I recorded a clip once of a Vietnamese folk tune, performed in Saigon, but I have no way of knowing what it’s called, what it’s about, or who originally performed it.
It’s very beautiful. Can you help?
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Sitting in a bar on Saturday night, with a friend, he suddenly jumped up in shock.
I noticed a guy standing behind him.
I said, “Did he rob you, Pat?”
It was exactly that kind of reaction, where you jump up because you’ve suddenly felt something being taken out of your pocket.
“No, no,” he said feeling his pockets… “but he’s just put his finger down the back of my trousers…”
We turned around. The guy exited. We followed. We watched him cross the street, holding his mobile phone to his ear. We said to the doorman, “Do you know that guy?”
He wasn’t known. He disappeared. We went back inside.
He returned. We watched him. He scowled at us. He left.
I told a few friends what happened. We were at a loss to explain why he did what he did.
We figured it must have been a fetish.
Next day. SMS from Pat: “Remember that strange guy? He must have had something on his finger. I’ve broken out in spots and pimples at the top of my ass.”
Gross.
But then it started to make more sense.
Pat tends to wear his trousers kind of low. I had seen the top of his ass a few times in the previous days.
So I figure: this guy takes offence to people showing their ass in public, and dawbs some acidic substance there to make them keep their pants up in future.
Is it possible? It’s certainly weird. Anyone ever come across anything like this before? It’s not some odd kind of social movement, is it?
I’m no expert in Egyptian affairs.
However, having watched 16 hours of live images from Cairo via Al Jazeera yesterday, I have come to understand some things.
One is the distinction between Egyptian protestors, undercover police, police, and army.
Today’s 150,000-circulation daily El Periódico de Catalunya led with a photo of an army vehicle rolling through the streets of Cairo with the caption “protestors confront Egyptian army on the streets of Cairo”.
Whilst it’s hard to identify undercover police because they look very much like protestors, there’s no difficulty differentiating the police from the army. Running battles did take place between protestors and police, but the people always viewed the army as potential allies.
The caption on El Periódico de Catalunya is patently incorrect. In the photo, the people are not confronting the army, they are cheering, they have arms raised in celebration, and at the moment the photo was taken, they are full of hope that the army will side with them, not against them.
This story is potentially as significant as the fall of the Berlin wall.
If the media gets this wrong, how much else do they get wrong?
Here’s another tune IRMA can’t touch*. From their offices in Dublin, it’s unlikely they’ll be ringing-up certain US-hosted video sites, right?
The Kingsbury Manx’s tune, “Pagaent Square”.
Back in May 2006, when I first recommended this tune, I said this: “So sweet it can draw tears.”
Video on YouTube:
* IRMA forced me to remove tunes from my blog in May 2007. These tunes, 29 of them, in mp3 format, were music recommendations to visitors and friends alike. I have a long memory. They said: “Should this matter not be resolved to our satisfaction, further steps will be taken.” This is my attempt to claw-back some pride. This is what I wrote at the time.
“Irish Emigration Worse Than 1980s,” the article by Lisa O’Carroll announces, noting emigration last peaked in Ireland in 1989, when 44,000 left the country. This time ’round – she quotes the ESRI – there will be 50,000.
Yes, indeed, 50,000 is a somewhat larger number than 44,000, but larger too is our population. In 1989 it stood at approximately 3,531,689 and when 44,000 left it gave us an exodus of 1.24%. This time we’re sporting a population of about 4,470,700, of which 50,000 only brings us to 1.11%.
How bad is 1.11% anyway? It’s but a smidgen. Imagine the local shop giving you 1.1% off a pair of trousers in a sale, you’d laugh at them.
Damn it, is it not our duty to explore the world and claim it as our own?
