Musical Interlude:  Teach You How to Sing

Here at intermission, a brief note about the music of New York.  Friday morning(coincidentally, our anniversary), our group rose en masse and trotted down to a studio in the Times Square area.  The title on the group itinerary?  Broadway workshop.  Not sure what the means.

We file into a wide room with a piano.  Because Earl Grey made sure I needed to use the restroom before class started, I was not standing beside my beloved wife for this episode, which worked out well in a couple of ways.  Back to that in a second.

The studio is a place where people audition for Broadway roles or practice to audition or learn about the music business.  For us, we’re going to learn a song.  Now, comes the rub.  Our trip has been organized to give educators a preview of potential tour options.  Here’s the part where a high school English teacher might check out. This could be great for middle school teachers or theater teachers, but what about me?  What about “core subjects”?

The workshop teachers recognize that natural reticence as we begin.  We’re led by Scott, a classically trained award winning composer, and Chad, a Tony-nominated actor who played Kevin in Come From Away in last night’s show. Through deft scaffolding and encouragement, they have our entire group singing and dancing the first fifty bars of the introductory song within an hour and a half.  They are patient, direct, and effective, unifying a group in which two-thirds claimed they had no musical inclination.

During the time, I think back to my in-flight movie in to JFK—Whiplash.  One of my students had been encouraging me to watch it all year, so when I saw it on the list, I plopped on to watch the maniacal Fletcher, teacher at an elite music conservancy, berate Miles, his drummer prodigy, into greatness.  Fletcher, an Oscar winning role played by J.K. Simmons (who recently reprised his role as J. Jonah Jamison in Spiderman: Far From Home (You’re welcome)) verbally and physically assaults Miles, who endures the abuse for the belief that it will make him great like Charlie Parker.  Here, Scott and Chad were the antithesis, and though I’m not a music teacher, I found comfort in their pedagogy that got a reluctant group to sing. What’s more, we all looked at each other, knowing we could do this.  And we enjoyed it, at least to the extent that we all had “Oy am and Oy-lander” stuck in our head throughout the rest of the trip.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7d_jQycdQGo

For all its landmarks, it’s easy to miss how musical a city New York is.  Our hotel is next to Carnegie Hall, where musicians young and old dashed in and out all week.  Theaters abound throughout the city.  An entire industry to create and supply people for these shows exist.  Street musicians of all stripes dot corners, subway haunts, and parks. Perhaps nothing demonstrates this more than the fact that on Saturday—after we had flown home—Manhattan experience a severe blackout, and the reaction from Broadway companies to Carnegie Hall was to go out on the streets and give free concerts of their material.

 It’s easy to dismiss music as “not my content” or something that only professionals can do. But the truth is music—like art and dance and poetry and free play—is something we all do as children but forget as soon as we grow up to be “serious adults.”  It’s good for us to remember that we still can.  It enriches our humanity past our predefined roles for how we make the cheddar.

To return to that, it was beautiful to see Nic’s radiant face as she sang.  She sings in the shower, or with her headphones on when she thinks I’m not listening.  Like everyone who lost themselves in song, it is a moment of rapture.  I love to see her smile and hear her sing.

And now, on with the rest of the show…

Act III: Respect the Hustle

Friday, as previously stated was our 9th wedding anniversary, so Nic and I were grateful to have the rest of the day to ourselves.  We split off from the Workshop and walked somewhat aimlessly around the Times Square area. Creepily, three full sized Mickey characters with their heads popped up, made their way to us. Two of them grabbed me by the arm and tried to drag me away.  My worst fear come true.  The Mouse had heard all the shit I had been talking. I was getting kidnapped by the Disney Corporation.

Nope.  This is part of the picture hustle in Times Square.  Disney characters (which now includes Marvel in its insidious umbrella of entertainment) walk around, waiting for people to show the slightest bit of interest.  Once you say, “Oh look, mice” or something like that, they bum-rush your and grab your arms.

“Take a pic?  Take a pic?”  And that’s the hustle.  You think you’re getting something for free—like a picture with a famous children’s character, but then you’re expected to go to the store to buy the picture, or pay for the pleasure of the pic.  Ain’t nothing in this life for free.

