Jan 11, 2009 Grand Central Station Mezzanine Thanks for the love today, I’m full Today was a day no one would have been surprised if I cancelled. The cold air above the platform was sharp, my guitar strings immediately proved what they are made of: steel, cold steel. Somehow like a little match girl fable stroking a match to create warmth and fantasy, everyone that passed me had huge warm smiles, amazing compliments and just a general warm haze o
Read MoreGrand Central Station Graybar corridor 1/08/10 Graybar performing spot is like performing in a perfect performance hall, the sound, the natural reverberation is incredible. As I sing under the amazing granite-limestone? dome, the sound envelops and carries down the corridor towards the main terminal. Over the past years small kiosks have set up throughout the corridor selling all kinds of stuff. I am sensitive not to be too loud for the merchants who, unlike the steady stream of passing commuters, do get to hear my entire 3 hours of performing. Joe, the coffee shop across from me, brings in a steady crowd and the smell of coffee is intoxicating. Today I set up wondering if it would be too cold, it was in the teens outside and the Lexington doors are only about 200’ away from me, but the air didn’t carry anything too icy! I love singing in this spot, it’s effortless, and today
Read MoreFirst blog of 2010. Yesterday was my first Music Under New York performance of 2010. So is it twenty ten? Two thousand and ten? Two thousand ten? I haven’t settled into anything yet, have you? It's been incredibly cold in NYC, and I was worried my gig would be too cold too play, but it wasn’t. I set up in the Long Island Railroad terminal at the far end of the corridor nearer to 8th avenue. It was cozy and warmish, the only thing that seemed to overwhelm me in this location was the incredible smell of grilled steak or was it just the burned oil from a fryer boiling nearby. I immediatel
Read MoreI never thought I'd be a street performer, my goals were always set for big concert halls and intimate high audio quality rooms, but things changed when I moved back to NYC in 1998 (I lived in France for many years), and found the whole club scene lacking. I started performing in the subway, got accepted into the Music Under New York program which gave me a comfort zone in which to schedule my performances. I never knew how it would make me feel, and it took a while to look beyond the notion that somehow performing in the subway meant the end of the line for my career (excuse the pun). Or a place-holder until the next step. This year I decided to try another angle on how to sell my music, and reestablish myself as a songwriter and showcase that I have more to share than just music. Trying to sell myself as Cathy Grier singer songwriter seemed a bit old school. With the internet and
Read MoreArrived at mosaics spot at 3pm I set up, started playing, took me a while to settle in due to the cold. Steel strings on fingers pretty much sap all the warmth out, and the pick doesn’t stay comfortably between my fingers as all moisture is gone. I love the beauty of the mosaics, there are 2 walls of them. Today I set up with the marketplace scene behind me. I looked across at the wall with the film location scene. The surreal colors constant
Read MoreJohn Lennon remembrance December 8th I will always remember where I was on this day. The shot heard around the earth. Where were you? John Lennon assassinated. My Kennedy? You bet. John Lennon as the leader of my musical generation visualized peace; wrote ‘Imagine’, gave us a chance to see the world as something we could change and make a better place for everyone. A non-violent man lost to violence. I still need to dream and
Read MoreGood news from E.P.A important regulating of greenhouse gases
As the United States attends Copenhagen Climate Talks December 7, 2009, I applaud EPA administrator Lisa Jackson for working to get these findings presented and signed. The regulations are important steps and show positive political will from the US. Still, we all must do much more. I hope the Copenhagen talks will create a swell of attention and action. We all need to be rethinking how we power our world. America should not be allowed to continue to justify polluting in the name of jobs, destroying ecosystems in the name of National Security and use the fear of a damaged economy presumed as
Read MoreWe are so precious.
So how could we have gotten to the point of occupation in the name of liberation?
For eight years I have been shuddering, pained by the loss of life, rush to war, lingering in war, a ‘renewed’ focus on the war and now this.
Continued casualties in the name of national security Continents away.
Increasing troops by thirty thousand? How did ‘they’ arrive at this number? And then be so convinced, that’s all they’ll need, only eighteen months and then home as if on a business trip. Hmmmm, makes one question.
A speech at West Point, to make a military, might point?
Cadets=volunteers who carry the weight of these decisions heavily on their shoulders.
Enlisted under what pressure? No conscription
Read MoreI perform with so many different accompanying sounds-some I work with, with gusto, others I try to tune out, sometimes in vain. Yesterday I was at Whitehall SI ferry terminal-a great enveloping hall. Music flows effortlessly as I don't have to work hard against competing sound. I try to be sensitive to the constant announcements and not sing over. I even think the announcer is sensitive to waiting until I’m not singing to make his speech (but I'm probably dreaming). Before each ferry departure large sliding doors open wide, then slowly close which make people arriving late run, and they sure can run jingling everything in percussive rhythm. The station pipes in bird's song, which I’m not really sure why, and after a while the chirping seems very out of place. Pigeons that live and fly around the space land with a comical skid on the smooth floor, of course kids try to catch them. Adults ignore them, accepting their presence as a matter of fact.
There's a hierarchy of sorts with the commuter
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