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Underneath a Warm October Sky
0October 14, 2015 by admin
As I entered the park, the first thing that struck me was the sound of the birds. The noise was everywhere. I looked up, past the squirrels’ nests, to the upper reaches of the trees, but there was little I could see, until, without warning, they took off, great masses moving in graceful coordination, often returning to the same upper branches, as if they’d just left home to pick up the paper and had hurried right back. Some will overwinter, but most, I suspect, are just visiting for a few days before moving farther south.
It’s been a few days since my last outing; signs of the changing season are evident in the sweaters, scarves and leather jackets people have put on, even though the temperature is above 70. The flowers that have been blooming since August still show color, if a bit faded. A white anemone past Strawberry Fields, however, is newly blooming and is magnificent.
Due to a late start this morning, the cowboy was already gone, if he had been there at all. After tuning up, I rose to begin my set, and almost immediately a Middle European couple with a toddler strolled by. The toddler was fascinated by the strange man with the uke, so much so that Dad peeled off 2 singles for the kid to give to me, after which they sat nearby and loosely supervised their son while he pushed toy trucks around the fountain’s edge.
A mother and daughter kicked in another $2, followed by a mom with 2 girls. There was $5 in my case before I finished my second song. A large teenager from London tossed in 60 cents, and after a little soft salesmanship she danced a reluctant hula. Her mom and I discussed real estate in our respective cities. I urged her to look south at the 2 monster erection on 57th Street to see what $90,000,000 will buy.
An Indiana dad and daughter stopped to chat. The girl had bright red hair in a pageboy cut, like Orphan Annie, and was making great strides in devouring an ice cream cone. She said she too played the uke, but dad and I agreed her fingers were too sticky to show me what she could do. We chatted about ukes and uke music until the ice cream was gone and dad could wipe her face. “Aloha,” said I as they walked away.
A mom and son sat on the bench in front of me. After a few tunes, I watched the mom root around in her purse. While I always hope that the rooting will produce a buck or two for me, I know not to expect too much. More often than not, it’s a cell phone, or tissues, or water bottle, or map of the park that emerges. On this occasion, however, it was indeed a change purse, and the young boy of 11 or 12 walked over with a dollar. He and his mom were from Berlin and I got a chance to practice my German as we conducted a simple conversation. I asked if they’d encountered very many people in New York who spoke their language; together they answered that I was Der Erste, the first.
Toward the end of my set, an Asian woman walked by, and, hearing my music, involuntarily moved her hand in a graceful hula-like movement. I invited her to dance, but she declined. Leaving the fountain area, she paused and opened her purse. “Here we go again,” I thought, not even bothering to calculate the odds of 2 purse-rooting tourists coming up with money 2 times in a row. The teenager that was with her brought me $2. “My grandmother was brought up in Hawaii,” he said.
“Mahalo,” I shouted out to her, to which she responded with a courteous bow.
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A Few Days Left
0October 8, 2015 by admin
“This tree is dead,” said the shirtless man on a blanket under the chestnut. He had a picnic basket, a book and a cell phone strewn about, so he probably was not homeless. I was squinting up at the high branches, looking for nuts. Most had already fallen.
“It starts to brown up like this every July,” I told him. “But look,” grabbing a branch and examining it, “growing tips. Every spring, this tree keeps coming back.”
“Until it doesn’t,” the man said.
I stomped on a shiny chestnut, crushing it against the broad ledge of Manhattan schist that rises out of the lawn there. The meat was white and moist. “Still good eating,” I said, tossing him the nut. “For squirrels.”
Distressed to find the cowboy back at the fountain, I moved on. It was cool in the shade of my maple, and hot in the sun. I found myself moving back and forth between them, trying to stay comfortable. A little kid of 7 or 8, asking his father for money, started me off with a quarter. A white-bearded man in his 70’s tossed 2 more quarters into my case as he walked by.