We head up 4th and take a a left on 9thavenue. At every corner, we dodge people trying to get us on the open-top bus tour.  One guy thanks Nicole for politely declining, as we most people shrug these off at every corner. Nic stops into a touristy store—one on every corner it seems—that hocks Yankees gear, American flags, I Love New York paraphernalia and Trump Bobbleheads.  Even the trash cans have something to say. As we turn left on 9th, the sidewalk swells with a glut of people.  Here must be where the tours start, as one bus is trying to disgorge the tourists and take on a new payload all at the same time.  We duck into a little deli and pick up some lunch to go and decide to walk back up to Times Square for prime people watching.  We cut left up 42nd and dodge more bus offers as we pass Madame Toussads and the Harry Potter show.  Back left into Times square, a group of young guys try to “give” us their CD’s.  We see the famed Naked Cowboy and seven naked female assistants to boot, asking if you want a picture.  Same deal as the mice: it seems free until you take it and they ask you for money. 

We sit down amongst the biggest space of advertisement known to man.  Famous for its annual New Year’s ball drop, this plaza area is well-known internationally, but is essentially a busy shopping and theater district with larger than life advertisements at every turn.  As we sit and eat lunch it is impossible to avoid the repeating ads for the new Cher musical or the latest cosmetics or download Wizards Unite or the M&M Store—with a fifty-foot, creepy bug-eyed M&M looking down on me, beckoning me to sample his chocolate wares—as I chow down a Mexican Chicken Wrap.  Rows of larger than life video screens, more screens being added in construction.  Amidst all this, every manner of tourist stands and has their picture taken or selfies themselves, clicking scenes of screens within screens.  Beside us, a couple of street dwellers bemoan how the area has changed and what it used to be, and as we leave a cop seems to be giving them the low-down on how things get done.

We head back to the hotel.  Nic has some homework to do.  Near our hotel, five or six people adverting for bike rental companies loiter waiting for their marks.  I give in.  Nic’s going to do her work.  I’m going to pedal the park.

The space for bikes is limited to the exterior loop and to no one’s surprise I find myself going the wrong way on the exterior loop.  On the whole, it doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem.  Many of the cyclists are either riding state of the line bikes, crushing the speed, or renting, churning at a slow pace.  I even see one adult who seems to be riding a bike for the very first time.  I pass the sounds of a band warming up and the balcony over the fountain, but everything else—the meadows, the courts and fields, and pool—are seen from a whirring distance.  Still, it is a space under a canopy of trees that changes the tenor of the urban landscape.  I break down a service road and loop left to finally find myself going in the right direction, passing the high rises of Central Park West, wondering which ones Evo Schandler built, which ones Zuul infested.

I make the counter-clockwise loop and am somewhat winded as I begin to make the exit. Of course, I take the wrong road and am again against traffic.  Earlier, it seemed no problem that I was hustling against the flow.  But now, the road is more densely packed as it is later in the afternoon, and I’m about to put someone, namely myself and others, into danger by not knowing how things go around here.  I almost come head to head with a cyclist.

“You’re going the wrong direction!”

I pant, out of breath: “I know.  Thanks.”

I come out of the park and onto 6th avenue next where the traffic spills into 59th street, pitting me against traffic, so I take the bike and walk to drop it off.  A quick shower, and Nic and I are back in the park, taking a leisurely stroll toward the Met.  She has picked the bridges she wants, and we are in full-on photography mode.  Two old men sit and sing over a drum machine with a box in front of them; a song between friends on a Friday night.  A couple of Buddhists offer us peace on a small gold card, but we are wise to this hustle, knowing that even a Buddhist’s prayer comes with an open hand.  We are too late for the zoo but see the sea lion swimming, still giving a show for the few stragglers.  Back in the main way, we hear a band thumping and make our way to Bethesda Fountain, where a young couple is getting their wedding photography done underneath the iconic arches.  On the other side of the arches, a pair of street-performing fiddlers, chanting and singing draw a small crowd with their dance. People are drawn, but I don’t think they make as much as they deserve.  Had I any cash, I would’ve actually rewarded this effort.  It’s nice to be in a city that has room and tolerance for the slightly odd to flourish.  The Friday nightcrowd has settled around the fountain, and the lake boasts a flotilla of rowboats, seemingly archaic with a crowd that’s not entirely sure how to operate them.  We make our way up to the right to the steps of the Met.

