Subway Strad

A while back the Washington Post did a little experiment. They took world famous violin virtuoso Joshua Bell down to a D.C. metro station and set him up busking for the crowds. He played his Stradivarius (worth 3.5 mil) and launched into a selection of the most amazing and difficult violin works known. He played for almost an hour, during the course of which exactly 1077 people passed by oblivious, 32 people tossed money in his case without stopping (he made a total of $32) and only 7 stopped to listen to him. The Post of course wrote this all up (probably to the chagrin of all those who had used that subway stop that morning) as a moral lesson ". . . if we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that, then what else are we missing?" wrote staff writer Gene Weingarten. True, very true. Smell the roses and all that. Perhaps though we should be a little more compassionate with all the Philistines in the subway--just how good did Joshua Bell actually sound against a soundscape of grinding subway trains, how many of them might actually strongly dislike classical music, how much time would a person actually have to enjoy a classical concert on the way to work anyway? (And besides, Joshua should be happy with the $32--that's a pretty good hourly wage in Montana.) This whole thing quickly becomes a parable tying in to stories we all know about the perils of ignoring the man dressed in rags you meet on the road who turns out to be the king, a powerful wizard with three wishes for you, Jesus, whatever. So yes, keep your ears open, listen, see, taste, smell, and feel your way through your life in a skillful, aware manner. But don't take it too hard if you missed Joshua Bell in the subway, after all it was a sting operation--they wanted it to turn out that way, the media literati always feel good when they can scold the rest of us for something we are perceived to be deficient in. I probably would have passed by too--I always feel uncomfortable stopping to smell roses and blocking traffic when people are pushing me from behind.