Dear Folks:

The other day a young karate instructor from L.A., Jeremy Goulder, came to New York on business and an instructor friend of his, Robb Van Der Volgen a lovely guy who also lives in L.A. and who'd come to New York for karate critiquing several years earlier, asked if I'd be willing to give Jeremy some pointers up on our rooftop "dojo," which of course I was more than pleased to do.  Turned out, as I fully expected, that Jeremy was also a lovely person, and over dinner here following our workout upstairs, he mentioned that he and his brother were film producers specializing in documentaries.  

He was too modest, for when we pressed him about his (relatively recent) career accomplishments, he told us about a film they had done that began by recording an unknown street musician in Santa Monica they knew and then going around virtually the entire world with that and other compositions, letting other street musicians listen to the music and then improvising on what they were hearing.  The theme, of course, was that music was the only way to heal the soul and build bridges to a more peaceful world.  

We just got the DVD set (it comes with a CD of all the music as well) and watched it last night.  Absolutely fabulous, and the first thing we said after coming out of the mesmerized state in which it left us was, If you haven't already, you folks gotta see it.  It'll make you even prouder of the sort of people attracted to Uechi-ryu.

It's called Playing for Change.

We're off on a month's assignment in Egypt in a couple of days.

All the best,

Dave & Evelyn