Monday, March 13, 2006
Mosaic!
Did the father-daughter bonding thing last night over some incredible Brazilian Jazz music! It was really awesome! Featuring the 7-Grammy award winning Paquito D'Rivera on the sax and clarinet, the performance was perfect!
It opened with local acapella group Vocaluptous. Initially, I was a little impatient cos I just really wanted to watch Paquito. But Vocaluptous turned out to be pretty good too! I especially liked the guy who was making all the percussion sounds... way cool.
Anyway. Paquito had this amazing stage presence and charisma. And when he picked up the sax or clarinet... WHOA. The audience was just blown away. The New York Voices performed alongside him. They're a really cool singing group... loved it when they were scatting along to the awesome latin-based, bebop, samba beats. Amazing things some people can do with their vocals. One of the best parts was when Paquito told the audience to sing along "la la la...", while the band continued playing. It was fantastic! Great audience!
Paquito's band was really good too. The pianist was totally funky. From where we were sitting, we couldn't exactly see his hands... and unlike the other members of the band who were groovin' along to the music, he sat there, ram-rod straight. It looked like he wasn't even playing! But the music he churned out was terrific! I especially liked it when he fused some baroque composition into this Jazzy song.
I'm totally psyched to take up some Jazz improvisaton piano course. Plus my dad reminded me yesterday that I've got music in my blood, thanks to my Grandpa who apparently could play the sax really well =). Now I've got to give it a go!
The Mosaic Music Fest is superb. Hopefully it becomes a yearly event or something here in Singapore. The atmosphere at the Esplanade was just sizzling over the weekend, with live performances at The Living Room, as well as the outdoor amphitheatre. The music just never seemed to stop!
Reflections
Ok on a different note, I just came back from our usual monday night hang outs with the NUS gang.
Something's been bugging me quite a bit. I guess about a week ago, someone said this to me... that "Christianity is always gray," in the sense that there is no stark black or white. It didn't occur to me before, but today I'm just so sure that Christianity is totally NOT gray. It is in fact, black or white, an absolute yes or no, a definite rejection or acceptance.
Bro. Fritz spoke about it yesterday during the mini-retreat. And today in school, a gazillion people were handing out this little magazine thingy about the Da Vinci Code. It was quite an interesting read; alot of it covered issues about the book, whether there were any truths in the fiction, yada yada. Usual stuff. But there was this certain article that talked about whether Jesus was truly divine, or whether he was simply a mad man claiming to be God. The last paragraph went this way:
"You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is the Son of God; or else a mad man or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool; you can spit on Him and kill HIm as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about Him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
That's the nature of the truth isn't it? No more half-truths, half-lies, ambiguity, gray-areas. What is true is true. What is not is not. And one can always choose which to accept, which to reject. Of course, therein lies the issue of Trust, of Faith.
I really wouldn't want to believe in something that was gray. It's just not enough for me. I mean, gray has so many shades... that I think I'd just get totally confused and drown in that sea of hues.
I think Christianity is like light. It's either there or not. Yes, one may argue that there can be different brightness, different dimness of light. But ultimately, if even the tiniest flicker of light exists, one can see. Once that little flicker is gone, that just leaves us with absolute darkness.
As I was typing all this, a friend messages me: "Do you get offended when I use the F-word?"
I replied that I don't.
The conversation went on and evolved into one about making choices. Yeah, I know life ain't all that easy and I do curse alot too, albeit under my breath (Ok, sometimes maybe not)... but I'm sure that if one makes a conscious choice, one can overcome it.
"Why is cursing even a bad thing? It's better to vent one's frustration using these words, rather than doing something worse."
Ok, I was completely stuck as to what to reply. I mean, true, I've always felt, a word is but a word... "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Then something occured to me - that this was already an example of the grayness of everyday life; the whole concept of relativism.
It struck me as to how wonderful it was for us Catholics to have this one absolute truth, and righteousness.
