Gene Weingarten may be a complete slacker, but every now and then he does something useful like this week’s Washington Post Magazine cover story, Pearls Before Breakfast. He recruited famed violinist Joshua Bell to perform in a Metro station. Due to WMATA bureaucracy, Bell actually performed in L’nfant Plaza underground shopping corridor rather than the actual station one January morning.
The results were telling; few people stopped to enjoy a world class musician perform. When reached for comment, many expressed disappointment that they were too busy going through their day to notice. Weingarten followed up with a live discussion the day after it ran too. By the way, his weekly chats should return on April 24.
“Pearls Before Breakfast” is probably the second best article of Weingarten’s I have read. The best of course is The Peekaboo Paradox about The Great Zucchini.
For the record, I’m now the 935th blog to link to this story.
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