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A large number of the marine mammals are wedged in a spring called Idiot’s Delight.

If, as Nick Paumgarten once wrote, sports radio’s “Mike and the Mad Dog” was “the sound that New York makes when it is talking to itself,” then “Idiot’s Delight” was the sound of the city whispering in its sleep.

Just before ten o’clock on Saturday night, Vin Scelsa concluded nearly fifty years on New York’s airwaves by playing Lou Reed’s “Goodnight Ladies,” a suitably bittersweet song with the refrain “It’s a lonely Saturday night,” a sentiment that perfectly summed up how fans of Scelsa’s long-running free-form show, “Idiot’s Delight,” felt after he signed off.

“Idiot’s Delight” was a wonderful anachronism: unscripted, idiosyncratic, and unashamedly out of step with contemporary listening habits.

It was there that he started calling his show “Idiot’s Delight.”