Perceptions & Priorities
Talent is not recognized unless its projected as talent! A case study by Washington Post shows how Musician Joshua Bell, who can command $1000 per minute on his violin, managed to be make only $32 by playing at a subway station in DC. A very good article that analyzes human behaviour.
"In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty (talent) transcend?"
"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 to appreciate talent? 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?"
A touching quote by one of the passerbys:
"It was the most astonishing thing I've ever seen in Washington," Furukawa says. "Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush hour, and people were not stopping, and not even looking, and some were flipping quarters at him! Quarters! I wouldn't do that to anybody. I was thinking, Omigosh, what kind of a city do I live in that this could happen?"
posted by Bobby at 1:11 AM
2 Comments:
Very nice. We do pay so much attention to what the world collectively thinks, especially in abstract things like the arts.
There is an interesting story about that: The reporter who organised this stunt thought he was the first person to do it. But later he found a small piece on somebody else doing it way back in the 1930s with another famous musician.
And, here is the creepy part, turns out the violin that was used in both these experiments was the same Stradivarius. :)
I can't find the article right now, but it's there somewhere on the net, if you look for it.
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