Snoring: The Upshot

Google "snoring" and you'll get a flood of how-to advice on how not to, and a lot of reasons to stop. Not surprisingly, the majority of links recalled were advertisements for devices, medications, surgical maneuvers, and their purveyors. In today's pharm-centered universe, the vibration caused by air traveling through our airways has been pathologized and vilified as the destroyer of otherwise sound relationships. Not only is it bad for your love life. Snoring is deadly! According to snoring alarmists, snorers who have the audacity to continue sleeping noisily can look forward to myriad cardiovascular disorders including heart attacks, atherosclerosis, and stroke, marital and erectile dysfunction (chicken-or-the-egg?), drowsiness, lack of focus and...Zzzzzzzzz. Admittedly, I'm no doctor, but let me suggest that there are some positive effects of snoring (besides the possibility that it keeps you healthy by means of temporary asphyxiation). It's a much cheaper and more effective method of subjecting those around you to intense jealousy ("Please, please, make him stop so I can lose consciousness ASAP") than, say, buying a pair of Jimmy Choos. Then again, I don't usually begrudge those masochists the pain of walking around... But I digress. If you would rather not invest in a medical solution, you could try banishing the banshee by learning a new instrument. You guessed it: the Didgideroo! Ah, it's time for bed. Maybe the lumbering Saint Bernard downstairs will give it a rest so I can, too.

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Barbershop competition winner

Until now, when I thought of barbershop style vocal music, I thought of four guys standing still and working some really tight harmonies. Take a look at this video from the 2009 International Barbershop championship, featuring the winners in the chorus division, the Ambassadors of Harmony. Incredible harmonies and movement. For more on this competition, see this article by Robert Elisberg at Huffpo.

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