wanderer

Opera doesn't appeal to everyone. Some songs can catch you off guard and thrust into your heart, depending on your state, alone, moody, soft, or simply down. It'll make you think. First, introducing the current Internet sensation after TV debut, Susan Boyle, a 47-year Scottish single woman, who doesn't have a job, lives alone with her cat Pebbles, has this homely looking and that  taste of hairdo and dressing from maybe last century. She is nearly a sure laughingstock until she started singing on the talent competition TV show. Now you be the judge. Song title: I dreamed a dream (embedding is blocked. click here  or here to view.)

Coming up next, Connie Talbot, on the same show but in last year's competition. She was 6 years old by then. Once again, no instrument but pure human voice singing. It has effect to some people, particularly women, of getting goosebumps or of wanting to cry. They said some beauty is beyond words. This is one of the examples. Song title: (Somewhere )Over the rainbow.

Now listen to a more professional version, awesome Eva Cassidy's penetrating singing.  She died young. God's jealous of her.

Speaking of beautiful voice, one can't have the blind singer Andrea Bocelli left out, and forget angel-touched Charlotte Church. Bocelli's song is titled Canto Della Terra, linked below;  Church's Carrickfergus cannot be uploaded here due to too big a file. Many sources of online listening, here, here and here. 

And speaking of classic, how about a very classic one, 'Duettino - Sull'aria', from Marriage of Figaro. It is not resounding to most of the contemporary ears as people are listening while doing laundry, or feeding the cat. But it fits well in some specific situation. Remember the movie Shawshank Redemption? When the imprisoned hero Andy suddenly let out the song in the jail's loud speakers, it stunned all the inmates and the cops in the austerely confined compound, it was one of the most unforgettable, dumbfounded scenes in that story(No link is referred to here, you have to get into the story to have a better grip).

Singing is to let you appreciate the beauty created by human voice. The above selections might bring you down somehow, for some reasons. Surprisingly, some dancing has the same effect to human's emotion. The following will pull you up. First a cell phone company's commercial, then it's a copycat performance, but equally brilliant. Genius at work, isn't it?

My favorite comedian, Jay Leno, exhibited his telling-joke talent at the age of four, when he was at a get-together of his mother and other women. In the women's gossipy conversation, the 4-year-old asked, 'why you all have the humps on the chest like a camel?' which entailed burst of hysteric laughter among the adults. Jay was curious of the world as every toddler is. We know the question out of child's mind is innocent, no pursuit of materialism, nor conflict of interest, it actually helps us adults examine how much our mind has been influenced and incorrectly altered. I can still vividly recall some chat I have had with some of those amazing kids, and remember some of the childhood conversation regarding the nature, the grown-ups and the world. Innocent curiosity is not dying in a man/woman's mind, mature or rotten,  the followings are some examples of the questions.

Why the sky is blue? Plain old question, I know. I explained this to children in quite a few occasions, but not sure if they got the point. Trouble is, they have no idea of visible light spectrum, nor the tiny dielectric particle scattering mechanism, so don't throw a jargon like Rayleigh scattering to make 'em nod. Wanna have a try of the explaining in child's term? Good luck for that achievement.

Why the cloud doesn't fall? This happened when I just finished my telltale 'sky is blue' preach with satisfaction, a little boy asked me about this. I was expecting some of them would ask 'why the cloud is white, then?', and I had an answer waiting...Now I know why, after quite some time search.

Where does the baby come from out of a mother's body? Back then, this was a serious discussion in a gang of our boys. One guy pondered this so hard, then proposed that it would come from a mother's navel. He reasoned it was too disgusting if a baby would come out of somewhere between legs, because those parts were just used for excrement.

Daddy, why do you grown-ups drink alcohol? This question was raised by a little girl in a Chinese New Year party, when her dad was suffering from his buddies exhortation for another cup of rice wine. Obviously she doesn't know drinking represents masculine, brotherhood, and potential deal under the table, the hidden reasons her dad bore the torture. But seriously, why would men use a cup of alcohol to show that?

Now we were taught that the organic world is formed at the center of Carbon, what if the world is formed at the center of Silicon? This was from a high school contest TV show. The question was so profound, I don't think there is any consensus answer to it.

Why does THAT mean cool? In college, the that could refer to many different things. New trend of girl's hairstyle, sandals (more on that), a whining singing method for pop songs, new buzz words and slang, etc. In China, there are many new elements of coolness in college kids, their conversation, their blog could tell all.

Why two prime numbers could add up to any even number? In case you are not into math, this is the famous Goldbach conjecture. Simple enough to have people with very limited education to understand, but so difficult that until now there is no proof of the statement. If it is true, is it beyond the comprehension that the numbers are arranged in this way? There are infinite building blocks of prime numbers, then you need only two to form any even number. It's godsend.

Why the Chinese brass would speak with tones like that?

Why the US sports folks would call many of their national champions World Championship? College baseball world champion, really?

Why the women's shoes are vying all the means to look desperately ugly and feel painfully pinching and squeezing? And, women are buying it!

Many questions are coming, let me add them on postscript later.

The US has seen 3 gun shootings in the past 72 hours, killing 22 people. On Firday Jiverly Voong fired in a convention center, gunned down 13 people before killed himself. The suspected motive is he was easily upset and picked on when people took notes on his bad spoken english; On Saturday, three Pittsburg police officers were killed in responding to a domestic argument,  fused by dog urinating on the floor, the gunman Richard Poplawski had bullet-proof vest waiting for the police's visit; On Sunday, an even more tragic event happened in Washington State, a father killed his 4 daughters in bed and one son in bathroom, then went suicidal in his car a few miles away from their mobile home. The initial lunacy resulted from the couple's fight, the wife was claimed to leave for another man. Shocking is in most people's mind at these repetitive breaking news, but what's unnerving is the fact that people would probably get used to this sort of incident in the coming future, since quite some shooting news broke out in the past two monthes. The world becomes crazy.

Call it a senseless massacre, or coward behavior, as the local authorities might suggest, it just doesn't help understand the real cause. Only a person loses his last drop of hope, being put in total of despair would go extreme like this.  It is deeply self-destructive and atrocious.  They are like suicide bombers in the middle east. Heinous? yes; Pitiful? absolutely. 

Is there a solution to solve the problem? It takes more than a wise president's gun control policy, thousands of smart psycologists, hundreds of thousands of zealous social workers to stablize those dangerous individuals who are at their edge of breakout. No, it takes way more than that. There is no easy solution for that. Conversely, there's easy blame to point, and it is fairly accurate. Those gunmen all lost their jobs, among many unfortunate folks in the country. The uber great Capitalism of the US really should figure out tools to put those top bastards on wall street in jail. Their greed is the origin of all the sins that spawn the whole mess in the globe. Now that they can be awarded fat compensation for their excellent job, they should be held accountable for their stupidity and irrationalism as well. The shooting is one of the many conseqeunces the average people are suffering the economy, though it is definitely an extremity.

Is there a lesson from the incidents? Maybe there are some. Don't push people into despair, people deserve one more chance to come back from the downs, kill one's hope is equal to killing someone; On the other hand, don't put oneself into a corner, to become a sociopath. There are many occasions people face setbacks, but there's more reason to redeem the happiness. Note one thing is absolutely equal, everyone lives only one life. It is purely a person's will to seek the happiness in earnest, or end the journey otherwise. Despair is death, stay far far away from it.