Jordin Taylor – Dream You To Live

Sepertinya untuk tahun 2009 emang tahunnya penyanyi muda dari amrik sana. Udah lulus ke dunia musik nama Jojo, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, sekarang kita bisa berkenalan lagi dengan Jordin Taylor. Umurnya? Baru 17 tahun! Buset, kalo ngedengerin vokalnya kita gak bakalan nyangka suara sedahsyat (dan semerdu) itu bisa keluar dari seorang Jordin Taylor.

Siapa referensinya dalam bermusik? Cewek yang berasal dari California ini menyatakan bahwa Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton, plus Alicia Keys yang menjadi diva dalam kehidupan bermusiknya. Yups! Udah bisa dibayangkan bagaimana pengalaman “membentuk” suara yang terjadi dalam kehidupan Jordin Taylor. Demi menembus industri musik, dia sendiri pindah ke Los Angeles dan bergabung dalam agensi L.A Models.



Nah, apa yang ditawarkan Jordin Taylor dalam lagu Dream You To Live? Entahlah, saya merasa nyaman saja dengan lagu ini. Beat-beatnya bisa dikatakan tergolong “manis”. Tapi ada sesuatu pada vokalnya. Dia mempunyai ciri yang mudah dikenali. Apalagi, range suaranya yang memang masih kedengaran “muda”. Ya iyalah, wong baru umur 17 tahun.

Sebenarnya ini dia lyric yang membuat saya jatuh cinta dengan track ini.

I'm looking out in the crowd
Don't know where you are
It's like I'm hearing you now
But you feel so far
I don't know what I can do
I'm searching everywhere
That’s why I lay here at night
And dream you to life

Sebegitu sulitkah untuk menjadi bahagia? Apakah permainan yang akan terus saya jalankan yaitu menunggu dan menunggu? Saya teringat peristiwa kemarin malam. Sewaktu saya dan teman-teman sedang merayakan syukuran wisuda kami. Apa yang terjadi? Sekilas pembicaraan dengan dia-yang-telah-membuatku-terpesona membuatku berpikiran yang macam-macam. Apa yang terjadi? Mengapa dia begitu perhatian? Apalagi ketika dia mengatakan,

“Mas, miscall ke nomor aku yah. Entar di save”

What? Apakah saya salah mengartikannya? Dengan banyakanya fisikal touch yang terjadi, saling pandang yang tidak disengaja, semakin membuatku yakin. It means something. Sekarang saya menunggu dia. Menunggu orang lain juga yang pastinya akan kutemukan. Karena bagaimanapun caranya, saya juga membutuhkan cinta.

*jablay mode ON

Eh, kok malah curhat yah? Bukannya tadi ngomongin Jordin Taylor? Ya sud lah, track ini yang akan menemaniku selama seminggu ini. Berteriak dan bernyanyi kemanapun saya pergi.

Untuk yang mau download, silahkan di klik disini.

And let the love lead me the way…

Tampaknya Tuhan sedang bercanda padaku saat ini. Kenapa saya katakan demikian? Catatan rekor dalam dua hari ini ada tiga orang sahabat saya yang mengeluh mengenai cinta. Cinta? Ya, satu kata yang mempunyai berjuta makna. Makna yang indah, buruk, dan semua hal lain mengenainya. Mengapa saya katakan Tuhan sedang bercanda padaku? I means, hey! Saya? Yang terakhir pacaran satu abad yang lalu? Mengapa semua orang mengisahkan bagaimana perasaan mereka kepadaku?

Okelah, kalau memang dari perspektif sahabat, saya yang harus mengajak mereka berlogika. Melihat semua hal dari sudut pandang yang berbeda. Karena terkadang cinta membuat mereka buta dan tidak bisa melihat sebagaimana mestinya,

”Apakah mata mereka masih tertutupi oleh selaput pink?”

