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theletterformallyknownasq · 5 years ago

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Miski - October 13th, 2018

Me: October 13th, 2018. Sitting down with Miski Noor. First question is how did you receive your name. Miski: How did I receive my name? It's interesting. When I was cooking in my mom's uterus, the story that she's told me is my father wanted to name me, and he got with his brothers and they wanted him to name me Canab, which is actually the Somali word for "grapes." And my mom was like, "nah, you're not going to name my first born - my first daughter - grapes.” *laughs* So my mom decided to name me Miski. My whole name is actually Arabic. And Miski is the Arabic word for "Scent of Jannah" which is "heaven". And my whole name is actually Miski Ali Noor. So, Miski is scent of heaven. Ali is the masculine version of Aaliyah, which means most exalted one. And Noor is one of Allah's 99 names and means "Light of God." So my full name is ‘Scent of Heaven Most Exalted Light of God.’

Me: That's beautiful. Miski: Somali comes from "Somaal", which means “go milk”; go milk the camels, go milk the goats, etc. We were actually a nomadic people and traveled with herds of animals wherever to get our needs met. That's where we come from. And so even now being immigrant and migrant, we‘re still nomadic, we've always been traveling across fake ass borders that weren't there because that's just how humanity works, you know? Me: Oh my god. *laughs* I'm just thinking of this transcription app and how it’s definitely not going to recognize how to write out your name. It's extremely racist. Not to deviate from your answer, tying this back in. The only accents it recognizes is English - North American English, European English, whatever English. And then the available accents are - and this is incredible - French, German, Russian, and then European Spanish. And that's it. Miski: You're not super surprised right? Me: Nah, but there's no way I can transcribe your full name - Miski: I could probably write it down for you. Me: True! Because it's so beautiful. There's nothing in my set of vocabulary or knowledge that I know that can articulate your name, which is like speaking to the lack of power the english language holds. [It] has “so” much power until it's intimidated by something it doesn't recognize. Miski: I mean, it's so limited and I'm not surprised when we think about white supremacy and how this world fails us. Like, what does it want to know. One of Nayyirah Waheed poems was like "you have one word for love. I have seven in my language." You know what I mean? Your skinny language can't even come close to holding the abundance of people outside of it. So, English is limiting because white supremacy is limiting and can't even possibly come close to encompassing all that we are and all that we have and all that we've even been before it all existed. Even in choosing my tattoos. The first tattoo I wanted was something that was hella Black, hella African, and I got an Adrinka symbol because I wanted Somali, but I didn't want English characters on my skin. So I got an Adrinka symbol, because that's the closest I could come to what I was searching for.

Me: And that helps with leading up to the next question. How do you identify? Pronouns et al? Miski: The way I like to move through the world is I like to use They/Them primarily and She/Her occasionally. I like a 70/30 split, and if people can't hold that, I ask them to just use They. But for the last three to six months, no matter what space I'm in, whether it's random strangers on the street or all Black intentional movement space, I'm hearing way too much “She.” And so I've been in this space of feeling like people can't hold the distinction that I want, so I'm just going to force them to just use They. I identify as a Queer, gender nonconforming femme. I identified as a woman for a long time because I didn't know I could identify as anything different. Like, I came into my Queerness later in my life and I think part of it is being a Virgo and not even imagining how anything could be different or seeing anything different.And then when I would think ‘I don't have to own this title of woman, of womanhood, I don't have to,’ it was a freedom that I hadn't known or experienced before. I could just be femme. For me, "woman" isn't just encompassing who I am. Most days, I just think of my gender as "Miski". Sometimes I'm like a fairy, you know? I don't prescribe to gender. It's also limiting to how it feels to me. I associate womanhood with suffering in a way. And it's just this identity of having to serve everybody else, having to be subjugated, having to fit into this particular role, and I've seen how people have reclaimed womanhood, especially Black womanhood. And I love and respect that. But still, even then, it's not me. So yeah. So gender nonconforming femme is where I'm at. Me: Yeah. How does it make you feel when people over-call you "she" pronouns? Miski: There is a pain that I associate with it and erasure and invisibility. And it's painful because my conditioned tendencies, the ways I've learned to move through the world in order to protect myself, are to be invisible. If you can't see me, you can't hurt me. But I'm naming that I don't want to be invisible. I'm naming my gender identity to you and you're still not honoring that. So even when I break out of the ways that I've learned to protect myself, when I say I want to be seen, you're still refusing to see me. There's pain associated with that. Me: Do you share those sentiments with...I don't like this word, or the words used to describe this. Do you feel that way or do people assume you're Black American or assume you're only African? I talked a little bit about that with another subject. Miski: We all get our Blackness questioned, right? Your Blackness is always questioned. Everybody's blackness is questioned. Are you Black enough? Are you too Black? And even questioning where your Blackness comes from. It's just another way of Othering. And another way of being placed into a particular box because Antiblackness is the fabric of this world. But in every single culture, every single nation, religion, people, anti-blackness exists. So I can't get away from my Blackness. And I think, like most Black people in figuring out my identity, that's something I tried to do as a young kid. I remember in the second grade not wanting to go out into the sun in the summer time or on breaks because I didn't want my skin to get any darker. Me: Wow. Yeah. So now we've gotten to the heart of the interview finally. I was gonna incorporate this comment that Charlene [Carruthers] made last week around Blackness being essentially Queer. Queerness being about expansiveness, about talking to the multifaceted elements of Blackness and how it isn't casted as a Beyonce on Rihanna whatever the fuck people think in their heads. So, how do you define Queer and how does that coincide with your definition of your own Blackness and your identity? Miski: For me, I took up Queer because it is all-encompassing. Lesbian feels like a box. Gay feels like a box. Queerness is like whatever the fuck it is to me in this moment and it could shift in the next moment. And I agree with Charlene in that Blackness is Queerness, like Blackness is something that everybody is trying to quantify or qualify or categorize in some sort of a way. Blackness is always being policed. "This is what Black is" and "This is what Black isn't." And to even be able to claim my own Blackness is a way for me to validate myself and my own existence. And for me to say that I'm here and that I'm real and you can't tell me what I am or what I'm going to be. And that my potential and the impossibility of me is not actually not impossible - that it is possible and here I am - here is the manifestation of me. The same way you're saying about the language we are using; English is so limiting. I think Queerness could even be expanded upon. You can't say what Queer is or isn't because I say what it is for me and somebody else's Queerness can be different and that's totally fine because that's what it is. Me: Wow. Now I don’t wanna ask you the other questions because I'm loving the organic conversation we're having right now. Talking to the old way of understanding this umbrella. I thought of Queerness as a prism, where we are just beams of power, casted through this one thing that doesn't really change but consequentially changes us, every time we own who we are. So, what do you like or don't like about the mainstream definition of Queer identity, if there is such a thing?

