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Les Wanyika.....Ochieng Kabasselle

in ,

I have been a huge fan of African music since I was 5 or 6 years old. My father had brought 78 RPM LPs from Madagascar and I remember listening to them and being completely transfixed. From then on I kept on searching for African music without much luck. Not until the late 70s and early 80s that anything resembling contemporary African music became available; at least where I shopped in Paris. Being that it was the FNAC, we had always assumed this was the best music store, and it was, but besides the odd African drum or scratchy thumb piano field recordings, African popular music was nowhere to be found. Slowly but surely African emigrants in Paris and London brought their LPs along with their instruments and these sounds and the music started to become more and more available.

Over the last 30 years I have amassed a gianormous collection of continent wide African music. I have always wanted to bring this up on the blog but did not want to just post songs on-line.

Anyway, Raphael is learning to play guitar and he has been spending a lot of time online watching the myriad tutorials and guitar virtuosos on YouTube. On a whim I typed in "Les Wanyika" to see what might transpire. They are one of my favorite african bands of all time, and lo and behold.....

African music resonates with me like no other music and fills me with absolute joy..... A bottomless thanks to all those African musicians who have provided me with such happiness in the last 37 years.... I foresee that searching for my favorite tunes on YouTube might become an enormous and unavoidable time suck....

 

and Wuora Ogolla Adoyo, for now....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxhOV1gvVTI

 

Mantras....

in ,

At the bottom of a returned email. Adrienne woke up in Taipei and sent me an email telling me she was awake. Somehow, overnight, the signature morphed into a mantra..... picture-1.jpg

I have to admit that texting or emailing, in real time to my girl(in Asia) is a real pleasure.

"Driving to taichung, sleepy. This guy had a radar detector that blares something in mandarin every 5 mins. You might like it actually. :) I should try and get u this detector. Its called THE SNOOPER. Practice yo mandarin." She knows what I like.....can't wait for my SNOOPER.

I wanna be an Exit Poll.

in

A little image searching today, instead of doing what I am supposed to.... Keyed in different "Jesus"(G-Zeuses). A nice smorgasbord to store away, for future inspiration. German Jesus:

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West Texas Jesus:

Dear Permian Basin,

If my people will pray, and stop their wicked ways, I'll forgive their sins and heal their land. Love God. (Nice scientific use of Geological term in the prayer there, preacher.... Dem Christians are crazy bitches...).

Golfing Jesus: Hey, just key wording.

women-golfers-and-coach.jpg

Indian Jesus:

wldaha21.jpg

and last but not least a little a black Jesus: Oh Lordie, lord, I shutter to think, where honkey would be, without thee....

The flipping point....

in ,

Great interview with George Soros in the New York Review of Books. Been thinking the same kinds of things for a while now but could never have sat down and put it all together like that. Not my skill set, that's for sure..... I highly recommend it. Not that he is says anything new but it is about the best synopsis of the world today I have read in a long, long, time. Kinda reminds me of reading Robert Kaplan's "The coming Anarchy" in 1994. That also was a fine piece of intellectual ass..... and all along, ya'll thought I was an idiot......

No T, just Ass ... my Juliana Mieas....Part four.

in ,

Now then; now that we have laid the ground work for Miaes (pun), it stands to reason that I might deservedly, so to speak, perform a public function and post a little human anatomy.For those of you who come to me, "Dear Leader", by any other means than the photographic, please ignore my creatives, and rather, study the anatomy of a certain aphorism, a general truth and function of our common and quite unique bipedal reality.

The posteriora, the first and last part a lover sees and the first of the lares and penates one yearns to kick as it propulses one forward and onward, quite nicely.

And, if you shall be so bold as to click, you shall be rewarded with a larger posteriori.

PS: Part V: The Lower extremity. Fig 430: The middle and deep gluteal muscles and the Sciatic nerve. Anatomy. A Regional Atlas of the Human Body. Carmine D. Clemente. 3rd Edition. Urban & Schwarzenberg.

piriformis.jpg

Looks good enough to eat....

Found it .....

in ,

May be I should move to Brazil and leave those puritans behind......Nevertheless, seems like Ms. Juliana Paes, a big soap opera and Samba star in Brazil, is not afraid of her body and of a little humor at her expense. I'm next....So stay tuned.

The Blond Giovannis.....Furthered.

in ,

giop

Northern France, Tuesday: In 1940, my father was four, and a refugee, fleeing the Germans and their armies.

In the back of the cart, my uncles and father looked up at the sky and listened to each brother call; softly they spoke of the dunes, the marsh and of the perils of the road.

