Piano Woman

Yesterday I had adventures in music, photography, a friend, strangers, and sunburn. Let’s throw in food too because this is me and there’s always food. Do you like my new style of starting entries with an actual topic sentence, not something totally unrelated to the bulk of the entry? I’m giving it a try, it is a rule of thumb for good writing; discussing it isn’t.

Every year a marvelous event happens in New York, Songs for Hope installs hand painted pianos on the streets of New York that anyone can play. Anyone can make a submission to paint a piano too. As I just found out yesterday, anyone can book a piano for a half-hour slot for a pop-up concert. This is the best thing ever. Gen wanted to play, and I thought it would be a great idea if I took video and stills of her doing so.

Our original plan was to move from piano to piano, but that had to be scuttled when circumstances and NJ Transit conspired to get her into the City late. That limited us to two pianos. The first is at Penn Plaza East, right by Penn Station where she comes in. We went their and found a gentleman playing. He could play. He was also very nice and graciously asked us if we wanted to play. His name is Sam, we got friendly fast. Turns out he’s a fifth-generation pianist. Gen played and sang while I videoed. We talked with Sam and this woman whose name I didn’t catch, who was also very taken with Gen. This is the start of the Genevieve fan club. After Gen played her songs Sam sat down and asked Gen to sing with them. They did Summertime from Porgy and Bess. This was such a New York moment. The black guy from Harlem playing with the Italian girl from the Jersey shore, singing a song written by the Jewish kid from the Lower East Side, trying to sound like black woman in South Carolina. Sam, Gen, the unnamed woman, and I formed and immediate community. People think of New Yorkers as aloof but it’s not true. We are very friendly. We can’t stop and talk or even smile with all of the thousands of people we pass every day, but we can jump in and become best friends with total strangers when the circumstances are right.

Gen was spending the night in New York sharing a friend’s hotel room, the hotel was our next stop, she had to drop off her luggage. The hotel was at 54th and Broadway. I have never seen such hotel security. She needed her key to not just get in the room but to use the elevator and weirdest of all, turn on the lights in the room.

Then we were off in search of another piano. The closest was at 62nd and Columbus, the southeast corner of Lincoln Center. We found it in a small plaza/park. There were people playing on it. We found that hey had reserved it for half an hour. That’s when we discovered you can do that. As you might expect in that neighborhood, they were good. They asked us to join in a sing-along and gave us a lyric sheet for We’ll Never Walk Alone. I knew it was Rodgers and Hammerstein, but didn’t know the musical, it’s Carousal. On Father’s Day John Platt played My Boy Bill, Carousal is following me.

When they finished Gen went on and we made new friends, including some people in the group and the piano caretaker. This area was much quieter, the videos should have come out better. This was so much fun, people kept coming up and listening and taking pictures and the occasional video. Here there were little kids, some who sat down and played. I played. There was a songbook. The first song was Twinkle Twinkle, the next was Fur Elise. There were no songs of intermediate difficultly. I tried to play This Land and discovered that I could no long automatically play chords with my left hand. I had to think about the notes. That means I can no long play in real time. I’m sure I could learn again if I practiced. I just played the melody with my right hand.

A pianist started playing and Gen was singing along sotto voice, but the pianist’s friends heard and asked her to join in. So once again Gen sang while a stranger played. I didn’t know this song. One of the group said, “This is so New York!” Just what I said back in Penn Plaza. It was a marvelous way to spend a late afternoon.

Gen went to meet a friend for dinner and by then it was too late to eat when I went home so I went to the Applejack Dinner, a place I frequented with Carey 25 years ago. Here’s where the food comes in. I had a Texas burger, that’s a burger topped with bacon and a fried egg. That’s a great combination.

There was only one damper on the day, I was in pain. I got a severe sunburn Saturday at Clearwater. I had covered myself in sun block, it must have been too old, and no longer effective. I was wondering if was a second-degree burn. I showed it to Gen and she thought it was. I’m thinking 1.5-degree burn. Is there such a thing? The area around my knees is the worst. It hurt when my shorts brushed against it. It hurts every time I stand up or sit down. On the way to meet Gen I bought CVS Cooling Itch Relief Spray. It’s what the pharmacist recommended. It did help some. I applied it three times yesterday and in addition to the immediate relief it seems to have improved the general condition. The burn instead of fading had been getting worse every day even though I wasn’t in the sun. Today it’s improved. It still hurts.

I have more adventures today including starting the move into Beruthiel’s apartment. Jane is going to drive me over today. I’m not sure what I’m going to bring with me. Tomorrow I want to sleep there but there’s no rush to bring everything, I will need things here tomorrow. I’ll figure it out. That’s exactly the kind of thing that triggers anxiety.

Tonight, I’m seeing The Sea the Sea and two other bands at Littlefield in Brooklyn. I had to miss them the last time they were in town. They are in my never miss list.