Talking to Strangers (About Music)

I first met Saskia Layden (now Saskia Layden Kaya) when she was teaching yoga to children at Still Waters in a Storm, a storefront after-school program in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Her smile and laugh lit up the room, and the children gathered around her, all over her, like puppies. I knew immediately I needed her to teach the kids in my own program for InspireCorps, at PS81, and when she did...I was blown away. She had no doubts, not a single qualm it seemed. She knew exactly what the kids needed, and she gave it to them: love. With her gentle yet firm tone, she told them where to sit or lie down, she told them how to move their bodies, and what to do with their minds. And they listened, even though they didn't listen to most people these kids, raised in the projects, often distrustful of others, distrustful of themselves. She has serious skills, my friend Saskia, and I saw it in her when she was just a stranger. She knows how to connect, how to build trust and love, how to forge bonds and build bridges where others might only see divides. And that's a crucial skill these days, one not to be taken lightly.

Saskia and I have spent a lot of time together, albeit virtually, since the pandemic began. I could suddenly take the yoga classes and meditations she gives in Fethiye, Turkey where she lives, via Zoom. (Join her group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/yogawithsaskia). She encouraged me to start a writing group, Real Connections Mindful Writing, which she joined (https://www.facebook.com/groups/525789544963645.) And recently, struck by how seamlessly she has adapted to living in a foreign country, married to a lovely Turkish man, learning Turkish and spending time with her in-laws in a small Turkish village, I asked her to make a video. Just Like Us, I thought to call the series of videos I would ask people to do all over the world. After all, it may seem we are so different, but people are basically the same everywhere. There are a few essentials and one of them, as Saskia seems to know well, is  LOVE! We just need to be reminded. Watch the great video here, and listen to my heart to heart with this amazing lady. Peace. 

It is fitting that I am posting this episode of Talking to Strangers late at night, as that's when I met today's guest, jazz guitarist Andy Bianco. We met at Korzo, a Park Slope restaurant and bar, during one of the late great Konceptions Music Series shows put on by pianist James Carney and his wife Heidi Bayer. He wasn't playing that night, but I would hear him on a number of subsequent occasions, both in bars and in my house, where he began to teach my son.

As much as I try, with this podcast and otherwise, it is hard to exactly explain the feeling of familiarity that comes over you when you meet a stranger who is sure to be in your life in some way. There was something about his voice, and the very serious way in which he placed his words, the care with which he spoke, that made me take Andy's number and follow up with him to see if he gave lessons. Even though he was funny, and made me laugh, I could also see that he took great pride in the knowledge he had about music and the other topics that got raised that night and on subsequent evenings as he came and went from my house, before and after the lessons he gave. Knowledge, and the enthusiasm for it, is a great asset in life, and certainly a phenomenal asset for a musician and teacher. Music moves people. It is a valuable thing, and Andy clearly values it, and loves to share it, in so many ways. Reach out to him for lessons! [email protected]

It was so fun to do this podcast with Andy, to really sit down and listen to how he became interested in guitar, to jazz in particular. I had given a bit to the GoFundMe he started for a music scholarship in his late father's name, but hadn't heard as much about his father's life as a musician and how it had inspired Andy. You can learn more about it and donate at http://www.gofundme.com/f/phillip-bianco-music-scholarship. Check out his website  http://artistecard.com/andybianco and his new album: https://ffm.to/kpdgkop

I am always blown away by the dedication great musicians have to their craft, and there is almost no better example of that dedication than now, during a time when so much about musicians' lives have come to a grinding halt. Watching Andy take on new projects, new students, new efforts to keep focused on sharing the great mysteries of music is heart-warming and hopeful: music will never die, nor will musicians, whose legacy will live on and on and on through their music, and the people who have the great good fortune to listen to them play.

Believing in yourself can be a hard thing. With Stanley Mills' sure smile and easy laugh, and his gentle prodding, it seems easier. Stanley has been a personal trainer for over 20 years, though his body seems to defy that that's even possible! It is his physique that is physically impressive, but it is his amazing positivity that really drives one forward. 
I can hear his voice in my head sometimes, "You can do it Steph..." 
Everyone in my family except my oldest son has used Stanley as a trainer at the Y. I worried about him during the pandemic, and recently reached out when I heard the Y was finally opening so that I could book him for some sessions. It turns out they are not bringing him back in this first phase, but we agreed to meet separately, outside. We were the first clients he'd trained in nearly six months, and--for Stanley, whose life mission is clearly to help motivate others--it was a looooooong lull. Our session jumpstarted him to start seeing clients again, and we are so glad he is!! It is an important time for people to believe in the strength of their own bodies and minds, to work with someone if they have to in order to get focused and find their way forward after/during this strange time of uncertainty. There are certain people who can make you feel grounded and great and inspired, and Stanley is one of them. "We can't do this alone," he says in our brief chat. And it's true. Email me at [email protected] if you want to reach out to Stanley for a session! 

