Busking Story Earns Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing

Ever since I read that amazing story about Bell’s experiment, I’ve started paying better attention to street musicians in the Metro.  You never know…

The first time I saw busking/street players was in NY City in the 60s. In recent years I went to Galway City in Ireland with two musicians and my girlfriend was the only woman in sight that day (or most). She played her own music and some Tim Buckley and made about 50 euros in about 45 minutes. Then
that was $66.00. It was a great day for buskers and mimes in an area where there is only foot traffic. Some wonderful musicians. Aside from my friend, my favorite was a young man from Tibet who
played a long, carved, wooden flute in a
near formal manner. He was not a monk. But his music was beautiful, strong and soaring like the country he had fled. Busking is wonderful and time honored and also illegal in some unenlightened places. Why was Bell ignored? Timing? Was he startling to the people? My girlfriend was startling and amazed some of the people in Galway who were not used to seeing a lone woman busking. But in Europe Bell would have been applauded. Some buskers who do it for a living, give a spiel before they play and pass the hat first, explaining that they want people to know this is their livelihood. And people give money. It adds up. I would have listened to Bell, for sure. And thrown some coin.