From: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org (jinglejangle-digest) To: jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Subject: jinglejangle-digest V4 #113 Reply-To: jinglejangle@smoe.org Sender: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jinglejangle-digest Thursday, September 20 2001 Volume 04 : Number 113 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [MLL] I Love NY (Pt. 1) ["Journey Bear" ] [MLL] I Love NY (Pt.2) ["Journey Bear" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 23:54:21 +0000 From: "Journey Bear" Subject: [MLL] I Love NY (Pt. 1) [I posted this elsewhere on Monday after spending Sunday evening in NY and getting two hours sleep. It's long and rambling but I think it scans OK. I still haven't had much sleep, so I don't feel up to rewriting this anymore. I hope you find something to relate to in all this. I have since learned that there are many displays like the one I describe throughout the city, indeed all over the country, as people try to find a way to communicate their emotions.] Dear Friends I'm going to try to put into words what I just experienced in the last 24 hours. It's not going to be easy. Or short ;-) I'm sure I've mentioned Patti Rothberg (fabulous semi-famous singer/songwriter/rocker/painter from NYC). One of the blessings of my life has been becoming friends with this very talented artist and wonderful human being and her guitarist/producer/main squeeze Freddie Katz, who is also a VTA and WHB. They came up to Westport CT for a family function on Sunday, and I drove down to visit for a while afterward. I hadn't seen them since the tragedy, and we needed to connect. We were trying to decide what to do until they had to take a train back to the city - dinner, coffee, drinks - when it came out that when they got back they were going to go to Washington Square Park in the heart of Greenwich Village and make some music for the people who were congregating there. Patti had told me a couple of times already that I should see what is going on in the park. I was already curious to see New York for myself, but I am in the middle of an enormous project at home and really have to devote as much time as possible to this for the time being. But I got to thinking, where we were was only an hour away from the city, this was a good time as any to go - in fact, better than most - and, as Patti pointed out, teasingly, I'm forever going on Adventures in Driving and Music. So on the spur of the moment I turned the car onto the highway and drove on in. Whenever I go into the city I hit traffic, and have to take alternate routes. This time the traffic stayed good all the way, as if we were being led in, and we did actually get there in an hour. We stopped at Freddie's place to his guitar and headed down to the park. We got to Washington Square Park a little after 11. Driving down 5th Avenue you can see the arch at the north end of the park and, in the distance, a cloud of smoke hanging in the air where the towers used to be. The arch is fenced off now, and all the way around it people have hung sheets and large pieces of paper for people to write on. These are covered with messages, and I'm happy to say they are mostly positive. There is some verbal vehemence, to be expected, and I am grateful that most of these advocated revenge on terrorists not genocide (unlike the pickup truck we saw in CT that was covered with signs that said "Nuke bin Laden" etc). But the overwhelming majority are prayers, remembrances, and pleas for peace. There are plenty of flags affixed to the fence, and they have been written on too. Nearly every available surface has been filled, and they have had to hang more paper on the handrails along nearby walkways. People wrote in many languages besides English. I saw French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Armenian, and Arabic. There was one from Ireland - "You've seen us through a lot, we'll see you through this." The saddest one I saw said "John - - Diane said you flew like a bird. God grant us peace." I can only think that is from a widow talking about her daughter. There were many drawings of the towers, ranging in size from postcard to placard. Particularly poignant was a cute caricature with angel's wings. The pavement on the park side of the fence was strewn with hundreds of candles, and also flowers, photographs and xeroxes of loved ones, and other mementoes. There were some large handmade construction paper greeting cards expressing sympathy, put together by schoolchildren. Someone had left unlit candles for people who wanted to light one, and there were bowls of magic markers for anyone to write with. This made a silent but powerful testimonial to the indomitable spirit of New Yorkers and sympathizers - New Yorkers in spirit. My contributions were "Shalom = Salaam" and "Peace for all peoples," and some candle repair. Patti left some flowers in which she had stuck a homemade flag with a peace sign in the blue field. A few people were playing guitars, sounding distracted or like they were taking a break. One of them, Scott from New Jersey, seemed to know Patti and Freddie and her songs. They quickly got going on some of them: "Flicker," "Late Late Show," "Pirate Radio" (a funny rarity that showed Scott's eclectic taste). Sad to say, since we left directly from Westport, I had decided not to make the 1-1/2 hour trip back home to get my mandolin. I borrowed someone's guitar and played bass lines on it, and occasionally used a guitar case as a hand drum. There were about thirty people in the vicinity, and some clapped and made requests. A lot of these were fulfilled: "Stairway To Heaven," "Into The Mystic" - a very cool request and even cooler that someone knew it. At one point the cop car stationed nearby drove over. We thought there had been a noise complaint (it was about 1 AM then) but they wanted to hear the music. One of them even requested something by Elton John. He wanted "Tiny Dancer," but Scott came out with "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." He and Freddie also got into some cool double leads on "Reeling In The Years." We did "Wild Horses," "Sweet Home Alabama," "All Along The Watchtower," "Stop Dragging My Heart Around," "Roll Over Beethoven" - all over the map, and a lot of the usual suspects, to be sure, but I could feel people coming together, leaving