Did the father-daughter bonding thing last night over some incredible Brazilian Jazz music! It was really awesome! Featuring the 7-Grammy award winning Paquito D'Rivera on the sax and clarinet, the performance was perfect!
It opened with local acapella group Vocaluptous. Initially, I was a little impatient cos I just really wanted to watch Paquito. But Vocaluptous turned out to be pretty good too! I especially liked the guy who was making all the percussion sounds... way cool.
Anyway. Paquito had this amazing stage presence and charisma. And when he picked up the sax or clarinet... WHOA. The audience was just blown away. The New York Voices performed alongside him. They're a really cool singing group... loved it when they were scatting along to the awesome latin-based, bebop, samba beats. Amazing things some people can do with their vocals. One of the best parts was when Paquito told the audience to sing along "la la la...", while the band continued playing. It was fantastic! Great audience!
Paquito's band was really good too. The pianist was totally funky. From where we were sitting, we couldn't exactly see his hands... and unlike the other members of the band who were groovin' along to the music, he sat there, ram-rod straight. It looked like he wasn't even playing! But the music he churned out was terrific! I especially liked it when he fused some baroque composition into this Jazzy song.
I'm totally psyched to take up some Jazz improvisaton piano course. Plus my dad reminded me yesterday that I've got music in my blood, thanks to my Grandpa who apparently could play the sax really well =). Now I've got to give it a go!
The Mosaic Music Fest is superb. Hopefully it becomes a yearly event or something here in Singapore. The atmosphere at the Esplanade was just sizzling over the weekend, with live performances at The Living Room, as well as the outdoor amphitheatre. The music just never seemed to stop!
Reflections
Ok on a different note, I just came back from our usual monday night hang outs with the NUS gang.
Something's been bugging me quite a bit. I guess about a week ago, someone said this to me... that "Christianity is always gray," in the sense that there is no stark black or white. It didn't occur to me before, but today I'm just so sure that Christianity is totally NOT gray. It is in fact, black or white, an absolute yes or no, a definite rejection or acceptance.
Bro. Fritz spoke about it yesterday during the mini-retreat. And today in school, a gazillion people were handing out this little magazine thingy about the Da Vinci Code. It was quite an interesting read; alot of it covered issues about the book, whether there were any truths in the fiction, yada yada. Usual stuff. But there was this certain article that talked about whether Jesus was truly divine, or whether he was simply a mad man claiming to be God. The last paragraph went this way:
"You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is the Son of God; or else a mad man or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool; you can spit on Him and kill HIm as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about Him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
That's the nature of the truth isn't it? No more half-truths, half-lies, ambiguity, gray-areas. What is true is true. What is not is not. And one can always choose which to accept, which to reject. Of course, therein lies the issue of Trust, of Faith.
I really wouldn't want to believe in something that was gray. It's just not enough for me. I mean, gray has so many shades... that I think I'd just get totally confused and drown in that sea of hues.
I think Christianity is like light. It's either there or not. Yes, one may argue that there can be different brightness, different dimness of light. But ultimately, if even the tiniest flicker of light exists, one can see. Once that little flicker is gone, that just leaves us with absolute darkness.
As I was typing all this, a friend messages me: "Do you get offended when I use the F-word?"
I replied that I don't.
The conversation went on and evolved into one about making choices. Yeah, I know life ain't all that easy and I do curse alot too, albeit under my breath (Ok, sometimes maybe not)... but I'm sure that if one makes a conscious choice, one can overcome it.
"Why is cursing even a bad thing? It's better to vent one's frustration using these words, rather than doing something worse."
Ok, I was completely stuck as to what to reply. I mean, true, I've always felt, a word is but a word... "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Then something occured to me - that this was already an example of the grayness of everyday life; the whole concept of relativism.
It struck me as to how wonderful it was for us Catholics to have this one absolute truth, and righteousness.
# posted by Mel @ 11:17 PM 
