#popul vuh

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Popul Vuh: A Retelling

By Ilan Stavans.

Cover art by Gabriela Larios.

[forever70s]

Popul Vuh - Affenstunde LP (1970)

[streets-in-paradise]

It's a sincere question, but who is the author of that version you cited with Penthesilea's corpse? I don't remember reading that in the texts

If I remember well, i read it in a mythology handbook called " Mitología Griega" by Editorial Gradifico.

Who is the original source? No idea, often in those sorts of books the explanations go " x and y thing happened, but in some versions, it also happened w". They do have bibliographies, but you can't tell for sure of all the books they cite who came up with each thing because not every " in some versions" has a note underneath clarifiying which versions they are talking about.

@littlesparklight, please help me out if you know the original source for that one. I know I once read that there was a version where Achilles does freaky stuff with the corpse of Penthesilea after killing her, but don't know which ancient author came up with that.

Edit: I haven't been able to check in the book yet, but a google search showed this.

So this isn't an implanted memory of mine.

I didn't remember the context leading to this, and Aphrodite playing a role in sort of driving him crazy, but I knew I read one version where that happened.

[tlatollotl]

I am a descendent of the ki'che' maya, trying to reconnect to that part of my ancestry. I am also an anthropologist, so I do so in part through research of history and archeology. I was wondering if you had any recommendations of books or documentaries about Maya folklore and religion? I've read the popul vuh and I have the stories my abuelo taught me but it's hard much more.

That is unfortunately too far outside my expertise. I would suggest searching on Google Scholar and carefully reviewing what you come across. But perhaps someone else that sees this can comment and provide some recommendations.

[psygull]

my prunes? electric. my airplane? jefferson. my alarm clock? strawberry. my vuh? popul. my penny? plastic. my grape? moby. my things? pretty. my floyd? pink. my blues? moody. my fish? country joe and the

[owlservice]

I've been conceptualising a video of a compilation of clips of the Irish man from The Chase, set to the first fifteen seconds of Fantasy by Mariah Carey ("Oh, when you walk by every night/Talking sweet and looking fine/I get kinda hectic inside"). The clips are three seconds or less, a hectically and haphazardly arranged mix of HD and low res clips, and the overall video is tinged pink or red. There are certain affectations — when the Irish Chaser's hair moves, cartoon love hearts trail behind. As Mariah slowly fades out, the images are invaded by pinpricks of rainbows that meet each other's growing edges and kaleidoscope with a thrumming energy, as Aguirre I (L'Acrime Di Rei) by Popul Vuh begins to play. The kaleidoscopic patterns pulsate like a heartbeat, but as the video continues, the synchronisation pattern disintegrates. There's a sense of a movement behind the kaleidoscope, which can only be discerned by its effect on the pattern, which ripples in the rhythm of the footsteps of a large and heavy four legged animal. The song stops half a second before the video abruptly ends.

[hasquetzorkukudoneanythingwrong]

You MOTHERFUCKER

You can't just use that name

Son of a bitch

Dinosaur friend! He's pretty interesting.

Talking Deinos are really cool. Wish we could keep them with us.

If I remember right, Tepeu is the name of one of the many gods around during creation in the Mayan Popul Vuh. Couple other names for Deinos are like that.

Also we ain't see him, but Izcalli apparently running a Cartel with his Ocelotl warriors out there. Smh. Tezca a bad influence.

Dude looking pretty snazzy, tbh.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Vague Plot

Vague Plot is made up of New York City avant-indie regulars, veterans of other bands, who got together to make driving, moving, long-form instrumental music a la Can and Popul Vuh during the pandemic: Zachary Cale, Uriah Theriault, Phil Jacob, Ben and John Studer. Of their debut Crying in 9 from earlier this year, Jennifer Kelly wrote, “Vague Plot’s jams shimmer like highways melting in the heat, running straight on through Kansas or Nebraska until they disappear in the undecipherable distance. Which is to say, they go on for a while, repeating the same short grooves ad infinitum, with modest changes, until the measures blow by like mile markers and the journey transcends itself.” All five members contributed picks to this wide-ranging listed.

