Alice writes in her blogpost “Pearls Before Breakfast”:
This is brilliant. Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten convinced violinist Joshua Bell to play his $3.5 million Stradivarius for quarters in the Washington, DC subway during rush hour back in January. How’d it turn out? Read for yourself (video is included). Enjoy!
I did enjoy. It was a very interesting and well-written article. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at street musicians in quite the same way again.
A Roll in the Universe 
5 replies on “Pearls Before Breakfast”
What an interesting story, and a great \”experiement.\” Bell was certainly a good sport. IMO, however, that article was WAYYYY to long! I found myself skipping grand chunks to get to the payoff of what actually happened, something I don\’t typically do.
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One reason I raved is because I didn\’t feel compelled to skip. That\’s how interesting I found the article.
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There is a great response to the Joshua Bell article by a NYC subway musician in her blog: http://www.SawLady.com/blogShe interprets the situation differently from the Washington Post reporters… I thought you might find it interesting.
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I didn\’t find SawLady\’s take all that informative. This blog entry with comments filled in a few details for me.
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I\’d like to see this experiment reproduced in a more relaxed setting, say a park or street corner on a Sunday afternoon.Like it or not, when people are running late for work the last thing on their minds is who the dude with the violin might be, and whether their boss will accept \”I stopped to listen to a guy I think might be a concert violinist playing in the subway because the music was so beautiful\” as an excuse for their umpteenth late arrival.It was a cool experiment none the less.
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