Meanwhile, entertainment news, and Gwyneth Paltrow (she of Shakespeare in Love, grrrr, grrrr) was reported as saying she had experienced "postpartum depression after Moses. "I mentally agreed; the movie wasn't that great -- Charlton Heston loaded with chains, Yul Brynner with bling and I'll bet you didn't know bling was invented by the Pharisees -- when my brain belatedly came up with the meaning of postpartum. The Moses lovely Gwyneth was talking about is her two-year-old son.
Poor little guy. Can you imagine the ribbing he's in for at school with a name like that? Or later, out with the guys, hoisting a few beers?
Worse, Moses will inevitably be shortened to Mo -- what were you thinking of Gwyneth?
Meanwhile again and look at that -- just as I've succeeded in remembering to remember to watch Oprah on the idiot box (6 p.m., Channel Colgate), the show has vanished. Monday, clicking over from the ABS-CBN early evening news, I found myself watching one of those strange Japanese kiddie cartoons.
Where was Oprah? Had Kris complained that too many folks were switching away from the Woooh Show? Is it any wonder that video rental stores are packed out, that CD stores do a roaring trade, when half the time Channel 23 viewers have no idea when a show is broadcast or even IF it's being broadcast?
Back to Oprah and the other week she devoted a show to YouTube, its (now exceedingly rich) creators and a handful of the website's star turns. I've never seen a YouTube clip. My ancient laptop -- an original signed by Brunel -- refuses to have anything to do with them (it seems I need to install a particular doodah) and the show was a revelation. Best of all, Oprah introduced a handful of the YouTube performers themselves.
One clip featured was called The Evolution of Dance -- viewed apparently a whopping sixty million times -- and featured a quite ordinary guy hoofing his way through a medley of popular dances -- the jive, the twist, the locomotion, many I didn't know the name of -- and it was a hoot. The guy himself came on, gave us a brief preview of Dance Part Two and that was hilarious as well, both Oprah's audience and me wiping away tears of laughter.
Tears of another sort flowed for the next act, an amateur opera singer who'd appeared on the British version of American Idol, wowed the judges and audience and then, when his song was uploaded to YouTube, went on to make a million-selling album. On he came -- a short, tubby gent wearing an evening suit. He opened his mouth and... wow.
I'm no opera fan -- recordings leave me unmoved, it's all so much noise -- but live opera, like the theatre or variety, is something else. Time, distance, language; none were an impediment to the sheer emotion the guy was projecting. The audience didn't understand a word, I couldn't understand a word but somehow they and I were dabbing at our eyes, the emotion -- was it joy? -- like laughter, being contagious.
The man was magnificent and it was easy to see why his opera clip had been viewed so many million times. And maybe it's time for me to find out whatever it is I need to click the thumbnails and join the YouTubing fraternity.
