Review: The Last Lecture

I first saw The Last Lecture 4 years ago, and it touched and moved me in a way that no TedTalk ever did. It's nice to know that in an age of short-attention spans, the traditional lecture is still an art form that can be appreciated by many. If you haven't seen the video, you should do so now (this blog post can wait). It's highly recommended and well worth an hour of your time.
I didn't read the book The Last Lecture because I felt that the lecture had already been done so well that the book might not have anything to add. Yesterday (and it seems today), Amazon had a sale on the book at $1.99, so I picked it up hoping that 4 years would be enough distance that I could read the book and not find it to be a repeated experience.

To my delight, the book's not really a reprise of the lecture. The lecture's got some of the same information, but the book takes us through Professor Pausch's life, including his courtship with his wife, which he (quite rightly) left out of the lecture. What does come through is Pausch's love of life and willingness to grasp it for all that it's worth:

I don't know how not to have fun. I'm dying and I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there's no other way to play it.

Too often in our lives we have people telling us that we should buckle down to do serious work, or that the things that we really want to do is not as important as the things people are willing to pay us money to do. With his authority as a man dying of cancer and a professor of computer science at a preeminent university, Professor Pausch gives us (and just as importantly, his children) this precious gift.

There are no empty words in this book, and very little repetition. It can be finished in a couple of hours, and was very much worth my time reading. Highly Recommended.

上松秀実「時代」- One of the more powerful Greenpeace music you've never heard of. =)

This is definitely one of the strongest new songs I've heard in a while. I found it while trolling around Youtube looking for some of Nakajima Miyuki's singles, and found this song by accident. The lyrics (both untranslated and translated can be found here). This is definitely one of those Greenpeace songs in theme, and her vocals are nothing short of astonishing!

Even better, she composes her own melody and writes her own lyrics. Definitely check it out!

Why I love YouTube, part whatever!

I found this clip just randomly trolling YouTube...and wow. I watched it twice before realizing I absolutely loved the song. I love the beginning, "no matter who you are, no matter where you are at the point in your life, you're going to need someone to stand by you"....absolutely true..but I love how they took all the covers from the artists they enlisted and mixed them together so absolutely beautiful.

Listening to this song is a religious experience! The Grandpa Elliot portions are just so gorgeous...great voice, great passion in his singing....music folks probably don't need me to tell them this, but the layering of this song is just so beautifully delicious I can't help but get into the song....when they get to the African female chorus, I was almost to the point of tears at the sheer beauty of the song...the video just cements how great the song is....when you look at how the voices mix together, the various instruments, and how they mix each voice to be backing, lead, chorus...its just sheer perfection as far as I'm concerned..

But don't get me wrong, the video part of this song is so important...you can see the passion of each artist...the Grandpa's eyes rolling in to his head, Clarence's sheer power as he's singing...the various instrumentalists (the russian in particular is superb...so stoic, so serious, his chords so stirring!)...

The producers of this mix seem to be part of a bigger movement..Playing for Change...well, they've got a customer lined up for them once they release the DVD and soundtrack for their movie.

First movie I'm going to buy review unseen =).

Ah..the powers of YouTube..and they wonder how they're going to monetize YouTube, sometimes the answer's right in their eyes, I think.

Highly recommended video!!