Music to my ears

Here’s an interesting apparent contradiction: you’ve probably heard of the Mozart Effect, the theory that listening to Mozart’s music increases spatial/temporal reasoning capabilities. & the popular extrapolation of that idea to enceinte yuppies aiming classical music at their gen-whatever offspring in utero in hopes of (eventually) getting the spawn into Harvard Business School.

So you’d think that classical music would be generally deemed to be A Good Thing, improving intellect as well as tone in its environs.

And yet police in Portland, Ore., are using the classics to cut down on crime at light rail stations. They’re broadcasting over the PA systems operas, chamber music, symphonies & the like to literally drive away the potential perps who gather around public transit stations pretty much all over the country.

I have to admit that I wouldn’t stick around if BART suddenly spouted Tannhäuser at Embarcadero. & a wind quintet would prompt me to pick up the pace at the exit.

But in general I’d not have thought that Bizet or Copeland would be used to the same end as US troops driving Manuel Noriega out of the Papal Nuncio’s residence by blasting it with hard rock.

But I guess I would be wrong.