Not much to See Much to Listen to

It was a foggy Thursday morning in New York. Every where you looked there was a thick gray mist that obscured one's view in every direction.
It was a kind of murk that somehow even made my thoughts feel dull, with no point or edge or even brightness.

The sun struggled, in the early dawn, to push back and vaporize the damp veil, but instead hid, in the soft hush of the sky.

The streets looked as though life had stopped. That people for awhile, had no reason to get up and go. Better to huddle indoors, over hot cups of this and that. And, just wait, for the bright call that might not come on such a day heavy with gloom, were no shadows could rise or fall.












Nature had its way. No bright bits of man's invention would lift the weight of unseeing obscurity.







And in a small park I heard a bright sound pushing through the dim. If filled the stillness of the earth with a sweet melody that could not be held down by cloud and sky.

One lone goose stood and stared on big black webbed feet. Who knows what he saw, but I do know what he heard to capture his attention, and keep him from splashing away in the murky pond beside.

It was just some musicians rehearsing. Not a performance, not perfection, just getting better, and pushing back the damp cloak of gray for at least a little while.
Click the button to hear what the goose and I heard.

Statues and Icons

This is Little Joe. He doesn't come to the Smile enough. He is a guy who likes my steakburgers and I in turn like his stories. Usually one of my steakburgers is enough for him but I can never get enough of his stories.
He is a guy who moves fast, and when he comes into the store, he is always on the go and rarely sits down.
He told me once, how he met heavy weight champ, Muhammed Ali, shortly after he had won the title from Sonny Liston. They were both Muslims and must have met at one of the local Mosques. He told me that Muhammed Ali borrowed a friend of his motorcycle one day, and had it out so long, they didn't think he was ever coming back. I asked him if he had taken pictures, and he gave me an, 'aw shucks look.' As if to say, when this kind of thing happens, you just have to look quick. If it is really important, then you simply hold it for safe keeping in your heart. The only place that really counts.

Here he is telling me about James Brown and how in about 1969, he was driving a 56 Ford Fairlane and James Brown was in a brand new corvette. There was a hamburger joint near his home on Linden Boulevard. He shows up there and wants to show how fast the new corvette is to all the young guys hanging out there. He fires the thing up, burns rubber, and fires off down Linden boulevard, in the direction of his house, a few blocks away. He doesn't get very far, before he looses control, and crashes it into a tree in front of his own house.

I say to Little Joe, "there aren't any trees in front of James Brown's house. I have seen it." He tells me, "Not after he crashed his corvette into it."


Kaivalya is the father of two rather incredible sons. He has also spent his life being a school teacher in the UK. At heart though, he is a very gifted artist, who is so visually remarkable, that he can create, paint, build, and sculpt, just about anything. He is also a good actor, and if you push the button on the video, you can see he knows how to speak as well about statues.

Heads Up

This is the kind of scene I like a lot, a handshake and a smile, first thing in the morning. It is one of life's little pleasures, the kind of thing that can make my day.
This is an old friend of mine named Udipan, and one of his daughters. He and his family are visiting New York right now from New Zealand.
There are a lot of folks in town now visiting, who are members of my group. It is a yearly celebration that takes place over 10 days in April. A scene like this reminds me that we are all part of a big family. One that manages to collect itself together from all over the world.


Of course you don't always get this kind of cheery greeting. Sometimes it is just about food and phones.












People will come in to my place of work, deep in their own little worlds. They require little from me other than to prepare their food. There is no exchange of much energy at all really. In the course of a long and busy day this is okay.

Then there are those like my friend of many years Annugata. He often has interesting views of life and his place in the great struggle to evolve.
His views, by many, might be considered a bit unorthodox.
He is telling me about a realization about existence that he came upon for himself the other day. I am really busy preparing something, and encourage him to tell me all about it.

He says that this is not the time and place, and I suggest, that true, this is not a quiet and contemplative garden, in which to discuss the issues of life, but that nonetheless it is after all, The Smile of the Beyond. A place that takes equal pride in food as well as philosophy.

So he describes for me his observation that all people are capsules existing in an infinite universe. It is their responsibility and task, to become aware of this infinity around themselves, as they grow in life. He says, if people are unprepared for the infinite and just let it in, they will simply, "blow up." I don't think he came up with a description of what that would sound like.
He also said, "that what allows you to open up to it over the years is your meditation." The more you become aware of this, the more you like doing it.
He says, "it took me 50 years to come up with that."

