I Follow the Muse & Awaken Famous in Toronto

I took a night off from blogging (did you miss me? No? I thought as much) in order to make a Cultural Pilgrimage to Port Washington, NY, where my favorite female vocalist/guitarist Ruthie Foster was performing last night. I first heard her, and, indeed, first heard of her, last month when she opened for the Blind Boys of Alabama at B.B. King's on 42nd Street.  My entire group of friends was blown away by her performance that night. Who was this woman? Where had she gotten this unbelievable voice that poured out of her throat like a golden river - clear, powerful, confident, and apparently able to perform the most complicated vocal acrobatics with never a hint of strain or a glimmer of fear that she might not hit it right?  Why wasn't I hearing this glorious voice everywhere I went? 

Last night Ruthie Foster was the first half of the evening in an incredible double-bill concert with Eric Bibb. After the concert I had the opportunity to ask her one more question: "Did you swallow a nightingale? Because it's the only explanation I can think of for the sounds that come out of your throat." She laughed, but didn't answer.

It was quite an interesting adventure chasing the Muse last night.  If you who are reading this live in the NYC area, you are aware that car ownership literally gets you nowhere right now, if you happened to have parked on the street last week before two goodish storms first buried everything in snow and then dumped a load of sleet on top, just to keep everything at a standstill. My husband and son labored valiantly to dig our little Saab free from bondage, but there was so much ice under the wheels that it simply wasn't happening.  Like Martin Luther, there we stood -we could do no other.

Luckily, I have kind friends.  One of my kind friends, who keeps her car in a garage, wasn't using her car last night, and was willing to lend it to us for the evening.  So we wound up taking one taxi to get to the car, and another one to get us back home after we had dropped off the car with the garage attendant around midnight.  All of which should be sufficient to explain why I was unable to blog last night - aside, of course, from the fact that the dog at my laptop.

But today, I awoke to find myself famous in Toronto - or at least, mentioned in a column in The Toronto Sun.  Which is, quite candidly, better than I've done so far, except for many, many years ago when I was still  in college and managed to get into a group picture on the front page of the Metropolitan Section of the New York Times because I was helping to clean up Morningside Park.

I am constantly delighted and bemused (and occasionally alarmed - not that there's anything on my conscience) by the fact that, thanks to the Information Age, something I am doing or saying in New York can become known instantaneously in parts of the world I either haven't been to since I was a child (Toronto) or have never visited at all. (Hi, Lisa! How's everything in Bangkok?)  So I am charmed to discover that the good people of Toronto who take the Sun are able, as they sip their Tim Hortons lattes and nibble on dutchie timbits (Dunkin' Munchkins to you New Yorkers), to contemplate a stay at the Library Hotel, enriched the additional pleasures of taking a poetry workshop with the hotel's Poet In Residence - me.

If you don't believe me, here's the link.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/02/07/romantic-hotel-escapes-for-valentines-day

Just in case you're one of those technophobes like me, who never clicks on a link because doing that would let a horrible virus sneaks into your computer, thus making your spouse give you that awful, incredulous squint and say, voice scaling up, "You did whaaaaat?" here's what it says:

HOW DO I LOVE THEE

Struggling for the right words to express your love? Guests staying at one of the four hotels in New York's Library Hotel Collection can call on an a literary expert for help. With Love Poems For Two: A Couples Massage For The Mind and Soul, Karen Clark, the Poet in Residence, leads a private 90-minute poetry workshop to help couples express their love in a creative way. The cost is $125 per couple, which is added to your hotel bill at the Library Hotel, Hotel Elysee, Casablanca Hotel or Hotel Giraffe. Visit libraryhotel.com/offers.html.

My fifteen minutes of fame is dribbling in, thirty seconds at a time, but it is adding up.