Brooklyn Day Four: NY At Its Most Optimistic

So why is it that a disproportionate number of great musical moments in Plotnik's life have taken place in the presence of a great band and gospel choir? That choir down at Ground Zero a month after nine-eleven; and the choir and band at the St. John Coltrane Church on Divisadero on Easter Sunday; and the night Plotnik took the A Train to Harlem, supposedly to audition to play piano for a church choir but instead sat on the piano bench next to Vinson Cunningham as he played piano the way nobody Plotnik had ever heard play piano before (and Plotnik decided he'd not bother auditioning after all); and that night that Plot and Duck left a music-less Passover seder and went down to the old A.M.E. church in downtown LA, long since torn down, to hear the citywide gospel competition? It was as if someone had ordered two religions, please, one with and one without.

Plotnik came from a tradition where music was ignored at best but most often simply mutilated on every religious occasion. To Jews, music is never meant to be anything but a coffee break within the true occupation of study, which is to take every problem and propose fifteen different interpretations. Intelligence is revered, and heart is welcomed but not needed. Music is a frill. It's all about the Big Brain.

So Plotnik is always attracted to traditions where music is the vehicle of hope. It's about faith. Forget about the message -- all religious messages are iffy at best -- we're talking about how the believers express that message. When Plotnik gets to plug himself into this experience he is lifted. What is it about gospel music that fills him with so much pride and so much joy?



This morning was one of those moments. It started early. When Plot, PD, Belly and Mischief walked over to Myrtle Avenue to get bagels the local streets were already blocked off for the upcoming New York Marathon. By the time they got home and were sitting in the dining room having breakfast, they could hear a choir and a band down on the street somewhere. So after breakfast, they decided to go find out where the music was coming from.

It was coming from the Emmanuel Baptist Church of Clinton Hill, which is located on Lafayette Street, where the first marathoners were scheduled to appear at any moment. The choir and band had set up on the steps of the church to play their songs of love and faith and keep-at-it-you're-gonna-make-it for the runners as they sped past.

The choir was SO good. And the band was SO hot. And Lafayette Street was lined on both sides with people from the neighborhood, all of whom seemed to know all the songs and were singing along, and everyone was clapping their hands and dancing on the sidewalks when the first runners came by.

The first were handicapped, maybe blind, maybe on those amazing three-wheeled speed cycles that the riders propel with their arms, one man was even legless, with a huge developed upper body but nothing below his trunk except wire splints. He basically ran with his shoulders, but he snowed nothing but smooth determination. As every marathoner passed by, the choir kept singing and the runners looked up and smiled.



Before long, the main crush of marathoners arrived. Thousands upon thousands of runners passed and the choir just got louder. "God Will Show You The Way!" sang the choir and all the marathoners smiled and raised their arms, and grabbed small containers of water held out to them by the parishioners, and some runners even stopped and took pictures of all the singers and listeners, then picked up and started running again. We all yelled "Go! Go! Go!" and some yelled "Praise Him! Praise Him!" but some yelled "Praise Them! Praise Them!" and that sounded right to Plotnik.

Runners passed for at least two hours, forty thousand strong, and the choir never stopped singing, and the bass player, drummer and keyboardist never stopped playing, and it was loud and funky of course, but after awhile it started to turn into something deeper. It was if the message was now transcending the marathon and the church building fund and bake sale and even the funkiness of the music.

It was now about seizing this opportunity for everyone present to do something together. Plotnik smiled at old ladies and old ladies smiled at Plotnik. The runners were the reason for the choir to be singing outside but the choir singing outside was the reason for all these people from so many different places to clap on the same beat and sing to the same melody. Plotnik sang along to every chorus he could recognize and after an hour was completely hoarse.


The Great PD brought Belly down to the avenue, but it was very loud and they ended up in a playground on the corner where kids of every possible shade and size ran around on the monkey bars while the runners streamed by on the street beside them and the music soared over them.

Plot stared at those kids, his own Bellybone just one of so many, and he thought: these kids already know how to play together. What will keep them together?

And he couldn't stop wondering: what is it about this music that so touches him?