I hand him a cup of tofini, that I just made. I tell him that, in the same time it took him to explain the meaning of existence, I made a batch of tofini.
While he is solving the mysteries of the Universe, I am trying to feed it.
I also said, that to get to hear, the meaning of life explained to me in just 20 minutes was well worth a 4 ounce cup of tofini.

Bringing the Best

The Margaret Tietz Center has been a fixture of my New York neighborhood since about forever. It sits up smartly on 164th st, and from my point of view, is not architecturally an eyesore to look at.
They probably knocked down some pretty nice houses years ago when it was built, but that was long before I ever hung up my hat permanently, in Queens.
When I came back from North Africa I could not help but notice that there had been some significant changes going on there in my absence. This sign, with its cheery message, had sprung up probably while I was gazing slack jawed at the pyramids.
The first thing that captures my attention is the kindness and consideration that goes with using the words, "Bringing the Best to Queens."
They claim to not just be bringing good stuff, but rather categorically speaking, they are bringing the best.
Now to be honest, I am not really sure what their best is. What is the pleasing gift they are they about to contribute to my neighborhood, and just how they are going to make it better?
What it looks like they are doing, and I am no expert here, is that they have just torn up a nice expanse of once lush green lawn and are going to pave it over and make a parking lot. Maybe they are maybe they aren't. When you see a lot of mud and a back hoe, that is what comes to mind.

What most folks don't see, I suspect, is that while excavating in front of the building, they somehow did not dig up a nice pretty row of hyacinths. Or at least not yet. Despite big machines, and stomping men, they are for the most part doing pretty well, as far as fragrant spring flowers go.
I thought this little observation goes a fair distance in explaining the purpose of this blog, which is the discovery and enjoyment of beauty in unexpected places and unforeseen ways.






And in case you are wondering, the closer I got to this little patch of flowers, the more fragrant and beautiful they became.



Click on picture to make larger

Flowers in Trees

Last week I was speaking to my folks who have had a very cold and snowy winter, up North in Toronto.
Weather is always a topic of conversation and when there are such differences of climate between NY and To, it comes up often.
We also talk a lot about gardens, and I often get to brag about how this flower or that shrub has come into bloom, while my parents give a little gasp, signifying that they are weeks away from such a glorious event.
My Dad has a thing for forsythia. I do not know for sure whether or not he likes it a lot or whether, it is for him simply a good and clear sign of spring.
He had told me, that once while traveling through New York during the second world war that he had seen it blooming here. The date he clearly remembers is March 17th, as that is St.Patricks day.



Every year I scavenge around Queens looking for the first yellow flowers. To date I have not been able to equal his discovery of years ago.
I thought maybe that we had succeeded here this year while I was away. It had been a very temperate and pleasant winter, and while I was in North Africa, the weather was consistently mild. I did not get back however, until the 27th, so I will never know for sure if the yellow bushes blossomed with their spring time promise.


At the end of our conversation about weather, and getting back into the swing of things, my Mum asked about Pussy Willows. I realized, that she too, always asks about them, every spring, in her own quiet way. There was a warm loving sound in her voice, that only a mom can make. She had asked about them with the kind of expression, that made me want to run out the back door right then and there. Cut some, bundle them up, and drive north and take them to her door.
I could not do that of course. All I could do was take these pictures and tell her that I loved her.

Everything in Nothing, Nothing in Everything

We had been driving due south in Tunisia for some hours, and then it happened, we came upon the Sahara. You are mentally preparing for it, with every dry mile, with every diminishing scrap of green. Then it is just there, vast and incomprehensible. To your feet, it of course feels like walking on a soft beach, but in your gut, you know that over this dune, and then the next, is just more desert.
click on this image to make big...there is a man on a hill in the distance.
The miracle of the desert is that life exists there in so many subtle and amazing ways.
Immediately you realize that place is filled with absolute silence.
Because there had been no wind, before we arrived, the sand was still covered by small, almost invisible tracks, of creatures that could not be seen.




Every bit of green vegetation stands out like a beacon of life. Because it was spring, and there was enough moisture in the air, and the temperature had yet to make the sand bake, there were beautiful flowers here and there.











