Home Bodies

Monday, June 21, fourteen people participated in Noodle Talk’s second monthly session at TASK, the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen. Around the table were veterans from April’s introductory meeting, a few newcomers, one staff member and one volunteer — with both genders being equally represented.

Among the randomly chosen questions were:

Please describe a time when you had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing something you were adamantly against. The outcome?

What is your favorite time of day? Why do you like it so much?
What are you usually doing at that time?

As a parent, what do you admire most about your child(ren)?
As a child, what do you admire most about your parents?

Please describe the facilities and functions of a government building built in your honor and named after you. What would it be called?

What is out of control in your life?

What belief(s) do you persist in holding despite all evidence to the contrary?

What do you feel passionate about? What couldn’t you care less about?

What have you become that you never ever, ever, EVER!!! thought you’d be?

Strawberry Fest: How Sweet It Is

This year, we managed to get an early start setting up the Noodle Talk booth at the Beacon Sloop Club’s annual Strawberry Festival. (It also helped that we had a whole year’s experience exhibiting at the GreenFlea market on New York’s Upper West Side.) Conditions were therefore perfect for giving Pete Seeger, the legendary folksinger, his 90th birthday present a year late when we spotted him at the strawberry shortcake tent not far from our location. He was talking with another man as Noodle Talk approached and explained what we were there for. His two hands were full of litter he’d been picking up before the crowds arrived so the other man had to shove our gift of a Noodle Talk set into the singer’s shirt pocket. We were certain it would fall out minutes later once this giant of American music, civil rights, and justice resumed his humble garbage-picking rounds.

Thirty minutes later, Seeger walked by the booth checking out the wares of different vendors. “No thanks, I already have one,” he shouted in our direction. Hmmm, we thought, a possible advertising slogan: “Pete Seeger already has one!” While fantasizing, an i-reporter caught this on video (audio may be difficult to hear so check out the slightly edited transcript below the clip):

Strawberry Festival

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Here we are in Beacon, NY, right on the waterfront along the Hudson River. We’re at the Strawberry Festival where thousands of people have descended — all on the Noodle Talk booth. Now it doesn’t look like there are that many people here but they’ve each taken a couple of questions and gone off to the other side of the railroad tracks in small groups of 10 to share their answers with each other. Very inspiring, totally moving. Pete Seeger came by, saw what was going on, composed a song on the spot, and is now on the stage singing it but only about two or three people are in the audience because most attendees are over there [pointing to his right towards the tracks]. Just an amazing, amazing experience. This has never happened before at the Strawberry Festival and — what can you say — it’s so touching. To me, it’s so [unintelligible] Noodle Talk.

You’re Invited

We’ll have a booth at the Strawberry Festival in Beacon, NY this coming Sunday, June 13. Beside Noodle Talk, there’s free, freshly-baked strawberry shortcake for everyone and possibly an appearance by folk legend Pete Seeger. Plus the Dia Museum is practically around the corner. If you live in the Princeton area, you can even get there by boat: D&R Canal north to the Raritan River; travel east on the Raritan and merge into the Arthur Kill at Staten Island; continue north into Upper New York Bay; once past the Statue of Liberty, enter the Hudson River. Look for the festival on the starboard side at the Beacon waterfront just before the Interstate 84 bridge. The USS Noodle Talk will be moored nearby.