World class violinist poses as a regular street performer at a subway station

[Feelings]

http://motleynews.net/2012/01/27/pearls-before-breakfast/

A onetime child prodigy, at 39 Joshua Bell has arrived as an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston’s stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements. But on that Friday in January, Joshua Bell was just another mendicant, competing for the attention of busy people on their way to work.

In his 2003 book, Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life, British author John Lane writes about the loss of the appreciation for beauty in the modern world. The experiment at L’Enfant Plaza may be symptomatic of that, he said — not because people didn’t have the capacity to understand beauty, but because it was irrelevant to them. “This is about having the wrong priorities,” Lane said.
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?

[video=youtube;hnOPu0_YWhw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hnOPu0_YWhw[/video]

Shiet. Got me pondering and shit.

 

[Sriracha]

If he was standing in a park it would be one thing, but the subway was probably the worst venue he could choose. People have places to go. *shrugs*

 

[Leticia Mejor]

People are busy, busy rotating from A to B like hamsters. There's no time to listen to beautiful music! There's work to do!