The Protagonist Festival last week was our most intimate, with about 50% of attendees who had bought tickets showing up. The wind-rain that New York cast that night was perhaps the reason.

Tom, who’s been to every festival, walked in almost as soon as the doors opened. Wearing his orange protagonist hat that he bought at the first festival, wore to the second, and now sported to the third, I introduced him to James, a keyboardist he hadn’t yet met. Tom became one of my fiercest advocates after stumbling upon me busking a few months ago, then returning with a folding chair to watch the entire set. His consistency has done just as much for me as he says mine has done for him. Perhaps the music is working.

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