orchestra baobab

Last night, Orchestra Baobab from Senegal played a free concert in Battery Park City. It was a part of a series paid for by American Express.

One of my companions claimed that Orchestra Baobab is the "greatest band in the world." I would not affirm that, though when pressed, I was unable to name the greatest band in the world. Could there really be one?

In any case, it was great music for a perfect summer evening, though one had to either keep one's distance or wear earplugs. We lounged on a camping pad and purloined airplane blankets with home-baked banana bread, smoked mackeral, baguette, cherries and blueberries. The greatest triumph of the evening was opening a bottle of wine in my backpack without looking, under the nose of the Rockefeller Park guards--who, incidentally, are all very fat, so fat that the female and male guards had more or less the same shape. Alcohol was forbidden, per an announcement from the stage, but we managed to pour out and consume the whole bottle.

Battery Park City is an area in downtown Manhattan along the Hudson River that was built on landfill. It is a strange, plastic, artificial region of high-rise apartments that does not seem to belong to New York City. It has a lot of very clean parks and recreational areas, but little in the way of amenities, just a few shops and restaurants, and a fairly long walk from the subways. (That is changing, big box stores are being constructed along West Street.)

Young girls were walking around with plastic bags during the show to collect recyclable bottles and cans. We debated offering them our wine bottle, would they rat us out. But they were gone by the time we finished it. We were even given our own trash bag by a man who circulated during the show collecting trash, I guess he was concerned by our picnic, that we would not be able to figure out what to do with the remains.