Joy Luck Trio Give a Stunning Performance at Bargemusic.

The Joy Luck Trio, consisting of (left to right in the photo) Karen Han on ehru, Donna Weng Friedman on piano, and Gao Hong on pipa, had their first Brooklyn performance at Bargemusic on Sunday, May 3. As I've noted before, I'm a fan of syncretism in music (and in other things). Joy Luck, in my estimation, does an awesome job of combining Asian and Western instruments and musical traditions.

They opened the concert with The Swan (Le Cygne, 1886) by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), which they did as written except for some improvisations. According to my sketchy concert notes Han's ehru produced a "dreamy melody" while Hong's pipa yielded "versatile sounds." Friedman's piano was precise. This was followed by Hong's own composition, Flying Dragon, done solo on pipa. As its name implies, it had a soaring quality until the last note, which evoked the dragon's descent, and was made by Hong's dragging her thumbnail down a string, a move that produced a pleasing sound. Han then had a solo turn on ehru with Birds Singing in the Empty Mountains, by the Chinese composer Liu Tianhua (1835-1932). My notes indicate "conversational sounds" and "scope of timbre."

Next on the program came three pieces by the composer Stefania de Kenessey, who was present for the concert. These were from Microvids, a series of nineteen short pieces she composed after the worst of the pandemic had passed. The three performed at the concert were Reach for the Sky, Clouds, and Pure Joy. They were written for solo piano, but the concert performances included improvisations on ehru and pipa. It all worked brilliantly.

Hong then had another solo turn on pipa with a piece, Pastoral, that she said was inspired by the Mongolian countryside. Its evocation of a spacious landscape reminded me, in a good way, of Neil Young's instrumental, The Emperor of Wyoming. Friedman then had her solo turn on piano with The Three Maries (1939) by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959). These three short pieces, Alnitah, Alnilam, and Mintika, were given the names of the belt stars in the constellation Orion that are sometimes called "The Three Marys." My notes on each in order were: "playful"; "loving"; and "reflective."

The last two pieces in the program were Hong's Nostalgia, which she described as "chasing a dream" and for which my notes are "plaintive, then lovely," and Horse Racing, by the Chinese composer Huang Haihuai (1935-1967) which evoked the propulsive rhythm of hoofbeats and concluded with a convincing whinny on the ehru.

I have friends who think that the purpose of music, or of any art, should be to provide pleasure. I believe that great art should not only please, but also challenge the listener, viewer, or reader to hear, see, or understand in a new way. For me, Joy Luck Trio fulfilled that purpose. It made me hear music in a way I never had before.

(Also published on Brooklyn Heights Blog)

Repast Baroque Ensemble's "Them Foreigners": musical multiculturalism in the 17th and 18th centuries.

This concert was on October 18, but the demands of remunerative work and of keeping the Brooklyn Heights Blog going have delayed my review. Nevertheless, I think it's still a useful exercise, as I want to do what I can to raise awareness of the work of the Repast Baroque Ensemble.

The Ensemble are, from left to right in the photo, Katie Rietman on cello, Gabe Shuford on harpsichord, Amelia Roosevelt on violin, and Stephanie Corwin on bassoon. Bassoon? If you're thinking this is a departure from the usual baroque chamber music lineup, you're right. The lineup can change from concert to concert. In this concert, Ms. Rietman was allowed a break and her place taken temporarily by Sarah Stone, who played a viola da gamba, or viol, an instrument roughly the size of a cello that originated in the fifteenth century. Also, Ms. Roosevelt was joined on violin by Beth Wenstrom.

The theme of the concert was an examination of Baroque era French and German composers' reactions to music of other cultures. The first part featured works by French composers that reflect what Ms. Roosevelt called "the French fascination with the distant and exotic." The first piece was Jean-Baptiste Lully's "March for the Celebration of the Turks," from the comédie-ballet (a play with sung and danced interludes) Lully co-wrote with Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. The plot concerns a social climber who is convinced by a con artist that he can arrange a marriage of the victim's daughter to a Turkish prince. My notes on the piece, hastily scribbled on the concert program, are "Stately; European." The music didn't sound to me to be especially Turkish; still, the Turks were something of a European power, and aspired to be a greater one, at the time. You can hear it here, as part of a scene in the movie Tous les matins du monde, and decide for yourself. Repast's ensemble was much smaller than that seen in the movie clip, but played the piece with authority.