Good for the 50,000 souls who leave our shores this year, I say, may they take their destiny in their hands, visit wondrous places, meet open-minded and exotic people, gain new experience and learn new things, may they tan their faces in a land where the sun actually shines, or where the health care system actually works, or where there’s more to social life than watching X-Factor or sculling expensive pints. Good for them, I say, for there’s nothing better in this world that to travel and expand your mind.
In future, they may return, and with them they’ll bring riches in experience, stories to tell, and likely a jolt to our long-suffering gombeen gene pool, with foreign wives and husbands.
Those that don’t come back, they’ll remain as Irish in 50 years as they do today, and they will spawn a new generation of sons-of-Irish who will look fondly on their country, visit it, live in it, invest in it, talk positively about it. Damn it, is it not our duty to explore the world and claim it as our own?
Bring on the 50,000 a year exodus, I say, for there are opportunities in crises, and it’s only then you truly value what you have: your education, your health, your voice, your intelligence, and your long-suppressed desire for adventure!
Here’s another tune IRMA can’t touch*. I can’t imagine their limited influence extends to certain US-hosted video websites.
Frou Frou’s tune, “Let Go”.
Back in May 2006, when I first recommended this tune, I said this: “The result of another mindless music-finding jaunt around the net, which can delight.”
Video on YouTube:
* IRMA forced me to remove tunes from my blog in May 2007. These tunes, 29 of them, in mp3 format, were music recommendations to visitors and friends alike. I have a long memory. They said: “Should this matter not be resolved to our satisfaction, further steps will be taken.” This is my attempt to claw-back some pride. This is what I wrote at the time.
I have a box of coins.
Every coin of a value greater than one cent has been removed.
It’s a box of next-to-valueless coins.
Each trip to the street, results in more of these discarded, forgotten fragments.
Individually, so valueless are they that the guys begging on the street are now charging 40 of them to make it worth their while begging it from you.
For years they’ve snuggled-up at night beside paperclips, watch batteries, receipts of returned goods and safety pins; all stuff of momentary value, but typically of none at all.
On occasion, a €2.11- or a €4.42-type bill – you know, for a head of cabbage or a box of bandages – boring stuff, makes me wish I’d grabbed a few of them, but only then.
It’s either the bottom of my box, or the acute corner of someone’s third-favourite pants.
Only together are they worth considering. They might combine to make four or five quid, not a lot, but they probably feel pretty good about it. Power in numbers.
They cling to the once-whispered rumour that if they were melted-down they’d be worth more on the copper market.
So, I’ve decided. Each time I venture out of the house, there’ll be ten one-cent coins accompanying me, and I’ll aim to use them. Let’s see if I can give them something to exist for again.
Which is it:
I never had really considered this before.
I never really had considered this before.
I had never really considered this before.
I had really never considered this before.
I really never had considered this before.
I really had never considered this before.
I had never considered this before, really.
Never had I really considered this before.
And since you’re here, how about these:
Really, I had never considered this before.
This, I had never really considered before.
Before, I had never really considered this.
Before, I never really had considered this.
Before, I never had really considered this.
Before, I had never considered this, really.
Goddamn, I’m human, and I never really thought about it that way before.
In my day-to-day I provide web services to a few clients, and if they have a problem, it’s me the human who responds to them.
This hit me like a lightning bolt just now when a prospective client from Austin, Texas firstly thanked me for responding quickly (it took me about eight hours, longer than usual) AND thanked me for… let me copy this out of his email… “I like that you responded in a caring and hospitable way.”
He went on: “[my current supplier] is not quite like that. I can’t really talk to anyone but machines or automated responses.”
I had never really considered this before. You know, I did respond in a caring way because I made an effort be to cheaper than his current supplier, and I also congratulated him for choosing Austin to live in, cos I think it’s a mighty place.
Hell, maybe I have a unique – or close to it – selling point that I hadn’t wholly considered before. That’s brightened-up my Monday.
Local butcher shows his skill. Adds parsley and salt. Queries if he’s going to benefit from artist’s rights. Nice guy.
