And the Oscar Goes to (by William)

The Oscars will be announced this coming Sunday, and if there is a Best Opera award next year, I think the Oscar should go to--A Trip to the Moon!

I am one of the kids from Los Angeles Children’s Chorus participating the US premier of A Trip to the Moon this Friday and Saturday, together with LA Philharmonic and musicians from other organizations.

https://www.laphil.com/events/performances/111/

We have been rehearsing many evenings and weekends, and I have to skip school twice this week for rehearsals at the Disney Concert Hall, but there are a lot of joy, excitement, and curiosity all bundled into this experience. 

The story is about six astronomers, Barbenfouillis, Micromegas,  Alcofrisbas, Omega, Nostradamus, and Parafaragaramus went to the moon, but unfortunately they found out their rocket was broken and couldn’t make back to the earth.  George who was there to record the astronomers wandered off, and met a moon person Eoa and they taught each other how to communicate using moon language and English. The astronomers met with the Queen of the moon people, and she decided to welcome them.  In the midst, Uai, a rock monster stole a moon child.  The moon people became a mob and blamed the astronomers for the missing child.  The astronomers used their umbrellas to fight off Uai and the missing child was found.  The moon people fixed the rocket and soon afterwards, the astronomers were on their way back home.  Meanwhile, one the moon, Eoa watched the rocket take off while singing a tune of courage “I…You…Us.” 

Be part of the Opera performance has been one of the greatest experiences I ever had.  When the performances were completed, sadness and disappointment rose in my heart and mixed with the excitement, like dark clouds lingering around the sun.  How much I love A Trip to the Moon and LACC! 

P.S. On May 3, Google's search page featured Georges Méliès's influential 1902 film A Trip to the Moon. Watch the Google Doodle at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UDm2zuGDc



Google's search page on May 3, 2018



Digital Junk and the Demand for Photo Selection Application (by William)

During my recent trip to the Huntington Library, I took over a hundred photos with my digital camera.  The next day, I spent about an hour to delete more than half of the photos that were bad quality--blurry, random, or duplicative. 

Nowadays people often take tons of photos using their digital devices.  Later on, they either load all the photos without looking, or have to spend a lot of time going through the photos to select the good ones and delete the bad ones.  I think we should think twice before taking random photos.  Cleaning up digital junk may use up a lot of precious time.

I also wondered if there are applications that can sort photos by quality.  I researched online but couldn’t find any app that fits my requirements.  The law of demand and supply tells me if the demand is high but the supply is low, the price of the product will be high.  On the other side, if the demand is low and supply is high, the product will be cheap. 

If there is an app that can identify the bad quality photos and delete them, the developers can sell it for a good price!