Does anyone ever say "no" when asked if they like music?

I am a sucker for strangers suddenly becoming united through a shared experience, especially when it involves music.  Stopping to witness a busker outside a subway station playing classical pieces on a set of crystal water glasses or getting a karaoke serenade by an undercover Jewel, these equally thrill me.  In this case (yes, it is a T-Mobile commercial), it's the welcoming of new arrivals at Heathrow airport with spontaneous singing.  



It's just something that makes people pause in their everyday lives and connect with each other.  It often results in the quick draw of a camera phone, but it also makes you glad to be alive.

In honor of the upcoming holiday season, here is a "Random Act of Culture" brought to you by the Opera Company of Philadelphia.  (Did you know that their Macy's has the largest pipe organ in the world? )





The Guitar

The weeping of the guitar
begins.
The goblets of dawn
are smashed.
The weeping of the guitar
begins.
Useless
to silence it.
Impossible
to silence it.
It weeps monotonously
as water weeps
as the wind weeps
over snowfields.
Impossible
to silence it.
It weeps for distant
things.
Hot southern sands
yearning for white camellias.
Weeps arrow without target
evening without morning
and the first dead bird
on the branch.
Oh, guitar!
Heart mortally wounded
by five swords.

-Federico García Lorca