Gene Weingarten's Originality

I am fond of this piece on Josh Bell; it won the Pulitzer prize. It's about a master musician playing - and being ignored in the subway. It goes around as an email, but the original version is stronger. It was gifted with a coveted prize due to the originality of the piece.

Today, I read this follow up article and learned the rest of the story. What are the odds? I believe that the author did not know about the previous experiment, but it's wild that a very (very!) similar experiment had been done before. Wild.