A wonderful experiment conducted in a Washington DC Metro station. Playing some of the greatest music the human race has created, one of the finest violinists in the world anonymously busks: will his art cut through the rush and bustle of the commuters’ morning? Will a crowd form?

I love this article and find it very moving. It’s a splendid modern demonstration of the question of context and presentation in art, and what is required to form aesthetic appreciation. And it’s a fun stunt too. (I’m tempted to try a similar thing in London to see how it works with Europeans.)

At one point, the journalist talks about infants having an innate delight in the rhythms of music and poetry which is ‘choked out of us’ as we grow up. A similar thought has been raised concerning magic by a great magician called Paul Harris: that a baby is constantly surprised at his world, and that as we grow up and learn about our environment, we experience astonishment less and less. Harris sees the work of the magician as a way of taking people back to an almost primal state of wonder. Which may be true, though in both cases, clearly much depends upon the quality of the performance.

Apropos of such things, I recently read a terrific book called This is Your Brain on Music which is an extraordinary insight into music and how it works upon us. Well worth a read – it celebrates all types of music, so there’s no need for specialist classical knowledge.

If any of you were at the filming for the first episode of The Event last night, then thank you for coming and I hope you enjoyed yourselves. Good morning.

x

…for ‘The Event’. The show will consist of a mixture of pre-recorded location pieces and theatre-based bits hanging it all together, and then each one if the four one-hour programmes leads up to a major stunt at the end (which will be done in September when it all goes out). It’s fun and really ambitious (at least compared to what we’re used to. Probably Obama has more on his plate).

Any of you coming to the recordings will be forming a small, on-screen audience for the theatre sections, being taken through the story-so-far and the pieces we’ve already filmed.

And while you have nothing better to do, here are some pictures of Westminster I took in the snow from the office. x

Just in case there’s a terrorist attack on Moscow or I’m spotted in Heat buying fancy Marmite variations and you think I’ve been lying to you. The documentary was pulled at the very last minute. Thermals packed and everything. Still hoping it might happen at some point, as the school seems a fascinating place.

Have spent a couple of days writing more of the book – this had been put on the back burner a while ago – and am today back into working on ‘The Event’. Even managed to get to the cinema over the weekend, which I haven’t done for a very long time: saw Milk, which was quite extraordinary. Penn must be the greatest screen actor of our generation. You may also be interested to know that I have, as of yesterday, finally watched the classic Star Wars Trilogy: I only ever saw the first one, once, as a kid. Now I feel I understand a whole set of cultural references which had until now eluded me. Finally I get all those Jedi mind-trick jokes. Until now I was faking.

x

Liverpool was lovely, thank you for asking. I spent a week with a medium making a documentary which I can only imagine will be very lively and watchable. It was an exhausting few days, but I shall say no more for now.

Sunday I’m off to Moscow to make another one – this time looking into the Bronnikov school (see the footage above or go to their site – looks enticing, no?) and some other people claiming quite fascinating powers. As ever the idea is to go in as much as possible without prejudice, with a sincere delight in the possibility of it being real, and see whether anything extraordinary is really going on. I have spent a fascinating amount of money at Snow+Rock today on padding and thermals, but before long will probably post a picture of me here, freezing my twin peaches off by the banks of the Moskva.

Have a warm week the rest of you. x