What is our society's obsession with child prodigies?

I have to reference this video again. It's Mercedes Cheung playing Sarasate. However, this time, I'm going to be drawing a comparison between that and this video I found of Brianna Kahane on Ellen.

This will be my once-a-month-speak-from-angry-Asian position post. I know I've said some not-so-nice things about Mercedes's playing, but Zigeunerweisen is a lot more challenging than Vivaldi's Concerto. Two things come to mind. 1) Brianna Kahane is probably more along the lines of my "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" philosophy and is, in fact, playing something that suits her skill level at this point in her life. However, in terms of impressiveness, 2) shouldn't Mercedes Cheung be on Ellen? I mean, a 6-yr-old playing Sarasate and Paganini is pretty darn impressive, especially since, you know, she really is playing it. Ellen's show, being the huge mass media outlet that it is, has the capability of rocketing these kids into the public's eye. So who does she (or, her producers) pick? Not the one with the Asian face, that I can say.

It's obviously a lot more complex than just this, but that's all I can come up with at 2 in the morning after 6 days of an almost non-stop cycle of work/eat/sleep/eat/work/coffee/dogs repeat many times.

Ironic that I still blog about this when I want to academically get AWAY from all this race politics and speaking from a position of repression and defensiveness thing I feel like I have to do when talking about Asian American issues. My thesis will be looking at the race of classical musicians, but I think it'll be on a more global level and will deal with issues of cultural imperialism rather than race dynamics. Obviously lots of overlap here, but I think it's different than speaking from within a framework in which these struggles over racial inequality have been written into our history. I'm hoping the position I take can be not-so-angry-and-repressed, and look at it more meta-ly (see, I told you it's late - or, rather, very very early).

How the heck did this turn into some weird introspective thought process of my academic path?

Natural Cause?

I found some sad news today. One of the members of Boyzone, Stephen Gately, died recently of "natural causes" (this apparently happened back in October, but I'm only hearing it for the first time today. I remember them best from Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th birthday performance, when my mom and I were both in love with them - especially Gately and Ronan Keating.

In any case, I never understood how someone could die from "natural causes". I mean, apart from my dislike for the term "natural" or "normal", you die of SOMETHING. Respiratory failure, cardiac arrest, SOMETHING. Wikipedia tells me that Gately died of pulmonary oedema caused by congenital heart defect. Why can't people just say that, rather than using the rather cop-out, and overly generalized term of "natural causes"? Saying someone died from "natural causes" merely intrigues us and makes us dig for more info about how they really died.

Anyway, some quick thoughts before bed.

Updates from North Carolina

Wow. I've been really MIA from this blogging thing for a while - ironic, since the Business of Media course I'm TAing requires my students to blog 2-3 times a week. I excuse my non-blogginess to spending time reading their blogs every week.

I'm back in North Carolina - taking a break before I submit my application to Northwestern's PhD Program, blogging, listening to Dvorak's New World Symphony, and air-conducting in the middle of Open Eye Cafe. I haven't gotten any weird looks yet, but they're bound to happen soon. Cris finds it amusing by puncturing the silence with, "Listening to something good?" Oh yea.

I'm also drinking some cafe mocha - and I can't seem to sit still. It remains to be seen if I will completely crash in about an hour and spend the rest of the evening laid out on the couch feeling nauseous. Hmm.... I should probably get this application submitted before anything bad happens from this coffee...

Ok, hooray! Northwestern submitted. After completing my statement of purpose (or, really, slashing it down to meet the length requirement), took me another 3 hours to finish all the misc stuff that needed to go in.

**** five hours later ****
We're sitting around watching Eddie Izzard. I think we learned most of our US and European history from this guy. So full I'm about to explode. I think this weekend is going to be defined by constant food coma. And my head constantly feels like it's going to explode too. North Carolina, for some reason, wreaks havoc on my allergies. I've probably gone through the equivalent of an entire box of tissues since I've been here. I think it's because there are things that are actually alive here --- you know, in NYC, the toxins and smog in the air have killed all microorganisms. Except the cockroaches.

OK, I should concentrate on Eddie. Realize this blog is a bit disjointed, but oh well.

Tragedy at NYU

As I'm sure everyone's heard already, a student at NYU committed suicide this morning in Bobst Library. It has been a sad day, what with the loss of Claude Levi-Strauss and Qian Xuesun, one must be wondering, what's going on today?

I'm sorry if I'm a bit harsh here in this blog, but after hearing about the NYU suicide, I got very upset. I'm still pretty upset. It's not as if I knew him, but I think I get very frustrated when I hear someone taking their own life. Very frustrated. I think it's the stupidest, most selfish thing you can do. What are you thinking? Are you thinking about everyone who loves you, who you're ripping apart? Do you know how many people out there would have given anything to have had the chances and opportunities you have, and they're not able to because their lives were taken away from them by external forces? And you have the gall to take your own life?

I can't say I understand, that I understand the dark places he might have been in, the situations he might have been going through. Even in my darkest days (and believe me, I've been through enough of those in recent times), the thought of ending my life never crossed my mind. I would never EVER cause that much pain to the people I love. I don't cry for him. I cry for the ones who loved him, and I'm angry for them. For what he took away from them.

"You should have taken a long break instead of a long drop, instead of a leap of faith." ~Brandi Carlile