in courses for years, before I realized that it is unwise to heed the life advice of a bitter lush. Non-compulsory education, as it turns out, is one of adult life’s great pleasures.