They Noticed I Was Gone!

There was nobody at the Music Under New York spot at the Union Square subway station when I got there today.

Soon after I started playing two guys greeted me with much joy. It turned out their names were Joseph and Mark. Mark is an intern with Atlantic Records. He said he had been to my website, noticed I’ve recorded for Atlantic Records before and was wondering if the musical saw would sound good on a hip hop track. Joseph said he bought my CD a while back and he asked me when my next album will be ready (hopefully by the end of the year…). The nice thing is they both said they noticed I was gone from the subway! They actually were wondering where I was – they said they are used to seeing me every now and then in the subway, and for a whole month they didn’t see me. It’s so nice that people notice when I’m not in the subway. It means they notice when I am there…

Then the guy who always claps whenever he walks by and hears me play – he walked by and, of course, clapped his hands when I finished a song. He told me he noticed I was away from the subway, too! He said he now works for a different delivery company, and he is on his way to do a delivery.

Dan from WFMU Radio recorded me playing a few numbers for his new radio show about subway musicians. He told me that I was the first musician he recorded in the subway for this program. He is just walking around the subway trying to find musicians and I was the first one he stumbled upon. He said he had been to my MySpace page though, so he knew about me and was hoping to run into me.

At 1:28 I noticed that they fixed the led clock/date display in front of our spot. That has been non-functioning for a very long time. It’s nice to have it working again, so I know what time it is when I look up 🙂

A girl wearing a nose ring told me she plays the musical saw, too (she has a Sandvik Stradivarius saw), but she doesn’t have much time to practice because “she is a very busy person” as she put it. She said she saw some of my videos on YouTube.

The station’s cleaning lady, who never smiles, actually nodded ‘hello’ back to me! I always try to greet her, but she is so somber and usually just doesn’t look at me…

A guy told me “we rode together last week”… It turned out it was the guy who was one of about 5,000 bicycle riders who rode over the Triboro bridge last Saturday when my husband and I happened to be riding there, too, on our way to the Farm Aid Concert. The guy told me he was the one who stopped me on the bridge to ask if I was the Saw Lady. He said they all continued to ride from Randle’s Island (where we went to) over the small bridge to Manhattan and from there to the Bronx. He said the Bronx was really tough. No wonder – that’s a very long ride!

Pat Christiano, the painter/photographer/poet who sells his paintings up stairs at Union Square Park gave me another replica of one of his paintings. This one is called ‘Coeur’ (which is French for ‘heart’).
He told me he participated in the Howl Festival in the Village, but that this year it wasn’t as lively as in the past.

At 3pm Luis (pan flute player) and partner (mandolin player) of the Andean music group Raices showed up with their permit. Edgar, the leader of the group, was not with them – he is busy painting an apartement, they told me.

It was so nice to be back at Union Square!