She calls herself a Living Statue. On street corners in Asheville, North Carolina she is known as The Silver Drummer Girl, a woman who has trained her muscles to an extreme degree, and therefore is able to remain utterly still on public sidewalks in excess of five minutes at a time, while standing on a pedestal. Her skin, costume and hair and are painted silver. Around her waist a silver snare drum hangs suspended on a silver belt. In either hand she holds a drumstick poised motionless in midair for extended periods, then suddenly she begins drumming and turning in a mechanical way on her pedestal, like a wind-up toy suddenly loosing its potential energy. It shocks bystanders. You cannot tell beforehand whether she is a living human being or a high technology sculpture.

Although her expression never changes, I cannot say she is expressionless. There is an intensely ambiguous look on her face modeling the deep concentration required for her performance. Her demeanor is quite obscure, yet I think we can speculate she uses well-crafted mental techniques — some kind of visualization perhaps — to achieve her amazing results.