"Are We Too Busy For Beauty?"

(NOTE: the title above was the headline from the Charlotte Observer 4/29/07, with a link to the original Washington Post article below that piqued my interest for today's entry)

When you think of golf, you think "Tiger Woods", the penultimate golfer of the day, record-setter extraordinaire, and at such a young age...

In the world of classical music, especially the violin, you in likeways (should) think of Joshua Bell, stringed maestro that began his prodigious career at the ripe age of 4 and is on top of the heap at just 39 years old.

Such was the premise for a Washington Post 'experiment' last January that placed the super-star Bell, garbed in blue jeans and a Washington Senators baseball cap, in a D.C. Metro subway station (L'Enfant Plaza) during the morning rush hour, playing his 'best of the best' for passers-by...for all "in the know" to hypothesize and actually 'see' what the public response would be.

Who'ld a thunk it. The irony of it all, extraordinary almost beyond comprehension. A master, in street clothes, up against a subway wall, playing a 1713 Stradivarius worth $3.5 million, to throngs of rush-to-work-ites, emanating the classical greats among his repertoire. Virtually no one noticed. Or bothered to listen, much less stop. Here is the best of the best, amongst scads of people deep into daily habits and 'blinders', and the mediocrity of blindness won out hands down...and what does that say about society at large?

Oh sure, a precious few of the almost 1,100 people stopped and listened (7)...27 threw in some change...and one lone wolf actually recognized Joshua Bell for who he was. In the course of 1,097 people passing by in 45 minutes, his open violin case grossed $32 and change...for this, a man who makes as much as $1,000 per minute in performance fees...

Everyone else went on their way...iPod buds in their ears, cell phones to their face, checking their watches to count to the very minute they had to be at a particular destination...when the undercover Post personnel followed up on some hidden observations with a phone call, many never recalled a violinist playing at all even just feet away...which is odd given the voluminous rich voice of the rare Stradi violin...

To me, one of the saddest commentaries dealt with the children that passed by...ALL were observed wanting to crane their necks and stop and listen...and ALL were observed pulled along post-haste by their parent/guardian without so much as acknowledging the very music that pulled their tyke's little heartstrings...in my mind, the greatest tragedy of this experiment.

(You can read the full article from the Washington Post, written by Gene Weingarten HERE .)

In scarily like manner, though on a much more humble scale, I have vended my flutes at major regional art shows, standing and playing my flutes to passers-by...and watching far too many children pass by who become immediately mesmerized and wanted to listen to the eerily beautiful sound of the Native American flute, even asking their parent(s) outright if they could stop a minute...only to have a thoroughly 'blind' parent see/hear none of it and jerk the kid to keep moving as they went from point A to B...never looking at me, never acknowledging the music just 10 feet away...and worse, totally out of touch with their child. That's very, very sad.

I'll admit I'm a non-parent. But if I were, I would understand the value of wonderment children feel, appreciating the fact that they're not old enough to have screwed everything up like most adults...yet many are raised to repeat their elders' foibles and less than exemplary habits.

Mind you, those sad moments are replaced with the incredibly magic ones when parents DO allow their children to 'connect' with something that really trips their trigger. The light shining in their eyes says it all, and somehow you just know you gave them a very important Spark in their young, formative life.

May we ALL take time to stop and smell the proverbial roses....to allow for a 'change of course' so that we're in not so big of a rush that we can't investigate a 'side road'...and to always hold open the possibility that our Youth know a helluva lot more than we think they do at certain times. Never judge ANY situation by its '"cover". Understand that Magic is everywhere around us at ALL times. Always. In All Ways. But first we must be OPEN to that concept, of course...

So do yourself a favor, today. Look deeply into your pet's eyes as you gently give them a head rub. Watch a bird fly or build a nest. Look closely into the center of a flower. Listen to some beautiful music that makes you feel good. Even if but for a moment, take time to experience wonderment, in whatever context it may be. It's good stuff.