O-Zone madness

There is song called Dragostea Din Tei on the Disco-Zone CD by O-Zone. O-Zone was a little known Euro-dance act from Romania... until someone in Japan syched some flash to it. Then someone else. Here is the original music video. Then someone made a video. Suddenly, this CD is a hit and many of my friends are ordering it from Amazon. I bet they don't know what hit them.

This reminds me of the badger badger/potter potter meme and the Yatta meme. There is some peculiar element of certain songs that gets people's creative juices going. I think they have to be 1) silly, 2) in a foreign language, 3) have that "can't get it out of my head" element. It's the tip of the long tail wagging. Maybe artists should make synching rights available to encourage more of this creative behavior in a mainstream way... or maybe not.

Article from joi.ito.com

O Zone, Gay Romania

O Zone is like the Romanian answer to NSync, except they're way better because unless you speak Romanian, you don't know what they're singing. And no one wants to know what boy bands are singing, as long as the tune catchy and danceable.

O Zone, a boy band of Moldovans who launched their music career in Romania, had a hit this summer with Dragostea Din Tei. The group's original video for Dragostea Din Tei is here. It's the gayest thing on the planet. The cheezy pop nature of the song spurred this spoof video.

Like most boy bands, O Zone is very 'gay vague.' If you watch the video, you'll see a rainbow, speedos, lots of hugging, and some pseudo cuddling on the sofa at the end. Of course, these are Europeans so speedos, rainbows, and man-touching are pretty normalized behavior and imagery. Why is one group member spread eagle on the sofa while the other group member watches him sleep?

Unfortunately, Romania is not a terrific country for GLBT persons. Under Soviet rule, gays and lesbians could be punished with up to 5 years in prison. The Romanian Orthodox Church is very pervasive in Romanian culture. More than 85% of Romanians belong, and the religion poses the usual Christian demonization of GLBT people.

In Romania, the gay rights struggle continues. It sounds like it's probably similar to being gay in places like Alabama or Mississippi, or even Utah. It was illegal to have gay sex until 2001, as pressure to be admitted to the European Union made Romanian government overturn several laws, and create several new anti-discrimination laws. Unfortunatley, the vast majority of Romanians say they would not like to have gay neighbors (90%).

Romania does have an organized gay community. The non-profit organization, ACCEPT Romania has been instrumental in gaining equal rights for GLBT Romanians.

Gay Romanians got a chunk of good news a few weeks ago when the Romanian people elected Traian Basescu as President of Romania. Basescu ran on a platform that included equality for gays and lesbians.

There is some gay scene in Romania. Just look at these hot guys at the KaMANsutra party. The Queens Club in Bucharest was the first LGBT club in Romania.

The O-Zone Craze - Shedding Some Light

The O-Zone craze seems to have finally crossed the pond, selling nicely on Amazon.com. It even reached the blogging world. I picked it up from Seth's blog, but then Joi Ito has a nice piece on it, too. What caused the craze? A most amusing 'tipping point' in the shape of a small video :-).

So I think now's the time when bloggers could use some clarifying information from someone who literally speaks the same language with the O-Zone guys. Not that this information doesn't exist on the web already - it just needs some fresh exposure every now and then. Here it goes:

1. The funny-looking name Numanuma is actually a repetition of two Romanian words, 'nu ma' (or, to be correct, 'nu mă') that are part of the lyrics of O-Zone's smash hit 'Dragostea din tei' ('Love in the linden tree'). More precisely, they're part of 'nu mă iei', which translates into 'you don't take me [away with you]'. I know, I know, but I'm a namer and I'm obsessed with it :-)
2. O-Zone have long been a hugely successful act on the European dance scene. That is, since around AD 2003, if I recall correctly. They're from Moldova (a small ex-USSR republic), not the neighboring Romania. Due to the complicated history of this part of the world, both Romanian and Russian are spoken in Moldova. O-Zone had a choice to make and they went for singing in Romanian (and entering the showbiz in the same country, not in their own), as they correctly supposed it would help them promote their music all across Europe.
3. Starting out from Romania, they've come to be known as a Romanian act and have been quick to monetize on their growing brand awareness all across Europe. Think of all the paraphernalia you can, from ubiquitous (and annoying) ringtones onwards.
4. Yes, Seth, there's a point, although a very shallow one - it makes people laugh, on the cheap. The raw matter (that is, the original O-Zone music) is renown for its supremely dimwitted lyrics - they're all too obvious for native Romanians, but relevant translations abound on the web. At the same time, it is highly danceable (simple, repetitive, addictive sound patterns being involved), here and everywhere in the world and that's what seems to count for most people.

Article from stefanliute.typepad.com/branding

Be careful: listening to MP3 players at high volumes can damage young ears

Critical Thinking

* Should MP3 players be manufactured so they can't be turned up high enough to damage hearing? Why or why not?

* What other loud noises might endanger hearing? (engine noise, rock concerts) How might people protect themselves from those noises?

National Science Education Standards

* Personal health: injury prevention

* Structure and function in living systems: sensory organs

* San Francisco Chronicle: Play it loud, and you may pay for it: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/22/ DDGKUER3M323.DTL

LIZ Mashburn listens to rap and hip-hop on her new green iPod for about two hours a day. "It's awesome," says the 14-year-old student from the Christian Fellowship School in Denver.

