We're Gonna Party Like It's Your 250th Birthday

Happy 250th birthday today, Mozart.

This serious picture really doesn't do the composer justice. He was a jokester and an all-around life-loving man. Check out this Mozart quote via Daniel Felsenfeld's blog :

"Heaven, Hell, and a thousand sacristies, Croatians damnations, devils, and witchies, druids, cross-Battalions with no ends, by all the elements, with air, water, earth, and fire, Europe, asia, affrica, and America, jesuits, Augustins, Benedictins, Capuchins, Minorites, Franciscans, Dominicans, Carthusians, and dignified Holy-Crucians, Canons regular and irregular, and all hairy brutes and snitches, higgledy-piggedly castrates and bitches, asses, buffaloes, oxen, fools, nitwits, and fops!"

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I Like the Way You Work It, No Ligeti

I've grown particularly fond of the Ligeti piano etudes. Have a looksie and a listen.

Mock Exam

Is a mock exam when you take a test and then the professor makes fun of you?

Word Plaze

My friends and I had fun in my car playing a word association game earlier this week. The way it worked was that the second part of a compound word functioned as the first part of the next. Deciding to take it one step too far, I thought that it'd be fun if part of one word functioned as part of the next, compound or not (i.e. - vision + tonic = [vi]gin and tonic). So here's what we came up with; comment me if you have any questions. Funny how "gin and tonic" came up twice:

"rubber band camp site impaired vision and tonic water fall of man-a-tea and crum[pets] smart start your engines and tonic"

Long Live The King

Thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr. and his supporters, legal segregation of blacks in the South does not formally exist anymore. To think that just 50-some years ago, racially separate schools, restrooms, and water fountains existed is truly baffling. MLK day recognizes a man who was the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the dominant force in the civil rights movement of the late fifties and sixties. Through his philosophy of non-violent resistance, he was able to move and shake our American and global society in profound ways that have had lasting effects. Though threatened, jailed, humiliated, abused, he did not give up hope, faith, love, charisma, or perseverance.

Some MLK quotes:

"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to stay awake through great periods of social change. But today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to stay vigilant, and face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this worldwide neighborhood into a world wide brotherhood."

"I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their tired bodies, education and culture for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up."

"I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the alters of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and non-violent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land 'and the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.' I still believe that we shall overcome."

"Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - 'we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal'. This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning 'My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!' And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.'"

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love."

ZZZZZZZZ

I found this draft entry from the summer - written on 29 July 2005, to be exact. It's sort of appropriate for me today, though. Go ahead, read it. Humor me.

"I thought I could get by on a lot less sleep. It all seemed to be going well, until this morning. I dumped all my coffee grounds into my breakfast bowl containing Health Valley EMPOWER! cereal mixed with plain yogurt and grapes. I think I even realized what I was doing halfway through, but I just kept on going. It was at least seven hours of sleep a night from then on out."

The State of the Onion Address*

Why The Onion continues to be America's Finest News Source :

Headlines from The Onion [4 January 2006, Issue 42.01] :

• Plan To Straighten Out Entire Life During Weeklong Vacation Yields Mixed Results
• Man From Canada Acts Like He's Not Cold
• ExxonMobil Swears It's Going To Start Taxes Early This Year
• Guy Who Just Wiped Out Immediately Claims He's Fine
• Peppy U.S. Teens Vow To Make This The Best Year Ever
• Marital Frustrations Channeled Through Thermostat
• Swiss Threaten Ricola Embargo

Headlines from Previous Weeks :

• Teen Gives Up Smoking Pot After Seeing Parents High [28 July 2004, Issue 40.30]
• Local Sheriff Suspects Al-Qaeda Or Teens [18 August 2004, Issue 40.33]

*The title is courtesy of my friend John.

Confessions On A Blog Entry

It's taken me almost three months to muster up enough courage to write this entry, but here I go. I love Madonna's latest album, "Confessions on a Dancefloor". I mean, don't we all have confessions on our own dancefloors of life? Hmmm, maybe not.

It is difficult to put one's finger on exactly what makes the album so appealing. I mean, her beats are not really new, and her lyrics aren't anything to write home about. "Ring, ring ring, on the telephone, the lights are on, but there's no on home" graces her hit Hung Up. But what more are we supposed to expect from the pop diva whose other fanciful prose includes: "If we took a holiday, took some time to celebrate, just one day out of life, it would be, it would be so nice"?

But, we have to love Madonna. She knows her classical literature as revealed in her hit Cherish: "Romeo and Juliet, they never felt this way, I bet". She is very spiritual as evidenced by her song Like A Prayer, the various crashes courses she took on Eastern religion a few years back, and of course, her public adherence to Kaballah. Her song, La Isla Bonita, set the stage for Latin pop greats such as Ricky Martin, Enrique Inglesias, JLo, and Marc Anthony. Her compilation of top hits that first graced store shelves in 1990 entitled "The Immaculate Collection", has been the backdrop of 80s parties for years now. There really is nothing wrong with this landmark compilation. It's spotless; some might even say it's immaculate.

In all seriousness, it is rumored that in her recent Ladies' Home Journal interview, Madonna apologized for the ambiguous messages she sent to young women in the 1980s. She recognized that it was confusing that she encouraged women to be be strong and independent, yet flaunted overt sexuality in her every move. I applaud her for speaking to this.

To make a short story long, I Madonna's new album rocks, and I'm pretty sure she does too.

Simple Pleasures

Dear Readers,

I apologize for the lack of blogging for a whole twelve days! You see, the Christmas spirit stung me right in the nose, and I've been enjoying my time at home. Some highlights include:

1. French pressing coffee and using egg nog as creamer.
2. Wearing sweatshirts with hoods in the back and pouches in the front (I love these! They feel like you're being hugged all the time).
3. Walking downstairs to play the piano, as opposed to walking to school to find no piano available.
4. Seeing my mom look at a pilates workout video and then having her ask me, "What's a pirates workout?"
5. Watching my highlights grow out slowly but surely. Roots work well for trees, but not for my hair.
6. Visiting really good old friends and realizing that we're still really good friends, just older.
7. Getting a new car! Goodbye old, non-functioning car. According to the payment plan, I will be the proud owner of a 2006 Honda CR-V EX in a mere five years. I think the EX means that it has tinted windows in the back which will make it easier for me to eventually tint all the windows, install a shiny grill, add new rims and black lighting, lower the whole vehicle a foot or so, and basically do anything that falls under the umbrella of "pimp my ride".
8. Realizing that I enjoy calling any dog I ever meet "Roo". I explain the change of names to the pooches, and they're usually alright with it.

So, I promise to be more diligent; thank you for your patience. Stay tuned for my deep thoughts on Madonna.