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Pearls Before Breakfast
HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L'ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED HIMSELF AGAINST A WALL BESIDE A TRASH BASKET. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.
Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?
Originally posted by kosmicjack
I was especially fascinated by the observations of the behavior of children who were there as compared to the adults.
The whole thing makes me a little sad.
Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
reply to post by kosmicjack
It would be interesting to have, as part of the experiment, people who would stop and listen and have several gather to see how that affected the commuters that morning. If a group of 20 (part of the experiment) gathered to watch, that tells the others that there's something important here and maybe I should stop, too.
Originally posted by kosmicjack
The scenario you propose is analogous to how pop culture and the MSM can shape our opinions. Who really decides what music is good? What fashions are hot? What issues are important? The crowd, often despite our better judgment.