When you buy a house and decide to gut renovate it, you are suddenly in contact with a lot of strangers you have to learn to trust. Last November, I hired upstate contractor Andy Kane from Peak Builders, and he began to work on the fixer-upper we'd purchased in Elka Park, NY. It has been 10 months since then, and there have been an amazing cast of characters Andy has brought in do the plumbing and electrical, to tile the bathrooms, fix the roof, deliver the wood, to paint and help him with all the massive amount of carpentry. Despite wanting these guys to fix up my house as fast as possible (throughout a pandemic as well as all the normal disruptions that make a renovation last far longer than one thinks it should), I often stop to chat with them about...well, about whatever's on my mind, or theirs. It is a lovely bunch up on the mountain, and it has been fascinating to get to know them. On this day last February, I must have been thinking as usual about how much to trust or distrust others, how much people can count on other people, and the guys were more than happy to jump in with their thoughts. It is fitting that the walls were literally down around in the gutted master bedroom as we chatted about the walls we put up with one another as humans, and how in charge we are of what happens between us...right down to how much we can control ourselves from going to all-out war. A huge hearty thank you to Andy and his amazing team (including Jerry and Jesse chatting here, from Batavia Kill Plumbing & Heating) for all the good mojo they brought in to this crazy house we bought, for all their hard work on our behalf, and for their humanity. It has been a pleasure. Talking to the strangers you hire to help renovate, understanding them as humans and having them understand you, is a beautiful thing. 

It's funny to remember back nearly four decades ago to a time and place, to a 50s diner in Tucson, Arizona in the 80s. That young girl in the too-tight Laverne shirt making shakes behind the ice cream counter was me, Steph Saull. I found this recording I made talking about that time (and digressing, of course, onto other seemingly related topics) and I thought it was fascinating how I seem to recall details then that I'm not even sure about now, a little more than a year later. I posit theories and try to ascribe to my own young self feelings and motivations that may or may not truly reflect what I really felt or was motivated by. We are the same she and I and yet...memory fades, and new experiences inform what we felt about the old ones, and change them somehow. But I'm sharing anyway, this story from an unreliable narrator talking about my life, this tale of a time long ago where I felt at home in a little community of people, until such time as I didn't. 

P.S. The photo attached is of the NEW Little Anthony's Diner, tricked out in a new location. But the bulk of the decor of the same...you get the gist!! Enjoy:) 

Discovering a fabulous musician you've never heard of at a club, alone in a foreign city is...well, it is an amazing, life-affirming highly connected experience, one I wholeheartedly recommend. Rolling through recordings on my phone, searching for a podcast for Day 4 of my 30-day lead-up to 50, I happened upon a performance I'd recorded at the Sunset Sunside Jazz Club in Paris back in May of 2017. I'd gone on vacation with my mom and sisters, but no one else felt like going out, so I headed out myself to the Sunset, which a friend had recommended. Sitting down in a Paris jazz club was, I have to admit, a pretty exciting thing in and of itself for a girl from Tucson, Arizona for whom Paris had long seemed a pipe dream. At the time I didn't even catch the name of the young man at the piano, but when he started playing, the sounds emanating out from under his fingers were  totally arresting, so much so that I laughed out loud with delight (if you listen closely, you can hear it). His energy and humor and personality...wow. The experience of listening to a musician live, far too rare these pandemic days, is a kind of a communication that may even (dare I say) surpass talking. I know...my podcast is about TALKING to strangers, but over the last decade-plus, my many hours spent listening to musicians in clubs and bars and in the park, within sight, sometimes within touching distance, have been profoundly connected hours. This night in Paris is a stellar example. I left our rented apartment with no clue who I would meet, what affect they would have on me, and I returned hours later feeling completely inspired and energized. Music is a perfect way to "talk" to strangers, to connect, to seek out and try to understand what might be happening with another human being underneath the surface. Musical performances are public displays, certainly, but the connection we can have with musicians from a single random evening in their midst...profound. Thank you to Pierre-Yves Plat for talking in the way you do, with your fingers on keys, your whole being poured into offering up a beautiful musical message. 

Trying to title this podcast, I was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. It's hard to put Alex in a box. He said he would go into one, but only if he knew who he was in there with...Ha. This is why Alex and I have become great friends  and confidants over the last five years, ever since we met on the lunchroom balcony of the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY a place seekers like us go to...well, find. In addition to whatever we learned in our workshops, Alex and I found each other. He smiled at me his big smile and gave me such an enthusiastic hello that I felt like we'd been friends forever. Maybe that's what we were there for, to meet each other, who knows. The lady at check-in when I first went, for my 40th birthday, said gravely, "People tend to find what they're looking for here." I'd told her I'd wanted to get lost in the woods somewhere, but was wimping out and getting a "tent cabin" just slightly off the well-lit pathways of the retreat center's main campus. The next morning, I set out on a hike, unprepared and not paying attention as usual, no water or phone, and got completely lost. The words from the intro session about the size of the land and reminders to stay on the paths rang in my ears along with gunshots as the white-tailed bucks bounced by. They seemed to know where they were going, unlike me, who'd gone skipping into the woods never noting a trail marker. And I laughed when finally I found the path: I'd found what I'd come for, to get lost and then trust myself to find my way. I digress, but not really because this podcast is about meeting strangers, this particular episode about meeting Alex Grant and becoming friends. And what he and I do during many video chats weekly from separate sides of the world is to meander over and around our different paths, and we ponder aloud. Which is a good thing. We talk about our connections, what we're looking for, what we find, and what to do about it. Alex is an acupuncturist and a chef and a yogi. He puts together websites and events (like the Hamptons Yogafest I helped out with, and the Yoga of Business workshop he led in my apartment), and is a regular attendee of some fascinating workshops on sex and love and connection that I love to hear about and benefit from sidelong. He is many things, my friend Alex. He is anything he wants to be, which is a good reminder to all of us. The door to that box should stay open maybe, and offer us such a free-range life as this man's. Listen in. And remember: talking to strangers brings great possibilities. 