Miski: Yeah. Even when I say Queer or think about it, there is a particular brand of white Queerness. Who gets to decide what your identity is and how you move through the world? There is a privilege in that. Right? So there's a part of it that we have to come up against, and because of that whiteness, a part of it is reclaiming what Queerness actually is. It's limited. Politically, you have to change what that definition is. There's also us embracing our own power, moving in it where it's not just being in opposition to whatever white Queerness is or how white folks are expressing it. But how we get to stand in our power and own it. That admitting your Queerness is limited because you don't have more of a gender/racial/global analysis on what power is and how it functions in this world. Because Blackness is Queerness, and you're not fulfilling your understanding of it if you don't know how to hold the humanity of Black folks, of immigrant folks, of folks whose humanity isn't honored When this country was founded, you had to be white, male, moneyed and a landowner to be considered a citizen. What are the qualifications for Queerness? How are we dismantling and destroying [the term] so how Black and Brown folks express Queerness is actually the standard? It's not a full Queerness if you're not actually holding us in our humanity. That's just more white supremacy, except you move a little differently than other white supremacists. And you want to be held by the world, but don't want to hold the rest of the world. It's actually us standing in our power and deciding that we get to name this, we get to say what it is, and we get to offer this fuller definition based on the fact that we just fucking exist, we're here and we're real and you have to actually contend with that. Me: Can you expand on how important it is that the world understands us, what Queer identity and culture means? We have all these different things like LGBT. Or LG, at this point. It ends where Trans & Queer folks aren't included. How important is this expansiveness in the way you define ‘Queer’? Not just to liberation of folks like us but for other folks who are at the margins or the fringes of society? Miski: So I feel like when this current iteration of the Black Freedom Movement first popped off, it felt like somebody pressed the GO button for Black liberation. Part of the reason I signed up is because of the analysis of this current movement. The Civil Rights Movement was limited in its ideology in some ways - needing a charismatic male leader, and only one or two, deeming that we can't have a movement without that. This expansion on what it means to be a leader, what it means to be Black, what it means to be a Black Queer feminist, and having the framework of intersectionality that Kimberly Crenshaw has provided has folks finally in practice of that, and that is so incredibly important. One of the things that I heard that has always stuck with me is 'nobody is free until Black Trans women get free'. So when Black Trans women have their full humanity honored, then we are all actually free. And I think that's what is important for people to understand. Folks who currently benefit from this system - from the systems of capitalism, transphobia, white supremacy- their humanity is also tied up in this relic. They might think they might be benefiting but they've lost so much of their souls. You have so much of your humanity to reclaim because you can't even see my humanity. There is no freedom or liberation without my freedom or liberation, and your full humanity can't be realized and honored truly if I can't be free or liberated in this world. Adrienne Marie Brown said something around like "One of the most fucked up things about this current world is that we're not even able to imagine the impossible." We just don't question what's possible and we just live with what has already been created.So folks who prescribe to the current systems or just move inside of them don't even know how free they could be. They don't even know how much of their humanity is inaccessible to them. Even scientifically we only have access to only 10% of our brains - what is going on with that other 90 percent? What is the magic that we could reclaim? We have more than enough resources, more than enough food, more than enough water to take care of every single human. But instead we put resources into killing people, into exterminating life and so on. And I feel like that's what's at stake. Actual life. What is left for those coming after us? What is the possibility of us? That's what's at stake.