The second piece was Jean-Philippe Rameau's Timbourin en Rondeau, part of an Opera-Ballet, Les fêtes d'Hébé, that is based on Greek mythology. The Timbourin, nevertheless, seems influenced by Native American music. It provided an opportunity for Mr. Shuford to leave his keyboard and show his skill at playing a hand drum. This was followed by another Rameau composition, Air tendre, from his opera Dardanus, also on a Greek mythological theme. This was done as a duet between Ms. Corwin's bassoon and Ms. Roosevelt's violin; my note was, "Interesting counterpoint."

Two more French pieces finished the concert's first half. Jean-Pierre Guignon's Les Sauvages is a duet for two violins which Ms. Roosevelt and Ms. Wenstrom played with alacrity. My notes: "Swooping at first, then frenetic, wild, but with dreamy interludes." Then came another Rameau: Pièce de clavecin en concert No. 3, in A Major, for harpsichord, violin, and viola da gamba. This was in three movements. For the first, La Lapopliniere, my notes were "Bouncy; lilting." For the second, La Timide, they were "Anxious; then aspiring, optimistic." The third, Les Timbourins, was "Stirring."

The second part of the concert focused on the German composer Georg Philipp Telemann's fascination with Polish music. The concert's printed program included several quotations from Steven Zohn's Music for a Mixed Taste: Style, Genre, and Meaning in Telemann's Instrumental Works (Oxford University Press, 2015, Chapter 9). Visiting Poland, Telemann was impressed by music of "true barbaric beauty." In his autobiography, he wrote:

Suffice it to say that there is much in this music that is good, if it is handled properly. Since this time I have written various large concertos and trios in this style, clothing them in Italian dress with alternating Adagios and Allegros.

The first Telemann piece was his Duo for Two Flutes in E Minor, TWV40:142, performed with alacrity as a violin duet by Ms. Roosevelt and Ms. Wenstrom. My note for the first movement, Piacevole, is "Sorrowful"; for the second, Andante, it's "Graceful"; and for the third, Scherzando, it's "Danceable." Repast's concerts typically include a piece that allows Mr. Shuford to escape the relative anonymity of providing continuo and to showcase his keyboard virtuosity. The second Telemann piece, Ouverture Burlesque for solo harpsichord, TWV32:2, provided this opportunity, and Mr. Shuford responded masterfully. My note: "Also danceable but courtly, then livelier and playful."

The third piece, Concerto Polonoise in B-flat Major, TWV43:B3, has four movements. The first, Polonoise, elicited another "Playful"; the second, Allegro, "Loping, swings"; the third, Largo, "Soulful"; and the final, another Allegro, "Peppy, rocks!"

The concert concluded with Telemann's Chaconne Comique in A Major, TWV21:8, from his comic opera Der neumodische Liebhaber Damon ("The Newfangled Lover Damon"). My note on this was, simply, "Delightful."

Repast's next concerts will be in March of 2019. The theme will be Wanderlust, "explor[ing] the German fascination with nature and escapism, with inspired repertoire from the early Baroque as well as the early romantic periods." On Thursday evening, March 14 at 8:00 they will be at McKinney Chapel, First Unitarian Church, 116 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn; you may buy tickets here; on Friday evening, March 15 at 8:00 they will be at Advent Lutheran Church, 2504 Broadway, in Manhattan; you may buy tickets here.

Sure 'n' begorrah, I'm more Irish than anything!

And maybe a bit Spanish, too. Not at all what I was expecting when, at my wife's urging, I sent a sample of my saliva to the lab at Ancestry.com so they could analyze my DNA and tell me from whence my ancestors came. I was sure I knew. I believed all of my ancestors on my father's side were of English descent,* with the exception of one great grandmother, who had the Scottish name Napier.** She was born in Tennessee, which makes me think she was Ulster Scots, or "Scotch Irish," a descendant of the Protestant Scots who were "planted" in Ireland during the reign of James I in an effort to subdue the Catholic Irish, and many of whom later emigrated to America where they settled in Appalachia and the lands to the west.***

My mother's maiden name was Lane. Her father showed me what purported to be a family crest. Above the shield, topped, as I recall, with a knight's helmet, was the name "O'Leign." So, it seemed, the Lanes were Irish. My maternal grandmother's maiden name was Miles, which I assumed to be English, but which I now know to be of Norman French origin, and to be known in both England and Ireland. Other ancestral names on my mother's side are Mott, which could be English or German, Woods, and Rush, both of which seemed quite English.****

What I expected my DNA to show was that I was perhaps sixty percent or so English, maybe twenty five percent Irish (with some Scandinavian mixed in, thanks to the Vikings), and the rest a mixture of Scottish, German, and maybe a few surprises from some generations back (French? Native American?).

