Today has been one of the most wonderful, delightful days of the entire year. The bar exam may be in 8 days, but I was blissfully happy for four hours today. This despite the fact that I was actually memorizing the law on New York Professional Responsibility during that time!!
So, what was the cause of all this zen, nirvana? I decided that my stress level had become too high and I spent four hours in Washington Square Park. The weather was wonderful. I sat on a bench in the shade and the occasional breeze cooled me down. A short while after I arrived, four musicians appeared and started setting up nearby me. There was a trumpet player in a mauve shirt and bright red hair, a double bass player sporting dreadlocks and the most crazy tie-died pants with all sorts of prints on them (CRO would have been proud), a sax player in a sports jersey, and a drummer. It took them ages to set up and I was occasionally entertained by the trumpet player throwing up his mute to chase away the pigeons that would gather from time to time in the branches above them.
Eventually they started playing. The first few songs were clearly warm ups and there was a little rust in the horn player's sound. However, soon it got really cracking. These guys were good. They could play fast and slow, they could tease the low, seductive notes out of a horn and blast the loudest, shortest, highest riffs you can imagine. The trumpeter had a neat trick of playing two horns at once. And just when you thought things couldn't get better... they had company. Ryo and Tomo (of presumably Japan - MW would be so proud) turned up. Ryo is a fantastic trumpet player and Tomo plays the guitar. The horn players were now playing off each other and it was amazing.
The park was starting to fill up. All sorts of dogs trotted by with their owners. Everybody, from the homeless, to people kitted out in Chanel, to children to elderly people, to tourists seemed to be there. A baby rushed straight for the jazz and started swaying - teetering from one foot to another on his unsteady legs. A couple of hours later, I couldn't believe it, when the band was joined by yet another musician - this time a keyboard player with the largest Afro of pure snow white. I was in bliss.
And just when I though I had stumbled into some magical wonderland, I looked up and saw a man, dressed as a Greek Orthodox priest with a bright red bicycle light flashing insistently on his belt, carrying a huge American flag and dancing vigorously to the jazz music. Well... this is New York. It had to get weird.
So, what was the cause of all this zen, nirvana? I decided that my stress level had become too high and I spent four hours in Washington Square Park. The weather was wonderful. I sat on a bench in the shade and the occasional breeze cooled me down. A short while after I arrived, four musicians appeared and started setting up nearby me. There was a trumpet player in a mauve shirt and bright red hair, a double bass player sporting dreadlocks and the most crazy tie-died pants with all sorts of prints on them (CRO would have been proud), a sax player in a sports jersey, and a drummer. It took them ages to set up and I was occasionally entertained by the trumpet player throwing up his mute to chase away the pigeons that would gather from time to time in the branches above them.
Eventually they started playing. The first few songs were clearly warm ups and there was a little rust in the horn player's sound. However, soon it got really cracking. These guys were good. They could play fast and slow, they could tease the low, seductive notes out of a horn and blast the loudest, shortest, highest riffs you can imagine. The trumpeter had a neat trick of playing two horns at once. And just when you thought things couldn't get better... they had company. Ryo and Tomo (of presumably Japan - MW would be so proud) turned up. Ryo is a fantastic trumpet player and Tomo plays the guitar. The horn players were now playing off each other and it was amazing.
The park was starting to fill up. All sorts of dogs trotted by with their owners. Everybody, from the homeless, to people kitted out in Chanel, to children to elderly people, to tourists seemed to be there. A baby rushed straight for the jazz and started swaying - teetering from one foot to another on his unsteady legs. A couple of hours later, I couldn't believe it, when the band was joined by yet another musician - this time a keyboard player with the largest Afro of pure snow white. I was in bliss.
And just when I though I had stumbled into some magical wonderland, I looked up and saw a man, dressed as a Greek Orthodox priest with a bright red bicycle light flashing insistently on his belt, carrying a huge American flag and dancing vigorously to the jazz music. Well... this is New York. It had to get weird.
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