Library Notes
Edward Hirst
July 10, 2011

Gene Weingarten is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist known for both his serious and humorous work. A former editor he now writes "Below the Beltway," a weekly humor column for the Washington Post that is nationally syndicated. In 2010 he published a collection of twenty of his best feature stories that originally appeared in the Washington Post. The book is titled The Fiddler in Subway: the True Story of What Happened When a World-class Violinist Played for Handouts. He has the ability to simply tell each story as he sees it from his perspective. Many of the topics don’t sound funny such as, living with terrorism in Jerusalem or life in a remote Alaskan village plagued by alcoholism and suicide.

The book begins with the story of The Great Zucchini, one of the most popular entertainers of preschool age children in the Washington DC area. Eric Knaus as The Great Zucchini makes an annual income of $100,000 working two days a week, yet he has no idea where his money goes. He can’t drive his car since he owes $2000 in parking tickets, he is behind on his taxes and hounded by creditors. “When the lights go out it’s time to pay the bills”, Weingarten writes. Over the course of the story we learn The Great Zucchini is addicted to gambling and this is story of his struggle with his own personal flaws.

The title of the book comes from an experiment to see if rush hour commuters would recognize the talents of a world class violinist playing for handouts. One January morning commuters entering a DC subway station had no idea that the young man with the ball cap and jeans was one of the finest classical musicians in the world. Earlier that morning Joshua Bell took a cab three blocks from his hotel to the subway entrance to protect his violin, a 1713 Stradivarius worth an estimated $3.5 million dollars. For forty five minutes of playing he earned $32.17 in tips from just over a thousand subway passengers who passed him. Days before he played at a venue where the decent seats were $100 each.

In the Pulitzer Prize winning story “Fatal Distraction” he writes of the tragic phenomenon of parents who have left their young children in hot cars. He explores the events through careful reconstructions to let the parents tell their stories of blame and guilt.