Hahaha. Satu orang sahabat yang sekarang menyadari bagaimana perihnya kehilangan. Dia yang mengatakan lebih baik mempertahankan cinta yang sekarang, daripada mencari sebentuk cinta yang baru (yups! Ini memang benar, kecuali kalau tidak melihat track record kamu, yang 5 kali pacaran dalam kurun waktu 3 tahun?). Saya tidak mengatakan ini karma, Cuma mungkin akhirnya dia mendapatkan artinya. Ketika dulu cinta masih dia miliki, sebegitu gampang dia berpaling. Dengan alasan kebosanan. Dengan alasan tidak cocok lagi. Cinta itu harus dijaga, ketika dia sudah pergi barulah terasa berartinya.

Satu orang mengeluh mengenai masalah hati. Apa yang dia keluhkan? Hubungannya dengan sang pacar sudah hampir berjalan satu tahun. Komunikasi mereka lancar-lancar saja. Hampir tiap hari bertemu, dan tiap weekend mereka lakukan dengan melakukan aktivitas khusus. Masalahnya? Ada orang lain menawarkan cinta. Seorang pramugara katanya. Dan bodohnya lagi? Dia mengiyakan permintaan sang pramugara tersebut! Arggh! Apa yang kau cari sebenarnya buddy? Saya cuma bisa mengatakan kalian sudah terjebak dalam rutinitas hubungan. Semuanya berjalan menuju statis. Semuanya terpola. Sadar atau tidak sadar, wajarlah kalau memang kamu menginginkan suasana baru. Tapi dari cinta orang lain? Saya cuma bisa menyarankan, kembalilah pada komitmen awal kalian. Perjalanan satu tahun bukan waktu yang pendek, apakah kamu ingin melepas kebahagian yang bisa seterusnya hanya untuk kenikmatan sesaat?

Terakhir masalahnya adalah rumit. Orang yang mengajak dia untuk merenda mimpi adalah orang yang sangat bertimbal balik. Berbeda. Dari pandangan, dari kesemuanya. Dia menginginkan A, (calon) pasangannya mengatakan B. Terlalu banyak hal yang abstrak dan tidak dapat terjelaskan. Sedangkan teman saya adalah orang-orang yang frontal. Baik atau buruk, jelek atau bagus, lebih baik dikatakan langsung alasannya. Supaya bisa berbenah diri. Kalau semua hal serba tidak jelas, bukankah diri sendiri yang akan bingung? Salah saya dimana?

Saya juga yakin mereka semua tahu jawabannya. Tahu kemana hati mereka akan melangkah. Saya Cuma bisa mengatakan,
”sekarang kamu bertanya kepada hati kamu, apakah kamu bahagia dengan pilihan ini?”
Sebab bukankah itu yang menjadi dasar dalam menjalin hubungan? Saya yang hanya membaca berbagai artikel cinta, mulai dari http://hanyawanita.com atau sumber-sumber lain hanya bisa mendengarkan. Saya tidak akan menyarankan apapun kecuali kalian minta. Dan apa yang terbaik kalian sendiri yang memutuskan.

Sedangkan saya? Entahlah. Mungkin Tuhan masih belum mempercayai saya. Belum mempercayai apakah saya sudah siap memulai suatu hubungan lagi atau tidak. Tapi saya tidak pernah memikirkannya. Saya tidak pernah marah. Walaupun perasaan hampa itu akan timbul disaat saya berjalan ke mal, dan melihat banyak sekali pasangan yang menghabiskan waktu, sewaktu berlari dan melihat mereka-mereka yang bergandengan tangan. Saya percaya cinta akan datang dengan jalannya sendiri. Saya tinggal membuka hati dan melihat jalan cinta itu. Saya tidak akan pernah merasa kesepian, ada banyak hal yang bisa membuat saya bahagia. Termasuk sahabat-sahabat yang masih mempercayai saya untuk mendengarkan mereka...

Art from stuff

Strangely enough in two different directions we heard about art made with a new and different medium. Both of these sites originally came to us through our northernmost New Jersey reader.

The first is amazing works of art made out of crayons. They are not drawn with crayon, mind you. But literally constructed out of crayons, set on their sides and stacked. It creates an almost pointilism type of effect. Read more about the artist, Christian Faur here.

