The Heights

I'm discovering a cool little slice of New York in historic Brooklyn Heights. I'm about to leave to go there again to study with Yoshio Kurahashi, the great shakuhachi player and teacher.

He is teaching at Dan Soergel's place on a street called Columbia Heights. It is the first (or last) street in Brooklyn, just above the BQE, hugging the cliffs to which the nabe owes it's name. That is lower Manhattan, framed and vertical, in the pic above, from last Sunday the 20th.

I say historic because it was right at the northern end of this street that old Geo. Washington himself evacuated a few thousand Revolutionary soldiers across the East River on a foggy summer's night in August of 1776.

The fateful "live to fight another day" retreat at the inevitable conclusion of the first major clash of arms - of course it would be in Brooklyn - and just a few weeks after the upstarts had held their treasonous spectacle in Congress in the sweltering heat of Philadelphia (July 4th rings a bell).

New York Fu#%in' City

This news is somewhat dated, but still with me. Two consecutive Wednesdays I went out to the van to drive to my shakuhachi lesson in Brooklyn and found my gas gauge not just on empty, but BONE dry. I keep a pretty close eye on the fuel reading (who doesn't these days?) and know that I had something less than a half tank, but not anywhere close to a flatline. I remember the Wednesdays because they both followed holidays - the 26th of Dec. and the 2nd of Jan.
In both instances I was off the Tuesdays prior and the car sat, up on Riverside Dr., the second time on Henshaw (somehow the probability of bad things happening to your car increase exponentially the longer it sits on the street).
I pretty much knew someone had siphoned the tank after the first time, the second time compelled me to act, hence the portrait of my new fuel savior (no problems since!). Can you believe that shit? Has it gotten THERE? This was a first (and then a second).

Two Years, Counting

It will be a while until the date Jan. 4th doesn't get my attention. That was a dark, dark period in 2006. It has been a gradual improving, strengthening of the left shoulder area. I don't think about it as much as I used to and I experience pain or discomfort more and more rarely - although it is still with me. How much am I just used to the "new normal", how much is it "really back"?. Planning on having the pin taken out in a few weeks. Moving on.

Young 2008,
Old Manhattan