Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Something Old
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Last week, randtntx posted a link to a flamenco band in my Open Thread. I liked them so much I decided to feature them in this week's OT:

This group calls itself the Paco de Lucia Project: it's a tribute band for the late jazz great Paco de Lucia (whom I'd never heard of, being a jazz barely-neophyte):

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Though he had become the a major flamenco star in Europe by the 1970s, De Lucía was largely unknown in the U.S. until the seminal 1981 recording Friday Night In San Francisco with jazz stars John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola – a landmark release that cemented de Lucía’s status as an iconic figure and a peerless virtuoso who, over his five-decade career, single-handedly reinvented the flamenco vocabulary.

https://www.sfjazz.org/tickets/productions/paco-de-lucia-project-with-ja...

Here's a video of de Lucia in the 1970s. Holy shit, was he good! Time to add another artist to the list for when I have enough money for buying records.

The Paco de Lucia Project brings together musicians who played with him. Here is their website. Man, I'd like to see them.

Their website is down as of this writing, so I'm linking to the site of the musician organizing the whole thing. And let me assure you that having a website automatically play flamenco music at you while you have Enrico Caruso singing in another tab is a hell of a thing.

http://javierlimon.es/

Something New
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Harry Dean Stanton died this year, and I missed it. Here's to a guy who gave me many moments of viewing pleasure:

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So why am I mentioning him in Something New?

Apparently his last movie is quite good. It came out last year. Its release was a mere two weeks after Stanton died, so he never got to see it hit the big screen.

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If reports about this movie are correct, it's a comedy about an aged, hard-living, hard-partying atheist contemplating, rather philosophically, his demise.

We may be in the no-man's-land between playing in theaters and release for rental/purchase. But I'm definitely going to check this out.

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Something Borrowed

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I hope this doesn't seem disrespectful, but my Something Borrowed this week is Luciano Pavarotti's influences. I actually greatly respect Pavarotti (however middlebrow it may seem, I really am a fan--I don't think it's possible to deny his talent). So I hope it doesn't seem disrespectful to say that he "borrowed" these influences.

In this 1992 documentary, Pavarotti mentions three Italian tenors as his influences: Tito Schipa, Beniamino Gigli and Giuseppe Di Stefano.

This is Tito Schipa singing "Un Furtiva Lagrima."

This is Beniamino Gigli singing the same song.

This is Giuseppe Di Stefano singing it.

Supposedly Di Stefano used techniques that produced dazzling results but also destroyed his voice. If true, what a shame.

I'm really struck by the way Pavarotti looks while listening to these men sing. It's obvious that he's just as delighted by their music as anyone hearing them for the first time--though equally obvious that he, as a master, can hear a hell of a lot more than I can. But what strikes me is that as late as 1992, it still hadn't gone stale for him. Pavarotti was also quite a showman, and he made it a life's work to popularize opera, so I guess one could say he's putting it on. I don't believe it, though. This is more than just a big smile and twinkling at the crowd. That's genuine respect and a kind of love.

Holy shit, YouTube just went automatically to the next video, and is playing Giuseppe di Stefano singing "Nessun Dorma." This is the first time I've ever heard a version as good as Pavarotti's:

Something Blue

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My Something Blue today is the Lactarius indigo mushroom native in Mexico, Central America, and the eastern United States--particularly the Gulf Coast.

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By Dan Molter, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8204434

Beautiful, isn't it? And apparently also edible. I would have guessed, from that color, that it was poisonous.

Here's a picture of some Lactarius indigo still attached to the ground:

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Even its juices are blue!

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By Alan Rockefeller - Mushroom Observer, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7613971

Apparently, views differ as to how tasty it is. Some say its flesh is grainy and the flavor peppery. But it still gets sold in farmers' markets in Mexico, Guatemala, and, oddly enough, China (somehow the mushroom got to East Asia).

