NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

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d a CD and headline a concert. ===== notyet BUFFALO - For years, the donated piano sat upright and unused in a corner of the nursing home’s cafe teria. Now and then someone would wheel or wobble over to pound out broken notes on the broken keys, but those out-of-tune interludes were rare. Day a fter surrendering day, the flawed piano remained m ercifully silent. Then came a new resident, a musician in his 80s wi th a touch of forgetfulness named Boyd Lee Dunlop, and he could play a little. Actually, he could pl ay a lot, his bony fingers dancing the mad dance o f improvised jazz in a way that evoked a long life ’s all. The lean times and the flush. The Saturday night h op and the Sunday morning hymn. Those long drives in a Packard to the next gig. That fine woman Adel aide, oh Adelaide, down in North Carolina. The dea ths of a beloved aunt and a difficult marriage. So me things you don’t forget, so Mr. Dunlop keeps a white towel handy to wipe his eyes dry. And so Mr. Dunlop would have remained, summoning t ranscendence from a damaged piano in the Delaware Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, his audience a couple of administrators, a few nurses and many pa tients beset with dementia, loneliness and age — w ere it not for a chance encounter and some cheesec ake. Instead, Boyd Lee Dunlop, 85, is the featured perf ormer at a concert on Saturday night at the Hallwa lls Contemporary Arts Center in downtown Buffalo. Admission is $10. And if you want to buy his debut CD, that will cost you another $15. Sitting at Table 8, guarding the cafeteria piano b eside him like a jealous lover, Mr. Dunlop accepts all of this with boastful humility. He thanks God
for the talent, shares a few unprintable thoughts , and turns to play a soulful take of “Come Back t o Sorrento.” “I got to be Boyd,” he says, as aides scrape the r emnants of pork fried rice from plastic dinner pla tes. “If I die Boyd, I’m still Boyd.” Mr. Dunlop arrived at the brown-brick nursing home nearly four years ago, a strong-willed but slight ly bent half-note. He had 50 cents in his pocket, too much sugar in his blood, and a need to be arou nd others. He liked to sit in the lobby and greet people, especially the women. After a while, Mr. Dunlop let it be known that he was a musician. This did not distinguish him in a place where someone might claim to be a retired co ncert violinist or President Obama’s mother, and, in the first case at least, be telling the truth. Also, music here usually meant something to be end ured — the weekly sing-along, say, with a resident armed with his own electric keyboard. The broken cafeteria piano was a tease that Mr. Du nlop could not resist. He played when no one else was around, between meals, early and late. He lear ned how to dodge the piano’s flaws, how to elongat e the good notes and suffocate the bad. <strong>Not</strong>hing like his music had been heard in these cle anser-scented halls. The sounds of Boyd, including the occasional yowl, would flow from the empty ca feteria to greet Kate Wannemacher, the director of nursing, as she arrived early in the morning. “He plays right out of his heart,” she says. Life kept time to a nursing home’s beat. Breakfast lunch dinner, breakfast lunch dinner, with occasi onal riffs of bingo, sing-alongs, insulin shots, p aranoia, and more bingo. Mr. Dunlop had his bellic ose moments, but mostly he was charming away in th
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NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermo
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y were, and so on. And it begins to
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the Nest’s own screen shows you a
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e name of a Facebook friend while e
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ddress field, it will add a map lin
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t Valentine. "Bobby completely embr
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"Bobby is a baseball genius," said
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ays and orphanages, and the rest of
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aid she told him. "I don’t know a
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Sneaking Up on Defenses, Until He's
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Instead, Bennett said Nelson benefi
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sits, especially for its second rot
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as well as intact hand scrolls. He
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NYT-1203 Center of Penn State Scand
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hysical aspect of the relationships
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ank accounts or giving away donated
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according to prosecutors. The local
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on the street,” concluded Mr. Lit
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t. Nirav Tolia, an Internet entrepr
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With few original musicals opening
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particular folly, and their counter
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A brief tryout run at the American
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computer that can play “Jeopardy!
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neuroscience was a guiding principl
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Page 57 and 58: ll again. The revival of another di
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Page 61 and 62: NYT-1207: DINING & WINE With Rude N
Page 63 and 64: mational. “Around 1980, however
Page 65 and 66: San Francisco - ON a bright Hawaiia
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Page 77 and 78: across Sheep Meadow you hear a past
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Page 81 and 82: In a statement on Wednesday about t
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Page 85 and 86: eing honored at the 21st annual Bro
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Page 89 and 90: And the bonuses, many say, run deep
Page 91 and 92: if you’re going to be frustrated
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Page 105 and 106: ~~~~~~~~~~ NYT-1209: EDITORIALS As
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NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

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