Pearls Before Breakfast

I stole that title. It's from this Washington Post article that Hort sent me: Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out.

Joshua Bell (that's him there on the left with his Stradivarius and leather pants) is the great musician. He posed as a street musician in a busy DC plaza in a Washington Post experiment to see if anyone would stop and smell the roses as it were. He's played Symphony Hall and the Library of Congress.. cheap seats to one of his shows cost 100 bucks. How much would he make street performing with his Stradivarius (made in 1710?) Terrific article, entertaining writing. (I hesitate to point out that the article is very long --sort of the point of the whole thing is that we should be stopping to enjoy terrific things and not worrying about how much time they take. But that being said... after sticking with the article til the payoff, I may have only scanned the second half...)

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

How'd it turn out? Next break time, grab your tea or your coffee, turn off the ringer and read it!

PS One guy admitted that he walked right by the maestro and his 3.5 million dollar violin without noticing because he was listening to his iPod-- "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure. Granted, a pretty good song, but we all need to reevaluate our priorities. As if the world weren't impersonal enough. The iPod is going to make us completely antisocial! (...she writes, as she ignores the ringing phone to put the finishing touches on her blog.)