{"id":58,"date":"2009-12-16T23:24:41","date_gmt":"2009-12-17T04:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/?p=58"},"modified":"2009-12-16T23:24:41","modified_gmt":"2009-12-17T04:24:41","slug":"viva-la-vida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/viva-la-vida\/","title":{"rendered":"Viva la Vida"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"PS22 Chorus &quot;VIVA LA VIDA&quot; Coldplay (acoustic guitar version)\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u_tcE4rWovI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>To quote my friend Rachel&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/storybookgirl.blogspot.com\">blog<\/a>, I&#8217;m probably the last person on the planet to discover the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ps22chorus.blogspot.com\">PS 22 Chorus<\/a>, but the wonder of the internets is that Target doesn&#8217;t run out of the great new toys.\u00a0 If you haven&#8217;t watched these incredibly talented fifth graders singing songs like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IL0aDXekfyM&amp;feature=related\">Eye of the Tiger<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=h0FPZolbYns&amp;feature=related\">Don&#8217;t Stop Believing, Just Dance <\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=u_tcE4rWovI\">Viva La Vida<\/a>, you are missing a chance at joy.<\/p>\n<p>Part of what I love about the videos is the pure quality of the singing: strong voices, great harmonies, impressive attention to rhythm.\u00a0 But the other great part is the spirit.\u00a0 The kids are hilariously ironic, and yet, still sincere and sweet.\u00a0 Check out the moody chest-clutching during &#8220;Viva la Vida!&#8221;\u00a0 The unselfconscious swaying during &#8220;Don&#8217;t Stop Believing.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0It&#8217;s as though\u00a0Greg Breinberg, the chorus director who should be offered a MacArthur Genius Grant any day now, told the kids, &#8220;All right, this is old white folks&#8217; music, and one thing we love about the old white folks is that they like to feel emotions deeply.\u00a0 So everyone, put your hands on your hearts.\u00a0 Now scrunch down your eyebrows.\u00a0 Now nod as if to say, \u2018Dude.\u2019\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Can you do that?\u00a0 Oh, Srivasti&#8211;awesome!\u00a0 D&#8217;Angelo&#8211;your sway rules!\u00a0 Tanika&#8211;I love the closed eyes!&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But the kids aren&#8217;t making fun&#8211;they&#8217;re totally into it.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve thought all this time that the sweet-spot of kidland was the seventh grade classroom\u2014from the teacher\u2019s point of view that is (it\u2019s often inferno for the kids.)\u00a0 The kids want to please, laugh at your jokes, and can take sarcasm, which can be a necessary buffer to venting actual frustration. \u00a0But maybe Eden is waiting for me two doors down, in the fifth grade homeroom, where they&#8217;d flinch at my sarcasm but offer something so much sweeter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To quote my friend Rachel&#8217;s blog, I&#8217;m probably the last person on the planet to discover the PS 22 Chorus, but the wonder of the internets is that Target doesn&#8217;t run out of the great new toys.\u00a0 If you haven&#8217;t watched these incredibly talented fifth graders singing songs like Eye of the Tiger, Don&#8217;t Stop [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}