David Eagleman and Mysteries of the Brain : The New Yorker

“Drummers are very hard to control,” he said, stuffing some Christmas cards into their envelopes. “I didn’t hear anything for days. Then suddenly everybody decided to come, and to bring their friends. So we may have a flood of drummers. Or we may have no one at all.” He was a little worried that they’d get hungry or bored. (“They’re probably more likely to come if there’s a sort of ‘scene’ going on,” he’d written Eagleman a few weeks earlier.) So he sent an assistant to buy pastries and mixed nuts, and brought out “various entertainments” for the drummers to play with, including a drum synthesizer. “The more competitive they feel about this, the better,” Eagleman said. “A big part of it is making sure they pay attention.” “That will be hard,” Eno replied.