Up the steps.  The Met teems with people, both inside and out.  It’s gift shop only as we want to hustle to our final destination.  She walks around, but I decide to take in the scene on the steps at 5th and 82nd. People are ending their week, flocking to the steps.  People excitedly meet each other.  A Corgi flops on the sidewalk. Two guys try to juggle a soccer ball that keeps getting beyond their control.  A single, solitary saxophonist works hard to garner the attention of the crowd, both through pictures of himself claiming his military record, meeting President Clinton, and facility of Asian languages on his donation box, but also on phrases that—while proficiently blown through his horn—fail to make a lasting impression in the collection of humanity here.  He seems unable to dent the consciousness of the crowd, oblivious in their small pockets of chatter on this lovely Friday evening.  His hustle seems ineffective tonight.

Soon, we begin the final trek for the evening. We are heading to DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) in Brooklyn for Nic to weave her photographic magic.  On a rocky beach where the East and Hudson meet to dump into the Upper Bay, it is a destination for Friday night frolickers, young romantics, and—most importantly to our hustle across the city—photographers wishing to get sunset and night skyline pictures of Manhattan.  One specific intersection provides an iconic frame of the Manhattan Bridge with the Empire State Building in the background, which draws photographers of both the camera and the smartphone alike.  We walk down past the burgeoning restaurant scene, re-claiming old industrial space for swanky eateries.  The young couple from Central Park has come here to get their pictures with this iconic backdrop seemingly, more relaxed.  On the shore, a man slyly gets a photographer to capture his wedding proposal.  She says yes.  The crowd erupts in applause.

Further up the park, we find our spot.  Nicole props her camera and plays while I sit and watch young couples canoodling, young children laughing—writing notes to entertain the ten or so readers of this blog.  You gotta put the work in to get it going.

Saturday evening: chasing life in photographs. So much throughout the week has been my perception of the “natural world” imposed on this engineered world of the city.  Here, the sunset comes down across the river and over the mountains.  Here, though, the mountains have their own lights—tiny, individualistic spaces of life reflection.  While nature is a blank canvas on which I often project my own spiritual meaning, the city teems with individual narratives and aspirations.  Momentary blips in the grand scale of time.  Raging bodies steadfastly pushing forward, against, around, next to, and through others.

What I know of the city over the years because of literature, film, music, television comes because of how much of those industries are based here.  They are snippets of representative stories.  I might often think of them as stereotypes.  But the behind the curtain of the Broadway industry this morning makes me recognize the vastness of the individuals involved in this daily hustle.

In Times Square and on the sidewalks, one is immersed in those rivers of humanity.  Here across the river in DUMBO watching the skyline, it is more of the God’s Eye view, watching and contemplating it all swim together.  A thousand little bands in bars.  People working late. People begging for change.  People trying to make their lives meaningful or trying to forget that particular pursuit in hedonistic pleasure. Over and over and over.

There is perhaps no more enduring image for me on this trip than the first night in the subway. Two cars coming together for a brief second at rush hour.  All those people in one place.  A mirror image of oneself.  All in one place.  A quick turn.  Poof.  Divergence.  A new bend in the track.  Brought together for a quick breath. Exhale and go.

A touristy perspective, I guess.  Some people actually live and die here.  A hustle behind me breaks this mediation.  A rescue crew of firemen and divers walk calmly behind us.  The walkie-talkies say a body has been found on Pier 3. The cops are already there.   The next day I look to see if it is in the news.  While it isn’t for this night, bodies seem to wash up in the East River on a fairly regular basis.  No one seems surprised enough to gawk or chase it down.

Across the water, a band floods a bar with sound; across the river, it—along with every raging booze cruise that comes down the river—is but a whisper in the tapestry of sound.

If you know Nic, it’s no surprise that our anniversary meal came at a Mexican Restaurant: Gran Electrica in Brooklyn.  They give a dollar of my margarita purchase to help with an immigrant defense fund, so I’m glad to help their hustle as I dance in my seat to a mixture of Spanish language music and 90s hip-hop on the patio.  We chatter the night away next to a pair of lovers with her mother, easing in and out of Spanish, taking tequila shots.  The night swims in mirth, and we make our way back to the subway.  No need to hustle.  Nic puts her head on my shoulder and we sleepily ride our way back to the hotel.