listening to often:

Arthur Russell - A Little Lost
Johnny Osbourne - Buddy Bye
Otis Redding - Johnny's Heartbreak
The Streets - Blinded By The Lights

Music blogs have really fallen off lately, especially the mp3 blogs.
music for robots and the suburbs are killing us are pretty on though.

when it rains it pours. really really enjoying:

orlando cachaito lopez - cachaito
Ornette Coleman - Beauty Is A Rare Thing box set
Rachmaninov Plays Rachmaninov (on Naxos) - Still haven't found bartok at the piano: bartok plays bartok.
fado, especially Amalia Rodrigues
Badi Assad

labels:
naxos
ocora
unesco

http://www.moistworks.com/

enjoying:

kmd - the best of

piccadilly records

and... electro pages:
http://www.electroempire.com/miami.htm
http://www.thewire.co.uk/archive/essays/az_electro.html

D'gary:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/artist/glance/-/40381/002-5946049-7209619

I am loving

bahamadia - Kollage
commonwealth (cheap chicks) is pretty classic, of course
and there are many strong non-album tracks out there.

The Tearing of Clothes in Distress

Genesis 44 - Joseph's Cup - Joseph's Final Test of His Brothers

...Then each man speedily let down his sack to the ground, and each opened his sack. So he searched. He began with the oldest and left off with the youngest; and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they tore their clothes, and each man loaded his donkey and returned to the city.

Joseph's brothers tear their clothes in anguish when they realize that it is Benjamin who has been implicated as a thief: Benjamin, their father's favorite now that Joseph is dead, whom Judah had vowed to safegaurd.


Herotodus Book 3, paragraph 66

...Having said this, Cambyses bitterly lamented the cruelty of his lot, and when the Persians saw the king in tears, they tore their clothes, and showed their sympathy by a great deal of crying and groaning.

Aubrey De Selincourt seems to suggest, as other translators do not, that Cambyses' retinue tear their clothes out of a contrived show of grief.

"The tearing of clothes" is wonderfully evocative, but hardly clear. I imagine wrenching at the clothes upon one's chest, perhaps gripping the collar and tearing downward. Nothing else seems more likely.

I am loving:

Erich Von Stroheim - Foolish Wives is hilariously perverse, it hasn't aged a day from 1922. The sequence where the count and the ambassador's wife are lost in the swamp is fantastic! The lightning strikes the bridge before them, as he poles their way across the river the boat sinks beneath them...
- And of course Grand Illusion. I have no idea why it took me so long to see these films. Grand Illusion is definitely one of those films, like Casablanca, that will appeal even to people that are otherwise repelled by classic cinema. It's shot through with values and a sense of community without ever becoming cant. In manys it does feel like a golden age Hollywood production, less the worst qualities of Hollywood film: prudishness, self-righteousness, the disrespect for history, willful naivete, etc.

The Congos - Don't Blame (It) On I
marva whitney - unwind yourself

The Old Testament records three great exiles of the Jews from Israel: The slavery in Egypt, the Babylonian capivity, the Roman Diaspora.

The Egyptian period was how long? It ended around 1314-1313 BCE with the events of Exodus. It was at least a hundred years long. It wasn't an exile per se; the Jews had lived in Israel but not until Joshua and the conquering of Canaan would it be a nation as such. However, by the time of the Babylonian captivity, the Jews would see their situation in the light of the slavery of Egypt, as a people who would survive enslavement.

The periods of exile alternate, of course, with the eras of the Temples in Jerusalem. The First Temple was built on the Temple Mount by Solomon around the 10th century BC; it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.

Babylonian captivity began between 597 - 581 BCE with deporation by Nebuchadrezzar, recorded in Jeremiah. It ended in 537 BCE with Cyrus restoring 40,000 Jews to Palestine, as recorded in Daniel. So it was 50-60 years in length.

Construction of the Second Temple took place between 536 and 515 BC. It was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

The Roman Diaspora begins around AD 135.

When we think of Biblical theme of exile and redemption, it is symbols from the Babylonian captivity seem dominant today in the popular imagination.

The term "Failed state" interests me. The term doesn't have an exact definition. I guess my question is: what states have been widely considered to be "failed states" but have recovered in one way or another?

Wikipedia defines the term:

"A state could be said to "succeed" if it maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its borders...

Western politicians have labelled many countries as failed states, including: Afghanistan (under the Taliban), Somalia, Yemen, Georgia."

I tend to associate the term with African countries.

The primary lineage of the old testament:

Abraham
Isaac, Ishmael
Jacob, Esau
Judah, Joseph, 12 sons in all
Perez
Hezron
Ram
Amminadab
Nahchon
Salmon
Boaz
Obed
Jesse
David
Solomon

---

Comments:

Abraham commences the relationship with god, hence is the father of the Jewish (and Arab) peoples.
Of the next generation, the Old Testament and Quran agree: the Arabs would descend from Ishmael. Abraham, however, passed the birthright to his second son, Isaac.
Isaac has twins, Esau and Jacob and again, the birthright passes to the younger son (against convention).
Jacob (also known as Israel) has twelve sons, which roughly correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel. Levi's descedents became priests rather than a tribe. Two tribes descend from sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh. It was prophesied that the Messiah must come through only the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10), but Genesis dwells upon Joseph's story.

