Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Awareness

Recently I saw a rather interesting and thought-provoking Washington Post article. I'll summarize, since it's a bit long.

Some Post journalists asked a famous virtuoso violinist to play in a D.C. Metro station, posing as a street musician for 45 minutes, just to see what would happen. So, he did, and since he's one of the world's best violin players, he selected some exceedingly complicated classical pieces to perform.

Almost no one paid him any attention. Nearly eleven hundred people walked by, and most didn't even look. Of course, he was at a commuter station on a weekday morning, so everyone had places to go and things to do, but that's kind of the point.

Would you have noticed?