The Best Possible Response to a Cell Phone-Interrupted Concert

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Q: What could be more soul-crushingly, cringe-inducingly horrifying than a musician interrupting a Mahler concert you're attending due to your cell phone and its incessant ringing?

A: A musician incorporating your cell phone and its incessant ringing into his performance.

Oh, this is beautiful. Slovak violist Lukáš Kmit, in a concert last year, fought rudeness with wit -- and produced, as a side effect, a YouTube marvel. A cringe-inducing, horror-inspiring marvel. 

Some, sure, have speculated that the whole thing was a Nokia-sponsored stunt. I am choosing to believe, however, that the meta-Nokia-ed music was exactly what it appears to be: spontaneous, virtuosic, and awesome.


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Megan Garber is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She was formerly an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab, where she wrote about innovations in the media.

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