Around Here

When I stepped onto the deck of the pool, it was just in time to see the splash, a bright plume reflected, along with a pair of sago palms, in the sliding glass doors of the clubhouse. It hung there for a moment, slowly released a handful of pearls, and then suddenly collapsed with a spatter against the water’s taut surface. An underwater ripple, a corrugated figure, slithered quickly away. When he hauled himself out of the water at the far end of the pool, he seemed to enlarge in the air like a bubble blown from a straw. Under a completely blank blue sky, not a thing beyond the immediate setting stirred. The pool shimmered; he stood toweling his hair. I had never seen him before.

Today down at the basin I ran into Bill Bright, a model sailboat mavin, who was the subject of a story I wrote for the local newspaper almost four years ago. Still plying the waves with the same boat, Bill had returned to the park for one of his increasingly rare outings with the little rig. Herewith is the original story from September, 2003... Hitching his boat to a breeze is a new experience for Bill Bright. But light offshore winds at Bimini Basin on Saturday gave the newbie model skipper enough gusto to tempt his burgeoning skills. Now in the water for its third outing, Bright's one-meter model skimmed the shore at a brisk pace, and skated out to deeper water with diminuative elan. "The more breeze the better. It's just like real sailing. If you don't get a good breeze, your boat will be sitting out there waiting for it to come back. I haven't had to go swimming yet. Last week we had ten to fifteen mile per hour winds, and it was flying! But even with a five m...

I saw a lot of jazz greats when I lived in N.Y. I lived next door to Miles Davis for a time. Never heard him play at home though; maybe he had a soundproof room. I used to see him on the street - wizened and wary, slouching toward West End Avenue. My best friend lived a block away from the bistro on 10th Street where Blossom Dearie sang every night. We'd drop in and catch a show - there she'd be, sitting at the piano, the cafe singer nonpareil, surrounded by the rapt and the recherché, spinning the standards with a voice both impossibly delicate and "full of money", far into the night. I went to a keyboard seminar at NYU hosted by Herbie Hancock; there were about sixteen of us in the room. He sat down at a baby grand six feet away and held us spellbound, talking and playing, all morning long. I saw Bill Evans in Greenwich Village. Michael Franks at Town Hall. Stanley Clarke at Madison Square Garden. We went to a concert at Avery Fisher Hall to see Nina Simone. She was...