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Susan Boyle and Grace

April 18th, 2009

“In our pop-minded culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging – the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts – the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace.

“She pierced my defences. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective.” Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly.

From an excellent article on the Susan Boyle phenomenon on the BBC website here.

4 Responses to “Susan Boyle and Grace”

  1. …Now – if you would just link this (and the fascinating BBC article) with the (long) thread about the wonderful top model-like photos of nude women in old trees two or three entries below, you´d get an interesting path of thought…

  2. Isn’t it incredible what the magical power of a voice can do! I can just imagine her singing all by herself for years, just loving doing it, and her guardian angel listening and then directing her to her dream. Her time to sing and touch the hearts and souls of millions has come. Blessings to her, and all of our sacred dreams that our guardian angels know. Susan is a reminder of this!

  3. What made me sad about that clip is that not only did the judges and crowd feel it was ok to pull rude faces when Susan came onto the stage, the judges felt it was perfectly ok to tell her afterwards just how little they expected from her based on her appearance, and what’s even sadder, she wasn’t surprised or offended. Now that says a lot about where popular culture is at and how influential it is, even on those who have led a sheltered life.

    One’s value in this world is not based upon how well one fits the current fashion in either age or appearance. It can be very hard to remember this with so much media bombardment to the contrary.

  4. I loved that she was unperturbed by the initial reactions. She seemed anchored in reality in a way that no-one else there did. That’s grace.

    What fascinates me is the orgy of undirected self-flagellation in the media. Are the people writing these pieces prepared to walk their talk in the future?

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