Prepared to be lucky (revisited)

Lately, my Zune's playlist is full with original soundtracks. Atonement OST has taught me the beauty behind OST that is curcial to be incorporated in a film. Of course, I have owned several OST's before Atonement - thanks to Miss Eti for introducing Craig Armstrong. Slumdog Millionaire, Brokeback Mountain, Mystic River, Changeling, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Chicago, and Moulin Rouge are among films that I've collected their OST. However, the best part of this is what Tyla Tharp said in her The Creative Habit: Learn it and use it for life, "digging your grooves".

Listening to all these great composers, I started to gain interest knowing their other works. This process also introduced me to another world of creativity in arts. For example, after being mesmerized by melodramatic soundtracks in Cinema Paradiso, I've come to know Ennio Morricone, Italian Academy Award-winning composer for Cinema Paradiso itself and other great films such as the astounding Once Upon a in America. The soundtracks Cinema Paradiso and Deborah's Theme relatively from both films mentioned, have been re-arranged and played by numerous musicians in all over the world and one of them is the great comtemporary jazz trumpeter, Chris Botti. This is the point I think I got my "groove". Botti's music expressively pulled me into the ecstactic jazz music. Other than that, his music makes me wanted to listen to opera songs, which I never thought I would fall in love to. Nessun Dorma popularly sang by the legendary late Luciano Pavarotti, which is also an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot, is one of the songs recomposed and played by Botti.

On top of that, his music has become a part of my daily routines. Again, Twyla emphasizes that it is important to have a solid rituals of preparation in order to pull out creativity in daily life. Botti's music gives me a solid ritual as I wake up turn on his music, grab a cup of coffee, stand next my room's window, look outside at people walking to classes and I feel like I'm lilting in this beautiful rhapsody. This ritual really helps me creating my character in my theater class, such as imitating different styles of walkings with different feelings - being late to class, enjoying a sunny morning, walking while eating, etc.

After all of this crap that i just wrote, I think your creative endeavors can never be thoroughly mapped out ahead of time. You have to allow for a suddenly altered landscape, the change in plan, the accidental spark - and you have to see it as a stroke of luck rather than disturbance. Habitually creative people are, in E.R. White's phrase, "prepared to be lucky". I'm lucky enough to know Chris Botti.

p/s: I just bought (BOUGHT! - i don't buy DVD except for this one) Chris Botti in Boston which features Sting, Josh Groban, Katherine McPhee, Lucia Micarelli, John Mayer, and Steven Tyler!

Bad decisions make good stories (meh...)

Say you're on a climbing route (refer to rock climbing if you wanna know what it is like). Fail to clip a quick draw on a bolt. When suddenly everything goes to hell. So, you fell to the next bolt, far away from the one you missed, the fall was not the 'right' one, and soon that crappy situation is a thing of the past. Too bad you can't meet all of climbing's challenges with a rope and quick draw. I mean, you could try. But I'm pretty sure that would be considered assault.

In other unrelated events, it then lead to these things that we beg for. A root canal, an I.R.S. audit, coffee spilled on our clothes. When the really terrible things happen, we start begging the god we don't believe in to bring back the little horrors, and take away this. It seems quaint now, doesn't it? The flood in the kitchen, the poison oak, the fight that leaves you shaking with rage. Would it've helped if we could see what else was coming? Would we have known that those were the best moments of our lives?

I have come to a few points in my life that I 'kinda' have regrets on a few decisions I have made in my life. Yea...you can't go back and fix it, just keep the head held up high, life offers better future, you won't go anywhere if you keep on thinking about it, bla, bla, bla.. But, seriously, it keeps on hitting you right in the face! (This is where I need Quantum Theory together with Source Code (a movie - and yes, I just did a parenthesis in one) exist in my life).

However, the best part of these regrets are actually the story of your life you have just written, putting everything into the picture - plots, actors, settings, and even costumes (enjoying wearing skinny jeans to the office!). As the great Chaplin would say that life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.