Phil Jacob (sax/keys)

King Tubby meets Lee Perry — Megawatt Dub, 1997

In my late teens I started getting into dub, particularly King Tubby and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. It’s tough picking one album, but this is the compilation I keep coming back to over the years. My favorite Tubby track, “Termination Dub,” isn’t here, but the giddy feeling I get from “Come By Yah” and “Perfidia” has no equal. And these are some of my favorite Lee Perry selections as well, particularly “Rainy Night” and “Open the Gate��. There’s an attention to melody here that often gets lost on dub remixes, even while these two are digging deep and pulling everything apart. Every delay drop seems to happen exactly when I want it to, leaping out of the speakers. A lot of the genre classics make me feel locked to the couch in a smoky haze, but this collection pulls me into a dance of dub ecstasy.

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band — Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), 1978

Possibly the best music education I ever received was playing in a Beefheart tribute band. The emphasis on polyrhythms as arranged by Don Van Vliet and John French on Trout Mask Replica made me feel music in an entirely new way; that it’s best if things don’t always line up at the beginning or end of a bar, a tension I enjoy searching for. TMR does it so often and with such ferocity that it grows exhausting over the length of the 79-minute album. On the other hand, Shiny Beast manages to incorporate some of those ideas into layers and layers of infectious hooks. From the driving bass line of “Floppy Boot Stomp” to the loping funk of “Tropical Hot Dog” to the stately guitar lines of “Owed T’Alex” to the existential spoken-word closer “Apes-Ma”, every track perfectly highlights a different aspect of what makes Beefheart so unique to my ears.

John Studer (drums)

Slint — Untitled EP, 1994

When I first heard the song “Glenn,” it changed the physicality of my body. Britt Walford has an impressive skill to subtly shift around beats so they gently roll and slide over themselves. It’s as if he’s repeating the same line of poetry but with different punctuation to give it fresh meaning each time.

DJ Shadow — Endtroducing, 1996

The surprisingly refreshing choices around arrangements and samples on this album highlight their unexpected connections. Repetitive, hypnotic rhythms combine with soothing layers of instrumentation and allow every special moment to shine appropriately. Endtroducing then delicately transcends these distant connections to create an entirely new space.

Zachary Cale (guitar)

Sonic Youth — SYR 1: Anagrama, 1997

The music on SYR 1 consists of four instrumentals. The first song “Anagrama” has a beautiful winding arc to it. Over the span of nine minutes, you can hear the band searching and expanding. When I first heard it in 1997, it broadened my sense of not only what guitars could do but also the importance of listening when playing within a group. There's structure but it's extremely loose, there's playfulness but not without restraint. That's a big part of what Vague Plot is about. One thing about Sonic Youth I've always appreciated is that even though they “jam,” they never get trapped into a traditional blues or one-chord vamp freak out. It's modal. Sometimes that can lead to dissonance, but that dissonance has always rubbed against something highly melodic.

CAN — Ege Bamyasi, 1972

I once had a summer job painting dorm rooms at the college I went to. One day I found a discarded CD with no jewel case or artwork. It was Ege Bamyasi. I took it home and put it on not knowing anything about the band. I was completely taken off guard upon hearing it. I could not place it into any known quantity. The inscrutable lyrics, the infectious rhythms and the mystery and sonics of it all; it cracked my brain wide open. To me CAN’s mission was always to find the pulse, vibrate with it and then ultimately dance around it. Vague Plot uses some of that same framework in our music. A singular idea to keep extrapolating on. Now that I know more about music history I can hear Fela Kuti, Stockhausen, disparate folk music as well as 1960s psychedelic rock all mixed up in this record. CAN has always seemed genreless to me in their fearless exploration of style. That’s something we as a band all aspire to. All gates open.

Ben “Baby” Copperhead (bass)

The Staple Singers & Curtis Mayfield — Let’s Do It Again, 1975

Let’s Do It Again is a soundtrack album composed by Curtis Mayfield and performed by The Staple Singers. A few years ago, I had the honor of performing a benefit concert for Little Kids Rock. I was playing guitar in the backing band and one of the singers was Hozier who wanted to do the title track “Let’s Do It Again”. Mavis Staples was also on the bill. It was an unforgettable evening. After the concert, I bought this record on vinyl and it’s been on heavy rotation ever since. The string arrangements are absolutely magical. The whole album is a beautifully recorded masterpiece with Curtis Mayfield and his stellar band backing up The Staple Singers. What more can you ask for?

