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Post Magazine: Too Busy to Stop and Hear the Music

Gene Weingarten, Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 9, 2007; 1:00 PM



Can one of the nation's greatest musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? In this week's issue of the Washington Post Magazine Gene Weingarten sets out to discover if violinist Josh Bell -- and his Stradivarius -- could stop busy commuters in their tracks.

Gene Weingarten is a staff writer and columnist for The Magazine.

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Gene Weingarten: Good afternoon.

This story got the largest and most global response of anything I have ever written, for any publication. I think the enthusiastic classical-music blogosphere helped give it a viral life, as did the availability of quality video. It's kind of humbling, and I thank you all.

I am still wading through more than a thousand emails. Please be patient; I am trying to answer each one, at least briefly.

My favorite global letter so farm came from Marnie Smith of Des Moines, Iowa, who was alerted to this story in the Washington Post through an email from her daughter, who lives in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

I'm going to be answering many dozens of questions in the next hour, but there's one I'd like to pose to you all: With little or no elaboration, more than 100 readers so far have told me that this story made them cry. It was not a reaction I anticipated, at least not so universally, and it has somewhat taken me aback. Can those of you who had this reaction try to explain it? I have a hunch, and if I am right, it is extremely interesting. Rather than say what I think, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Weepers, please write in.

In slightly different ways, several people are asking the same question: Was this story intended to be an indictment of the soul of the federal bureaucrat? Was I suggesting that these people, by their nature, are less sophisticated, less open to beauty, less culturally mature, less aware of their surroundings, than the average person?

The simple answer is, no. It was not my intent, nor could anyone reasonably draw that inference from the story. We didn't have a control group; we had only one shot at the experiment, and you just can't fairly generalize one way or another. I really believe this.

However ....

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