Two young women stopped to talk about ukuleles. One of the women, from Brooklyn, had just taken up the uke; she played the 2 chords she knew. The other woman was visiting from Switzerland. They happily danced a verse of “The Hukilau Song.” Afterward, the Brooklynite was very apologetic: she only had 20’s.
“Aloha,” said I.
A short while later, a mother of 2 had a dollar for a hula. At the same time, a passer-by stopped to contribute some change. For a moment, there was a veritable crush of people around my case, and then it was over. I practiced my new songs, “My Baby Just Cares for Me” and “Down Among the Sheltering Palms.” In the shade, I focused on the baroque towers of the San Remo; in the sun, the art deco towers of the Majestic came into view.
Despite the calendar, the busking season of 2015 still has a few more days in it. Until it doesn’t.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Down among the Sheltering Palms, My Baby Just Cares for Me, The Hukilau Song
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Last Licks
0October 7, 2015 by admin
After a week of cold and rain, I returned to the park on the first nice day in October. Cleome, asters, begonia, and the fluffy purple button of bloom, which has been growing in clumps behind the benches since August, are still going strong, while the growing tips of the rosa rugosa have managed to produce yet another crop of papery pink flowers. Despite the rain, someone has ordered the sprinklers to be turned on, so water is pooling over the saturated lawns.
At Bethesda Fountain, a giant peace sign made of 40,000 mini cupcakes, compliments of Baked by Melissa, adorns the plaza. I’m told that it was created in honor of John Lennon’s 75th birthday on Friday, and has earned a Guinness World Record.
I set up at center stage and immediately broke into “Get Out and Get Under the Moon” for a toddler who couldn’t take his eyes off me. Mom allowed the kid to bop around for a while, then grabbed his hand and led him away. Other walkaways included 2 little girls, who, separately, put on leis and danced to “The Hukilau Song,” and a Dutch woman who informed me, after having her husband snap a picture of us, that her daughter had danced a hula with me 4 years ago.
A young man spent quite a bit of time in my face, taking pictures. “Did you get a good shot?” I asked. “Good, now come do a hula. A hula for a picture, it’s only fair.”
He begged off, until a group of 20-somethings, similarly dressed in t-shirts proclaiming “Top of the Rock,” egged him on. They were involved in some team-building exercise for the locale/event-space at Rockefeller Center. Under peer pressure, he danced for a few bars, then took off his lei and ran up the path to rejoin his friends.
After almost 1 hour, my first dollar came from a woman photographer, who took her pics and walked off.
Jim, the big bubble man, came by with 100 mini cupcakes in a pizza-sized bakery box. I ate one; it was rich and delicious, but another one, let alone another 99, would have sent me into cardiac arrest.
The Top of the Rock folks wanted a photo before they left. They put on leis and massed around me, a selfie stick appeared in the sky and we smiled up at it. After an abbreviated hula, they gathered up their stuff, including what appeared to be a jigsaw puzzle of Rock Center, collected $3 among them and added it to my case.
Two teens from Tennessee stopped to dance. They seemed quite tickled to be dancing the hula in New York. Their mom, who caught the act on video, tossed another $3 in my case.
An old woman walking by gave me a dollar. A mom with 2 young daughters, neither of whom wanted to hula, dug out 4 quarters for me.
What started out as slow day, picked up enough to bring my total to double digits. On my way out of the park, I started passing people with boxes of cupcakes. In fact, every person on the bench at the entrance had a box in his/her lap. Outside the park, along Central Park West, the Baked by Melissa truck was parked, and members of the peace sign crew, having boxed up 40,000 cupcakes into 400 boxes, were handing them out of the back of truck like aid workers handing out provisions after a natural disaster. People sitting on the benches along CPW, stretching several blocks north, tasted and traded cupcakes: lemon for vanilla, strawberry for chocolate.
From somewhere high above the Dakota, John Lennon must have watched the festivities and smiled.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Baked by Melissa, Get Out and Get Under the Moon, The Hukilau Song
