Tuesday, March 07, 2006

And Buskers

As well as the beggars, there is another, more entertaining, sort of supplicant in the metro. As in Toronto there are the sanctioned buskers, who have designated spots in the stations. It must be that they hold auditions because, whether or not one finds them actually enjoyable, they always have some genuine ability. I've seen duos, quartets and ensembles of a dozen members. They play strings, accordion, pan-pipes, keyboard, saxophone, tuba, you name it. I've heard polkas, folk music, musak'd pop tunes, all the way to chamber music.

On the metro cars themselves there are unofficial, but enterprising, solo artists. When I was taking French classes in the morning I regularly saw one particular poet. He would address the car with a speech about his poetry, then move down the car offering for sale some stapled sheets. A couple of times I've seen a little puppet show. The puppeteer throws a curtain between two uprights with velcro, hits his tape recorder, and has his puppet sing the song for a couple of stations before passing the hat. Rather lame, really, but it beats reading the advertisements.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home