What I got as the sources of my genome was: Ireland, 34%; Scandinavia, 27%; Europe West (basically France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries), 14%; Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), 14%; Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales), 6%. The remaining five percent is divided among traces of Italy or Greece; Finland or Northeast Russia; Poland or Ukraine; and a less than one percent dab of North Africa, which I suspect came en suite with the Iberian Peninsula connection.

I was surprised that Ireland and Scandinavia together accounted for over sixty percent of my genome, and that Great Britain, which for Ancestry.com comprises England, Scotland, and Wales, contributes only six percent. I now know this was because of my mistaken belief about the origin of the name Scales (see footnote * below), which turns out to be Scandinavian, arriving in England by way of Ireland, where some Irish may have gotten mixed with it. It's also possible that my Miles ancestors on my mother's side were of Irish origin (see footnote **** below).

The Iberian connection just about floored me, as I know of no Spanish or Portuguese ancestors on either parental side. One suggestion from a co-worker is that some of my Irish forebears may have married survivors of the wrecks of Spanish Armada ships on the Irish coast. This often expressed theory about the origin of the dark haired and eyed "Black Irish" is, it is said, supported by very little evidence. My wife, whose late father could be described as "Black Irish," has no trace of Iberian in her DNA. Perhaps in her ongoing genealogical research, which includes my family as well as hers, she'll find where there's--to borrow a book title from John Lennon--A Spaniard in the Works.

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* When we were in England, from 1951 to '54, my dad got an historical map of Hertfordshire, the county where we lived. Not too far a drive from our house (well, nothing in Herts is too far a drive), according to the map, there was a dotted outline labeled "Scales Castle." We got into our Austin A40 and went there, finding nothing but a pasture. I now know that the castle belonged to the holders of the de Scales barony, descendants of a Norman nobleman who arrived in England with William the Conqueror. I also know that I am almost certainly not descended from the noble de Scales family (the barony was terminated during the reign of Richard III, as the family were at the time on the losing side of the Wars of the Roses, although there have been attempts to revive it).

During my first year of law school (1967-68), while on a weekend afternoon stroll, I went into the Widener Library, found the reference section, and in it the Century Cyclopedia of English Names. In the book I found "Scales" followed by the notation "A-S", which I took to mean Anglo-Saxon. It then said the name meant "dweller in the hut," a "scale" being a crude lean-to hut or shelter. A more recent source repeats that story of the name's meaning, but gives its origin as not Anglo-Saxon, but Scandinavian. Many Vikings settled in North-West England during the tenth and eleventh centuries after being expelled from Ireland by Cearbhall and Brian Boru. It's believed that these Viking immigrants from Ireland are the forebears of most, if not all, of the people named Scales in England.

** I've seen two versions of how the French word napier became a Scottish surname. The one I don't believe, because it is the more romantic, is that the first to bear the name so distinguished himself in battle that the King said, "Tha hast nae peer [no equal]."  The one I believe is that the family were linen keepers, perhaps for the royal family, and took the French word for such as their name. Napier can also be an English name, but my father believed that his grandmother was somehow related to John Napier (1550-1617), the Scottish philosopher and mathematician who discovered the principle of logarithms and invented the first crude slide rule (a device still used by my generation during our school years, but now supplanted by the electronic calculator), called "Napier's bones."

*** The term "Hillbilly" was given to Scotch-Irish settlers in Appalachia because of the popularity among them of the name William, a popularity stemming, no doubt, from the victory of William of Orange's army over the Catholic rebels at the Battle of the Boyne. King William is also the source of the term "Orangemen" for Northern Irish Protestants.

**** I've now learned that Woods can be either English or Scottish. Rush is commonly English, but is found in Ireland as a derivative of several Gaelic names, or may be an Anglicization of a German name. It's an oral tradition in my mother's family that we're descended, through my great grandmother Ellen Susan Rush Miles and her mother, Susan Woods Rush, from Benjamin Rush, physician of the Continental Army and signer of the Declaration of Independence. This was reported as fact in my great grandmother's obituary in the Tyrone Daily Herald. Unfortuntely, because of a lack of information available about Susan Rush, it's proved so far difficult to trace the lineage.

Dolly, Faut y croire. Happy Bastille Day!