One of the coolest things about it is its solidarity with trees. As far as I understand, several different kinds of fungi do this:

L. indigo is a mycorrhizal fungus, and as such, establishes a mutualistic relationship with the roots of certain trees ("hosts"), in which the fungi exchange minerals and amino acids extracted from the soil for fixed carbon from the host. The subterranean hyphae of the fungus grow a sheath of tissue around the rootlets of a broad range of tree species, forming so-called ectomycorrhizae—an intimate association that is especially beneficial to the host, as the fungus produces enzymes that mineralize organic compounds and facilitate the transfer of nutrients to the tree.

Sadly, it doesn't retain its blue color when cooked.

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riverlover's picture

I have an unharvested Hen of the Woods, was bright yellow. Now a melted puddle of white. Cooler are the flowers that root-sprout from oaks.

I have a still-unlively keyboard, a non-scrolling mouse. Plus internet
stalls (thanks Frontiernet!)
All parts have been threatened with replacement.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@riverlover Replacements would probably make your life better. Replacements are also sometimes expensive. Welcome to planned obsolescence.

Here's hoping you get the tools you need to make talking to us more pleasant!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@riverlover I'm fond of bracket fungi, myself:

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Handsome, aren't they?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

riverlover's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal turkey tails. I call them some shelf fungus.

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mhagle's picture

read and listen to the music.

Awfully nice way to start the day.

Thanks!

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@mhagle You're welcome, Marilyn! Nice to see you.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

of Harry Dean Stanton watering the cactus is enough to peak my interest in his movie. I really like that photograph.
I just searched theaters here to see if there was a screening of Lucky but I think your'e right, it seems to be in limbo. I'm so glad you highlighted this because I didn't know about it, but now it's on my 'must see' list.

I'm happy you liked the flamenco! I hope you get a chance to see the Paco de Lucia Project II, I know they were touring the U.S. in the fall but I'm not sure how much longer that tour lasts.

I'm going to listen to the clips of arias now ....this could take me a while.

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riverlover's picture

I can keep it suppressed and am not a naif. Reading David Lebovitz, his first book (with recipes!) after moving to Paris. For any fellowvisitors, hehasnailedbothParisianandAmericanattitudes. Screw spaces.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@riverlover I hate panic attacks, and hope yours is over.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Lookout's picture

is largely unseen and underappreciated.

Researchers have found that some of the ectomycorrhizal hyphae around the root of one plant travel to the root of a neighbouring plant and surround and enter it, too. In addition, one plant may form mycorrhizae with several fungi. In a community of plants, such as a forest, a network of plants connected by hyphae is formed.

A plant-fungus network based on mycorrhizae is referred to as a wood-wide web or a common mycelial network (CMN). Scientists have discovered that the fungal connection allows chemicals to be transferred from one plant to another instead of only between a single plant and its root fungi. The CMN is still being explored, but some scientists are already saying that a field of plants or a forest of trees connected by mycorrhizae could be viewed as a superorganism instead of a collection of individuals.

It's already known that in at least some plants a chemical can transmit a message from one individual to another through the air. It will be very exciting to discover the types of information that plants transfer via chemicals travelling through mycorrhizae. Some people are jumping to as yet unsubstantiated conclusions about the extent of the transferred information, however.

https://owlcation.com/stem/Truffles-and-Trees-The-Benefits-of-Mycorrhiza...

In his TED talk, Paul Stamets lists 6 ways the mycelium fungus can help save the universe: cleaning polluted soil, making insecticides, treating smallpox and even flu viruses.
https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_...

As far as opera and jazz, I'm no help...not much of a sophisticate I suppose.

Have you ever seen the movie Fitzcarraldo? It is a 1982 West German surreal adventure-drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon Basin. The film is derived from the historic events of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald.

The reason I mention it is the music... The soundtrack album (released in 1982) contains music by Popol Vuh, taken from the albums Die Nacht der Seele (1979) and Sei still, wisse ich bin (1981), performances by Enrico Caruso, and others. The film uses excerpts from the operas: Verdi's Ernani, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci ("Ridi, Pagliaccio"), Puccini's La bohème, Bellini's I puritani, and from Richard Strauss' orchestral work Death and Transfiguration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzcarraldo

It's a bizarre film and the opera music fits the story well.

