...And All You Need To Know
"Many people hate poetry, and many of them teach English" - Billy Collins
Many English teachers (some of my best friends) don't appreciate poetry. Collins believes that we learn poetry in the womb via the mother's heartbeat that we hear. Then the English teachers come along and destroy our natural inclination to the poetic.
I am aware of that Collins sentiment as well as some other gems, due to this article. I know about that piece because the author emailed me a link to it. The author emailed me a link to his Collins interview in response to a letter I wrote him about a prize winning feature of his that has been edited, adapted, and all but ruined and spread around on the Internet as an email that makes you want to run to Snopes and see if it's true (I did. It is.)
That article is what this post is about.
Dear Mr. Weingarten,
I just discovered your article on the Joshua Bell experiment. I only regret that I found it so late in the game. It is a masterful and profound piece and I thank you for writing it. Perhaps you know that there is a version of the story going around on chain email. I received that email last night and immediately checked out the story on Snopes. com, which verified that it was true.
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I am glad the article won the Pulitzer, it was very much deserved. Part of me only wishes that the sad reality you revealed would not be what it is. I was a philosophy major, and am a big fan of poetry - Billy Collins in particular. I related to the Collins quote, but I find the facts so sad. I wanted you to know that this article meant a great deal to me and gave me food for thought that I will digest and absorb for life. I hope to blog about this soon.
Thank You!
Sincerely,
Rabbi Neil Fleischmann
Twenty three minutes after emailing this journalist, I received a reply. I loved the Collins piece that he alerted me of and even more - so the piece that I'll get around this bush and write about in the next paragraph.
Mr. Weingarten asked a virtuoso named Joshua Bell if he'd be willing to play violin in a Washington train terminal and Bell agreed and the event became an article with many threads to it. The idea was to see how the people who passed through the station while Bell played (1,097 over 43 minutes) would react. There were theories that great crowds would gather and that the police might need to be called in. Some of the questions before the fact were - would people stop, for how long, and would there be ovations.
The author cites philosophers ("IF A MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?: It's an old epistemological debate, older,, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact [Gottfried Leibniz], or merely an opinion [David Hume], or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer [Immanuel Kant]) and poets (What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare - from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies) as well as quotes from the people who were experimented on ("Where was he, in relation to me?" "About four feet away" "Oh"). (Those who passed and were stopped by the reporter were merely told that they would be called later and asked questions for an article about commuting).
Most people didn't stop, didn't even notice the musician, and were certainly not moved. Lottery tickets - as usual - went like hotcakes, people - as usual - ran to catch their trains. One little boy was enamored by the music and his mother dragged him away as he kept turning back (later when she was told that it was a master violinist playing a three million dollar piece, the mother simply said of her son, "Evan is very smart!").
It seems to me that there’s an irony at play in this email that goes around about the Joshua Bell experiment. The email is short and inaccurate. It does not do justice to the original piece, which presents layer upon layer of a story about the human experience. It was a substantial essay, now passed around the net in a fluffy version. The irony is that the article was about how people today don’t stop to appreciate beauty. And people don’t stop to read this beautiful article.
Twenty three minutes after emailing this journalist, I received a reply. I loved the Collins piece that he alerted me of and even more - so the piece that I'll get around this bush and write about in the next paragraph.
Mr. Weingarten asked a virtuoso named Joshua Bell if he'd be willing to play violin in a Washington train terminal and Bell agreed and the event became an article with many threads to it. The idea was to see how the people who passed through the station while Bell played (1,097 over 43 minutes) would react. There were theories that great crowds would gather and that the police might need to be called in. Some of the questions before the fact were - would people stop, for how long, and would there be ovations.
The author cites philosophers ("IF A MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?: It's an old epistemological debate, older,, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact [Gottfried Leibniz], or merely an opinion [David Hume], or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer [Immanuel Kant]) and poets (What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare - from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies) as well as quotes from the people who were experimented on ("Where was he, in relation to me?" "About four feet away" "Oh"). (Those who passed and were stopped by the reporter were merely told that they would be called later and asked questions for an article about commuting).
Most people didn't stop, didn't even notice the musician, and were certainly not moved. Lottery tickets - as usual - went like hotcakes, people - as usual - ran to catch their trains. One little boy was enamored by the music and his mother dragged him away as he kept turning back (later when she was told that it was a master violinist playing a three million dollar piece, the mother simply said of her son, "Evan is very smart!").
It seems to me that there’s an irony at play in this email that goes around about the Joshua Bell experiment. The email is short and inaccurate. It does not do justice to the original piece, which presents layer upon layer of a story about the human experience. It was a substantial essay, now passed around the net in a fluffy version. The irony is that the article was about how people today don’t stop to appreciate beauty. And people don’t stop to read this beautiful article.
The original piece can be found here. Do yourself a favor and take the time to read it.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 7:48 PM
5 Comments:
I just read it. I have mixed reactions... I feel the passersby were set up, in a way, to look like dolts. I see the point the article was trying to make, but like some quoted in the article, I believe context is everything.
Also, I wonder if Bell had played during evening rush hour if the outcome would be slightly different. No one wants to be late for work (especially in this economy!), but often people are more apt to linger as they make their way home at the end of the workday.
Intriguing and well written! Thanks for the link.
I'd be willing to bet that in a strong economy, during the evening, or even on a federal holiday, not many people would stop. I feel strongly tht this was an honest piece and that it represents a sad reality. I think most people move in a hurried frenzy, even if they have no-where to go, that people have lost their sense of beauty, their ability to smell the roses.
Just read the Josh Bell article. I had received the email, but the article is much better. Thanks for the link. I think I would have stopped for a minute or two to listen. I'm not into classical music, but something so interesting and unusual would have drawn me. I probably would have stopped for any half-decent musician.
I think i would have to - G-d I hope so. But you never know for sure till you're in a situation.
True, if I was rushing to catch a train, there wouldn't have been time to stand around. But at least to pause, to notice the guy, to glance in his direction! Yes, definitely.
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