Saturday, July 27 2013

            I was feeling pretty under the weather today and therefore did not get to go out and play in it despite it’s being perfect for busking-sunny but not so stifling that people get to feeling uncomfortable and crabby and therefore less willing to part with their money. Still I’m feeling a little guilty about my neglect of this blog, there are so many people who make my busking incredible and it’s not entirely fair for me to let their stories blend together and eventually slip away once I start cramming my head full of poems and junk again come September. So I will share with you tonight an old(ish) story from one of my first days back out in Gastown this summer. I was just finishing up a set between this schmancy restobar/liquor store called Steamworks and the Roger’s Chocolate’s store (i.e. a tourist’s paradise) when I was approached by a frail old man wearing a blue and red windbreaker. He waited for me to finish playing before asking me where I’d been all year and I explained that I go to school in Montreal and just come home to Vancouver to busk during the summers an see my family. I didn’t actually recognize him until he addressed me as “sister” telling me that my music always “picked him up” no matter what kind of mood he was in. His phrasing jogged my memory and I remembered meeting him a few times last summer and having him accompany me with his unbelievable harmonica playing. We reintroduced ourselves and he told me his name was Gordy “though most people ‘round here call me the harmonica man.” He asked me if I’d mind if he played with me for a while and I said of course not then we rocked out hard to a medley of songs in A minor .The harmonica man then wandered off for a few minutes and returned with a five dollar bill which he placed in my case explaining that he had run into a man who usually gives him money when he’s panhandling and told him how good my music and that I was a “good girl, just come back from studying in Montréal” and he had given him the five to pass along to me. Now if that doesn’t boost your faith in the kindness of strangers I don’t know what will.

July 24th, 2013

'Twas a busy dizzy evening for me yesterday as the lazy hazy summer weather drove diners out in droves to the not-so-ancient cobbled streets of Gastown. A man and his grown son each gave me a loonie then stopped to listen to me play a few songs while their wives browsed in one of the nearby souvenir shops. After a few minutes the son came over to ask me if I was studying music at school, I told him no, I wasn't, I just play music for fun and I'm studying English literature. He then turned to his dad and translated my answer into Québecois. From there on out I continued the conversation in French, covering up my public school immersion accent with as much "ben," "ouais," and fast talking as I could muster. After we finished talking the son put a fiver in my case and his father was about to do the same but paused saying "elle parle Français, ça vaut bien plus que cinq dollars" and dropped me a twenty instead. Their wives came out of the souvenir store just as I was stammering out the last of a string of mercis and I played them Carla Bruni's "Quelqu'un m'a Dit" (the only French song I have memorized). When I was finished the son completed the exemplary tableau of our country's harmonious bilingualism by switching back to English to wish me the best of luck in my studies.