The Bach Cello Suite No.1 - Prelude can do wonders for blood pressure, I am almost morally certain. Hearing it in the subway, by someone who knows what he is doing, is one of priceless things you can get for a donation.  There were lots of dollar bills raining down into the open case at Mr. Zheng's feet ( Read more... )

I am impressed with Embark NYC.  Written on my iPhone's Note pad, transcribed here before going to bed.

How did we ever
function without subway apps?
This is amazing!
I get to the platform, and,
lo and behold, the train's there!

Old lady totters
to her bench, bag of walnuts
in her weathered hands.
Furry rivers ripple down
from the tributary trees.

Picture if you will, in the long mezzanine concourse at the 8th Avenue terminus of the L where it crosses with the A, C, and E, a street musician.  Work boots, gray-black jeans, a faded flannel shirt, a black leather vest with a Harley-Davidson-ish eagle embossed in the back, a straw cowboy hat with a bicycle head light and tail light strapped ( Read more... )

One person's spring cleaning is another person's free-cycle outside my apartment building.

Somebody left a
perfectly functional lamp
on the curb today.
Only the slightest wrinkle
on the lampshade. It's mine now.

I saw A Late Quartet with my aunt yesterday. Christopher Walken plays a cellist in a world-renowned string quartet. Said cellist is getting on in years. The quartet is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary season when he is diagnosed with the early stages of Parkinson's. Walken nails this to the point that I wondered whether he has it for real. ( Read more... )

A tall, rough-hewn man, of formerly dark hair, with a voice of Sting-like quality, would sing and play his guitar at the 14th Street/Union Square station on the L line 20 years ago, when I first got here.  I would see him on-and-off when I lived in Manhattan back in the 90s.  As I came down the long escalator at the Lexington Avenue station on the ( Read more... )

These are the rules if you are so inclined.

Upon seeing an elder relative after the storm has passed.

The divine wind has
stirred the sea. Humbled city!
You will rise again,
still more fortunate than those
who have been humbled by time.

The wiener dog and
the yorkie issue challenge.
The whole building knows.
But for their pesky people,
what an epic fight indeed!

I love this city.  Only in such a town as this one would I have the chance to hear an instrument of the mountain herder, something that big, be so melodious.

Between appointments,
I rest in the park behind
the great library.
Serenaded again, this
time by an alphorn player!