Imagine

Is there a name for that phenomenon, the one where you hear of something for the first time -- a name, a place, a trend, a TV show -- something you've gone a long time never hearing about, and once it lands on your radar you then keep crossing paths with it?

For instance, until last year, despite being a well-read adult and having traveled to New York multiple times, I had never heard the city's corner shops referred to as "bodegas" before. Now the word crops up regularly.

Back in late April, in San Francisco, I witnessed a jazz jam session on a street corner in the North Beach area, and it featured an upright piano. Rolled out right there in the middle of the public walkway in the middle of the day. I'd never seen busking on a piano.

Now, there's that other phenomenon, cute and clever outdoor city displays (like the art cows in Chicago from back in the day), courtesy of a group called Song for Hope, which is scattering 88 rehabbed pianos around the streets of New York. (Here's a story about it with a BAD headline.)

And then this morning, there's this from earlier this week amid the protests in Turkey:

The soothing sound of a grand piano drifted across Taksim Square last night, bringing a welcome calm a day after violence rocked the area.

*** 
Hundreds gathered around German musician Davide Martello as he clinked away late into the evening. They were mostly silent while he played John Lennon’s Imagine, some Bach, and his own composition “Lightsoldiers.”

After playing for an hour at the edge of the square, Martello enlisted the help of his new fans to drag the grand piano closer to the centre, beside Gezi Park.

Martello built the piano himself, attached lights so he could play in the dark, and pulled it on a trailer from his hometown Konstanz, Germany, to play to protesters in Taksim Square. 

The evening passed without incident any major incident. Some protesters even had time for a game of football in the square. 

After his performance, Martello wrote on Facebook: "Good night Istanbul, tomorrow I will playing again on the square for freedom and our rights."

So there it is. It's the summer of the outdoor piano.