“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe” – Carl Sagan

Enjoy.

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“Emily Howell could be the next big hit in the classical music world. She has already received critical acclaim for her compositions and secured a record deal, with her debut album due for release next year.”

“Emily Howell, however, is a computer program.” – read Times Online article.

With that a little bit of my pride as a human being died. But only momentarily. We are living in some truly remarkable years.

And with that I brace myself for a future of human brilliance.

I used to say that words spoil music. That is not to imply that I don’t like songs that are sung. I just like to be free to interpret the music the way I feel – based on my current mental and emotional state. Classical music is so rich and powerful and for me it resmebles the ultimate pinnacle of the genius of humanity. How we are able to create order out of chaos by merely thinking about it.

So anyway, here I would like to present some of the more popular classical works.

Close your eyes, and just listen.

Canon in D Major by Johanne Pachelbel
The portrait on the video is not of Pachelbel. It is Mozart. But the music is Canon in D Major. I do not know who performs this.

Adagio in G Minor by Tomaso Albinoni
Performed by the Berlin Philharmonic. A beautiful and haunting piece.

Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky
One of my favorite composers of great ballets. This one should be instantly recognisable to many.

“Spring” from The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi
Bubbly, happy and light.

Air on a G String by Johann Sabastian Bach
The title maybe funny nowadays. This too is a haunting but calm piece. Kids love to sleep to this. Bach is among my favourites.

Menuet from string Quintet No. 5 in E by Luigi Boccherini
A simple melody. Beautiful to the end.

That will be all for now. I have not touched upon more famous ones like Mozart and Beethoven – piano greats. What I’ve presented above are mostly string pieces.

Enjoy.

It reminds me of a time when waiting in anticipation of a phone call was suffocating and unbearable. When a simple first kiss melted away the rest of the world. When a hand-written letter was kissed before being sent and kissed after it was read. A time when a mere glance lighted a fire within or the flowery fragrance of an embrace lingered into the night.

A time when there was time for simple pleasures like listening to this song laying on a lover’s lap.

…Won’t you tell me is that healthy, babe?

Here is a movie that asks a rather interesting question, one that would keep your imagination going wild and hungry and your coffee table discussions going long into the night. The Man from Earth asks the question, “What if a man from upper-paleolithic survived until the present day?”

And thus with that question I was taken in on a rollercoaster ride of fantastical imaginative proportions as 14,000 years of Earth’s history, with rolling landscapes, thousands of languages, millions and millions of people being born and dying, great swathes of time creating and erasing cultures and the arrival of magic and supernatural and religions, were compressed into my mind in just 1 and half hours.

But there are no super CG effects. No flashbacks or illustrations. Not even sketches. In fact, there was nothing but storytelling and dialog and that was all I (and the characters in the movie itself) had going, or indeed, had needed. The Man from Earth’s story reminded me of some of the tales from the Sandman series of graphic novels by Neil Gaiman. A man living 14,000 years can meet many interesting people. Or even deliberately choose to meet them knowing that he shall outlive them and survive to tell the story.

The premise for the plot of the movie took me almost by surprise. How could it be so simple and yet so profound – simple, yet astoundingly intriguing at a deeply intellectual level. Perhaps it is because, given our limited lifespan, we yearn to live the millenniums to see what the passage of time would reveal. It would indeed be something to meet a 14,000 year old living man. That’s for sure.

It would definitely make it easy to predict our behaviour as a species. Would the current religions die away a thousand years from now as did other belief systems before? Would there be another ice-age? Or even a nuclear holocaust that would send humanity to the brink of extinction? Will we leave our planet and start a migratory journey into space?

To bear witness to the millenniums must be like being God.

I highly recommend this one. Grab a coffee (or 2), put on your headsets and just enjoy.

Breaking the 200m world record.

And breaking the 100m world record.