Dolly was one of France's most popular rock bands from the early 1990s until 2005, when their bassist, Mickaël "Micka" Chamberlin, died in a car crash. After that, the group stopped recording and touring, but later, the surviving three members--Emmanuelle "Manu" Monet, the charismatic lead vocalist and guitarist; drummer Thierry Lacroix; and guitarist Nicolas "Nico" Bonnière--added a new bassist and began performing as "Manu."

I once suggested, not entirely in jest, that the Mets ditch the inane "Meet the Mets" as their fight song, and replace it with Faut y croire, which roughly translates as "Ya gotta believe!"

Addendum: A friend asks this question on Facebook: "Why does it sound like they're saying 'delenda est' after the title lyric?" My reply: "Maybe they are."

I forgot to mention that there are Bastille Day festivities right here in my neck of the woods.

Cockney rhyming slang.

So, what's a Godiva? It's a five pound note, or, in Cockney speech, a "five-ah," which rhymes with "Godiva." This is Cockney rhyming slang at its most basic--for the word intended, substitute another word with which it rhymes. There is another, more meta (to use a Greek-rooted prefix recently made into an adjective) version in which, instead of the word that rhymes with the intended word, another word associated with the rhyming word is used. For example, instead of "Godiva" for a five-ah, say "Lady," a word usually yoked to Godiva, as in, "That'll cost you a Lady."

I was introduced to the meta version some years ago at the bar of the Bells of Hell. I was chatting with an English friend when a--how you say?--well-endowed young woman walked by. "Nice set of Bristols," my friend said. His meaning was obvious to me, but the usage wasn't. "There's a football club called Bristol City," he explained, "and city rhymes with... ."

One Briticism that piqued my curiosity is "Gone for a Burton." Having seen this in Private Eye, I asked another English friend what it meant. "It means he died," was the answer. "How does it mean that?" I asked. My friend didn't know. I later read that it may have originated with Royal Air Force flyers in World War Two, to refer to a comrade who hadn't survived a mission. Burton, or Burton-on-Trent to give its full name, is a city known for its breweries, as acknowledged by A.E. Housman in A Shropshire Lad:

Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.

A plain meaning of "Gone for a Burton" then would be "Gone to the pub for a pint." Regarding a deceased friend, it could mean "Gone to that big pub in the sky." Still, I wonder if it might not be an instance of Cockney rhyming slang. Burton doesn't have any obvious rhyme relating to death, nor does Trent, nor ale, the brew that made Burton famous. But it occurred to me that a properly drawn pint of ale has a head, which rhymes with dead. If this is in fact the origin of the expression, it could be an instance of meta-meta rhyming slang, going from Burton to ale to head. If, however, Burton is taken as a synonym for ale, then it's only a single meta.

Regarding the sign in the photo at the top of this post, I found translations for "monkeys" (hundred pound notes) and "ponies" (twenty-fivers) in this glossary. I don't know the meaning of "edges" or of "carpets." Perhaps one of my English friends can help. "Visa," I presume, means just what it is.

My movie career revived, in Italy.

In the second installment of my Dewey & LeBoeuf saga, I told how my late friend Charlie McCrann wrote a feature length horror movie script as an NYU class project, then later produced, directed, and starred in that film, in which I played a minor role. The movie has been released in various places and formats under various titles: Forest of Fear, Charlie's working title, in Asia; Bloodeaters, by which it was known at movie houses and drive-ins coast-to-coast in 1980-81; Blood Butchers I'm not sure where; and Toxic Zombies, under which it was packaged as a VHS tape, later DVD, and played on the USA Cable network.

Now I've learned that it's been revived in Italy and dubbed in Italian under the title Il ritorno degli zombi. Here is a link to a YouTube video of what is obviously a very negative -- at least I know what "merda" means -- of the movie. The part of the video that starts at 10:51 shows me unwisely asking a zombie who is crouching in the road if he wants a ride to town, then the zombie swinging his hatchet, then stage blood falling on my boots. The first line in my five or so minutes of screen glory, not shown in the video, was "What the Sam Hill happened to you?" I wonder how that came out in Italian? Whoever dubbed me made me sound better than I do in English, though.

Canzone del Taglialegna dei Monty Python

Admit it. You've long wanted to hear Monty Python's "Lumberjack Song" in the language of Dante and Pirandello. Qui è.

Jacques Brel. Ne me quitte pas.

Happy Bastille Day!

Edith Piaf, Non, je ne regrette rien.

Joyeux Bastille Day.

Someone in Myanmar visited my blog.

