Strawberry Fields Forever...

Strawberry Fields Memorial in Central Park

"The Mayor of Strawberry Fields" Gary dos Santos

I spent a couple of hours in the park today singing songs with a bunch of strangers who were celebrating the music of John Lennon (and The Beatles of course), and what would have been his 79th birthday. It was a beautiful day, and it was a beautiful way to spend some time. It's amazing to see so many different generations gathered around- everyone knows the words to these songs! It must be an amazing feeling to know that something you created will live on forever, to know that you will be remembered through music. Perhaps Lennon died too soon to realize that, but I think George (my favorite of the Fab Four) departed, and the other two still living lads from Liverpool will depart understanding the impact they had on the world.

The wildly eccentric man above is Gary dos Santos, aka The Mayor of Strawberry Fields. We've all no doubt seen many photos over the years of the floral designs covering the Imagine mosaic; petals arranged in a peace sign being the most common arrangement. Well this is the lovely man responsible for that. He is a performance artist, and he has been adorning the memorial with flowers for almost twenty years.

Here we are, singing our hearts out to the Lennon penned Happiness is a Warm Gun, from the 1968 album The Beatles (aka The White Album):

Yours truly at Strawberry Field in Liverpool, England, 2009

Pic from my 2008 visit to the now defunct Ashram in Rishikesh, India where The Beatles stayed in 1967; inspiration for The White Album.

What is your favorite Lennon song? Who is your favorite Beatle?

"Living is easy with eyes closed / Misunderstanding all you see/ It’s getting hard to be someon/ But it all works out/ It doesn’t matter much to me" --John Lennon (The Beatles), Strawberry Fields Forever

Love At First Sight...

Bethesda Fountain in Central Park

 

On my very first stroll through Central Park, I was bestowed with a gorgeous day. This amazing 843 acre oasis provides a much needed respite from the surrounding concrete jungle. It was at Bethesda Fountain that I met Kalliope Trope. She was lying next to the spouting water, very still, shoes kicked off, staring up at the sky as if she were the only person on earth. I saw a copy of Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls peeking out of her bag, and thought it funny to ask her "How many rubles would you pay for my soul?" She raised her head ever so slightly. Though I couldn't see her eyes through the black lenses of her shades, I could feel them piercing me, analyzing me. And then a slight enigmatic smile came across her face. "What's your art?" she asked me. Something about my look always makes people incorrectly assume I'm some kind of artist. "I have an artist's heart, but not an artist's talent," I confessed. I waited for a disappointed reaction but there wasn't one. She told me that she was a writer, and that she was working on four projects, simultaneously. The first was a memoir about her journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway. The second was a screenplay based on the life of Odetta Holmes. The third was a book of essays on the branches of feminism. And the last was an existential play about environmental sustainability. In the cold shadow of so much ambition, I muttered that I was thinking of starting a blog. As soon as the words left my lips, I regretted them. "I'm not myself these days." I said. "Well who are you?" she asked in the most sincere fashion. I had never been asked that question before. "I am who I am and that's who I am," I replied ironically, in Mr. Gogol's words.

Where have all the hippies gone? My favorite Central Park film scene comes from one of my favorite movies and musicals of all time, Milos Foreman's 1979 film, Hair. Here is hoping for a Broadway revival! 

"Where have all the flowers gone?/ Long time passing/ Where have all

the flowers gone?/ Long time ago/ Where have all the flowers gone?/

Girls have picked them every one/ When will they ever learn?/ When

will they ever learn? --Pete Seeger, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?