Snakes Don’t Like Vibrations

There were a lot of people waiting for the Staten Island ferry on the Manhattan side. A policeman with a dog checked out my busking gear. “Are you playing at this side today?” the cop asked me. “No”, I answered, “on the other side”. I was happy that he recognized me.
I boarded the boat named ‘Spirit of America’ to head for my busking spot of the day at the St. George ferry terminal in Staten Island.

Staten Island ferry

As I was setting up a number of people were wheeled into the terminal in wheel chairs. They were my first audience of the day. I was happy they were, because they were very enthusiastic about my playing, and it “broke the ice”. The first song of the day is always the hardest to play.

Saw Lady at St George
Photographer: © Rosa Naparstekjan

A Music Under New York guitar player who lives on Staten Island said ‘hi’ to me. He will be playing at the Whitehall ferry terminal tomorrow, but today he is just freelancing in the subway. He told me that he learned to smile while busking from me 🙂 “It helps”, we both agreed.

A guy was on top of the aquarium in the center of the terminal. I guess maybe he was feeding the fish.

aquarium at St George

A guy bought my CD and then asked me to play ‘Ave Maria’. He told me that this piece was played when his grandmother died.

A lady asked me what was the note I played at the end of a song – a high note. I told her the range of the musical saw is similar to that of a flute. The musical saw only has three and a half octaves. This lady used to play violin and flute. She told me that the flute has 5 octaves but the sound of the musical saw did remind her of the flute. “Well, the flute was designed for music, so it makes sense it would have more octaves then the saw”, I said, and she agreed with me.

A kid asked me if there is vibrations when I play. He told me that he has a snake in his pocket and the snake doesn’t like vibrations. He said most snakes of this kind are yellow but this one is brown. He catches crickets to feed the snake, but one cricket lasts as food for 30 days for the snake. I’m not sure if any of what he told me is true… I asked him to show me the snake (which he said was in his pocket) but he didn’t…

I boarded the ‘Spirit of America’ ferry boat back to Manhattan.

Staten Island ferry

On the train back home a blind man sang ‘Sweet Chariot”. When I changed trains, another singer (with lots of energy) was making the rounds of that train.