38thparallel

Just enough time to come up for air during this long Mardi Gras weekend:

+ Tinariwen won a Grammy for Best World Music. Good news for Tinariwen, but not enough to overshadow the crisis in Mali.

+ Actor Richard Armitage wants to spearhead a project to resurrect the character of Richard III! Say whaaat?

+ Anyone watching Downton Abbey, Season 2?

+ I did finally discover the identity of my imagined Cesare Borgia, actor Christo Jivkov. The photo is from an Italian film, Il mestiere delle armi, wherein Jivkov plays Giovanni de' Medici. Only about a 20 year disparity, good try!

+ And who knew there existed such a plethora of Anne Boleyn crossovers? Cesare Borgia and Anne? Arthur and Anne? Guy of Gisborne and Anne? Hey look, Richard Armitage.

And now we're full circle.

I am extremely grateful topeculiaritea for introducing me to Ramona Falls. I phoned in a request to KLSU this PM and was told: "Ramona Falls? I don't think she's in the system." Say what!? Good lord, KLSU, time to broaden your spectrum beyond Sleigh Bells and Joanna Newsom?



In all honesty (and fairness), KLSU is one of the best things to come out of Baton Rouge. The station has kept me ignorant of popular culture for almost 5 years and nothing yet has matched that achievement in efficacy or benefit.

What I'm listening to.

What are you listening to?

Max Ernst's Une semaine de bonté is my go-to passport for vacations from the mundane. Check it:



This is probably one of the most widely used/uploaded images from the book, which is over 200 pages. The novel covers the days of the week and seven deadly elements: mud, water, fire, blood, blackness, sight, and unknown. Une semaine de bonté is a beautiful surrealistic novel, staggering in its (awesome) entirety. ( Two of my favorite images from the novel. )

Tonight, I discovered the French film, Judex, which seems to draw inspiration from some of Ernst's collages. Regardless of whether Ernst's work had any influence on Judex, check that clip!

( For comparison: )

Ah, this stuff is groovy! My brain feels like a pretzel.

I originally made this post concerning running etiquette at the runners community, but would like to get your thoughts on the subject, too.

Lately, I've been running in the morning before work, which I guess coincides with my neighbor's dogs' outdoor schedule. Problem is, my neighbor releases his dogs (pit bull and golden retriever) into the early morning darkness without a leash or human supervision. The dogs just run. Anyway, the dogs usually run alongside, jump, and get underfoot, but are otherwise pretty harmless. There's a major highway near my house, and while I do worry that they might run out into traffic, they never seem to wander quite that far. My question is, how should I approach my neighbor? He's barely an acquaintance and lives several houses away, so we're not on speaking terms of any sort. Plus, when he lets the dogs out, he goes back inside the house and shuts the door. Is it weird for me to knock and inquire about the dogs' ownership? Has anyone else been in a similar situation? I despise conflict especially between neighbors, but spending my AM runs tripping over canines is really not ideal.

While on the topic of running/outdoor etiquette, I'd also like your opinion on running, walking, and biking on the correct side of the street. Were you taught to move with traffic (as if you were driving) or against traffic? I was taught to run with traffic, but am constantly encountering people running or walking toward me on the same side of the street. Most cyclists bike on what I consider the correct side of the street (and are very polite and observant when it comes to safety, which makes me think they know what they're doing). It's primarily walkers and other runners that I find myself having to swerve into the street or onto the grass to avoid. It's certainly not a huge deal (as there are people running on both sides of the street in various directions), but I often wonder if anyone else learned the "right" and "wrong" sides of the street?

Tinariwen: Tiny Desk Concert! Awesome as usual.

Click the link below the video to download the audio!

Bombino is scheduled to perform at Jazz Fest 2012! The best news for an otherwise spectacularly grouchy day, during which your obt. servant chewed the heads of three colleagues.

Tomorrow AM: one enormously long run, just me and the backwoods newspaper delivery guy (who tries to run me over). Beautiful, immaculate solitude.

Recently, I've noticed the people around me misusing words. For example, I have a coworker who uses the word "welp" to refer to a "welt" and a friend who says "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes." Most of the mistakes, it seems, are auditory, (as in my friends haven't seen the words or phrases in written form [or seen them often enough] to use the correct words when speaking). What's most interesting however, is not that my friends misuse the words, but that other people respond as if nothing is amiss. I'm guilty of this, as well, mostly because the mistakes seem very minor and I don't make a habit of correcting my friends (especially not in the presence of other people). But anyway, how fascinating is that? It's like watching language and meaning evolve in real-time!

So, I have discovered that Terakaft is on tour and that all of their tour dates are in France (and Algeria). Bummer. On September 12, 2011, they released a single in collaboration with another Tuareg musician, Faris. The single is called Derhan Alkher (which translates to We want only the best for her). The lyrics (in Tamasheq and English) are ( behind the cut. )

You can listen to the song here. Annnd, I've found an awesome series of videos of Terakaft and Faris playing a show in what appears to be a tent? The two versions of Derhan Alkher (studio and live) sound very different. At approx. 3:10, you can see members of the audience getting their grooves on! The band themselves groove pretty hard at 3:59.

I'm stoked about Faris. He is biracial (Italian and Tuareg) and was raised in Europe. I found a great interview with him at Tamasheq.net. The interview is in French, but you can see a photograph of Faris without his cheche. He talks about the combined influence of Western music (Hendrix) and Tinariwen, and his longing to return to the desert. When asked about musicians who have influenced him, Faris responded:

Ce sont Keddou et Abraybone, mais je ressens aussi l'influence très forte de Inteyeden. Les autres Touaregs me disent souvent que j'ai repris sa façon de jouer et de composer.