I'm delighted, of course. Could it be an indication that President Obama's visit to Asia is bearing fruit? Perhaps. I'm curious to know, though, how my reader in Rangoon got to S-A B by way of Amazon's Christmas page?

Cat and chamber orchestra: a Lithuanian diversion.

In the clip above (courtesy of sanmartinfields) you can see and hear a one movement concerto performed by the Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra and composed and conducted by Mindaugas Piečaitis to accompany the piano improvisations of a very clever cat named Nora, whose image at the keyboard is projected above the orchestra as she performs for an apparently appreciative audience of fellow felines. You can read more about this project at the CATcerto website.

Thanks to Geoff Abrams for the link.

Cross-currents on the Brooklyn Bridge

This morning, on the return leg of my Brooklyn Bridge walk, I encountered this group heading from Brooklyn towards Manhattan. As I passed them, a man handed me a leaflet explaining that they are members of the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Order, walking from Leverett, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C. to advocate "Abolition of Nuclear Weapons; Renunciation of War; Conversion from War to Peace Economy." Admirable goals, all.

Also on the Bridge this morning, going in the opposite direction, were groups of people, many decked out in colorful Tibetan dress, some waving Tibetan flags, and some wearing headbands that said "Free Tibet". When I got back to the Brooklyn side, I found them massing in Cadman Plaza Park for a demonstration.


I wondered if the Tibetans and their fellow Buddhists from Leverett had greeted each other as they passed on the Bridge. I'm sure the Tibetans want to get their freedom by peaceful means. Given the stark parameters of their situation, their only non-suicidal option may be moral suasion. But, in some circumstances, might it be necessary to choose between the ideals of peace and freedom? In the back of my mind, I was hearing the words of Patrick Henry.

Adolph Hofner: Czech Texan Western Swing

Adolph Hofner (1916-2000) was, along with Bob Wills, Milton Brown, and others, one of the principal exponents of Western Swing, a highly syncretic style of music that evolved in Texas during the 1930s. I first heard him and his group, the Texans, doing "Gulf Coast Special", on OKeh Western Swing (highly recommended if you can find a copy) back in the 1980s. I later acquired a copy of South Texas Swing, which includes examples of Hofner's work with various groups, ranging from 1936 to the early '50s. Among the cuts is Hofner's classic version of "Cotton-Eyed Joe", along with the Mexican-influenced "Maria Elena", and such typical Western Swing fare as "Better Quit it Now", "Dirty Dog", and "Joe Turner Blues", which reflect in varying degrees the country, jazz, blues, and Hawaiian influences on that style of music. What surprised me on this album were the cuts, such as Star Kovarna, Na Marjanse, and Strashidlo, that are adaptations of Czech folk songs Hofner no doubt learned from his parents and other Czech immigrants in his hometown of Moulton, Texas, and are sung in Czech. An excellent biography of Hofner is on this website.

Music for one apartment and six drummers.

Do try this at home.

iPod Log 3 -- Xenophilia Edition

My iPod music library includes songs in eleven languages other than English.* The other morning, the iPod went on a xenophiliac binge, playing six foreign language songs in succession. These were:

E Inu Tatou E, the Kingston Trio. First, the bad stuff. These were white frat boys who named their group for the capital of Jamaica because they wanted to cash in on a craze for African-Caribbean calypso music. They affected fake Mexican accents on some of their songs; for example, "Coplas", "En el Agua" and, most famously, "Tijuana Jail" ("SEE-nyor come WEETH me, 'cause I want YOOOO!"). "Coplas Revisited", from their album College Concert, recorded live at UCLA in December, 1961, includes a line that I didn't understand for several years after first hearing it:

Show me a cowboy who rides sidesaddle,
And I'll show you a gay ranchero.

