I Guess He Didn't Like the Concert

Yesterday, my quartet played on a street corner for two hours. Seriously. It is a little classier than you may think, though... we were actually asked to do it by the owners of Paradise Bakery. Well, things were going really well. We had about forty or fifty people watching for a good long while, and they were really getting into it. We tried to mix Mozart with some good old-fashioned classics like The Killers, and people appreciated our fine endeavors. So, imagine our surprise when, in the middle of a particularly beautiful strain of Schumann's "Traumerai" we hear a major crunch behind us, followed by a collective gasp by our audience. We turned around to see that a big hotel van had just nailed a (parked) Escalade. But, the show went on without so much as a pause in our music. Later, my friend congratulated me on stopping traffic.

This incident (super embarrassing, I'm sure, seeing as how it happened in front of the largest collective group on the street) brought up a discussion of our most memorable concert experiences. I have several doozies, but I think the most bizarre was the concert I attended last year at Manhattan School of Music. My friend was conducting the "Pines of Rome," and the last movement begins very quietly, builds up in energy and then blows the roof off. Well, the music began, and the audience leaned in to just make out the sounds of the off-stage brass. Suddenly, the principal second violinist keeled over, hit her head on her stand, and lay there on the stage. The conductor wildly grabbed for, and thankfully caught, her violin, but let's just say the mood was spoiled. Eventually, paramedics arrived, the girl was revived and escorted off stage, and the music began again. There really is no recovery for that, though.

I thought this was a pretty good story until a friend told me hers. Apparently, she was playing trombone in an orchestra concert when a woman got up and ran toward the front of the audience. She began to wildly wave a paper over a man's face. Then she tried shaking him. Then she called an ambulance. Then the paramedics came. Then they took the newly-deceased man out on a gurney. And the music never stopped!

This tale has put things into perspective for me. And given me a new paranoia. I'm sooo not sleeping the night before my next concert.

Just So You Know, I Think You're...

Yesterday, on my way out of town, I stopped at a gas station to fill up before reentering the enormously overinflated price zone that is the Aspen/Snowmass area. I was standing at the pump when a man rode through on his bike. He was super tan, tattooed, and wearing a knit cap with no shirt. He was also late-thirties to early-forties. He looked at me and said, "You have beautiful hair. You also have a beautiful smile." Then he left without another word. I have to say, it made my day.

While living in NYC, I got hit on... a lot. Now, this has absolutely nothing to do with my looks. It has everything to do with the fact that I am female and alive. When I first lived there, the whistling and catcalls were a bit disconcerting, but over time, they became a welcome dose of self-affirmation. I learned to love New Yorkers for the very trait that upsets most of the rest of the world- their tendency to say whatever pops into their heads.

It definitely wasn't all catcalling, either. One of my best friends came for a visit one time. We dropped her luggage off at my apartment, and then we walked outside. When we reached the first corner, a woman began ranting and raving about how I invaded her personal space (although you'll have to trust me when I say I had absolutely NO desire to enter her personal space bubble). We crossed the street accompanied by the dulcet tones of her shouting, and we came to another corner. This time a truck full of men honked and whistled at us as we crossed. I turned to her and said, "Welcome to the Big Apple."

Lately I've been thinking about my friends past and present. I've noticed that those from my religious background are much less likely to pass along both compliments and critiques than those who are not. This phenomenon, I believe is brought on by the desire in our culture to always be kind but not to lead people on. I'm thinking, though, that the New Yorkers have discovered an opportunity to move past the obvious into actually getting to know a friend. I've decided to take a page out of their book; I'm hereby dedicating myself to a new goal-- be more emotionally honest. It's not that everyone off the street needs to know my current state of mind...chaos would ensue in most states. But, I'm going to be more forthcoming with compliments, more aware of how things affect me and others, and discuss more readily things that upset me so as to actually work them out rather than bottling them up inside, hopefully culminating in a better balance and more zen-like frame of mind.

So, here's to all those New Yorkers who believe in letting people know exactly where they stand (and where they should and should not be standing).