Slow But Enjoyable

As I was climbing the stairs to the subway station, lugging my busking gear, a mute gentleman with a bad leg offered to help me bring my busking gear up the stairs. I was very touched by his kindness through his own hardship.

While I was busking at the Union Square subway station, the four a-capella singers who sing on the trains came to say ‘hi’ to me. As always when they see me, they stood in a circle around me and sang ‘Pretty Little Girl’ to me in beautiful harmony. One of them, Romero, told me that his CD is out now. We all agreed that today is a rainy Monday afternoon – meaning it’s slow but enjoyable.

Albert, the messenger, came and said to me “Heaven must be missing an angel”.

Photo by Kitty

A guy asked me if the more I bend the saw the higher the pitch.
“How do you know?”, I asked. “I’m a physicist”, he replied.

A lady named Maria bought my CD and told me that she is from Chilly. She is on a three week English study course in Boston. She is a designer of dresses. Her son, who will be 16 years old on Thursday, is learning to play bagpipes.
She told me that every day when she wakes up, before she gets up, she says to herself: ‘this is going to be a wonderful day’. She gave me a pencil that says ‘inlingua’ – that’s the name of the language school she is attending.

I noticed a woman in a red coat alternately looking at me and drawing in a notepad. When she was done I asked if I may see what she drew. She told me that she draws the movement that people make with their hands when they do whatever it is that they do. The drawing was an abstract one, of moving lines – very special.

At 4:15, when I finished packing up my busking gear, the two ladies playing guitar and singing on trains stopped to say ‘hi’. They are looking to move back to Manhattan. They said that rents are falling in Manhattan, so they would like to take advantage of it and move out of Queens.

’14 Street – Busker’s Paradise’ poster made by Shitaki

Somebody put a bill of One Yuan in my donations bucket. Is that Chinese? It has writing on it in English letters saying ‘Zhongguo Renmin Yinhang’. It also has writing in Arabic and two other eastern languages. There is a picture of a man on it, with dates 1893 – 1976, and oddly – a star of David.

Somebody put a squashed penny in my donations bucket. The penny says ‘Coney Island, USA’.