There is definitely something about the cadence of someone's voice. At the crowded poolside bar at the Raleigh Hotel in Miami Beach, on a gorgeous night when the Art Basel art fair had taken over the city, Per Adolfsen's urgent yet mellifluous Danish tone broke through the din. There had been some drinks consumed, surely, that fueled his passionate outcries, but it was obvious from the moment my friend Miok and I met him that Mr. Adolfsen was a force. Honesty is always powerful. The same tone showed through in the art we saw of our new friend's the next day, and in all the art I've seen of his over the last 10 years since we met as strangers in Miami. Recently, having seen some new work, some haunting sketches of nature, I reached out to say how much I loved them. Turns out I am not alone. My friend has garnered quite the following for his so-true renderings of nature.
Why? Of course, he doesn't know for sure why they are so popular but he posits, "People see in them the emotions of life, they see themselves, they don't see the trees."
I said to Per during our chat that I've always found sketches so revealing of an artist.
"It's like brain to paper," I said. And he amended: "Soul to paper..." he said. He talked about how, during a fallow period of art making, he began to teach. But, he said, "I didn't teach them art. I taught them to see." His art teaches all of us to see that thing we so often forget to notice: we are nature. Listen in, and keep track of this great artist's trajectory.
Per's work is represented by 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel in NYC. You can find him on Instagram @peradolfsen_artist or on https://www.facebook.com/per.adolfsen

I am always amazed at the power of instantaneous connection. The moment I met Joelle Provost at a diner in Brooklyn Heights is a perfect example. A wide-eyed young artist/art teacher, she struck me right away as a powerful force, one I wanted to get to know. I shortly thereafter visited her on the wide porch of the Ditmas Park Victorian she was living in with other artists to view her work, and I knew my instincts were correct: this young woman is gifted with a great vision, and the power to change things for the better through her extraordinarily impactful art.

We've talked before on this podcast, but I needed to bring Joelle back on to discuss her latest project, the building of The Whale Sarcophagus, a large-scale collaborative sculpture project which commemorates the life of nine Pacific Gray Whales who tragically washed up near where she lives in San Francisco during Spring of 2019. Some were hit by ships, but the majority died of malnutrition as a result of human actions such as littering, as well as climate change. Building a sarcophagus based on the Ancient Roman burial practice as an homage to the aquatic mammals is Joelle's rallying cry for personal responsibility. And the collaboration it will require fulfills her own sense of responsibility to help employ other artists during Covid, a la (she says) FDR's crucial society-building New Deal.

Our conversation is focused around the important themes raised in the creation of The Whale Sarcophagus, themes of the empowerment of individuals, the ability each one of us has to create the world we want to see, and the power of art to create necessary change. Listen in. And visit JoelleProvost.com to learn how you can support this amazing project. 

When we sat down together recently at an outdoor cafe on my corner, in Park Slope, I liked Giles Clement immediately. Though he might use one as a photographer, it was clear from his comment about the waitress that in conversation he had no filter. Just my style.

I was told weeks ago by my friend Maggie to call Giles. Maggie is the owner of the Krooked Cafe in Tannersville near my new house in the Catskill Mountains of New York, and she is a special human, mother to all. When she left me a message to "Call Giles," and gave his number, I did it, no questions asked.

It turns out, Giles Clement and I had a lot to talk about. He grew up on my street, part of the Platte Clove Bruderhof Community, a Christian communal living community. Though he left years back, as a teen, we had a common understanding of the beauty of that spot in the world.

Like me, Giles is fascinated with artists' stories. He'd told me over the phone that he was inspired by the pandemic to train his camera on random artists he encountered traveling around in his white van and to tell their story. (Check it out on Instagram @gilesclement and on his site, www.GilesClement.com). I could relate to the concept quite well:)

Giles has been living in Brooklyn of late, and I called him to grab coffee. I'm so glad I did, (and not just because of the mustache.) His perspective on the world is honest and refreshing, as clear, funny and insightful as the pictures he snaps of other people. Our conversation (some of it recorded here) lasted all morning into lunch. I love it when that happens. It makes talking to strangers seem like such a great idea! Thanks Maggie, for the introduction, and thank you Giles for your bold insights at a time when too often our conversations are hampered by political correctness. Honest dialogue is much needed.