Swing Low Travelin' Buffalo Show

The banjo sounds like thoughts popping, sounds like Kentucky hills in love, it's an instrument that plucks better than any other, an alcoholic version of the harp that hiccups itself right off the front porch.

When I listen to old bluegrass, Americana, and Dustbowl songs, I have to remind myself that they're quite modern. Woody Guthrie singing about taking you for a ride in his car is no more out of date than Mike Skinner complaining about lack of cell phone reception. A car! But we liked technology better then, times must have been tougher, because we seem to hate it now. Russ & Becky Jeffers sang about the new wagon, Woody about the car, but in simple amazement. These things were praised. Yet I've never heard a song about the wonders of a computer keyboard, or about my new GPS. What happened?

Joshua Bell is violin prodigy that I've never listened to, only recently read about. He took part in an experiment to see if people recognized genius when it wasn't grandiosely presented. They had him busk in a NY subway station, just stand and play his violin for spare change, and they did it to see if people would stop. Out of more than 1,000 right around 6 people actually listened. The vast majority didn't even look in his direction. The really interesting part, though, is that every single child that walked by wanted to listen, only to be dragged off by parents. This was a world class violinist playing some of the most difficult pieces in the world on a $3.5 million violin. What happened?

Technology was wondrous until we became impatient for its arrival. It seems that one of the biggest uses of modern information technology is to lament what its done to us.