Liz bought her iPod several months ago with money she had saved doing family chores. Like many teens around the country, she has plugged into a hugely popular new craze. In October, Apple Computer, the maker of the iPod, reported that it had had the best year in its history. In just three months, the company had sold almost 6.5 million iPods and predicted total sales of 35 million by year-end.

There's a downside to listening to iPods or any other type of digital audio player, however. At high-intensity levels, they can harm the hearing.

Without knowing it, many young people who listen to loud music are permanently damaging their ears. "We're starting to see hearing loss in young adults that we expect to see in middle-aged adults," Robert Novak, director of clinical education in audiology at Purdue University, told Current Science. He says audiology clinics across the country have seen an increase in noise-induced hearing damage in younger people during the last decade.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

The iPod is the most popular type of Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer III (MP3) player. Introduced in 1998, MP3 players store, organize, and play digital music files. A digital music file contains music that has been converted into the language of computers--digits and stored in a stream of 8-digit packages called bytes. MP3 technology compresses files and enables players to hold huge amounts of information.

MP3 players can hold far more music--hundreds or even thousands of songs--than a tape or a CD can. As a consequence, says Novak, "listening to MP3 players is becoming more of a full-day experience." Liz says she would listen to her iPod more than two hours a day if she weren't so busy with school and sports.

DAMAGED HAIRS

MP3 players can be hazardous to the hearing when their volume is turned up too high. Any loud sound can damage nerve endings called hair cells in the inner ear (see "Have You Heard?"). The hair cells that respond to high pitches are especially vulnerable.

Sometimes the damage to the hair cells is temporary, says Novak. The ears are never truly at rest; their hair cells are vibrating, even during sleep. But quiet times allow hair cells to vibrate to nondamaging levels of sound. During those times, the hair cells can repair any temporary noise damage they might have suffered.

If a sound is intense enough, however, it can shake the membrane on which the hair cells sit--"like an earthquake," says Novak. That vibration can break or even uproot the hair cells. "When that happens, the hair cells are finished," he says.

Human ears cannot regrow hair cells. No pill or surgery can bring them back, either. A certain amount of hearing loss seems to be inevitable with age in modern society and &ten becomes noticeable in middle age. But hearing loss induced by portable music players is putting "older ears on younger bodies," says Novak.

MP3 players are particularly hazardous to the hearing because they have brought with them a change in headphones. Old-style headphones rest on the outer ears. The headphones, or earbuds, sold with many MP3 players are inserted into the auditory canals, the passageways that lead into the skull. Because earbuds are closer to the eardrum, they are capable of delivering even higher sound intensities to the inner ear.

TOO HIGH

Some electronics manufacturers warn customers against listening to loud music but don't indicate the volume levels that are unsafe on their portable music players. According to studies, sound levels below 80 decibels (dB) are harmless. A decibel is the measure of the loudness of a sound. Many MP3 players can reach levels above 100 dB.

How can you find a safe volume level on your personal stereo? Novak suggests setting it to a comfortable volume in a quiet room. From then on, don't turn the volume above that level no matter where you are. "You should be able to hear someone talking to you at a normal conversational level from a distance of 3 feet," says Novak. If that someone can tell what music you're listening to--that's another sign the volume is too high.

Liz Mashburn tries not to play her music too loud, but she isn't sure that her friends and classmates are equally careful. "Most teens like their music really loud because they think it is cool," she says.

"Hearing is the one sense that enables humans to most easily use language and develop speech and build relationships," says Novak. "So we need to protect that very special sense."

Have You Heard?

This is how the ear hears: Sound waves travel down the outer ear's auditory canal and strike the tympanic membrane (eardrum), causing it to vibrate. The vibrations are transmitted through the middle ear by three ossicles (tiny bones). The third ossicle, the stapes, sends waves through a fluid inside the cochlea, a snail-shaped organ in the inner ear. The cochlea contains about 15,000 hair cells, which respond to the waves. The hair cells relay signals by way of the auditory nerve to the brain, which interprets the signals as sounds. No sound is heard until it reaches the brain.

SKILLBUILDERS

Multiple Choice

Choose the response that best completes the statement or answers the question. Write the letter of the response in the blank provided.

--1. The eardrum is also called the (A) auditory membrane. (B) cellular membrane. (C) tympanic membrane.

--2. No sound is ever heard until it reaches the (A) brain. (B) ears. (C) stapes.

--3. The language of computers is written in (A) digits. (B) hieroglyphics. (C) letters.

--4. Loud sounds can damage or destroy nerve endings in the ear called (A) hair cells. (B) earbuds. (C) headphones.

--5. The loudness of a sound is measured in (A) decibels. (B) frequencies. (C) hertz.

--6. How many digits are in a byte? (A) 2 (B) 4 (C) 8

--7. The middle ear contains three tiny bones called (A) ossolotches. (B) oscillators. (C) ossicles.

--8. The cochlea is shaped like a (A) doughnut. (B) snail. (C) wishbone.

--9. Sound travels through the air in (A) pulses. (B) a stream of packages. (C) waves.

--10. The inner ear is connected to the brain by way of which nerve? (A) auditory (B) gustatory (C) olfactory