Day 19: More blindness

I played again today for about 2 hours. I still have no glasses, so I again was reduced to squinting at my list of songs, which is in 10-point font and barely readable. I had a good time - I only missed a few notes, and made quite a bit of money. Nothing particularly interesting happened, however, so there's not much for me to write about. I did get a $20 bill from a girl who said my cover of Avenged Sevenfold's "Gunslinger" made her day. This is the third time that's happened with that song - there's something about the way I play it, or perhaps just the fact that I'm a street musician playing an acoustic arrangement of a country-rock song by a metal band, that gets people's attention. Or maybe its just the fact that it's an amazing song.

Day 18: Blind as a bat

Today, I had the unfortunate experience of playing an entire set without my glasses. They broke the other day, and won't be repaired until at least tomorrow. I decided to play without them, since I may not get another chance until early September, due to vacations. I played from 11:30 to about 1:45 in front of the Coop. The only other "performers" near me were the people from the Bank of America next door, who were doing some sort of promotion, an extremely energetic Greenpeace activist guy, and, near the end, a painter.
One young girl, who was 7 or 8, came up to give me money, but instead of dropping it in the bin, she tried to hand it to me. The problem, of course, was that I was in the middle of a song. After a couple of seconds, her mother directed her to the bin. The girl then proceeded to pose next to me (while I continued singing) as her mother took photos.
I ended up making about $30, which is very good for that time of day and location. I'm really not sure why I made that much, because I messed up several songs, and generally didn't play very well. In any case, if I don't play tomorrow, this will be my last post for a couple of weeks.

Day 17: Chinese tourists and starving artists

Today, I played for a couple of hours. I started in front of the Harvard Coop, but had to move about 15 minutes in when the artist on the bench across from me asked me to move. Since I was technically not supposed to be that close to him anyways (the ordinance says street performers here have to be 50 feet away or something like that, and I was 15 feet from him), I moved around the corner, to the entrance of a little cobblestone alleyway. I played there for another hour and a half, until my batteries decided to die on me. I'm beginning to think that the exertion of starting up drains a lot of battery power, because they can't seem to handle turning off and on very well.

A pair of Chinese tourists listened for a while. After they left, some guy told me that they had told him (in Chinese) that I sang "with soul" and that they really liked me. This, of course, despite the fact that they didn't speak a word of English, so they had no clue what I was singing about.

I didn't make much money, but I had a good time. I particularly have a newfound respect for the artist who asked me to move, because he did so kindly and without the dirty looks I often get from other street performers who try and get me to move.