After what was an unusually miserable day, I finished running at Union Square last night and opted - as I pretty regularly do when I’m around that area and getting on the L - to just walk all the way to the First Avenue stop, instead of getting on the train at Union Square or Third Avenue. Unless I’m coming from somewhere on 14th, I usually take one of the streets above it for a walk that’s always quieter and generally less chaotic and prettier than 14th, which is kind of a shitshow thoroughfare if you’re just trying to get to the subway. So I walked down 15th all the way east, dropping down First next to Stuy Town, across from Beth Israel, and went underground, still sweaty, still a little pissed off about the last twelve hours I’d just had.
There are usually buskers sitting on the bench as soon as you get down to the Brooklyn-bound side and some of them - like the Japanese guy with the awesomely yelpy voice - are for whatever reason a cut above the rest of the people-with-guitars school of subway busking. Last night was this guy: black dude; early 20s, looked like; suspenders hanging to the side of jeans, black button-up, I think - playing the cello. I didn’t really hear him playing when I sat down next to him, I just thought, oh, a seat, I could use one of those, and took it. And then he started playing, and it was - in my estimation - probably one of the best performances I’ve ever seen of anyone not on some kind of proper stage. I realized this about thirty seconds in, turned on my phone’s voice memo recorder, and stuck it in his direction.
I’ve looked up the lyrics and couldn’t find the song, so I’m pretty sure it’s not a cover; hence, the description of the guy. I’d be really curious to know who he is if you have any idea, or even what the song is if I’m just not looking for it correctly. Not that the song even hit me particularly hard or anything in any literal sense, more out of curiosity. But I can’t say it didn’t seem on point at the moment.
And yeah, I threw a buck in there (which you can hear at the end of the recording a little, under the roar of the train: me, awestruck, mumbling “that was…great” and his very shy “thanks, man”). Anyway: It was one of those moments you occasionally come along on a terrible day when living here, that bizarre thing that can’t really make the day truly and exponentially better, but that is spontaneous and wonderful enough to let you leave it behind and stop it from fucking you up any more than it already did. If you’re capable and willing to accept those things when they come by and then to let them wash over you and your bullshit when they do, well, less than a week under six years to the day since I’ve moved here, and - ridiculous and grand as this all may sound - it’s still making a case for being a pretty great place to live.
