Year in Music

This Moment: As it is getting near the end of the year, music magazines, blogs, and radio shows are rolling out their top tens and other commentaries on music. In thinking about my music moments over the last year, one quickly came to mind as the most memorable.

For the last three summers I have been the program coordinator for a summer camp called Write on Sports. We work with middle school students on their writing by having them act as sportswriters for a few weeks. As part of this, we take them to cover a local minor league baseball game (the New Jersey Jackals). We usually end up being there on "camp day" and there are hundreds of young kids running around the stadium. The kids quickly get themselves full of sugar and are primed to get "pumped up" by the grating tunes on the PA and by the PA announcer asking us all to make some noise. This general chaos, and the fact that the games start at noon and the conditions are unbearably hot, lead me to take a break away from the action.

This past summer, I was crashing the tent area reserved for parties, when I saw a young boy in front of me, in full jock attire (baseball cap and brand name t-shirt), singing along to the chorus of the Indian version of Jai Ho (from Slumdog Millionaire) as it was being played over the PA. I thought to myself - funny that, what a world.