Hope all is well with all of you. Have a good day!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout @Lookout There is nothing sophisticated about opera, (except that some of the music is fabulous) it belongs to hoi polloi. Mozart, Verdi, Rossini, and others were the Pop stars of their time. The Magic Flute was expressly written for the "ordinary person". I read somewhere that if Mozart were alive today, he would have been a film director because he loved the big spectacle and the all encompassing nature of that endeavor. Admittedly, some of these composers of opera were geniuses and had honed their craft to near perfection, but that doesn't mean their art is inaccessible to anyone who is interested. Anyway, all opera is, is myths and old stories set to some awesome songs.

Funny you should mention Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, back in the day I was a fan. I don't know the movie you mentioned but I know his Aguirre, The Wrath of God. That was an amazing picture of the Spanish Conquistadors, their brutality and their insanity. Kinski was downright scary in that role.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@randtntx You really must check out Herzog's Nosferatu, with Klinski in the title role, if you haven't.

As for opera, Puccini really exemplifies what you're talking about; in the middle of one of his arias, you'll suddenly hear a song that sounds like something a farmer would sing on the way home from the field, incredibly simple.

Aaron Copeland did this too, but, as my mom said, sometimes it's more distracting than anything else; as she put it: "You're listening to his music, and suddenly it's `Go Tell Aunt Rhody.'"

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Nosferatu by Herzog is now on my 'to watch list'. I think that one calls for a popcorn accompaniment. I don't know Puccini's operas well....more to discover.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@randtntx It's amazing. I believe it also features Isabella Adjani, but could be misremembering.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Lookout forest of trees connected by mycorrhizae could be viewed as a superorganism instead of a collection of individuals.

I always felt this--though it seems to me more like networked servers. It's not like there's no individual identity whatsoever. They are part of a superidentity of individuals, perhaps a bit like coral. But the connections between trees in a forest have always seemed to me quite palpable.

I used to feel, in a Silver Spring park that had many tulip poplars, that the connections extended very far away indeed, to other coves of tulip poplars in the city, but that may have been an overactive imagination.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Lookout I think we just found the nervous system of the forest.

Even individual plants are more "awake" than people give them credit for, though. I really hate the way the dominant culture makes everything it can into insensate objects.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

riverlover's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal There is a pulse below. And inhalations and exhalations. Currently my trees are in standby. "My trees". I am just a guardian.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Lookout You had me at Werner Herzog.

I have a side interest in vampire literature and movies--or I did before Twilight came and spat up all over my fandom--and Werner Herzog made the best vampire movie I've ever seen: a remake of Nosferatu. I've also seen a very compelling but weird movie he made in which he had all the actors hypnotized before they did their scenes. I think it's called Ludmilla.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

riverlover's picture

It was relatively unharvested woodland. Nascent NY had yet to fully conquer the 10 tribes of the Iroquois Nation. Revolutionary War veterans were given land in western NY-to-be. I got rubble walls on 2 sides. A good glacier collection of erratics. At least one hillside too steep to plant. My buffer!

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TheOtherMaven's picture

so I'll put a few words in. When most people hear the name "Pavarotti", they think of the late stages of his career, when he had become a great big self-indulgent ham. Early Pavarotti was quite promising - a big voice with a lot of potential to go in a number of different directions. Too bad the one he chose eventually turned him into a caricature of himself.

Have only heard a few snippets of Tito Schipa, but find him quite interesting, He rolled his Rs very noticeably, much more than most other singers, and I wonder if that was due to his Arbereshe background (the Arbereshe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arb%C3%ABresh%C3%AB_people are immigrants from Albania who colonized the spike-heel of Italy and used to be known as "Albanese" - which makes me wonder about the deep ancestry of Licia Albanese, but that's another story).

Beniamino Gigli was known in his time as "the thinking man's tenor". He didn't have an enormous voice, but made optimal use of placement and inflection, and studied his roles both dramatically and musically. (He is said to have been the first tenor to come up with the idea that Cavaradossi, in Tosca (act III), doesn't believe he's going to get off scot-free and is just playing along with Tosca to keep her spirits up. It gives the scene a chilling twist.)

