Le Coup de Foudre

I mean "love at first sight" or rather hearing, pertaining to instant bonding with certain pieces of music.
I find myself amazed at these bondings I experience upon hearing certain pieces of music. The most recent of these experiences occurred while watching episode 14 of Samurai Champloo on Cartoon Network when I first heard Ikue Asazaki singing "Obokuri Eemui", a traditional Okinowan song. It is not available on any of the Samurai Champloo soundtrack albums, but only on the Okinowan CD, *UTABA UTAYUN*, which does not appear to be available on this side of the Pacific Ocean, unfortunately.

I did find a brief sampling of "Obokuro Kemui" near the beginning of "A Children's Poem" at http://crookedneighbor.com just prior to the James Dickey poem about animal heaven.

Recent brain research indicates that bonding may be the result of release of a hormone in the limbic system. I think it's called oxytocin. Oxytocin, some brain researchers claim, forms a cocktail with norepinephrin and dopamine to produce the effect we interpret as love. The scientist I heard discussing this claimed that the absence of oxytocin from the limbic cocktail results in lust rather than love.

The French for "love at first sight" literally means "struck by lightning"; like Bilbo Baggins in Tolkiens' *The Hobbit*. The ancient greeks believed anything struck by lightning became sacred and uncanny forevermore.

nekkid