Of the thousands of families in the tribe of Judah, it was prophesied that the Messiah must come through only the family of Jesse. (Isaiah 11:1-2.) Jesse had eight sons, and it was prophesied that the Messiah must come through only Jesse's youngest son, David (Psalm 132:11).

---

The New Testament claims Jesus' descent from this line, through both of his parents (note how Mary descends from David but not Solomon):

In Matthew 1:1-17 the genealogy of Jesus Christ, through Joseph, is set forth through the following forty ancestors: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahchon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Assa, Jehoshaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jeconiah, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob and Joseph.

The genealogy of Jesus Christ, through Mary, is set forth through the following 73 ancestors in Luke 3:23-38: Matthat, Melchi, Jannai, Joseph, Mattathias, Amos, Nahum, Hesli, Naggai, Maath, Mattathias, Semein, Josech, Joda, Joanan, Rhesa, Zerubbabel, Shealtiel, Neri, Melchi, Addi, Cosam, Elmadam, Er, Joshua, Eliezer, Jorim, Matthat, Levi, Simeon, Joseph, Jonam, Eliakim, Melea, Menna, Mattatha, Nathan, David, Jesse, Boaz, Salmon, Nahshon, Amminadab, Admin, Ram, Hezron, Perez, Juda, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, Terah, Nahor, Serug, Reu, Peleg, Heber, Shelah, Cainan, Arphaxad, Shem, Noah, Lamech, Methuselah, Enoch, Jared, Mahalaleel, Cainan, Enos, Neosh, Seth and Adam who was the son of God.

---

The books of the Old Testament (Christian Order):

1. Genesis
2. Exodus
3. Leviticus
4. Numbers
5. Deuteronomy
6. Joshua
7. Judges
8. Ruth
9. 1 Samuel
10. 2 Samuel
11. 1 Kings
12. 2 Kings
13. 1 Chronicles
14. 2 Chronicles

15. Ezra
16. Nehemiah
17. Tobit *
18. Judith *
19. Esther **
20. First Book of Maccabees *
21. Second Book of Maccabees *
22. Job
23. Psalms
24. Proverbs
25. Ecclesiastes
26. Song of Songs
27. Wisdom *
28. Sirach *
29. Isaiah
30. Jeremiah
31. Lamentations
32. Baruch *
33. Ezekiel
34. Daniel **
35. Hosea
36. Joel
37. Amos
38. Obadiah
39. Jonah
40. Micah
41. Nahum
42. Habakkuk
43. Zephaniah
44. Haggai
45. Zechariah
46. Malachi

Genesis deals with the first four generations: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and Joseph.

The protagonists of Exodus are not of the messianic line, nor are Joshua, Daniel or Job. Nor are the prophets (except David?).

With David and Solomon, the great kings (and first kings, after Saul), the messianic line reassumes leadership of the Jews and the foreground of the story.

The messianic line, then, appears to intersect the text of the Old Testament at two key locations. First,
Abraham and his immediate descendents, who commence the relationship with God. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob each had direct experiences of God.

Secondly, David, the King par excellence. Although God fulfilled his promise of the Holy Land in the time of Joshua, it is under David that the kingdom is consolidated and Jersulasem becomes the seat of Israel (the first Temple is built by his son Solomon). It is Israel under David that defines the concept of Israel for the Jewish people.

naked maja
stelfox

listen closer
never came home

Herotodus and The Old Testament:

The "inciting incident," so to speak, of Herotodus' Histories is the rise of the Persian Empire under Cyrus, Cambyses and Darius. With the rise of Cyrus (559 BC) the Persians entered a period aggresive expansion that leads to the wars with the Greeks under Darius and Xerxes (decided around 480 BC). This is arc of Herotodus' story.


In the course of only two decades, Cyrus had pushed his empire to the western and southern boundaries of Asia and had established the new world order for good. The sudden collaspse of Babylon, following only two generations after the equally staggering rise fall of Assyria, signaled to all observers that the day of the great Semitic powers had passed and that the Persians were to be masters of the East. The momentousness of these events can be felt not only in Herodotus but in the Hebrew Bible as well: the famous "writing on the wall" of the Book of Daniel, for example, was a warning to Belshazzar, kind of Babylon, that "your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians," though there the conquering general is mistakenly identified as Darius rather than Cyrus. ...Indeed, Cyrus is the only gentile referred to in the Bible as being "anointed," messiah in Hebrew...

Herotudus, by James Romm

And so it was through Cyrus that Jews were restored to Palestine, where they would remain through the time of Christ and the Roman Exile.