Ornette Coleman — Change of the Century, 1960

Change of the Century was the first Ornette Coleman album I bought when I was in college. I was interested in the world of “free jazz” and Ornette and his band were the pioneers. Surprisingly, all of it is incredibly melodic with bebop-style phrasing, which I wasn’t expecting at the time. All the musicians have incredible ears to be able to pull this off. Ornette Coleman used the harmolodic system which allowed contrapuntal movement during the solos to avoid a key center. Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins were masters at this and could make any soloist sound great by deep listening, feel and support.

Uriah Theriault (guitar)

Dirty Three — Ocean Songs, 1998

My first exposure to Mick Turner came through this album, which introduced me to a broader range of guitar styles than the folk music I had been listening to. Unlike Fahey’s intricate picking patterns, Mick Turner’s guitar work resonated as lyrical phrases more than prose. Often open and spare, other times stormy and erratic, his guitar created atmosphere and conveyed emotion without relying on virtuosic solos. He and drummer Jim White crafted moody mise-en-scenes for Warren Ellis's main character, and l found myself drawn to the visual storytelling more than the narrative itself. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to see Mick perform in various forms, but the tour for this album stands out due to a specific memory. During a live performance of “Authentic Celestial Music,” my then-girlfriend passed out right in front of the stage. A stranger and I caught her and moved her to the side. When she came to, her only remark was, “Great song.”

Popol Vuh — Hosianna Mantra, 1972

I was familiar with Popol Vuh only as Herzog’s house band until I heard this album, and it cut immediately. I listened religiously to this enigmatic album over the span of a few years, whenever I took a shower so that my attention was undivided. Defying easy categorization, the collection spans classical, ambient, and krautrock. The title track was haunting, calling back to the only music I knew growing up, Catholic hymns. The guitars, oboe, and harpsichord weave sinewy webs of harmony — more chamber music than rock bravado, more conversation than monologue. The ecclesiastical tenor of the Hosianna Mantra (Hosianna, or "please save") sits uncomfortably amongst its dancy krautrock contemporaries, but the slow-burn nature of this album is anything but stiff. If deep attention is akin to prayer, as suggested by Simone Weil, then to me, this album is a dozen rosaries — penance not required.

[389]

Combination of German krautrock motoric-beat rhythms, angular New York post-punk attitude, 60s spy soundtracks, psych, rock, jazz, and 70s synthesizers and vocoders. There is also a cosmic spatial awareness to their sound; both personal inner space and galactic outer space, as well as a wilful pushing of sonic boundaries.

A myriad sounds of 1970s German electronic music (everything from Can to Cluster, Popul Vuh to Tangerine Dream); 1980s New York post-punk and synthcore (from No Wave to Suicide); John Barry’s 1960s movies, John Carpenter’s 1970s horror. You will also hear the influences of French and Italian progressive rock (Magma, Goblin) as well as cosmic, new age and experimental space soundscapes ... an almost endless list of diverse influences that ebb and flow like an ocean of sound, in the process creating a truly unique soundscape that Trees Speak have made wholly their own.

[juniperusashei]

The Ecopoetry Anthology edited by Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street - 3/5

It may sound weird to criticize a 600 page anthology for being limited in scope, but there it is. My poet father gifted be The Ecopoetry Anthology in an attempt to get me interested in poets that aren’t Mary Oliver — historically, I have only liked poetry that’s very easy to understand, as I am not a poet myself. For the past year or so this book has been my bedside reading; I have found the only way I can enjoy poetry is if I read one every morning and every night, which is why I feel sort of justified in reviewing something so encyclopedic. There is a lot of good stuff in here, but the editing just seemed weirdly low-effort and claimed to be more authoritative than it really was. Firstly, it is only specified in small print on the back that this is a uniquely American anthology, something which I consider both arbitrary and a mistake. This is not to say that the poets selected were not diverse; the editors made an effort to include works by indigenous and minority poets, but all American. The real lack of diversity is temporal. The first section of the book, on “Historical” poetry, starts in the 1800s with Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and is pretty much arranged chronologically until the 1990s. This, to me, is a missed opportunity to include the wealth of nature writing from other cultures and temporal milieux. Where are Bashō’s haikus? Where is Homer’s wine-dark sea and rosy-fingered dawn? Shakespeare’s “mickle is the powerful grace that lies / In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities”, the Popul Vuh’s account of the creation of the world, the wealth of poetic tradition from Ancient Greece or China? It just seems kind of lame to leave all of this out because it’s not as glamorous as the new. And the vast majority, over 400 pages of the book, is devoted to “Contemporary” poetry (in alphabetical order), a lot of which is great, but a lot which was skippable and made me wonder at the reasoning behind its inclusion. Frankly, a more historical assemblage of ecopoetry would have provided a more interesting survey of the development of ecological and environmental thought throughout time, through a poetic lens, which is something I would absolutely go crazy for. But this isn’t that, and I’m not sure if it even exists yet.

