Peace in the Valley

It was a beautiful fall day in the Valley today and so I took myself out to shoot a few pictures. NoHo was abuzz with shoppers, tourists, student-visiting parents, parent-visited students, and the usual assortment of buskers, panhandlers, loafers, and idlers (it was a wonderful day for idling). A gang of dredlocked kids, along with a few dogs who may or may not have been associated with them, were gathered on the lawn near the old bank that's being refitted as an Urban Outfitters franchise. One of them played a ukulele.

A table with a sign saying "Bread Not Bombs", along with a few boxes containing (one presumes) bread rather than bombs, stood nearby.

Down the street, in Pulaski park, a few passersby had stopped to listen to a band playing Radiohead covers. The band was there to call attention to the fact that today was Shelter Sunday, a day when volunteers go door to door collecting money for local homeless shelters. While the band played, three bearded men huddled in front of the adjacent Memorial Hall trying to fit a tent into its protective wrapper.

I decided to have coffee at the Yellow Sofa Cafe.

As I sat outside the cafe, reading a wonderful collection of essays and stories about the 50 states - called, appropriately enough, State By State, and given to me by my brother - I heard the sound of singing. Looking up, I spotted two strikingly pretty, bohemian-looking young women crossing the street. They were both belting out, in a tight harmony that had clearly been well-practiced, a song I'd never heard before whose lyrics featured the word "love" quite prominently. They paused to hand something to the couple sitting across from me, and then, reaching my table, handed me a heart-shaped cardboard note. And I thought: well, yes.