Congratulations to Scott Olsen whose “Nine Variations on the Idea of Street Music” appeared in this month’s Utne Reader. It originally appeared in North Dakota Quarterly 80.3. The articles looks at nine incidents of street music accompanied by a pair of vibrant black-and-white photographs.

I won’t wreck the elegance of this piece by describing it, but I will provide you with a link. It’s the perfect thing to read by the fire during the holidays. It also encourages us to look at our world just a bit more closely and sympathetically especially during the wintery rush store to store and door to door. Stopping to enjoy the sounds of street music needn’t imply that the musicians are playing for us, but it does mean we recognize them.