Attack of the Relatives!!

Okay. So here's the thing... My sister is getting married this Thursday, and while this is a really happy moment for my family, there's something else too; my relatives are coming! Some people might think "oh four of five people won't be so bad...", but for my family, it's not just five or six that's coming. Four came last week, four are coming tonight, and eight more are coming on Wed. And that's not even a 10% of my entire family/relatives, so there you go. And 12 of them are staying in my house, so I'll probably have to give them my room and sleep in living room or something for a while. I mean, having big family is really fun and everything, but with all those people staying at my house while I'm battling the killer biochem course is not going to be just fun. I think I'm just going to survive through this week somehow, and run away and take refuge at my sister's new condo next week. I don't feel quite good about that either, cuz they are newly weds and I feel like (and I probably am) I'm intruding their new home with my presence. Agent T is nice enough to say that he has no problem with it, but still. We'll see about that.

So how am I doing? I haven't blogged for a looong time (except the previous blog about JB), so quite lot has happened actually. My car window got smashed by bunch of crazy people who also stole my tutoring bag (did I wrote about that already?), my grandmother broke her hip so my mom had to fly to Korea to see her and come back in two days, and I got my grandfather's poems + diary from my other grandma (this all happened in last week). Am I the only person who feels like everything's coming down at the same time? And on top of all that, I had biochem and statistics tests last week too! But for some reason, this week and the future 3 weeks sounds even more dreadful than last week... Let's see; this week I have dinner with Agent T's parents tonight, after-rehearsal dinner on Wed, wedding on Thurs, and orchestra concert on Fri. Yeah. All that with 12 extra people living in my house. I guess I should be thankful that most of my tests were last week; if my biochem test was on this week, I would've literally killed myself.

Oh, and speaking of relatives, my cousin's coming for the wedding too. She's going to stay in Tucson and attend CESL prgram here for one year, so it's going to be fun. I haven't seen her for... for... eight years now?? Well, since I left Korea basically. She's one year older than I am, but we used to be in same grade since I attended school an year earlier. I'm curious to see how she changed; not just physical appearances, cuz I saw her pictures and everything, but just her personality and things like that. She seems to have high expectations and excitement about being here... but I don't think she'll have much fun here though, cuz seriously there's nothing much to do in Tucson, I don't really have close Korean friends for her to hang out with, and next semester is going to be quite tough for me (yet again) so I got no time to play with her. I also found out that my other cousin was starred in another movie that just came out. I watched the preview online last night, and it kinda feels weird to see him on screen. I mean I'm used to seeing his dad, my uncle, on TV because he's been acting for a long time, but it's kind of weird to see someone that you spent your childhood with on media. I haven't been able to see him since I left Korea too, so even more stranger to see him acting. I would've never guessed that he would go that direction, but ah well, people say he's pretty talented. I've never seen any of the movies that he starred in (two movies so far), so I don't know about if he's really good at it or not, but I do know one thing... Actors are actors. The character that you see on TV or movie is not really the person that plays the role, and I'm not about to fall for the role that he plays or played, cuz I know better ;) It would be interesting to meet him personally though. We used to be fairly close when we were kids; not so much when I got into middle school and he was in High school but...I dunno, I just hope that he didn't became one of those snobby actors who thinks they are all cool and perfect or something. Interesting... interesting...

This is hilarious!!!!

Go see this article!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?hpid=topnews


What a joke, what a joke it is! Joshua Bell the street performer, being paid dollars, quarters, and even pennies(!) from a few sympathetic people! Not to mention being ignored by 1000 something people passing by him too! Man, this is just shocking. I mean, people pay hundreds of dollars to just have the chance to hear him live. I really thought with his musicianship and skills, at least small group of people would gather up, but only 3~4 people bothered to stop and listen. I mean, it's Joshua Bell! Forget the world famous virtuoso, he still sounds damn good without those fancy titles, a real... a real ear cather. Just watching him play is entertaining enough; he really does move like he's dodging bullets when he plays. But instead of people dying to hear him play and clapping and cheering, Mr. Bell was straightly ignored... and embarrassed by the zero response from the audiences. I don't think he ever experienced people so directly ignoring him in his life! I don't know what he made of it... must have been a quite shocking experience. Joshua Bell has a lot of guts to pull this off though, especially when he insisted bringing 3 million dollar Strad into a busy metro. I just think that since this was such a new experience for him, he didn't really know what he was getting himself into. Anyways, Kudos for Joshua Bell for yet another amazing achievement ;) Hopefully it was fun(I guess more like awkward) and meaningful experience for him as well.