behind their troubles for a little while. A couple of guys were into singing harmony, working out parts like pros, and I joined in as best I could. I also sang lead on "Wild Horses," one of my faves. Being without my usual instrument forced me to find other ways to contribute, and in a way this was both liberating and adventuresome. I got so into playing ersatz bass that I got a blister on my thumb. Somewhere in the middle of this I realized I was concentrating so hard on what I was doing that all my fears and concerns had left me, at least temporarily. I can't believe I stayed as long as I did, but I'm glad I did. This not only satisfied my curiosity to some extent, but also afforded me an opportunity to reconnect with humanity, in the form of two dear friends and a bunch of strangers who became friends as we spent more time together. [Pt 2 will follow] _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 23:57:35 +0000 From: "Journey Bear" Subject: [MLL] I Love NY (Pt.2) [Thanks for reading this far. There's just a bit more] I was really impressed with people's attitudes - down and subdued, yes, but also resilient and open and a little proud. I could tell they felt that it was going to take more than that to get New Yorkers down. A good amount of the messages were about civic pride, sort of verbally sticking their chins out, as if to say, "We can take that and more." As we were getting ready to leave around 2:30 Freddie noticed four young people lying down to one side of the arch, right on the sidewalk, and engaged them in conversation. He told me later that when he was in high school in the late 70s, he would come into the Village (he's a native New Yorker) and sometimes do the same thing, in the same spot. And here were these late teens/early 20s girls and guys, in hippie clothes and with long hair and beads and bright beaming faces, so many years later, doing the exact same thing. I said that was like a tradition, that people tap into that vibe, the vibe that sustained The Grateful Dead and the Dead Heads for so long. And the people from back then, who finally cut their hair and got jobs, a lot of them still feel the same way about the world. And there are still people who are living the way we envisioned back then - living in peace and harmony with nature - but we never hear from them because they have just gone their own way and are living their dreams apart from "normal" society. Seeing these young people, willing to be so uninhibited as to curl up on the sidewalk and lie on their backs and gaze up at the stars in the heart of this city with so much grief so nearby, I felt a real hope for the future. Just one more thing. Every now and then I would look downtown to the cloud, which changed its shape and would be lit differently as its density shifted. This was not an overpowering image by itself, but what it represented was chilling. One time I noticed a vertical line in the middle of it, a little darker charcoal grey than its surrounding area. I looked away and looked back a few times, it was really there. A couple of people told me later they saw it too. It looked to me like a ghost of a tower - aren't ghosts supposed to be visible in smoke? - or the spirit of the tower still inhabiting that space. Maybe it means the spirit is going to stay there and wait for its body to be built again. I do hope so. OK, one more thing. Whenever I go into the city I pick up a few copies of The Village Voice - for some friends as well as myself. It comes out on Wednesday, and since this was Sunday there weren't any left in the village. So on my way out of town I cruised the streets slightly to the north. On 14th St. I found a box that wasn't empty. The cover is a full-page color photo of the second plane hitting, a bright orange fireball against the brilliant blue sky, and the headline just said "THE BASTARDS!" and underneath this "Terrorists bring war to our shores." I was just about to drive off when I noticed there was a deli open across the street. Since it was well after 3AM and I was facing a one-hour drive to the rest area where I was planning to sleep a little, I thought some coffee was in order. Behind the counter was a slight man who clearly could trace his ancestry to either the Near East or the Indian subcontinent (I am not good at making finer distinctions; I must learn). The menu, however, featured Greek, Indian, Near Eastern, and American foods. All these cultures coexisting on one menu. I couldn't figure out which was the dominant cuisine, but the spinach pie looked good, and I also got a couple of vegetable pakora, an Indian snack, curried vegetables in folded-over dough, deep-fried (I passed on the baklava, though). This and a large coffee cost all of $3.50 - a bargain, in pricey New York and in the middle of the night. I thought about wishing the deli guy peace - "Salaam aleikim" - but I didn't, for several reasons: I'm as unsure of the pronunciation as the spelling, and didn't want to inadvertently offend; I wasn't sure of his nationality anyway; I'm still kind of shy; I don't like putting people on the spot. But the main reason is I didn't feel ready to reach out to someone who very likely belonged to an ethnic community that enabled terrorism to grow to such an extent and cause so much grief. I know this is prejudice, and guilt by association, quite irrational and unfounded, but these feelings were real and raw. I felt it best to just underplay this little drama, and looked him in the eyes, we shared a silent nod, and I took my multi-ethnic meal and left. I felt disappointed with myself that I couldn't get past my emotions, but then again expressing one's emotions is often a selfish act, and he very likely didn't want to be bothered at this hour with any of this. I hope I can find my way through these feelings to a place where I can accept and respect people from all cultures. My faith in humanity has taken a real beating, but some of the experiences I had this night are leading me back and restoring my belief in a world where we can all live together, if not in peace and harmony, then at least in acceptance of cultural diversity. As Rodney King put it, "Can't we all just get along?" I do hope so. Peace, JourneyBear _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ------------------------------ End of jinglejangle-digest V4 #113 **********************************