It had been three days since they had looked up and seen Stukas. They had looked like they had, flying, arms stretched out and above the See grass; each dropping a single bomb on the farm, between the pasture and the pond, showering the lillies with lead, thermite and rust .

Just then, they might have felt their fate, between their fingers and their thumbs; but only when they slept could they see their hands grasp the blows and the bombs and hurl them back forward, and further from the house. Slowly, inching their way forward, they could see better, and further; over the tiles, over the cows, over the farms; but a hand on their arms pulled hard, snatching them back and inside the safety of the stones and the barn.

And then it was slow, dark and cold, but not until a distant thud cloaked the silent farm again that it came; and with it, that puff of summer air whistled soft under the shuttered doors, and with it, all of a spider’s dust, and the vapors, the ambers and the coals.

Mother had run to the kitchen to grab a couple pots: three tomatoes, yeast, water and some yellow Gouda. She wanted to leave before the house burned and to the ground, torched by their hands and those Germans. And the black soot fouling the wheat, the barley and the beets.

They cut the dogs loose and lashed them one last time, filled the bedroom chests, blankets and tablecoths, with sweaters, boots, woolens, socks; attached the breastcollars and the reins and whipped the ox towards the reeds and the swamps. And, upon the marsh's edge, the beast and its breath soon were left, the meat shared, and in, deeper they went...

Into these morasses my father fled, stopping only to stuff a few frog's eggs and his farm boy frowns, into the half torn pockets, of his apron and his pants. To be continued.......

April 16 or, " A mutton dagger's dream ".

in ,

It's been 12 months since I started this blog. Now what? Much is brewing, but none will be revealed. I had thought that I would let the readers of this blog in on it but it shan't come to pass, or at least not yet and not on this watch. You are going to have to figure out which new and recent blogs have seen the light of day and divine which one or two of these, are mine to claim, and yours to find..... Happy hunting...! But in the meantime, here's "Dear Leader" looking at you. Thanks y'all for reading. Hope it has been entertaining, amusing and mildly revealing!

"Ad captandum vulgus...."

ol

Genomic companions.

in , ,

You mean like "Thomas Kinkade". Anyway, Lucy, in the recent past, a couple people have mentioned that my work reminds them of Greg's affectations. To such unwarranted insults, I swiftly and generally respond by quite vigorously head butting the culprits and/or accompanying genomic companions. You should try it as well, as it is rather effective, surprising and amusing, especially when considering the circumstances leading to such allocutions, as one may be, with said company, engrossed in intellectual conversations relating to my original, primary and previous proposition.

Given that I am endowed with a very prominent brow, I should point out that I am seldom pained and/or damaged by such actions, which, if you care to consider the underlying implications, is rather entertaining when one ponders how much damage one can inflict with a part of the skull whose sole purpose and function is the protection of a part of the brain one might affiliate with cognitive reason and whose so-called executive functions involve the ability to recognize future consequences resulting from current actions and/or override and suppress unacceptable social taboos and conventions.

Needless to say such sudden, swift and unexpected action can be very surprising to both a Maya linguist and a theoretical physicist whose life long intellectual expectations, at the institute, have not prepared them for such violent and visceral responses to such thoughtless and mischievous affronts.

Only when I sleep....

in , ,

"I had to fold my bicycle and stow it in the shed, between the road and the garden, but when I came downstairs and didn't want to play, I came to think that may be her pedal car was still there, in between the fields, just beneath the corn and the plow. But instead, some spider's web made my skin crawl, the good crawl, and just as I looked inside as you would a mole's hole, I saw one or two spindly legs fold; but since I could not move or know, it seemed neither alive nor dead". Excerpts from a dream I had last night and which I wrote down this morning. Since my dreams often include childhood cartoons, I searched Youtube to see if they were here nor there. Lo and behold.........

and here's another. So, If you have small children, between the road and the shed, show' em these toons and tell them "Dear Leader" sent' em.

"Clown car + Vagina"

in , ,

I know this is beneath me, being an intellectual and all, but sometimes you just need to leave the serious and committed artist behind and cotton up to a little R&R.Joerg, this one's for you, as somehow, this makes some sort of nefarious symphonic sense; as if two intemporal harpsicords strings had been plucked to reveal some inaudable cord, only cats and indonesian fruit bats can fully comprehend; but also because my therapist suggested I also do this to expunge some of my personal demons by typing random word associations into search engines. This helps us both focus and expand the scope of our analysis in between thrice weekly sessions.