Keddou (Terakaft/Tinariwen), Abraybone (Ibrahim of Tinariwen), and Inteyeden. He goes on to say that other Tuaregs often tell him he writes and plays like Inteyeden!!!

Faris is insightful and well-spoken on the political situation in North and West Africa. He laments poverty, religious fanaticism, corruption, and the loss of culture. At the end of the interview, he elaborates on singing and writing in Tamasheq. Educated in France and Italy, Faris says he felt alone and hopeless in his struggle to learn Tamasheq. Yet, when he realized he wasn't the only Tuareg unfamiliar with the language, he took heart and pressed on.

Encore maintenant, je mets 10 fois plus de temps qu'un Touareg qui connait la langue pour écrire une poésie ! Mais j'exprime mieux mes sentiments, ce n'est pas la même chose pour moi que de chanter en français ou en anglais.

Even now, he says, it takes him 10 times longer than someone who knows the language to compose a song/poem. Yet, composing and singing in Tamasheq allows him to communicate his feelings better and in a way much different than when he sings in French or English.

He closes the interview by entreating people to respect and preserve culture:

Il y a aussi le message de la culture. Je parle de notre culture tamasheq, mais aussi de la capacité à lire des livres en français ou en anglais par exemple, les deux choses peuvent aller ensemble!

He talks of showing appreciation for culture, (the message of culture). He refers to Tuareg culture, but also to cultural exchange in general (e.g. the ability to read books in French and English). Two things, he says, can go together.

Anyone up for a trip to le désert?

Our friend and one of STC's colleagues in the history department is suffering through general exams this week. His oral exam is tomorrow. So, I made cookies. My mother emailed the recipe without a title or a description other than "excellent cookies" (ok, Mom). Unbeknown to me, I was making ( ginger snaps! )

I was surfing the NPR website this PM and found an interview (and book) about translation. The book is titled Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos. Excerpts from the interview that made me <3:

"We translate all the time. If we refuse to translate, refuse to listen to what other people have to say to us, whichever language it is in, we're not living as fully as human beings as we could be ...

"For translation to exist, you have to accept the fact that languages are all different and they don't describe the world in quite the same way. You also have to accept that languages are all the same in that anything you can say in one language can be said in any other. And it seems to me [that the] tension between the incommunicability of difference and ... the sharing of a common set of messages and meanings is ... human. I mean, we all live in that state, that I am not like you. My experience is not directly commensurable with yours, and yet, for us to get on and to be human and to be in a society, we have to also make the assumption that in another dimension, we're all the same. We have the same needs, the same fears, the same desires."

... no two utterances — even of the same sentence — are actually the same. You know, time has passed and the mere fact of saying it a second time makes it not like saying it the first time.

Trying to learn a foreign language, I feel like I'm standing at the edge of enigmatic awesome.

Do you know about Playing For Change? Click here for a brief explanation of the movement (scroll down) and then watch this! And this one, too!

On Friday, our boss encouraged our office to "dress up" or "dress casual" for Halloween (and to bring "treats" [if we were so inclined]). This would probably be more funny if I told you that I'm a state employee. :/ Anyway, the plan is to wear my Freddy Krueger sweater + some sort of brownish, shortish skirt to offset the heavy sweater in the heat. And since some of the people on my reading list have discovered that I like eating children, I've made ( finger food. )

Happy Halloween, DW.

I just finished reading Algernon Blackwood's The Wendigo, and, in light of my recent adventures into Native American folklore (and encouraged by the fact that STC is writing his dissertation, in part, on Native American history), I decided to go in search of information on the "Wendigo myth," and more specifically the "Wendigo ceremony" (mainly to see the mask). The first thing I discovered, after clicking "wendigo" into a Google images search, is that the mythical creature has countless manifestations, (all somewhat resembling a malicious animal/human hybrid). Then, I realized the Wendigo had (at least in the minds of pop culturalists) merged with Sasquatch and the Yeti. I guess they all fill a similar role (large, scary unknowns of the wild) yet, I think the Wendigo is the only creature to openly embrace cannibalism as one of its defining traits. Nevertheless, it's interesting to consider how these myths overlap. STC suggested I look into the Chupacabra, as well, but the infamous "goat suckers" seem to have less in common with the larger mythical creatures.

I think, overall, what I find most interesting about the Wendigo myth is its role in the assertion of social control. Basically, the myth cautiones people against resorting to cannibalism, even in dire situations such as famine. "Wendigo psychosis," therefore, refers to a "culture-bound psychopathology" specific to the Algonquin people wherein a person develops an insatiable desire for human flesh, despite access to other food sources (apparently, some controversy still exists over whether this is an actual affliction, and if so, how to define the underlying cause -- JSTOR has a ton of interesting articles written by anthropologists on this subject). People suffering from Wendigo psychosis and beyond the reach of treatment were executed. You can read about one of the most well-known "cases," here (there are a lot of really cheesy websites covering the Wendigo from a supernatural POV, this blog, however, is more practical and includes an account [and photograph] of Swift Runner).

Finally, I found what I think might be a Wendigo mask. This is the only picture I could locate online, so for all I know it's a mask someone made of my face Monday AM before work. Still, all of this is very interesting and fun to contemplate!