Some so precious and delicate it was almost impossible to believe.










When you trekked back across the sand and over the dunes to the road, you could see life was much different here. These camels are not for tourists. Not for the idle ones who drift down the highway from the lush north. These were working camels. Cared for by a man who worked them every day and still could smile.





A very different sort of miracle took place in a very small town near by called Douz. By chance, or by a miracle perhaps, we came upon Tunisia's most famous athlete and one of the greatest distance runners of all time, Mohamed Gammoudi.
He had long been a hero of mine and I never even dreamt that I would get a chance to meet him. He had won 4 medals from 3 Olympic games, a gold, 2 silver and a bronze. He was proud to be the first Arab African to win an Olympic medal.
In this picture he is beating the legendary Kip Keino in Tokyo to win his gold. According to Runners World magazine he will have figured in 2 of the greatest distance races of all time.
Once in competing in 1964 with upstart Billy Mills of the US, and then 8 years later when he was tripped up by Lasse Viren in the 10,000.
I will tell him that I had truly wished to see him compete when I attended the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. He will gaze at me with a wistful look, and say in Arabic, "Ah, the African boycott. It was to be my fourth and last Olympics and I was in the best shape of my life."
He will then turn to me and smile boldly. It will be the expression of a man who has achieved much, has long ago released his grasp on any regrets in his life, and has gone on to use his fame for the betterment of sport and the people of his country.
"Sports is the best way to gather people together. With God's help I hope all the world lives in peace, and all the wars and problems stop."

Do or do not, there is no try...Yoda "Star Wars"

As I look back at my visit to Tunisia I am surprised at how very little I knew, before arriving, about the country, its people, and the places we would visit there. I suppose that I pictured that it would be like Egypt, which it wasn't at all. On one of our first trips we headed out from Gabes towards Matata.





It seemed as though, that every mile we traveled from the Capital Tunis, was towards more desert like conditions. From time to time you could see small Berber camps out across the dry flat plains. Sheep were gathered in flocks wherever there was even a speck of green.

Then, for no apparent reason, there would be a very small Oasis. A lush expanse of green surrounded by rock and desert.










We had stopped for tea once and I went off across the plains to try and photograph some sheep. I had brought with me a treat for the shepherd, who looked as though he most likely had seen few tourists, little alone ones with bits of cake. You could hear the snip, snip, of their teeth tearing at bits of weed. They moved and ate and never seemed to stop. I sat in front of them as they nibbled and chewed towards me. I was waiting for the ideal shot that would have come but for the fact that one inquisitive sheep, stuck his face so close to mine, I could not shoot. I rubbed his ears instead and he wandered off.





We stopped at another place where fresh bread and tea were served. Here the men are dipping bread into a bowl of olive oil and honey. A traditional meal.
A cat, who lived here, and was not too interested in people, enjoyed a nap away from it all.


Click on this picture to make it big










Then we came upon something that everyone recognized. It was a location in Tunis that had been used 30 years ago for the original Star Wars movie.

Everyone could quote lines from this movie. I sighed with relief. The force was with us. It took me several hours to stop from quoting Yoda.


Do or do not, there is no try








When you wonder how set designers, sometimes come up with other worldly sets, when you come here and see this, you can easily realize that in this case, it was very much part of the real world inspirsation.








The place is several hundred years old and there are a few other similar homes in the area. I never learned if they were a case of, man taking advantage of nature. I do not know, whether or not, the deep holes are all naturally created, and then man came along and simply dug out the rooms. Or just that to escape the heat, they just dug everything out. I suspect after wandering around that nature came up with the concept first.

Its not clear to me, if it is just tourists who book into the hotel, who want to take a nights rest in a place far away. Or whether regular terrestrial travelers come here as well. The rates are very reasonable, but you don't get any windows.





I for one lost interest fairly quickly. It is people who interest me most. And this little kid lived just down the street from the Hotel. The people here have probably seen more tourists than they would like. No doubt they come by the bus load.
To see a face like this, I would come a long way too.










It was very much a sight seeing and recreation day, this trip out of Gabes. Our van with guide was moving along most of the day and we could just look out and take it all in. The landscape, nature, its people and begin to understand and enjoy the experience which is Tunisia.