Sing Sing: The Prison of Sound

Karaoke Party! It's been a while since I've used my rich mahogany voice for good. It's like running. When I was 15 I could run like the wind. Now my mind thinks I can run like the wind, but my body tears through whole muscle groups in a few pathetic strides. With music, where I once heard tones, I now hear the same dull note as if some ripped hippie is clumsily thudding on his poorly strung bongo (or overturned ice cream bucket). My God, has it all gone Pete Tong?

Anyways... in my Karaoke research I found that Daisuke Inoue, inventor of the karaoke machine was awarded a 2004 Ig Nobel Peace prize for effectively testing tolerance internationally. The Ig Nobels, a ceremony broadcast through NPR and held at Harvard, are held annually in collaboration with the science humor publication, "The Annals of Improbable Research." Every year real Nobel laureates also perform a mini opera as part of the program. This year's opera is entitled, "Chicken vs. Egg" and will be webcast live from the Ig Nobel site on Oct. 4 at 7:15pm. A few of the mini opera's actors have already been featured in the Studmuffins of Science Calendar available at SF's Exploratorium.