The other is from a blog called, Boing Boing, which bills itself as "a directory of wonderful things." The folks over at Boing Boing have found an artist who makes amazing portraits out of old audio cassette tapes. You will hardly believe your eyes. The artists bills herself as Iri5. According to the blog Noise Addicts, she as an artist who, "specializes in using non traditional media such as old books, audio cassettes, playing cards, magazines, credit cards, basically whatever she can find."

Both of these artists are doing amazing work. Their creativity is an inspiration, in its willingness and success to explore and try new things.

Houseguestapalooza Phase I, In Which Doris Gets Her Oats

My parents spent a lovely week a couple of weeks back with us here in the Valley, and before I started forgetting details of what we did, I wanted to get it down, bullet-style. Details forthcoming... maybe:

• Saturday - came in the PM; we grilled burgers on the patio and goofed around on goodreads
  
• Sunday - got brunch; went to the Heard Indian Arts Festival (took the light rail) and got art and sno-cones; ate burritos at home for dinner
  
• Monday - went to see the Cubs mop the Kansas City Royals; had Red Devil for the traditional Monday night Pizza Dinner. Watched Hudsucker Proxy.
  
• Tuesday - visited my ASU office, the rattlesnakes, went through the museum, ate lunch at Trick's and saw Gran Torino in the afternoon. Beck got stuck at work, so we ended up ordering Red Devil for the second time in two days - YEAH!
  
• Wednesday - Dad and I went golfing where I shot an even 100; Beck and Mom met Ann for high tea at the Phoenician. Fun times Ultimate game that night, followed by breakfast for dinner at a diner around the corner.
  
• Thursday - went to Fidelity (YAY) and then to the SMoCA for a fun day. Grabbed lunch at Taco Del Mar and saw Watchmen in the afternoon. Grilled sausages and asparagus for dinner that night at home.
  
• Friday - went to see the Cubs mop the Mariners; came home to SURPRISE meet the iPJ and iPMM; met the Tuftsboys at TeePee for dinner and Gellato Spot afterwards.
  
• Saturday - Mom and Dad left pretty early; Beck, iPJ and IPMM and I headed to the Cubs game for the afternoon.
  

So that's it for the first leg of the tour. More fascinating bullet outlines of Phase II in the queue!!!

The Mark of Zorro: 4-2 (Just Barely)

Another ugly game for the VOTS annals Monday night. Beck and I spent the day in Tucson and rolled back into town at about 7 for our 8 o'clock game against Plastic Falls, aka Team Nabity. The brutal wind storm from Sunday hadn't quite left the vicinity - it was considerably better, but there was still a stiff breeze from the west, meaning our field was decidedly divided into upwind / downwind directions. That stiff breeze fluctuated a lot over the course of the game, changing from nearly non existent to gusting with great frequency, and you can guess the kind of impact this had on not just a bunch of hat league players, but a bunch of PHOENIX hat league players who have as many words for wind as eskimos have for cacti. Aka none - we are especially incompetent in these conditions, and I knew off the bat that we would be in for a terrible night.

And the night, she did not disappoint. My first pull got hit by one of the aforementioned gusts and sailed onto the baseball field (homerun!); we got a quick turn and an easy chance at an upwinder, but Craig turfed an easy, easy throw to Nat. And it rained on from there - bad floaty throws, drops, chaotic offense on both sides, just a total mess. Capsule of the game was a twenty minute point in the middle where Eric's team kept working it upwind only to get D'ed or thrown out of bounds or dropped on the goal line (Allyson / Jeremy / Paul all came up with huge Ds here; even I poach-laid out on Tim on an errant throw for a D). We saw their incompetence and raised it with turns on our own ten yard line, drops, floaters, turfers, you name it. On multiple occasions, I turned to Tim and asked, "Can we just go home instead?"

Ah, the characters from the other team - they had Eric and Katherine, of course, and Eric Reif, Tom, Dave, Mel, Tim, and Fife, and Ned. A bunch of people I all enjoy playing with / against; I especially appreciated Ned, with whom I had a couple of spats regarding closeness of mark on the field, but we're both of the mindset that arguing about a call is not arguing about people; you can gripe about whether you were within a disc length or what have you and then chat on the sideline afterwards. Good stuff. Seriously, I just like playing against all those guys, because you can have an intense game without it devolving - as a consequence, when guys on the other team make sweet plays (see Eric's sky below), you feel good for them. And you can spend the whole game giving goofy trash talk and compliments and everyone just stays in good spirits, even if there's an occasional argument over a foul call. So good times.

