THE POWER OF ONE
The stories that touch me most, the ones that pull at my tear ducts are those of people doing positive things to make a difference. I love tales of heroes and someone changing a life through their work or grand acts.
Although we hear so often that one person can make all the difference, that person’s act doesn’t have to be heroic. No mountains necessarily have to be climbed. Sometimes, very small acts at just the right time have the power to make a huge difference.
I thought about that concept yesterday when my morning got off to a negative start and several minor and more major situations were not going my way. I was heading to a lunch meeting with someone very important and I was a bit nervous, hoping that the first part of the day’s karma wouldn’t spill over into the afternoon and my meeting.
As I was rushing along in the rain trying to find my way in an area of Manhattan that I don’t frequent too often, I stopped to ask a produce vendor where I might be able to buy a new umbrella as the wind had shredded mine.
When he turned around, I noticed that he was a friend of mine (more about him in another post) who I hadn’t seen in a while. He threw his arms around me, directed me to the umbrella lady, and explained how to get to my meeting. That one small act changed my attitude, my mood, and indeed the entire cadence of my day. Never underestimate the power you have to spread positivity.
Here’s to someone stepping into your day and putting a smile on your face.
Photo: Peter Schumann, Founder and Director, the Bread and Puppet Theater.
Courtesy Chase Guttman Photography
A Playful Occupy Halloween Trots Out the Puppets - NYTimes.com
artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.comAs it’s grown, Occupy Wall Street has spawned many splinter groups – from Occupy Education to Occupy Museums. This week another, perhaps more playful, faction emerged: Occupy Halloween – “because the top 1% shouldn’t get all the candy,” as its slogan goes. A few days before Halloween, in a rented studio in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood, volunteers were busy assembling costumes and puppets for the Village Halloween parade, and for several pop-up events to take place around the city on Monday.
The idea, said Ken Srdjak, a volunteer and veteran of Bread and Puppet, the storied political theater group in Vermont, is to “tell a simple narrative of what we’re up against” – a “moving insurrection” using giant puppets and costumed characters. Mr. Srdjak, 25, who has been visiting Zuccotti Park off and on for several weeks, was working on a giant robot puppet with Arthur Polendo, a painter with a Ph.D. in fine arts and critical studies who works as a museum guard. Their creation had the head of the stock exchange building, a slot machine for a body – with coin slots labeled “change” and “hope” – and tank-tread legs. Mr. Polendo planned to operate the robot’s 20-foot-long vacuum-cleaner arm, an outsize appendage that signifies the huge, sucking reach of Wall Street.
