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Video: Dan Smith Will Teach You Guitar & Answer Your Burning Questions
By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 28, 2019
Modified Mar 28, 2019
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Jenn Hsu/Gothamist
By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 28, 2019
Modified Mar 28, 2019
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A few weeks ago, we had the pleasure of getting to know Dan Smith, the somewhat mysterious NYC icon who has spent the last 25 years plastering every laundromat window, pizzeria and bodega door in the city with his now iconic flyers—and also, of course, teaching people to play guitar. While Smith certainly has a sense of humor about his public persona, he is very sincere and very serious about what he does—especially about how learning to play guitar can teach you something much bigger: how to live. But that's because he's done the seemingly impossible: he turned what for most people would be a hobby into a lifelong profession
There was so much to glean from our time Smith, we didn't have enough space to fit it all into our profile of him. So we've put some of that extra material into the video below, in which you'll learn about why Smith always puts up his flyers himself; how often he gets recognized on the street; why his teaching style is like sea glass; his favorite place to spend a lazy Sunday in the city; his favorite NYC wildlife; his nightmare NYC scenario; his utopian idea to improve life in New York; and his strangest subway story.
You can watch the original video here:
And of course, we would be remiss if we didn't put up the video of him performing "Everybody's Different," which I still have stuck in my head all these weeks later:
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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