So I wanted to talk about few things about the article. First up is the article itself. It's quite amuzing to read what happened, but I could tell which sections of the article were written by women; " Bell's a heartthrob. Tall and handsome, he's got a Donny Osmond-like dose of the cutes, and, onstage, cute elides into hott. When he performs, he is usually the only man under the lights who is not in white tie and tails -- he walks out to a standing O, looking like Zorro, in black pants and an untucked black dress shirt, shirttail dangling. That cute Beatles-style mop top is also a strategic asset: Because his technique is full of body -- athletic and passionate -- he's almost dancing with the instrument, and his hair flies." I laughed when I read this... not laughing at him, of course, but just the word choices and the way she wrote it... Come on, I get it, we all get it, but can we focus on the fact that a top notch virtuoso violinist was playing in the streets and practically all the people ignored him? The article seemed to go in off direction time to time, too, talking about Joshua Bell's biography a lot. But I really think they should've wrote it separately on other section just contributing to Joshua Bell's biography only. The flow of the article seemed to stop rather abruptly from a professional musician performing on street to a Joshua Bell article. Come on, it's not a "Joshua Bell" article, it's about if people would have time for a beauty of music in rush hour of a big city. I mean it is part Joshua Bell article, and I like him too, but was it really relavant to mention how handsome/cute/hot he is? The man was wearing a baseball cap!! And why were they mentioning that he took a cap for a three block distance because of his Strad? It wasn't about the looks, it wasn't about Joshua Bell's name (which is quite powerful), and it wasn't about his multimillion violin. It was about the appreciation of the music and his ability to create music, and the article seemed to miss the point few times. And I think Joshua Bell would agree on this too; he probably is a little sick of people mentioning his looks and how world famous he is, and how he has the renowned multimillion Strad.

Another thing was the fact that not even 10 people bothered to stop and listen to him play. People seemed to be quite shocked at the fact that not many people cared about Joshua Bell's performance. If Joshua Bell's performance couldn't draw people in, than what can? But then, when you think about it, is it really that shocking? The settings were tough. It happened in the Friday morning, when people are busy going to their work, lest they be late. People don't normally care to look around. They are busy, they have things on their minds. And when people have things on their minds, people tend not to pay attention to other things that are happening around them. And if it's not a rare sight that a street musician is playing in the metro, most people will just look over it. It doesn't matter Joshua Bell's violin was as loud as a trumpet, the psychology works in a way that people don't recieve all the input that they come across. When my mind is filled with other thinkings, I don't tend to recognize things easily; I don't hear everything, and I don't see everything. It's understandable that people with busy and hurried minds weren't paying attention to the performance, and unintentionally ignore Bell's performance. They weren't trying to be mean or rude I'm sure; it was just that they didn't have time for it, and some unknown musician performing probably wasn't on top of the list of things that their minds had to process that morning. Another factor that adds to this would be that most of people who passed by probably weren't classically trained. Or at least had particular interest in music, or had studied music in any form. Among the three people who notice him the most, one was a wannabe concert violinist as a kid, one played guitar, and one saw him in a concet previous days. The kids of course took notice of him, always open and full of curiosity of outside world, and not clouded by worldy troubles and stresses that the adults go through. They take notice of things more, because they are still in learning and absorbing the outside world, and they don't have the burden of having to worry about anything much other than playing and being happy. They are mostly open too, and accept things quickly. The choice of classical music also contributes... I mean, how many people are really into classical music? They should take a poll or have a study on this; it would be interesting to see. Considering that people who were using the metro that morning were mostly middle-aged, is classical music really one of their top favorites? Or would other types of music, such as rock, blues, punk, hip hop, etc be more appealing? If other instrument were being played or a singer was involved, would more people stopped to see? If somebody played more well known popular music that those groups of people liked, could it have changed the results? I know it wasn't really about testing the "popularity" of classical music but.... Classical music, and especially when good players like Bell interprets them so well, is beyond words. It can get that beautiful; you don't mearly hear it through your ears, you feel it from inside you. When I hear a master piece like Bach, it's not my ear that's listening, it's my chest, my heart that reacts to it. How many people feel that, I wonder? It's not just a moment of light enjoyment; it lingers, almost forever. It's not just from classical music, I get the similar feeling from listening to modern songs, although there are only a very few. But I think it's too harsh to say that people today are losing the abililty to appreciate the arts around them from this one study; it wasn't performed in fair condition. It should've been performed in more relaxed setting, where people were less distracted.

What about me? Would I have stayed and listend? Yes, I think, if I wasn't practically running to go somewhere cuz I was late for something. Even if I weren't paying attention to a particular street performance, just the sound of violin would've captured my attention. And I did, in New York, when I saw some (bad) violinists playing in the subway. And that's because I play violin and have more than average interest in the instrument. If I saw somebody playing... I dunno, a drum or something, I would glance but probably won't stop for it. But once the sound captured my ear I would listen to see if it was good or not, and if it was good, Joshua Bell good, I would find where it was coming from and go see. If I wasn't going to be late for something I would stay and listen. And if I had to leave, I would be a little sad that I'm missing a great performance but walk away eventually. Would I notice it was in fact Joshua Bell playing if I happened to be there at that time? I'm not sure. I'm pretty slow on getting things like that so probably not. I would probably think 'Wow, that person's really good! And he moves just like Joshua Bell too! Oh and he sort of looks like him too. I get it, he's a really good Joshua Bell impersonator! Amazing!' . I mean, why would Joshua Bell, Joshua Bell, play in a metro for money?? Why? How? They should've done it on April Fools day or something... hahaha. But if in fact I somehow find out it was Joshua Bell, I would've stayed for the whole hour even if it would be the end of the world. Ok. I'll be more realistic. If I had biochem test, I would probably force myself to go, but literally weeping while dragging to the class. Man. What an opportunity that those people missed! I would've given him my credit card for all I care, if I could see him play from 6 feet away! Damn it, how come things like this never happen in Tucson???