gargoyle drumming

oy

Take a listen to the MP3s here, on the blog Awesome Tapes from Africa (that name and what it promises is hard to top, in terms of what gets me going). Each one is a half hour of a guy playing a stringed instrument and, apparently, telling the story of this Moussa Tchefari. The beat stays the same moderate tempo throughout. It sort of reminds me of R.L. Burnside. I want to put speakers on top of my car and drive around my neighborhood playing it for everyone. Trippy dude!

Speaking of which. Also, check out Lavender Diamond’s “You Broke My Heart” on their Myspace page. Rapturous!

I was just walking around said neighborhood, on a pleasant jaunt, the purpose of which was to return Mrs. Dalloway to my local library. The nearest library to me is tucked away in a residential neighborhood, unlike the other libraries I have gone to more often in Arlington. But this library is, in fact, the closest. I walked to the Four Mile Run Trail and then veered left, guessing as to where I ought to be going. I was looking for the Long Branch Nature Center, but I ended up passing it somehow. So I was spat out in the neighborhood I was aiming for anyway. I popped into the library and did my business. Then I wandered through the neighborhood and checked out some history.

I saw the Ball-Sellers House and Carlin Hall. So cool. I walked around in the yard of the Ball-Sellers House and checked out the garden in the back, not sure whether I was trespassing on private property. Carlin Hall is big and white, looming over the houses nearby. Men from Arlington’s history, receiving tracts of land from Lord Fairfax and palling around with George Washington down near Four Mile Run. Interesting. I’d like to know more about how things worked back then. How did you get Lord Fairfax to give you some land? Who was this Lord Fairfax? How did he get the land in the first place?

I’ve been thinking more lately about the idea that property is theft. Or how odd it is that we can “own” property. Says who? Quite a brilliant innovation we humans came up with. Also quite an effective way to divide people against each other for millennia and spawn wars and hatred among fellow humans. Though probably the creators of the concept didn’t know that that’s what they were doing. Am I right? I don’t know — I’ll have to investigate.

I am reading this:

• Whereas some priests and contemplatives, living off food given in faith, are addicted to talking about lowly topics such as these — talking about kings, robbers, ministers of state; armies, alarms, and battles; food and drink; clothing, furniture, garlands, and scents; relatives; vehicles; villages, towns, cities, the countryside; women and heroes; the gossip of the street and the well; tales of the dead; tales of diversity [philosophical discussions of the past and future], the creation of the world and of the sea, and talk of whether things exist or not — he abstains from talking about lowly topics such as these. This, too, is part of his virtue.

Imagine what your daily experience would be like if more people aimed to be this virtuous. Also imagine all the people in mass media (such as myself) who would be out of jobs. Perhaps those people could all be reassigned to more virtuous tasks?

Which is the better cure for a nose that is tired of being blown — spearmint tea or a Manhattan? A sequential test is underway. We will inform you of the results shortly.

Posted by nedlog at November 11, 2008 1:39 AM | TrackBack