They were unfortunately (and within their right, no complaint, I just rather it would've gone the other way) unwilling to go 4-3 as Mel had to leave and Katherine wasn't feeling entirely well. We're having some playing time issues - a few people on our team don't know exactly when to come off and when to let other people stay on, so we had some messed up chemistry going on our sidelines with people frustrated that they weren't getting to play as much and not getting the disc when they were playing. Combine this with the occasional 20 minute point and the fact that it was about 50 degrees with blustering winds, and you've got a bad situation - a whole lot of standing on the sideline and stiffening up. We SERIOUSLY need to work on this; Genevieve and I spent some time talking Tuesday about how we can make sure to even out field time and give some of our new players some easy opportunities to get the disc.

(The getting new people the disc problem is not exactly new in VOTS, and with the wind and the prevalence of zone last night, there were some times where it just wasn't easy to spread the disc around. We've been doing a reasonable job - we tried to get the disc to one of our new players when the game was 10-10 and he/she dropped it, so it's not like we're looking people off because the game is on the line - but still, it sucks for people to come out, run so hard and then not get a disc for the entire game. Will try to remedy this promptly).

Anyhoo, back to the silly game - everything stayed within a break for the duration, so the sequence of scores was probably something like 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, 5-4 , 5-5 (hell point), 5-6, 6-6, 6-7, 7-7, 7-8, 8-8, 8-9, 9-9, 10-9 (upwind zone break), 10-10 (downwind choke), 10-11, 11-11, 12-11 (super upwind improbable comeback). So a tight game throughout, but really, because of the slew of turns, it felt a lot more like a classic battle of incompetence than a good game.

Despite all my bad-mouthing, there was a serious highlight. We had thrown zone on them once or twice, unfortunately matching up with the less windy portions of the game - I don't think our Z was very effective at all, so we abandoned it relatively quickly. They threw a Z late when the wind had started howling - just bad luck for us, and a great strategic call for them. It allowed them to collapse everything on top and essentially expect no long passes - I definitely had the disc at one point and looked up to see six of their seven players within 15 yards of me. So we had to attack it with really short passes and a ton of them - Nat and I estimated afterwards somewhere between 50 and 100 on that single point - but we worked it up the entire field for a score upwind from Nat to genevieve. Just a rare, inspiring point in which we just doink doinked it all the way up the field.

Of course, we didn't complete the break - we got a turn, and I cut wide open for the follow-up score, but Craig sent a high huck over my wrong shoulder to give them the disc back. D'oh. So Tim gets the disc, and sends an upwind huck to Eric Reif who is being closely guarded by Paul. Paul gets inside position, jumps, just misses the disc, and Eric skyes the everliving crap out of him. Just a sweet grab, and one of the better "right over him!" grabs I've seen on the VOTS fields in a while. Eric sent the next throw easily to the endzone, so that 50-100 throw point was for naught. Argh.

Soft cap goes on at 10-10, so it's now a game to 12. They get a turn off a bad high release from Chris and score downwind to go up 11-10; we get it back and shred their zone downwind (scoober to Jeremy in the back left corner) to make it 11-11. I was pretty sure we were going to lose this miserable game because Eric won the opening flip and had a one point advantage as far as going downwind. Sometimes I hate frisbee. So we put out a defensive line (Paul, Jeremy, Nat, Jack, myself, Allyson, Kelly? - Kelly stayed on this point INEXCUSABLY; she had already played more than her share of the women's points, and to not give way to genevieve at this point was just dumb. Genevieve, of course, is way too nice to say such things, and I didn't want to step in, but really - game on the line, our superstar captain should be out there) and ramped up. Got off a good pull, they tossed it around a bit but our defense was on top of them. They eventually tried a deep throw to Tom through double coverage (I had poached off); bad idea, disc sails out of bounds, so we at least had a shot to win the game upwind.