[chocolateytruth]

Chocolatey Beginnnings

Do you think an object such as food could shape a whole group of people around it or do the people shape the food into what it needs to be? Figuratively, yes, people shape food into what they want it to become, but in a way for chocolate it was different in Mesoamerica. Chocolate is made from the seeds of the Theobroma cacao tree, named by a botanist in the 1750s, Carl Linnaeus, who created the modern system of naming living organisms- binomial nomenclature. Theobroma in Latin means “the foods of the gods” while the word cacao was taken from the native peoples in Mesoamerica, but linguists have issues tracing which group and where the word originated from in Mesoamerica. Amongst historical linguists they are in between two groups of native people: the Olmec language, mixe-zoquean, calling cacao, “kakaw(a)” and the Aztec or Mexica language related to contemporary Nahuatl calling cacao, “kakawa-ti.” These variations in the words from quite different Native civilizations from different time periods show that cacao had definitely originated from Mesoamerica, but that cacao had a long history that could have been passed throughout Mesoamerica through trade and the meeting and mixing of many people. Through the Olmecs and the Mayans, we could observe the symbolism of cacao held in the two distinct cultures and how the symbolism of cacao had transformed when it came into contact with the Mayans.

The major similarity between the Olmecs and the Mayans is how cacao was held to be a particularly important part in spiritual thought. The Olmecs included cacao in their burial rituals and Archeologists found pottery that has traces of cacao on the plate that were found in a supposed Olmec burial site. The Mayans as well as believe that their people should be buried with cacao so, their spirits may have some cacao to offer to gods. With the meaning came a deep belief that cacao is the food of the gods and that if you had cacao with you when you died, you would have an offering to give to the gods and move on to your eternal resting place. With these beliefs, many people wanted to have cacao with them. Another belief that showed to be fairly similar between these civilizations would be telling stories onto pottery. Most of the accounts we are able to retrieve are through the pottery that have been uncovered in archeological searches of the areas where Natives people have resided. Some of the other accounts are through Codexis, but the best way to know that the pottery found is for chocolate is the glyph that could be seen on numerous amounts of pottery. It said that the earliest evidence of cacao for the Mayan dates back from pottery that belongs to the preclassic period, 2000 BCE-250 CE, located in Belize. Archaeologists believe the pot found in an elite’s burial site could possibly be from 600 BCE, which depicted the cacao glyph, ka-ka-w. The cacao glyph consists of three signs: a fish preceded by a comb-like sign that represents the fin of a fish followed by a last sign that refers to the sign of corn. You can see this glyph of cacao shown on all the pottery placed in the image grouping above. Other pottery like the Popul Vuh, depicts the gods they believe to have significance in their lives such as maize god. The pottery reveals that cacao is used to create humankind which reveals the connection between cacao as an important sustenance in this society as well as the connection to the gods. This is especially important because the Natives placed cacao as an important food commodity that is used in a lot dealing in their daily lives.

The materialistic side where the origins of cacao are seen from the Mayans in the societal classes and where cacao was held in the class system. In the Mayan civilization cacao is held by those who were fortunate enough to have a lot of it in stock in their homes. With this very obvious interest in cacao that is being shown off by the Mayans through pottery to tell their story, we can even see scenes of gatherings that are possibly by the elites who could afford such events as well depicts the elites sharing their wealth with the people that are serving them or lower in their societies standards. This depiction of cacao to be able to share with their people shows how the people can be seen as almost equals and that they are human in comparison to what we will see soon by the Europeans to show that they treat others differently.

