JAN 17, 12 .. PONDICHERRY
Gordy 48025 .. sent me an e-mail a week or so ago about a world class and very famous violinist who set himself up in (was it in Union Railway Station in Washington DC..) a very crowded and important public place with literally hundreds .. if not thousands .. of people passing him .. I think he placed in front of himself a ‘donations basket’ .. and .. he commenced to play an extremely difficult and challenging piece of music .. a piece of music that only he and others of his world caliber stature could even begin to contemplate playing .. and he played this series of musical pieces for forty (45) minutes ..
During his concert .. a concert that people would routinely pay $100 or more dollars a seat to hear in places such as Carnegie Hall .. very VERY few people stopped to notice or to listen to him .. a few children tugged at their mother’s arm to stop and were pulled unwillingly along her path .. and he received a total of a few dollars in change for his concert .. I think the e-mail said one or maybe two people did stop ..
The ‘gist’ of his e-mail was this .. what’s wrong with this picture .. why are we .. as a society .. so busy that we cannot notice or take a few minutes to stop and to listen to such a special happening during our day ..
In thanking Gordy for his e-mail .. I offered him the following comments .. very few people in society at large would recognize .. let alone appreciate .. the event this great violinist was conducting .. very few people (again in society at large) even like classical violin music .. people (if this was in Washington DC’s Union Station) out and about during their day are legitimately busy (maybe running to catch a train) .. and simply do not have the time to stop and ponder .. such an event ..
In my response to Gordy .. to some degree .. I related to the people who passed the violinist by without acknowledging him ..
OK .. after receiving and replying to Gord’s e-mail .. the following event actually happened to me and I ask you .. how many of YOU would have stopped in your tracks and wondered at the absolutely astounding miracle I witnessed and studied and marveled at it ..
It was about 7AM in the morning .. I was in my apartment in Arambol Beach .. and I was bent over my sink in my kitchen washing my face .. directly in front of my kitchen sink was a shelf .. and I noticed a tiny speck of nothingness out of the corner of my left eye .. in fact I had to look twice to be sure it was something ..and not a ‘floater’ in my eye .. I then looked a third time and sure enough .. this tiny speck .. appearing to be a little smaller than the size of the head of a sewing pin .. was the smallest itty bitty teeny weeny spider I have ever noticed .. and it was hanging by its own thread .. motionless ..
I went into my other room and got my small flashlight and returned .. little spider was still motionless .. hanging about 12-inches below the shelf in front of my sink .. I put my (single AAA) small flashlight behind little spider and studied it .. it then went from being a motionless little ‘ball’ into a moving being and began to go back up its slender ‘spider web’ that it had woven to drop down upon .. I could see its tiny little legs and man alive .. was it on a mission to get back up to the shelf above it and to get out of Dodge City !
I wondered .. does its mother know where it is .. does its mother even care .. what was it doing and HOW DID IT KNOW TO DO WHAT IT WAS DOING .. it had legs and it had a body and internal body parts .. and it had the ‘intelligence’ to know .. that when I re-appeared with a flashlight that “something is wrong here” and that (little spider) thought (IF a little spider can think) “I have got to get out of here and fast and NOW !” ..
And he reached my shelf and disappeared quickly ..
For some reason .. a reason that I do NOT understand myself .. ONLY WHEN I AM HERE IN INDIA .. do all of these mysteries unfold before me and do I marvel at them all .. Archie and his relatives .. Jiminy and his relatives ..LBJ and his ‘piss ants’ .. and now Charlotte and her relatives ..
(what’s that Zilla .. E. B. White wrote a book about a pig named Wilbur and his friend Charlotte a spider .. “Charlotte’s Web” .. you’re welcome Zilla..)
And .. the ‘gist’ of the above spider story is .. just think of all of the miracles we encounter daily that we just ‘rush past’ ..
And of course I have no answer .. Bob Earll .. in an open talk .. once mentioned that he used to get down on the floor and study the dust for hours ..
GORDY .. I will bet you on the following :
IF Bob Dylan was in Union Station ‘whanging’ on his guitar and mouthing on his harmonica .. and groaning out .. Hey Mister Tambourine Man ..
I’ll bet a CROWD wouldda gathered around him ! ..
I will also bet you on this .. IF Mick Jagger was just STANDING STILL in Union Station .. I’ll bet a CROWD would have surrounded and maybe even mobbed him ..
So .. THANKS GORDY .. for making me think about ‘close encounters of the spider kind’ ..
over and out from ‘pondi’ south of chennai in southeast india .. love .. cap ..