Terrible Idea (.net)

Riding the DC Metro at rush hour is occasionally a harrowing prospect.  Trains get crowded, to the point where you can’t reach one of the bars to steady yourself, but you don’t need to because you’re pushed up against enough people that you couldn’t fall over anyway.  Riding between 7:30AM and 8:30AM seemed especially bad last semester (when I actually had class early enough to warrant getting up at such an ungodly hour).

But any illusions I may have had about crowding on the DC Metro (“butts to nuts,” as it is affectionately called by some of my cohorts) have been shattered by this video:

No, they are not trying to get into the Guiness Book of World Records — they are trying to get into a train to go home, on a regular day. See those bellhop-lookin’ guys? Yeah, they are paid to hang out on the platform and forcefully ensure that every cubic centimeter (they use metric in Japan) is filled with human flesh.

That’s an amazing job — it must be cathartic to watch the cars slide by, filled to the brim with people, knowing that you had a hand (well, two hands… and shoulders) in getting those poor souls into that sardine can of a train. Instant feedback for a job well done.

These things are getting a bit emotional. Sitting in Property class does that to me, I guess.

I shuffle along with the rest of the crowd, looking at the names on the black slab. It doesn’t do anything for me. No feelings, no emotion. What am I missing? Why don’t these many names of the many dead affect me? Is there something wrong with me? Am I unable to empathize? Am I some sort of sociopath?

I’m annoyed by these questions running through my head, and I’m annoyed by the old guy in front of me who stops in the middle of the path. I look up at him (he’s tall), and he has a blank look on his face. I wonder if he’s confused or lost, but then his eyes well up, and I realize his blank face is a mask for his grief — my heart swells, and in my mind everything snaps into place.

I write these things in my notebook during class when I get bored.

The train pulls up, and I’m standing right where the door will be, ten paces in from the board showing arrival times.  This will put me out right in front of the escalators at Foggy Bottom.  I follow the crowd through the door, and duck left to get past the tourists who hop on and just stand there.  Standing beside the Metro map, I’m out of the way, but still near the door.  There are several commuters, and a bunch of tourists.  I close my eyes.  I don’t have earphones, but shutting out the visual world gives me some brief repose during the ten-minute ride.

My eyes snap open as a man huffs and puffs beside me, studying the map.  He is slightly overweight, and slightly older, early fifties maybe.  He wears a ball cap, a fanny pack, and a look of concern.  He sweats, and his nose is red.  Nodding in half-hearted satisfaction, he sits back down.  A young girl and a younger boy sit with him, probably both in elementary school.  They fight and argue and yell like a sister and brother.  The man — their father, I assume — pays no heed.  His eyes shift nervously, and he gets up to check the map twice more before we get to Pentagon, the next station.  He is practically wringing his hands.  Tourists.

After Pentagon, I imagine a narrative for this guy, the consumate tourist.  The kids are from a third marriage, on the rocks again.  He’s a mid-level office drone at a mid-size company, getting paid a mid-sized wage somewhere in the — you guessed it — mid-west.  The middle of everything, the average American putz.  He’s vacationing in DC with his kids, and it will be the highlight of his year.  They’ll see the monuments, visit the Capitol, and pay too much for the Spy Museum.

The train bursts into the morning light, and the boy exclaims, “Hey, we’re outside!”  No kidding.  We’re slowing down.  I’m still mocking them in my head.  The operator announces “Arlington Cemetary, doors on your right.”  The train stops, and finally, so do I.  The man says, “C’mon kids, let’s go see your dad.”

Via Volokh, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning feature article, about a world-class violinist who played world-class violin pieces on his world-class violin to a stream of morning commuters at the L’Enfant Plaza Metro stop.  There are plenty of things to say about this article.  It won a Pulitzer Prize, after all.  I find myself wondering two things:

First, if I had been there, on my way to work or class or whatever, would I have realized what was going on?  I’d like to think so, but I see a lot of myself in the descriptions of the disinterested passers-by, who willfully pay less attention the more something tries to grab it.  The article asks this question — how much does the circumstances surrounding the viewing of a piece of art affect the way people perceive it.  The obvious answer is “a lot.”  But would that sublime music have worked its magic on me?  Would I have noticed?

Second, a “meta-question.”  The same question, applied this time to the article itself.  If I had just seen the first few paragraphs of the article in passing, would I have seen it for what it was?  I try to keep apprised of the news as much as the next guy, but I hadn’t heard about this story until it popped up in my news reader and the word “Pulitzer” caught my eye.  The award became the frame that let me appreciate the article.  I read it and was deeply moved.  Would that have happened if I hadn’t known it was a Pulitzer prize winning article?

I’m more confident about answering in the affirmative to the second question than the first.  I read articles for their interest and yes, for their art.  I don’t listen to street musicians for their art.  It is frustrating beyond belief to realize that so many people passed up so great an opportunity, and to realize that I probably would have, too.