If you’re ever in the Sichuan Province of the People’s Republic of
China, it’s worth a visit to the Cafe Milan in Chengdu. The place is
absolutely beautifully decorated, and the live piano, flute, and
violin at times can be moving and breathtaking.

It was there that I began to fall in love with classical music.
Still I am no expert, but my girlfriend of the time - a beautiful
and cultured editor of a high fashion magazine - took me to this
oh-so wonderful place, where time seemed to melt away.

The thing that I never thought about Milan - and how moving it could
be at times - was the context. Not only was the music quite good -
but the decor was amazing, with wonderful marble, lighting, glass,
and a touch of gold. The servers were dressed impeccably, and always
warm-eyed. The seats and tables somehow managed to be extremely
formal and extremely comfortable at the same time. It was the kind
of place where a Western would naturally feel underdressed, though
being underdressed in Chengdu isn’t particularly easy to accomplish.

But would the music have been as sweet elsewhere? It’s a question we
could debate and ponder and think about - but it turns out that Gene
Weingarten of the Washington Post has done it for us.

The Post asked Joshua Bell, one of the finest violinists in the
world, to play in a Washington, D.C. train station wearing street
clothes and a baseball hat.

The article says it better than I could, but Bell is a master with
his violin, who plays to packed houses anywhere in the world as he
wishes. His time costs about $1,000 *per minute*.

And as he sat and played for 43 minutes on an early winter morning,
1,097 people passed by. Only two stopped for more than a moment.

The article is really illuminating about where Western culture has
gone and how context affects art and human interaction. It’s a long
read, but well-worth it. If you choose to follow the link, at the
very least watch the videos of hundreds walking by as he plays
pieces on his $3.5 million 1713 Stradivarius violin.

Tomorrow, I’ll have a few thoughts on how context applies to your
social life, how you’ll never take the heart of every woman that
sees you regardless of how good you are, but how, despite that - you
can be one of the most successful men in the social arts of all time
if you simply want to - and the difference may be only the context
in which you present that which you already are.

But for now, if you have 10 minutes to read a wonderful piece about
how perhaps we’re missing out on lots of things we should be paying
attention to, here is “Pearls Before Breakfast”, on the Washington
Post’s website:

“Pearls Before Breakfast”, Washington Post Online

Sebastian