- talk to each other
- talk on our cell phones
- tote around any infants or children that make noise
- turn up our iPods to "broadcast mode" (even though I'm sure everyone wants to hear more of The Mountain Goats and This American Life...they just don't know it yet.)
- laugh, cry, fart, curse or otherwise do anything other than sit quietly and get where we are going
These bizarrely silent moments are always unexpected, never last very long (5 minutes tops), and when you think about it, completely amazing. Fifty people! Being absolutely quiet in a public space without being told to.
It floors me. And it renews my faith in humanity. Maybe the sentiment is over the top, but I'm not kidding. This kind of thing can't be orchestrated. And it happened to me this morning.
Good stuff.
1 comment:
This is great! It makes me think of an NPR story I heard a few years ago where the correspondent talked about how much he loved getting into the studio a few minutes before he would tape. He talked about sitting in a sound-proof room wearing big headphones and how amazingly zen it was to be in such silence. Perhaps he didn't call it amazingly zen, and just after I typed that I wanted to hit backspace, but now I kinda like it.
I am familiar with the phenomena you're talking about and I think it's pretty much tops on the pantheon of interesting mass-transit social phenomena. I miss mass transit, and I miss you all down there in DC, but your story was a grrreat way to start my day.
Post a Comment