MOSCOW — On random afternoons when the weather is nice, Friendship Square flutters with melodious whistles as a black cat on a leash lounges in the shade.
Her name is Muffen, and her owner, Talan Wilhelm, is improvising as he plays the recorder. Wilhelm travels all over the Western United States, but Moscow has become one of his favorite places to stop and share his music.
“People, they don’t look at me like I’m homeless or down on my luck,” said Wilhelm, 36. “They look at me like I’m a human being.”
Me, interviewing Talan Wilhelm. Muffen, his 6-year-old black cat, lounges in the shade by her cat carrier. (Photo by Barry Kough of the Tribune)
The kindness is perhaps a reflection of Wilhelm’s own.
“If you treat one person with kindness, he’ll treat five people with kindness, and those five people will treat five other people with kindness, and it grows from there,” he said. “Kindness spreads a lot faster than meanness does. I’ve learned that through my music.” Continue reading
Chelsea Embree 