Twitter is my habit, no doubt about it, and now even my iPad knows it. This morning when I turned it on it pointed out that Twitter is the website I go to most often, first thing, and did I want to go there?

I did. I checked out the political news first–mostly silly, often maddening, always frustrating. Why do I go there?

Because I must. Twitter may be my habit but politics is my addiction. I often need R&R, but there it is: I’m addicted.

Then this happened:

As I was scrolling I found a clip I couldn’t get past: a street musician was dancing in a beautiful courtyard, playing a black violin; silently, as it happened, since I had the sound turned off, but one look at his movements told me I needed to watch and listen.

OMG. I wanted it to go on and on. It reminded me of that time in Old Town Albuquerque years ago, when a Peruvian musician playing a pan flute wrung me out to damp dishrag status, sending me to the women’s bathroom where I sat in a stall and sobbed. I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t admit to the other women trying to console me when I finally came out that it was music–just music–that did this to me.

I know for a fact if I had been standing in that square when this happened, I would have been off somewhere, sobbing. Utterly destroyed. Live, gorgeous, spontaneous music performed with wild, exuberant joy will do that to me.

Watch:

So of course my first thought, as I’m blubbering and blowing my nose, is, who is this? Who are they?

(NOTE: In the original edition of this newsletter I included a tweet from someone who thought she knew who they were. She was wrong, so I’ve deleted the link.)

I went looking for them myself and I found them! I Googled ‘violin buskers street musicians’ and found a link to the top 10 talented violin street performers on YouTube. They were there–of course! But no names. Damn! I scrolled the comments and found them. They’re The Trouble Notes (see below) and they’re not just buskers, though they do like to do street performances. They travel all across Europe and do concert tours, as well. But there’s something about street performances that seem real and spontaneous and magical, and they’re among the best.

I’m heading over to Twitter now to add this to the comments below the clip, doing my part…

So there you are. Please tell me this hit you the way it hit me. And if it didn’t, you know we can never be friends.

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