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August 1, 2019 by admin
Who knew gomphrena was so heat-resistant? Every other variety of plant was spent and wilted; only it and some shaded cleome persisted behind the benches. A vine with small purple flowers wove through the rose bushes and twined south. A single rose towered over green hips the size of cherry tomatoes.
An unknown platoon guitarist, who introduced himself as James, invited me to come back at 2, when he and I could jam together. “If you’re for real,” he added.
“Oh, I’m real enough, thanks,” I said, “but I do a solo act.”
At Bethesda Fountain, Carole, the photographer, was huddled in the shade of a wall. She told me the police had come by and cleared out all the amplified performers. Indeed, the only busker I heard was a violinist by the water, who was later joined by another. They sounded amped to me, but you know how violins are. A 3-wheeled police vehicle was parked in a corner. If the cops were around, they’d shut them down, which, 40 minutes later, they did.
It was hot. People didn’t want to stop to hula. “Has this group got time for a hula?” I asked the leader. They were day camp kids, many of whom were from Haiti. As I handed out the leis, a skinny blonde of about the same age joined the kids and off they all went to the hukilau. The day camp counselor gave me a buck; dad, who was from The Netherlands, gave me 2.
A little kid from a passing tour gave me a Canadian nickel.
A group of 3 young women sat on the bench and listened. An older man, in Nick Carroway whites, joined them. Together they sat through 2 more songs, then gathered their belongings, pooled the contents of their pockets and dispatched one of their members, with a handful of coins, to me, before walking off. Nick tipped his skimmer.
A Belgian couple with a young daughter came next. After a short dance, dad fumbled with the change in his wife’s palm for a tip, while I told him how much I liked Belgium, especially the Flemish north, whence he hailed. It surprised him that anyone in America knew anything about Belgium. After hearing my description of a meal consisting of stewfleis and hutsepot, he said, “You have been to Belgium.” He gave up his counting, told his wife to give me all her change and added a single from his wallet.
While we talked about Belgium, a Chinese girl, who had been sitting on the rim of the fountain, walked behind me and laid 4 quarters gently in my case.
Two Mexican girls from Toronto danced the hula and gave me a dollar each. A Chinese couple gave me a dollar because their little girl did not dance the hula.
A woman asked how much for a lei. “Two dollars.”
I handed her a lei for the little girl standing next to her. “One dollar?”
“Ten dollars,” I said, but settled for 2.
“How much?” asked a woman, pointing to a solar powered hula girl. “Five dollars.” There was no haggling. At the end of the day, on top of $7 for merchandise, I made $12.65 for spreading the Aloha spirit.
Around 2, I passed through Strawberry Fields on my way home. James was nowhere to be found.
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After the Heat Wave – 2
0July 28, 2019 by admin
The heat wave may have broken, but it was still hot. At the Imagine Mosaic, it was uncharacteristically still; no Beatle’s music today. Bethesda Fountain, on the other hand, was an amplified mess. Two guitars, a violin and an accordion blasted bad behavior from all four quadrants, while a battalion of aggressively begging Buddhists wove through the crowd, handing out amulets and just as quickly snatching them back when they didn’t get paid.
I was happy to take up my position in the shade under the Norway Maple. After a while, a 3-year-old girl walked by with her mom or nanny. She was taken with my solar-powered hula girls, and every time the adult took her hand and asked her to come along, she yanked it free and squatted down to continue studying them. In exasperation, the nanny/mom tossed me a dollar, swept the girl up under her arm and marched her squealing away.
“Have you got time for a hula today?” A girl of 9 or 10 came forward. With a lei around her neck, equipped with my hula instructions, she danced awkwardly, while her dad filmed and her mom hula-ed behind the camera. “Come show her how it’s done,” I said to mom, waving a lei. She took it and joined her daughter for a touching mother-daughter dance. A grinning dad gave me a buck.
Like my last outing, with 15 minutes to go, I still hadn’t made carfare. Then, as if that realization had conjured them up, an Italian couple stopped to ask about my hula girls. “Quanto questo?”
“Five dollars.”
“Cinque,” he says to his wife. They discuss the color, turquoise or yellow. Deciding on turquoise, he hands the yellow doll back to me and says, “Quattro.”
“Cinque,” I correct him.
“Va bene.” He gives me a fiver, and, leaving, he and his wife exchange words. She flashes me a smile; he gives me another dollar.
Singing “Little Grass Shack,” in wonder at how well the universe treats this “little Hawaiian, a homesick island boy,” I was graced with another miracle: at my final chord, a tall blonde floated a fiver into my case
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After the Heat Wave – 1
0July 26, 2019 by admin
The heat wave broke this week. Wednesday was warm and clear with cool breezes blowing from the north. A new batch of begonias brightened the hill on the other side of the Central Park West wall. Deep in the underbrush, a single stand of white phlox captures the eye. Cleome and gomphrena populate the area behind the benches, while the rose bushes, devoid of roses, have only wine-red growing tips to show.
At the Imagine Mosaic, the guitarist sings “Hey, Jude,” accompanied by a blond soprano who shattered the upper registers with her “better, better, better, better.”
Past jewelweed and astilbe, around the corner from Daniel Webster, the jazz combo performs from the American Songbook. The park is packed. At Bethesda Fountain, three amplified buskers, a violin and 2 guitars, are duking it out. On this, among the most beautiful days of the summer, I easily summoned the aloha spirit and kept walking to the maple, where 3 caricaturists were duking it out. As I set up I asked the closest one, “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all,” he said. “It’s nice background music for me.”
At the end of the first 30 minutes, no one had given me anything. During the next 30 minutes, a 40-something Spanish man dumped $1.10 in coin into my case. In the final 30 minutes, I stopped two 30-something guys and talked them into a hula. It was a sedate interpretation of “The Hukilau Song” until one of the men broke loose with waving arms, yelps and leaps. He then tore off his lei with a dramatic gesture and handed it back to me, along with a $5 bill.
By then, with $6.10 in my pocket, it was time to go home.
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