Pearls Before Breakfast or "Choke This Down With Your Cheerios"
This article came to me from a couple of dear friends of mine who live in NYC. For those of you who worship art, music, and beauty--and maybe you've even devoted your life to creating some of it--read this article and enjoy. It reaffirms everything you know about life. Just do me one small, tiny, eensie-weensie favor: don't read anymore of this post. Please.
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Are they gone? Okay. For those of us who would have been part of the "1097 people who passed by", this article should come as no surprise. It's the same drivel from the neo-Hippies we've been hearing for years now. They love to point at all of us who give a damn, and make us feel guilty for doing it. Why are you stressing man? Chill, man... No one ever thinks about the people who had to clean up after Woodstock. But I digress...
Remember: "Nothing exists in a vacuum" is not a tautology. Context doesn't just matter--implying it's somehow a property of the event that could conceivably be separated out (like the time and place of an impromptu violin concert)--it's the whole of the matter. "Timing is everything." "Location, location, location." "Not until you see the whites of their eyes." Environment. Space. Time. All integral parts of experiences. And, while the article does grudgingly admit that, it quickly discounts it as not "the whole story". Rubbish. Not only can you not tell the "whole story" without a deep understanding of context, you can't even be sure that anyone else will appreciate it. That's the fun irony to this article: while context is given a fleeting glance in the article, the whole premise of the article is built on the assumption that the author and I share the same context of value.
But I don't find much value in a loud violinist while I'm trying to talk on the phone. Or gather my thoughts before a big meeting. Or listen to my iPod. (Which, was strangely out-of-place as the bad guy in this article. It was obvious why they came down on it for this story, but tomorrow they'll probably gush about how having ear-buds in allows us to "paint the world in the many colors of the music we love.") I might add: the not-so-subtle dig at technology was not lost on me. Bad-mouthing technology is so knee-jerk to these type of people, they're beyond recognizing their own hypo-criticism anymore. Everything in the story, from the building Bell was performing in, to the taxi he took three blocks, to the shoes that were being shined--even the nifty embedded videos in the web page--all were brought about by technology. And that same technology is fed, shaped, and produced by millions of the same over-worked, under-appreciated men and women who so rudely were talking on the phone while an artist-type was garishly screaming for their attention "only three feet away." ("Why won't anyone pay attention to me? I'm a great concert violinist! I'm super-serial!!")
People are so used to hearing the sheep chanting "Art good, progress bad!" that it's now just assumed that it's true. Someone will bad-mouth progress, and everyone around them will nod knowingly in agreement. "Hear-hear! Things were better in the olden days. I wish this cell phone would just disappear! I'd be so much more productive if I was just allowed to use pencil and paper! And don't get me started on that infuriating Interweb! Now, hand me that pot so that I may defecate in it."
And in case you're thinking that I'm leaning too far toward the political right, let me just politely ask you not to throw me in with that lot either. The right-wing conservatives are also home to the "religious right," a group of people who believe that science should just keep quiet and do as it's told or else it gets the hose again. No, I'm stuck somewhere in the middle--listening to the amazing Pink Floyd on my iPod--while I attempt to optimize a query that will shave seconds off delivering a web page with project financial information designed to increase transparency and facilitate communications between engineers and clients. But I suppose it's better than being a contributor to the Washington Post; spending my days carefully planning the next social experiment that will finally expose the masses as uncaring, unsophisticated "boobs" that can't appreciate art even when it's being jack-hammered into their head by a noisy violinist in a reverberating, "utilitarian" metro terminal. ("The acoustics proved surprisingly kind." Yeah, my bathroom's the same way. Does that mean I'm going to have a visit from Joshua Bell tomorrow morning while I'm showering? I just need to know so I can clean the tub.)
To you cultural anti-heroes who, like the busy people in the video, tirelessly keep the blood of science, industry, and government pumping… To you who, unlike the children in the story, put away childish things--albeit reluctantly--to make this world a truly better place (as in "without polio" better)… To you who are inspired by the artists--then go about making it actually happen… God bless you. Now, go out there and make the sandbox better so that the unappreciative artists can keep frolicking in it.