I guess that proves the old saw about California being a cultural bellwether. The good is that the Trio were all talented musicians who, over the course of a decade or so, and with one personnel change (John Stewart replacing Dave Guard in 1961), committed a lot of music to vinyl, much of which was quite good and some of which was superb. Folk purists derided them as inauthentic, middle-class, button-down shirt wearing squares. In truth, they were sometimes guilty of putting a bourgeois gloss on their material. I can't imagine a real working sailors' chantey including lines like "The ragged heavens open up / We sound the jubilation," as they put into their version of "Haul Away, Joe". Their eclecticism was remarkable: among the styles of music they interpreted and were influenced by were the aforementioned calypso, Hawaiian (Bob Shane was born and raised on the Big Island, and Dave Guard spent several years in a prep school in Honolulu), Appalachian and Celtic, Spanish and Mexican, African and blues. They have been credited with creating and nurturing a taste in American audiences for what is now called "world music". To top it all off, from my point of view, I learned from the Wikipedia article linked above that they even had a Mets connection. They learned what became their most-requested song, "Scotch and Soda", a blues-tinged lounge number, from Tom Seaver's parents, when one of them was dating Seaver's sister. "E Inu Tatou E" is an example of their Hawaiian repertoire. I couldn't find a translation of the lyrics, which are credited to George Archer. Some lyrics sources give it the subtitle "Drinking Song", and, on the Live at Newport album, Guard introduces the song and translates the title as "Let's Get Drunk".

Ebben, Ne Andro Lontana, East Village Opera Company. I've mentioned this group and this aria in an earlier iPod log. The aria is from Alfredo Catalini's seldom staged La Wally. At the first EVOC concert I attended, AnnMarie Milazzo introduced her nail-you-to-the-wall rendition by saying, "When you have to marry someone you don't want to, you get really, really mad."

El Preso Numero Nueve, Joan Baez. You also get really, really mad if you're a hard-working hombre who comes home to find his wife in the arms of un amigo desleal--mad enough to commit double murder, then tell the padre, just before you face the firing squad, that you have no fear, and will follow their footsteps through eternity. This is from Joan's auspicious first album, which, to the occasional dismay of my roommate, who called her "the screaming bitch", I listened to on many late evenings during my freshman year at USF.

Elama, Yasser Habeeb. I got this hypnotic, Indian-influenced song off Putumayo's Sahara Lounge. According to the album's notes, Habeeb is a Dubai native who started as a recording engineer and producer, then approached EMI with "Elama" ("Until When"), which became a hit throughout the Arabic-speaking Middle East. The notes give this translation of the lyrics:

Until when will this agony last? / Until when do I have to tolerate this torture when I have not harmed anyone? / The more you make me suffer, the more I am attracted to you / You keep hurting me, but I never complain / Just treat me fairly for once.

You can play a sample here.

Schlittenfahrt, Marlene Dietrich. If you've ever longed to hear the Blue Angel sing "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" from Oklahoma in German translation, this is it.

Usku Dara, Eartha Kitt. When I was about seven, and we were living in rural Hertfordshire, England, one afternoon my mother and I were listening to BBC radio when the disc jockey said, "And now, here's some Turkish music." What followed was a tune so hooky that it remained caught in my memory until some thirty or so years later when Mike McGovern, a New York Daily News writer who later became known as Kinky Friedman's sidekick in the Kinkster's detective novels, invited several of us who had closed down the Lion's Head to come to his place for a nightcap. He poured us each some whiskey, then put an Eartha Kitt album on his turntable. After a couple of cuts, I was amazed to hear the same exotic tune that had so captivated me as a child. Judge it for yourself (including the two deliciously non sequitur spoken English translations) here:



I'll close with a strong recommendation of another musically-oriented blog, Struts and Frets, by DJStan. His most recent post, on the late New York street musician and Whitmanesque genius Moondog, reminds me of a gaping hole in my music collection: I still don't have The Band's Moondog Matinee.

Erratum: Thanks to DJStan for pointing out an error. In listing the languages represented in my iPod library, I had assumed that "Kol Rina", by the Klezmer Conservatory Band, was sung in Hebrew. In fact, it's in Yiddish, and I've corrected the list accordingly.
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*These are: Arabic, French, Gaelic, German, Hawaiian, Italian, Malagasy, Spanish, Turkish, Yiddish and Zulu. (Breton and Czech are soon to be added.)

A view from afar.

Here's more from our man in Beijing . Well worth reading, it includes helpful links to another expat blog and, for hard-core Sinophiles (or -phobes), a site that gives translations of Chinese news articles.

Another blog worth visiting.

This time, it's an Englishman living in semi-retirement in France. I discovered him because Blogger identified us as the only two users of their service with an interest in "ships and the sea". On going to his site, I found we had much else in the way of common interests. His thoughts and poetry can be found at A Layman's Analyses in France.

Do I have a particular affinity for blogs by expatriates? Perhaps it's because I was one during several very formative years.

A visit to Beijing

I've discovered an excellent blog by an American living in Beijing. A fascinating account of life in that city, with incisive views on the Chinese legal system and reflections on the status of foreigners there, can be found at Two Wheels Bad, Four Wheels Good?