The Big Sleep

Subway musicals

I'm infatuated with the subway system in New York. It's not quite as friendly as anywhere else I've been in the world, but it's unique. My brother likes to call the NY subway "the Underworld", because it is a whole world, a maze of levels and layers of iron and steel... And musicians, with whom I am most (again) infatuated.
In DC, where my brothers live, the subway is civilized: Wishshshshshhh, the train enters the station, people file in and move away from the doors after waiting for the people inside to descend. Everyone has their earphones on, but there is no sound coming out from them. Civilized music levels. The doors close silently. Wishshshshh, and the train is off. The sanitized version of subway experience in suit-filled DC.
In New York, the subway is alive. The conversations abound, waiting to be eavesdropped on (see below the chica and her elvis impersonator). The city is alive, moving, bustling and kicking, over and under, not to mention the chaos which is the subway on Halloween, something I had the (mis?)fortune of witnessing this year. The artists are of all ages, races, and styles. There are the painful ones who murder their instruments and torture my ears (I wanted to snatch away a musician's violin once, the squeaking carriage was a more welcome sound). Rats scurry around happily oblivious to incoming trains. And then these musicians, who want to practice without bothering the neighbours, or make a buck or two, offer you a soundtrack to your life. Below are a few including a Christmas special that I managed to catch on my low resolution phone, and I apologise to the viewers/listeners, as well as to the artists about the audiovisual quality.

A bit of magic, courtesy of the IFC

What should I be doing?

If I decide on peace, have I forsaken my roots? Will my father hate me? Will he say I sided with the enemy? The enemy which stole his house and exiled him forever from the streets of his childhood? If I decide on peace, have I forsaken the struggle for justice? Will my friends hate me? Will they say I have surrendered to a sugar coated Western project?
And so I read a proverb today: If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. What should we be doing differently?
What areas are we all unwilling to consider? What are options that can change a 60 year old status quo? (Or has it been longer?)

Faithful Branding

He'brew
The Chosen
Beer

Non smoking city

Welcome to New York
Could I see some ID please?
Take it as a compliment mam,
cause you sure don't look your age.

And I'm in New York, at 33
not quite as young as...
and I look around me
trying to find fire
in a non smoking city.

Surely there must be
a man with fire here,
surely that which you hold
is a smoking gun,
surely this is smoke I see...

And the only fire I know
is asleep, where I come from.
6:00 a.m. in Beirut.
Sir,
could you spare a match?

Confusion is a state of lights

I don't think there's a single visitor/resident of New York who hasn't seen this at least once in the past week. And although it's pretty common, I think everybody pauses, takes out his/her phone and snaps a pic, because for some reason, it resonates with everyone in the same way. This is a crazy, confusing, contradictory city. (But we love it, we confess.)