What ruined di Stefano's voice was not so much technique problems as pushing (or being pushed) into drammatico roles before he was ready to sing them. It takes a rather heavyweight voice to handle e.g. Calaf or Radames, and it takes both time and the right kind of range. He should be a Horrid Example to Joseph Calleja, who has a similar basically-lirico voice that is slowly extending into the spinto repertoire(spinto is heavier than lirico but not as heavy as drammatico). If Calleja doesn't rush it he could have a nice long career. But if he does....

Speaking of Calaf (and "Nessun Dorma"), another fine rendition is Jussi Bjoerling's - one of a very few tenors to have no noticeable problems with the octave drop in the opening bars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUbA5y1hnFg He didn't have quite the vocal weight for the role, knew it, and never sang it onstage - just in one studio Turandot recording which is still used as a benchmark against which others are measured. (Having Birgit Nilsson, Renata Tebaldi and Giorgio Tozzi as costars helped a lot!)

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

riverlover's picture

@TheOtherMaven I was a ballet-knowledgeable early, lost now.Taught by a Covent Garden Royal Ballet emigree. We each hold old knowledge. Pass it forward, somehow.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@TheOtherMaven You know a lot more about this than I do--please keep bringing this stuff up in future weeks!
I am actually not a middlebrow, but an exceedingly low-brow opera lover in a rather wretched I-know-what-I-like kind of way. Really, I got seduced by Puccini, particularly Turandot, which despite its unfinished nature I still regard as his masterpiece, and one of the finest operas I've ever heard--I can really feel the nineteenth century straining to make the leap into twentieth-century modernity, a leap that I don't really believe the music world made, exactly, though there is Stravinsky. But overall it feels like a tradition of European music that was progressing from the 1600s through the early 1900s got abruptly derailed. I've often wondered whether that was an effect of the Great War.

This is all just rambling that I'm pulling out of unresearched hunches, so feel free to correct me!

Anyway, the point is that I just got sucked into opera, first by Don Giovanni, then by Turandot. Mozart piqued my interest, but Puccini really sealed the deal. Someday I guess I should expand beyond those two!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@TheOtherMaven As for Pavarotti, I'm with him through the early nineties. I know a lot of people disliked the turn he had taken by that point--the caricaturing of himself you speak of-- but I think it may have, to some extent, been a difficult-to-avoid outgrowth of his commitment to popularize opera--his amabassador-for-the-art role, which I believe he took very seriously, and not just because it made him bucks. Strategically, it was very smart for Pavarotti to use his celebrity to keep opera in the popular mind. "Classical" music of all kinds was on the wane almost as badly as, say, monasteries (I exaggerate a bit, but not too much).

But there's no denying his greater work was well behind him by then. Get a load of his debut:

Oh, what I would have given to be there.

I didn't realize how special Pavarotti's voice was until after he was gone, and I bought and listened to the version of Turandot filmed in the Forbidden City, in China (which was amazing, and choreographed/staged by Zhan Yimou; conducted by Zubin Mehta). It was amazing--but something kept bothering me about Calaf--something was missing from his voice. I finally realized I was comparing him unconsciously to the Sutherland-Pavarotti-Caballe recording of Turandot. There's a quality in Pavarotti's voice that I don't have the expertise to identify which just isn't in a lot of tenors' voices, no matter how accomplished--a warmth, perhaps? And I don't mean the warmth of his personality, whether genuine or assumed. Something in the quality of the voice.

This is one of my favorite of his later performances:

See? I told you. I'm lowbrow. But it's wonderful anyway, isn't it?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

Flamenco as early as high school, and maybe earlier, but my attention has waxed and waned. It is no doubt time to get reinvigorated and check out the newest practitioners. I have known a ton of opera buffs and even some singers, but I've never been able to get into it, though I can handle Gilbert & Sullivan. I'm not big on musicals either, something about the mixed format.

Meanwhile, an interesting article that popped up in Joe's EB last night: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/08/make-left-great/ Some food for thought therein, though it again demonstrates a need to destroy old falsehoods and myths before a coherent progressive agenda can be brought forth.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Have integrated pre-coffee morning yoga into my schedule. It makes me extremely grumpy, but also makes it much nicer for me to sit in this chair.