And we did! Shot to Nat in the middle of the field, over to Jack, Jack to Paul, Paul to me, and I hit Nat deep with a big OI, upwind backhand over the stack for the score. Huzzah! Improbable! Win! Yeah, whatever. Don't get me wrong - it's fun to win and all, and fun to come back from a tight spot like that -but it was just an ugly game, and with all the bad vibes from our sidelines w/r/t PT, I just didn't have any exuberant feelings. I played fine, handled well and had some good Ds, the usual amount of effort, etc., but just felt like crap after this game because of the peripheral goings on.

iPJ and iPMM also attended this game, but smartly went back to the car after about fifteen minutes because of the wind and cold. I don't blame them - really gave them a horrible show. Ah, well, glad we won, I suppose, if for no other reason to maintain Monday Wednesday trash-talk justification. But it really was one of the dumber games I've played out here, and we need to do some work to regain some good times team feelings.

ADDENDUM
*************
Fun quote from Katherine's blog:

"I must say, Zorro probably has the strongest group of female players I've come up against this season. Granted I wasn't feeling great, but chasing them around the field was rough."

This coming from an experienced captain on Monday night which supposedly has the better pool of ladies. So great job, Beck, Salina, Allyson, Genevieve and Kelly!

Tremors

The were rumblings southeast of Los Angeles, Sunday and Monday, at a place called the Salton Sea. The California government's official website crows, "The Sea teems with fish. That is why some scientists have called the Salton Sea “California’s crown jewel of avian biodiversity” and perhaps the most productive fishery in the world." Impressive stuff, not everyone agrees.

The Los Angeles Times reported that approximately 150 miles from Los Angeles, and 110 miles northeast of San Diego, "in a 48-hour period starting Saturday morning, 42 quakes shook [an area] just south of Bombay Beach on the Salton Sea. The quakes ranged in magnitude from 0.5 to 3.3, with three larger than 3.0 hitting the area Saturday afternoon."

They talked to a UC San Diego geophysicist who said the area is dangerously interconnected with the legendary San Andreas fault. They report, "These quakes appear to be taking place at the hazy intersection of several recently mapped faults crossing beneath the Salton Sea and the the San Andreas fault."

They even-handedly offer both sides of the story. The UC San Diego guy with two first names, Graham Kent, is quoted offering the darker scenario, "The worry for scientists comes from a case in 1987, when a magnitude-6.2 earthquake on one of the crossing faults appeared to trigger a 6.6 quake 12 hours later on the Superstition Hills fault to the south. The San Andreas fault is north of these crossing faults and the geometry is similar." For the opposite side, to offer some reassurance, since honestly nobody can say for sure either way, they give the reader Kate Hutton, a seismologist at Caltech. She says, "The last time a swarm of this type occurred in the area was 2001, so they are not especially unusual. Every time you have a swarm of earthquakes, it does raise the chances of having a larger quake, but it doesn't raise it a huge number."

Just an fyi.

Fingers crossed, prayers said, geological long-run inevitability understood.

Read the whole story here.

Really?

Just in case you live under a rock or something, A-Rod did an interview with Details magazine that coincided with his steroid controversy. It's at least semi-interesting that the guy is worried about what his favorite Madonna song is with the huge story looming in the background - it had not broken yet during the interview, but A-Rod had been confronted by the SI reporter - but what is just WEIRDER THAN ALL GET OUT is that he did a photo shoot that included THIS:

I am, as Zil would say - and probably should be saying, given her Yankee-leanings - in stun. I mean, I am all in favor of artistic expression and getting in touch with yourself, but kissing yourself in a mirror Narcissus-style? I just... WHAT? Congrats, homes, as if people weren't going to blare Madonna songs and call you A-Fraud / A-Roid, throw needles at you, etc., now they are going to bring mirrors to games and make out with themselves every time you come up to bat. Thanks for that. I generally leave the sports / pop culture commentary stuff to the pro-likes of BS and CK, but I felt compelled to poll the Nyetverse for an answer to the question: WHAT???

Of course, that answer may just be the slew of parodies we are about to get. Stepping up to his usual plate of originality:


At least with your face pressed against a mirror it might be a little harder to break character...