Mole in the Ground on a Brooklyn Sidewalk

With today’s chilly winds and snow in the forecast, I like to remember last June when it was humid and sticky and blazing hot in the sun on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.

Paul Friedman and I had agreed to play on the street as part of Make Music NY 2012; a city-wide festival of concerts presenting thousands of musicians playing the sidewalks and parks all over New York City. The kind folks at Fifth Avenue Record and Tape let us set up in front of their store. My tiny Dancing Henry puppet began to entertain the pedestrians while I squeezed and sang and Paul bowed his fiddle.

Here is one of the songs we sang that day. This mp3 is an excerpt from our PAUL & JODY cd.

At one point, a lady walking her dog came by. We broke into “How Much is that Doggie in the Window” and the her dog said “Woof Woof” exactly in time to the song. I kept singing the next line, “The one with the wagg-i-ly tail” ... and the dog again shouted out “Woof Woof” just in perfect time, as if we had been practicing this for months. Everyone broke into hysterics and of course the poor dog lost her concentration and could only wag her tail back and forth hopefully. She would not be persuaded to sing again. It was one of those perfect moments that could only be enjoyed and never duplicated.