Norah Jones, for album of the year and best new artist. Congratulations!

I don't watch the Grammy Awards anymore, because I honestly don't like some of the more popular music out there. But I happened to click on the TV twice this evening, right at the *precise* moment that Norah Jones won an award. What a coincidence! She won a total of five awards: album of the year, record of the year, new artist, female pop vocal performance and pop vocal album.

I'm tickled about her winning for several reasons.

First, it's not often that I pick up an artist I've never heard about, fall in love with it and then find out everybody else is going ga-ga over it too. And I really did like her music. It was one of those music purchases where I didn't get to listen to the album first, so I was really happy when I liked the whole thing.

And then she's from Texas. Woo-hoo! I didn't know she was a native to the Dallas area until the February 2003 issue of Texas Monthly came out a while back and she was the cover.

And lastly, like the supermodel Yasmeen Ghauri, she's got an ethnic background similar to mine, and is born and raised American. (And Texan!) Again, I didn't know that until I read about it in a biography online. Her mother is American and her father Indian - the famous Ravi Shankar, no less! Norah was born and brought up in the U.S. and her father played little role in her life growing up. However, it is nice to know that there's a pleasant relationship between her and her father and half-sister in India.

When I look at her, just like when I look at pictures of Yasmeen Ghauri, I see a little bit of my sister and myself. We even sound a bit alike when we speak! There's something about this ethnic mix that is identifiable, and yet...not.

Anyway, I found it really cool that she won after such a spectacular year.

Some links: BBC Music review, Official Norah Jones Site

Texas was pretty well represented at the Grammys: Norah Jones is from Dallas, the Dixie Chicks are from Austin, as is Pat Green (nominated in two country categories) and Patty Griffin (nominated in the contemporary folk category). An Austin music label won three awards in the pre-show awards and San Antonio's Emilio Navaira won in the Tejano album category.

Not bad!

The broadcast will include nine short-form programs that capture stories from the few remaining people who speak these threatened languages. The stories were filmed in Scotland, Sweden, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Argentina, and India. Websites from UNESCO and the UN Works Programme will complement the short-form programs to futher bring these little known languages and cultures to millions of people worldwide. On International Mother Language Day, Discovery Channel will also air Archives of Babel, a program that attempts to reconstruct the world's first language, as spoken by every human being at a given moment in history. Many of today's languages have roots originating from that single language.

International Mother Language Day is February 21st. It was proclaimed by UNESCO's General Conference in November 1999, and was celebrated for the first time on February 21st, 2000.