Why the Symphony is Cool.

Miley Cyrus can sell out arenas, but as I've witnessed at the Milwaukee Symphony, they can barely fill their seats. Why is it that we don't appreciate the classical music? (I recognize that I'm making a broad generalization, but I also don't know too many folks that frequent the symphony on the reg, strengthening my assumption.)  Growing up, my family made it a point to take my sister and I to the symphony at least once a year, if not more.  I grew up learning that it's worth my time to sit and listen to the strings, the percussion, the brass.  And not just listen, but to feel the emotion behind the music, to witness those playing the instruments put their energy into those instruments.  I'm not going to lecture on culture, rather, I am going to prove my point merely by promoting a YouTube clip.  That's right, I'm hoping that technology will encourage you to consider buying tickets to your local symphony and take it in yourself.  Just give it a try - it's an hour or so of your night and I hope can make a huge impact on you and understanding why the arts are important.

The following video is indeed a few years old and I just happened to watch it this evening.  Yet, the impact of the video is great as it ended up on my feed on the Facebook in April of 2014.  In celebration of a city's 130th anniversary, they chose to not have a big fancy dance flashmob, rather, one that spread lots of JOY through classical music.  And they do make it look oh so very cool.  

Bill Nye the Science Guy

With the cold temperatures hitting the nation, many people decided to take science into their own hands.  Literally, with boiling hot water.  I'll admit, I watched in awe as boiling water was thrown into the air and turned into an instant solid and had a gaseous quality (maybe it does turn into a gas... I didn't look really too into the science behind it). 

It really brought me back to the days of Bill Nye the Science Guy making science fun and something you would want to try at home.  Personally, I'm a huge fan of science education and it's great that people were trying to enjoy the cold rather than stewing from cabin fever.  This was all the buzz with my co-workers.  We had a staff dinner Monday night and post dinner, a few of my colleagues took left over boiling water from our taco buffet and brought them outside to demonstrate this scientific phenomenon.  It. Was. Awesome.

The following day, my social media feed displayed countless videos from my "friends" or followers of this home science experiment.  Then, I saw the best article of all - pleading to ask Americans to stop throwing boiling water into the air. Or at least making sure you're down wind when doing so.  There were countless tweets displaying photos where this experiment went all wrong.  Boiling water causes third degree burns.  You know what this taught me?  Keep the science experiments to the professionals.  Or at least make it a habit to test wind direction before throwing something potentially harmful into the air.


Edited by: Ms. Beth Mannella, esq.