How are you all doing?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Big Al's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal I've decide to become a Stepford Activist.
There are a couple Berniecrat democrats running in SW-03 against a tea party republican that could use our help.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Big Al No thanks. Been there, done that, the t-shirt sucked.

I gave them from 2003-2010, after they shafted all of us in FL in 2000, which should have been enough to alienate me forever. But I gave them seven years of my life and the chance for me to have a career (when I should have been establishing an academic career, I was busting ass trying to elect as many Democrats as possible, usually for no pay--eventually it became very low pay). At the end of it all, they basically gave me Bush/Romney policy with a little LGBT rights splotched on top like catsup on a questionable political hash. Then they told me I didn't have the right personality for politics and showed me the (back) door. Immediately after I'd turned what was supposed to be a landslide defeat into a victory by a few hundred votes. But then, they didn't want that Democrat in that seat anyway. She had too much of a moral core--they preferred the machine Democrat/legacy politician who voted against workers getting a 15-minute break every 4 hours.

No, I don't think I'll be doing any more work for them.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Big Al's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal that I was kidding, just to be safe. I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea and that appears to be a real possibility.
For the record, I've never worked for any politician, anywhere, anyhow. But after my brain lobotomy, maybe I will.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Big Al Oh, I got your snark. It's just that I'm genuinely angry about what you're snarking about.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

riverlover's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal c99p is mellow. On FB, lucky ducky me has been called a moron for identical beliefs. I am so not into pink plastic plant containers now. Anyone want a few?

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I don't know how you do it. (As an aside, that may be the longest, most obscure screen name I've ever seen. I like it!)

Artists of all fields borrow, if they study the history of their field, as they should. Another way to put it is that they have been inspired by this predecessor or that. So, it's not about whether one borrows, but, rather, how well one does it and also how well one makes the inspirations his or her own. If, for example, a fashion designer has been inspired by Christian Dior, the garment should not look like Dior designed it on one of his rare bad days.

I once heard Michael Buble say he'd grown up listening to his grandmother's Sinatra records. That didn't surprise me at all. I'll leave it there.

FWIW, someone I worked with listened to classical music all the time,including in his office. He, too, mentioned that Pavarotti wasn't considered that good However,my colleague added that, in fact, Pavorotti was quite good. And I also once heard Pavorotti say something like "Well, excuse me for appealing to people who do not otherwise listen to opera." (very loose translation: I don't remember his actual words.)

Which reminds me, that, as a kid, I loved when a relative played his *Opera for People Who Hate Opera* album for me.

All of which is to say that, IMO, people should listen to whatever they enjoy and not be intimidated by the opinions of professional critics. Their careers kind of depend upon their convincing us that our preferences and instincts are "less than." Thank them for sharing their opinions and enjoy the hell out of your own choices. (Said a lowbrow who enjoys the hell out of popular music from all eras and regions.)

Speaking of which, thanks to you and randtntx for the flamenco videos. Flamenco music and dance was heavily influenced by Arabs, whose older music--pre-heavy Western influences--is amazing. I've had Arabs play 78s for me and explain the lyrics of some of the songs to me and the lyrics are also amazing.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace I was about to play some Muslimgauze for you--which actually, I just found out, was a project of a white British guy--when I discovered that the dude died of a rare fungal infection at 37!! Geez. I had no idea. Really sad, because I love his project:

I also just found out, to my horror, that Sheila Chandra has burning mouth syndrome, and as a result, is rendered entirely mute. That's one of the more horrible things I've heard.

This is what she used to sound like:

This sort of thing is why I don't believe in an omnipotent Deity. If there was one, he'd be an absolute fucker.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

riverlover's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal I had Histo through HS. Ohio River Valley endemic. Smoked through the whole time: Kools. Even after a recent Dx of pneumonia my lungs show no residual
scarring. Or current crop of MDs has no history.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@riverlover They seem not to know what causes burning mouth syndrome. One of the ones I pray I'll never get.Along with MS, and, well, some others.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

I suppose many people have.

