you have GOT to see this.

this is AMAZING!!! ...those europeans are crazy ...seriously crazy...

http://www.biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=4262

...i'd totally do it. ;)

...the man himself...

unbelievable as it may seem, organizing (and by that i mean, looking through photos in) my room, i came across the exact moment i was previously describing. i was so excited! it's not great quality... but use your imagination. his back is to the York minster and it started snowing about 15 seconds after i took the photo.
there he is ...and the thing i can't shake from my head is... why? presumably if he had a piano, he has a home. it's not your typical busking instrument. does he play across from the minster as a hobby? part of the tourist trade? where does he call home? how many family? do they even care he exists? do they know? i mean, at five he wasn't thinking to himself "i hope one day to busk w/ my piano before the York minster" he could've been a physician or a grocer. a divorced father of three who left because he'd convinced himself they'd be better off w/o him ...but he wasn't a street musician that locals knew or walked up to greet on their walk to work... he was a fixture. he sat at the mouth of the alley and he belonged... it was his. that quiet nobody. always there, a mystery. and no one knows... neither history nor present, likes nor dislikes, origin nor purpose, not family not friends not status... nothing. do they even wonder as they walk by?

it was freezing outside, especially after the snow began to drift. did he have a home to go to? what did he do w/ his piano when he went home? push it all the way there over the cobbles, shuddering and jolting? or did he sleep on the bench in front of the cathedral not 4 yards from his piano, his one possession?

i'm annoyed now that i didn't buy him a coffee... i didn't really know how to *travel* then. perhaps that doesn't make sense... but please yourself. he's of interest to me anyway

a winter song

pandora found this for me today. and i can't picture it except through the kids' perspective. snow falling and the yellow glow through a pane-glass window to a man at a piano the music muted as it travels through the glass and he pauses to make notations on the sheet music he's writing. and it reminds me of a time in york outside the cathedral. the narrow alleys open onto a very brief space of grounds surrounded by wrought iron fencing around the cathedral rising high against the city. it started to snow. a man sat at an ancient, beat up piano wedged against the brick wall of the alley building, a clock mounted on the corner above his head. an equal dilapidated top hat atop the back of the piano to gather the efforts of his busking. to this day, i don't know how he managed it...it was so cold. his breath fogging out behind his muffling of shaggy hair and scarf and overcoat and semi-fingerless gloves. playing. the classics, classical...everything instrumental. i almost wish he'd played this song, but perhaps it would've been too perfect.

amazing music ...amusing video