The transformation of chocolate can be seen mostly through the depictions of cacao onto pottery, telling the stories of their daily lives, but also why cacao was important in their daily lives. In a way, spiritual ideologies played a key reason cacao was held at such a high importance to the civilizations. The transformation of the bringing together of cultures marks how chocolate transformed Mesoamerica. Spiritual ideologies brought chocolate to a higher standard than that of other goods such as gold. To the Europeans, they sought gold to be the most important commodity, but cacao was the most important ingredient that would have brought the most riches more than gold would have ever.

Bibliography

Lecture

Edgar, Blake. The Power of Chocolate. Archaeology, Vol. 63, No. 6. pp. 20-25.

[antimatterhalo]

020 - Pando

Heady blend of Americana twang, home recorded black metal/ doom abrasion, and lengthy detours into ambient/ music concrete/ noise territory... Might be too "out there" for those looking for a more traditional black metal approach but I could totally see it appealing to those who dig the twangy Earth stuff, Cryostasium, Light, Horseback, Popul Vuh, and just generally spacing out on a winter afternoon.

[usedcarheaven]

Popol Vuh (also Popul Vuh or Pop Vuj) "a text recounting the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people of Guatemala, one of the Maya peoples who also inhabit the Mexican states of Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo, as well as areas of Belize, Honduras and El Salvador."

The Popol Vuh is a foundational sacred narrative of the Kʼicheʼ people from long before the Spanish conquest of the Maya. It includes the Mayan creation myth, the exploits of the Hero Twins Hunahpú and Xbalanqué, and a chronicle of the Kʼicheʼ people.

Prints of the Popol-Vuh, 1943

Carlos Mérida

[creamcitywriter]

All drafts of White Stone:

Draft one, sometime in February or March 2017:

I don’t know where I’m from

or where I’ll go.

I see myself in the popul vuh

forever on the road.

I see myself at Christ’s resurrection,

Lincoln’s assassination.

There’s a million flowers on this road

and I’ll smell every one.

Draft two, written spring of 2023:

Had been reading old journal entries around this time and had written down phrases and imagery I liked from the Book of Revelations. That's where the phrase White Stone comes from.

White Stone white stone

a name not my own

flowers along every road 

lead me to the grave stone

white stone I’ll smell every one, white stone

my names in the Popol Vuh. White stone, 

white stone I laid my palm branch at his feet and left town white stone

I left town, white stone, I know not what I’d do

White stone, flowers along the roads, 

I’ll smell every one white stone.

Final Draft, written late summer/early fall of 2023:

Flowers on every road

For Christmas of 2022, my girlfriend and I were gifted an old wooden box my parents had used for camping. Sky blue and a little beaten, it stored the white and red checkered table cloth and table clamps and other miscellaneous kitchen items. It was the only thing from their camping gear they hadn't sold, forgetting about it in a move. And I hadn't known this before we were gifted it, but my grandpa had made the box when him and grandma got married. That's where the "blue box, my heirloom" comes from. It was strange. Felt honored but a little unworthy. Or rather scared I wouldn't be worthy of it. It's old, and I have a horrible tendency to be careless and let things fall apart, thinking everything is fine until it's unfixable. In both physical objects and other things.

lead me to my grave stones

There's a blue box, my heirloom.

A white stone white stone

A name not my own

I'll smell every one,

I'll find my name in the Popol Vuh.

White stone white stone

Bearing your maiden name

Palm branches laid on Monday

Skipped town Friday,

what I would do I do not know.

White stone white stone

My father's name is put on me

Names I do not know.

Names that came before

etched on a blue box,

my heirloom for storage

White stone white stone

My father's name has grown on me

I visit the old creek;

It trickles as before,

When my dog brought back a deer antler

And I fell in through the ice

White stone white stone

My father's sins my own

No names underwater,

No names beneath the ice

I breathe the cold water,

I reach the river's mouth

There with all from before,

Soon with all yet to be.

No white stone no white stone,

I know all the names,

The blue box is full and passed down again

No white stone, oh white stone,

I know this name,

Oh white stone oh white stone

It is my own, it is my own, it is my own

[14cornishspreek5b]

found the popul vuh at the thrift store today.