For three or four days this week, I've heard music coming from the park across the street from the apartment. Being somewhat jaded I thought, "Eh just recorded music to please the visitors to the royals' big bash." I have heard this particular music often because I have several of the recordings of folk master, Kong Nay. He is the Cambodian equivalent of Ray Charles. A blind man who may literally have saved Cambodian folk music from a destiny worse than death.

Friday night I wandered out to get a pedicure and a foot massage down the block (No one can ever tell me that getting your feet bathed, nails cut and legs massaged cannot change your life.) As I stepped out of the salon I spied a small stage set against the outer wall of the Royal Palace. From it came the plaintive sounds of an Cambodian lute and a solo male voice. I recognized Master Nay and his voice, but could not believe that he in person would be performing so close to my house. It sent chills up my spine that reminded me of the time I first heard Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie sing together at the Hudson Clearwater Revival. (For those who are too jaded, you don't know what you have missed until you've heard Ledbelly, Odetta and Pete Seeger sing old time spirituals and blues on the same stage.) Kong Nay is of that class. He performs improvisational poetry on the topics of the day. Imagine a hip hop artist jamming on a lute. He survived being starved and worked mercilessly despite being an artist of the kind the ingenue proliteriat wannabe's of the Khmer Rouge wanted dead largely because he was blind. He almost singlehandedly has saved this improvisational music form called chapei.