Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Reminds Me of Platinum Street





Down near the western gate of Chaoyang Park this morning.  The apartment of a friend which I’ve been visiting for decades now but haven’t been back to for a while.  Had meat to bike over here last night but it got dark and I was tired and took a cab instead.  Leaving this morning at 6:45AM, I am determined to find a QingJu blue bike and pedal my way home. 

A pal in San Francisco and I have been building a play list together of jazz we love, hard bop mostly, on Spotify.  He’s added ten new songs and it’s a perfect morning, experiencing new jazz, biking along Lucky Street which I wouldn’t otherwise consider if I were in a cab. 



The ginkgo trees!  Wow, they are as gold as can be this morning.  I t reminds me of Platinum Street in Shrokanedai over in Tokyo.  That street also looks like this in the early fall.  My wife and I had been thinking about the trees we used to see in Beijing that we want to plant in New York.  I must add gingko trees to that list.



This may be the most fun I’ve had since I landed.  Nora always used to say that James Joyce would sit in his room, laughing to himself as he wrote Ulysses.  I love that image of him, with this horn rimmed glasses and brogue, delighted at what he’d written.  I spend the whole ride grunting musical accompaniments to this these bop tracks, shouting things that no one around me understands in a menagerie of accents.  With my phone playing the music aloud from my shirt pocket.  Much more fun than I’d anticipated. 



Wednesday, 11/06/19


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