I heard him before I saw him–a clackety-clack sound coming from a semicircle of about 60 people. In front of them was a guy with big blue eyes and blond ringlets with a touch of gray, wearing an old T-shirt with “The Bones Show” emblazoned on it and a gray vest with a button bearing his likeness. He played two pairs of what he called “vegetarian” bones, though he also had a pair of the real thing–cow ribs. Somewhere along the way in the instrument’s history, he said, a musician carved wood into the shape of a rib.
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Unlike street performers I’d seen playing the guitar or dancing, this guy did an elaborate 30-minute show complete with props and a moral. Near the end he raffled off an imaginary balloon ride. He asked the little girl who won, “Is this the first time you’ve won an imaginary hot-air-balloon ride?”
Everyone laughed, and the man released a balloon that spiraled into the air.
Lately he’s been doing a little freelance carpentry for friends and playing the bones some nights with a jazz band at the Underground Wonder Bar downtown. He lives in a Ukrainian Village garage that he and a roommate have converted to an apartment of sorts.
