A Movable Feast

Let’s start with the food. I had the most marvelous Turkish breakfast put together by Betul, my gracious host, and then met another Orff colleague for lunch at an Indian restaurant that lifted me to another stratosphere of culinary delight. (Dishoom is the name in case you’re ever in London. Get the Dishoom Chaat!)

 

Dinner was at a Syrian restaurant (Imad’s) that again brought falafel, pita and baba ganoush to new levels. Can someone remind me why people are so hostile to immigrants? To paraphrase Shakespeare, “If food be the music of love, play on!”

 

Then an afternoon on a dual pilgrimage. First to Schott publishers who published my Play, Sing and Dance book in 2002, a book that I believe still holds up. I wanted to introduce myself and meet someone there to discuss translations and other issues. I walked in and immediately recognized the person talking to the clerk. She was a music teacher in Belgium who was in my Saturday workshop and taking my advice to buy my book right here in London at the publisher’s bookstore. Problem was, they don’t stock it!!! They have a music book of the songs from Monster Inc. and a bunch of Disney books, but God forbid they carry something about music education. Aargh. 

 

Well, the consolation prize was that the teacher told me she meant to share with me that being in my workshop connected her to a long-forgotten childhood delight in music and reminded her why she loved music. That was worth the trip.

 

I went on to see if Foyle’s bookstore carried it and they didn’t and the kind man at the computer looked it up and noticed that it was labelled “out of print” in the U.K.. News to me. But they did have a way to easily order my Jazz, Joy and Justice book and also my other 8 books came up on the screen. While I was there, I bought the book The Body Keeps the Score  feeling that I needed to know more details about the flip side of my Humanitarian Musician thesis. It's a book about trauma and the way it lodges itself in our body and blocks the flow of energy out into life. The opposite of the music teacher above whose body also kept the score about her joyful musical experiences and felt that released from the joyful playing, singing and dancing we did. 

 

On I walked down Oxford Street, a leaf floating down the roaring stream of humanity out shopping and found my way to my second destination, The Golden Eagle Pub. There’s a longer story, but at the end of my college choir trip in 1973, I spent a week in London (and then another hitchhiking to Cornwall and back) and ended up stumbling into a little job playing piano at this Pub. I probably knew some 12 jazz songs back then and not that well, but it was enough for the manager to hire and pay me. 

So here I was again, 55 years later, the pub still there with a piano tucked against the wall.  The bartender told me that they have a piano player, but he only plays on Tuesday and Friday. When asked if he might let me play one tune to complete a little life cycle, he thought it might be possible but couldn’t guarantee it. We’ll see if I decide to go back. 

 

From there I met Betul, we went to that Syrian restaurant and then a stroll through Piccadilly Circus with its brightly-lit musical theaters and then back to the house. She shares my interest in trauma and I told her about someone named Thomas Huebl and she told me about someone named Peter Levine and we found a Youtube conversation between them! It was 56 minutes long, so I assumed we’d watch just a little bit. But we both were so drawn into it that we went the whole 56 minutes. More food for thought in this day of movable feasts, but I need to let it settle before trying to comment. 

 

Meanwhile, a little photo gallery.