Today I am loving -

1. Aubrey De Selincourt - I love his language.
2. Streets - Blinded by the light
3. All those classic electro songs (like Man Parrish - Hip Hop Be Bop (Don't Stop)). There is a canon of early electro that is pretty etched in stone - with good reason. But I wish I knew more than the standard stuff. And there was a lot of great music from the early electro revivial (94-95?) that I have never heard since. Especially lo-key electro - I wish I could find more of that.
4. http://www.woebot.com/
Music is just so eluisive a subject - and When he's on, he's so on. His thoughts on South African Umbaqanga:

It's not klutsy and fake like most funk (bar The Meters) and it's not pretentious and long-winded like Afro-Beat.

Exactly! and he's prickly and overwrought, too:

Really, and I'm sorry to have to break this news to any musician friends of mine, I couldn't give a shit about advancing their careers. Atop of that I should add that I couldn't give a toss whether anyone finds any of the music I've written about interesting. I just couldn't care less, I spent years without sharing any of this with a soul. Sometimes I wonder why I bother divulging my opinions on the subject with other people at all. I've come to the conclusion that the reason is twofold. It appears to be good for my mental health not have all this information bottled up. Secondly in the process of "shedding my load" I can have a bit of creative fun, and acquire some pint-size celebrity. Occasionally I enjoy the company too.

Isn't that the blogger profile?

5. Soulseek - still loving it.
6. Radio shows: Johnny Otis, Saturday mornings on KPFA, Kumpo Beat with Henri-Pierre Koubaka, KALW Thursday nights, Portraits in Blue with Bob Porter (pretty widely syndicated). That Johnny Otis show just soars with hopeful enthusiasm. But I think the show is a lot more than its parts in the sense that the individual songs aren't great.
7. Juan Cole, lucid on Iraq.
8. And let's be honest: The Kingdom of Loathing

Dictionary.com defines Apocryphal

1. Of questionable authorship or authenticity.
2. Erroneous; fictitious: “Wildly apocryphal rumors about starvation in Petrograd... raced through Russia's trenches” (W. Bruce Lincoln).
3. Apocryphal Bible. Of or having to do with the Apocrypha.

The primary sense being False.

Here are the synonyms:

fictitious - allegorical, apocryphal, created, customary, doubtful, dubious, fabled, fabricated, fabulous, fanciful, figmental, handed-down, imaginary, imaginative, improbable, invented, mythical, mythological, related, romantic, storied, told, traditional, unhistoric, unhistorical, unreal, unverifiable.

Each of these words is flattered by the company it keeps here. They don't just each have a different connotation; they each have a flourishing life of their own.

Apocryphal identifies a very specific kind of fictiousness - the falseness epitomized in "Urban Legends." The lie with legs, which makes a better story than the truth. One starts to get that wonderful "apocryphal' feeling when the story all too neatly explains some irrelevant mystery. Apocryphal is the charming rogue of falsehood - you never mind. Suspecting that a story is an urban legend isn't upsetting, it's funny.


From Herotodus:

...the story is that in the reign of Atys, the son of Manes, the whole of Lydia suffered from a severe famine. For a time the people lingered on as patiently as they could, but later, when there was no improvement, they began to look for something to alleviate their misery. Various expedients were devised: for instance, the invention of diuce, knucklebones, and ball-games. In fact they claim to have invented all games of this sort except draughts. The way they used the inventions to help them endure their hunger was to eat and play on alternate days - one day playing so continuously that they had no time to think of food, and eating on the next without playing at all. They managed to live like this for eighteen years.

I.94

In the reign of Atys son of Manes there was great scarcity of food in all Lydia. For a while the Lydians bore this with what patience they could; presently, when the famine did not abate, they looked for remedies, and different plans were devised by different men. Then it was that they invented the games of dice and knuckle-bones and ball and all other forms of game except dice, which the Lydians do not claim to have discovered. [4] Then, using their discovery to lighten the famine, every other day they would play for the whole day, so that they would not have to look for food, and the next day they quit their play and ate. This was their way of life for eighteen years.

I.94

I wish dictionaries got more into it, and were amusingly readable. I don't mean Safire's On Language, nor Raymond Williams' Keywords (which bitterly disappointed me).

I always conflate the chain reaction & basic channel labels. Weren't they run by friends & shared creative personnel? Anyway, they seemed to occupy the same exact place, even at the time. They both put out a string of solid but anonymous records. It was hard to tell one artist from the next - even one track from the next.

The spartan music and artwork inexplicably gave me the impression of a circle of German hipsters, snobbish to outsiders but carefree with each other. It's hard to say what distinguishes cold, lifeless minimal techno from cold, lively minimal techno.

The music on both labels has aged really well - they each have single cds (Chain Reaction...Compiled and Basic Channel ( Compilation ) ) that pretty faithfully convey what was going on. I still can't see much difference between the different artists though.