The Book of Job is interesting in that respect (interesting, as in odd and unfathomable). Essentially, God and Lucifer make a bet about the nature of humans. God bets that Job is good. To prove that, God afflicts Job unbearably over and over, including the death of all his children. For no reason other than Job has been the best human on the planet!

Finally, Job does not curse God, as a friend urged, but he does question why God is afflicting him. God replies thus:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+38&version=KJV

God restores Job's wealth and then some. Job also fathers more children. And, the OT would have us believe that Job ended up better off than before in every way. As though all that grief did not damage him and as though children are interchangeable?

Changing gears, this is one of the artists whose 78s were played for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa1Jb6dr_yM

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace Sorry that was such a grim response--I had no idea Google was going to turn up such rotten news.

Got more to say about your comment, after I recover from that accidental data land mine...

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace This is Chandra more recently:

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace I seem to be wandering a bit afield from Arabic music, per se, into Sufi music (does it still count?) but this man was literally a national treasure of Pakistan, and an amazing master:

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, rest in peace. What a gift.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace My screen name:

Can't stop the signal, from the movie Serendipity:

It became Can't Stop the Macedonian Signal because of this nonsense:

http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/can-facebook-solve-its-macedonian-fak...

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

mhagle's picture

I was a reluctant music major in college. Ended up there because of piano. Skipped opera and symphony attending assignments and took a bit lower grade.

However, now . . . I love reading this discussion of opera and tenors and the history of it all.

Was a big fan of the "Gypsy Kings" back in the day. However, they are not in the class of your flamenco performers posted above.

Thanks to you all. Smile

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@mhagle I'm very fond of the Gypsy Kings!

My guess is that, nowadays, somebody would tell me that saying the name "Gypsy Kings" was disrespectful to the Romany, but here they are, doing some great music:

Holy shit, just found out they were descended from Catalonian refugees fleeing into France at the time of Franco.

I wouldn't have wanted to stay either. Catalonian and gitano, under Franco? Uh, I don't think so.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal The topic of refugees fleeing and a nomadic existence was touched on last night in J. Shikspaks EB. Instead of the Romani, it was Americans hitting the road, looking for work. The picture of Roma caravans brought to mind the article about people living in cars in Vegas....so many similarities.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/02/nomadland-living-i...

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@randtntx I strongly considered dumping the majority of our belongings and getting a high-quality RV instead of a house.

Two cats were one reason why not. Three people instead of two was a second.

But the real reason was that I couldn't imagine myself backing up an RV under any circumstances. I'm a nervous driver.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

Making the announcement here, because Open threads seem like a good spot.

Lucky Lab at Noon, as usual.

915 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR 97214
503-236-3555

There will be much discussion which will be NSFI.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4QAlAjrz38]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks Thank you so much for doing this. Perhaps I should do the same, even though my house is not yet ready/furnished--we could find somewhere in public to meet, I guess. Gainesville is good for that.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Considering I am a totally paranoid and expect to be arrested at airports.

I still have to figure out how to get my emergency Pot Vape through in states where it's illegal.

Although technically it's illegal everywhere if I transport it, and I'm breaking Federal Law by smuggling across state lines.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_FoEy8T_A]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks Jeff Sessions can still trip my outrage-meter, which these days usually just waves a disgusted hand in the general direction of the powerful.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks Wow. That band should call itself Lando System.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal But then I really like Billy Dee William's rant on the subject.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvXwu8oZuM0]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I suddenly realized I know (of) a LOT of really amazing musicians.

One thing I didn't realize until recently: the importance of record labels.

Most of what I've loved in the World Music vein, since the 90s, has come either from the 4AD label or Peter Gabriel's Real World label.

You gotta have people who make the music available and give the artists a place to work. Here's to the Hilly Krystals of the world.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

smiley7's picture

your selections and writing have cheered up my day!

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@smiley7 You're welcome! It somehow turned out far better than I'd imagined. This was an OT I actually spent a lot less effort on than usual. Perhaps there's a lesson in that. Either way, I'm really grateful it turned out this way! Thanks to all of you who've participated and made it better.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver