Yesterday 70 musicians gathered at Grand Central Station in the hope of becoming one of 20 new, New York City-certified subway buskers. Certified buskers, unlike all the other ambitious but uncredentialed musicians playing in New York's guts, get placed at the most lucrative spots in the subways, places where tourists gather and stand right in your goddamn way to hear "Hey Jude" for the 200,000th time.

As usual, The New York Times covered this story rather inelegantly, focusing their video attention on a guy who calls his music "retro acoustic rock," and thus not giving any coverage to Kip Rosser, who played Duke Ellington covers on a theramin. Nice one, Times.

Balla Tounkara, a talented Malian player of the traditional instrument the kora who was briefly highlighted, told the paper: "You can do O.K. in the subway with tips, but it’s still very tough to make it here as a musician, unless you’re a big star like Snoop Doggie." So, that's pretty depressing. Good morning.