Early in the morning in Bryant Park behind the 42nd Street library, you can occasionally catch this chap playing his bagpipes.
He usually warms-up with a mournful rendition of Amazing Grace and then plays one or two other tunes. I think he works in a nearby office and likes to get in a few bars of practice before the grind begins.
If I see him when I approach the park, I quickly grab a cup of coffee and a chocolate cigar from a coffee cart guy and get a nearby table. It’s like dinner and a show except it’s breakfast.
New York City is chocked full of small, undiscovered pleasures.
They say there’s always magic in the air.
Exile on Pain Street 
what’s a chocolate cigar? tobacco flavored with chocolate, or a gigantic chocolate donut, drizzled in sticky-sweet frosting and oozing creamy goop from the middle? (hungry? moi?)beautiful snippet…
daisyfae beat me to it. what’s a chocolate cigar?
Daisy + Nurse: It’s pastry. A delicious roll of soft, flaky crust with chocolate inside. An orgasm for your tongue and the perfect companion to a cup of street coffee and bagpipes.
Have never heard live bagpipes before …
Seems like that would get old (for the player) after one or two times, like rolling a piano out there or something. He has to pack those every day in his briefcase or something? I’d change to playing the piccolo or harmonica or something right quick. I know. I’m missing the point.
There’s one of those in Putney Heath just down the hill from Wimbledon!
Another poor wee homesick soul, probably longing for the rolling hills of Alba.With that said.. throw an oul shoe at the noisy bastart, that should shut him up.
We used to have a busker on the main street of Oxford’s city center who played the bagpipes. He was awful. Businesses started to complain that he was distracting workers. So the city was going to kick him out. But then people got upset and began a campaign to keep the crap bagpiper.