Miski: Everybody's humanity and life and the possibility of life and existing, breathing, loving one another. Having the freedom and self-determination to make those decisions for ourselves socially and politically and emotionally and physically and so on. Me: Seriously. Thank you for that. I've enjoyed my conversations with the other subjects thus far, I'm still learning, so I'm grateful for you and the others for sharing such intimate and personal perspectives on these topics. But on the other side of the politic - what gives you joy? Miski: Our joy is so fucking important, like, our resilience is actually in our joy. If we can't be joyful, we can't be resilient, we can't live. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the joy and the love that our ancestors had been able to cultivate to even bring us here to be able to be alive. Without joy, we can’t live. And there is a difference between being alive and living. I get joy from the life of my people. Just seeing Black folks existing and loving. You being able to do this project, this brings me joy. I get joy from the success of our folks. I get joy from ratchet music, twerking. I get joy from Afrofuturism and reading dope Black poets and Black people visioning a different future. I get joy from us eating good food and taking care of ourselves and learning how to take better care of ourselves. I get joy when I see us in community with each other because the ways that capitalism wins is by isolating us into individualism and us thinking we don't need each other. When we come against these systems. Even in our movement building, our relationships are our greatest infrastructure. Us building great infrastructure and building great relationships and knowing that I can go to my community to get what I need and don't have to lean on these systems.That brings me joy. All of that makes us resilient so that we can continue to build different worlds for our people, Me: How do you define safe, not safety. Safety feels like an -ism. Miski: So this question feels scary because like when do I actually feel safe Me: Well, that's kind of ironic. Miski: It's hard because I don't feel safe that often. You know? Like at any given moment, especially doing Black liberation work, the state could come banging on my door and, as an immigrant, they can take that shit away. It's so fleeting and it's not guaranteed. So I feel like I'm like in this perpetual state of fear and not knowing I'm scared all the time but I know as a nomad - with borders and nationalism - this shit could be taken away from me at any given moment. But I know at my back, there's all the skills and experiences I have but then also my ancestors are at my back and are flowing through me. So it's actually really arrogant to think I go through anything by myself. I'm never by myself. My community, my people, my ancestors, my skills and my experiences are always with me. And I think when I'm grounded in that, when I'm centered in it, where I come from, where I'm going and where I'm at and who I come from, that is when I feel the most powerful and that is when I feel the most safe - if I ever feel safe. I am not alone. It’s then when I remember that is when I feel safe. I think that's why it feels fleeting, because it depends on me being centered in that knowledge and proclaiming that I am the protagonist of my own story and I'm here - slaying dragons with my people. Me: Last question. If you could address the most influential figures and decision-makers in the state right now, what would you say about improving the standard of living for someone like yourself living in Minnesota? Miski: Get the fuck out of the way. Just get the fuck out of the way. We need the resources. We have the vision. And we will get freer so much quicker if you just let us do the thing. The world has not set you up because of your positionality to be able to get us free. And you have a lot of listening to do, a lot of learning to do, and a lot of power to hand over. You've got the same people running the same organizations for 20 years. It's stagnant because it's the passing of the baton to the same types of people for the most part. Like, it doesn't make any sort of sense and you're not going to get me free. You can't get me free. I can get you free, but you can't get me free unless you are a Black/Queer/Immigrant/Muslim/Femme/Trans person. Most times, you can't even comprehend my existence, so how could you ever validate or make it any easier for me to exist unless you are in conversation with me and you're handing over your power? Yeah, there are folks who are our allies and who are doing work, but it's a constant state of work. As somebody who holds all of these different identities, I have anti-blackness and white supremacy inside of me that I constantly have to work at. As somebody with power and privilege, how much work do you think you have to do? How much of your humanity do you still have to reclaim? How much personal transformation work do you have to do? ‘It is our duty to be transformed in the service of this work,’ like Mary Hooks says. And so you have a lot of work to do and a lot of power to just hand the fuck over if you are actually interested in a world that is capable of holding me. And if you want to play a role in actually getting us to that place. Move, Bitch! Get Out The Way, Bitch, Get Out The Way! Me: Thank you. So much.

#interviews

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broken-clover · 6 years ago

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Okay here's a question for ya: what languages do you think the characters in GG speak? Like, we know Jam speaks Chinese, Millia knows Russian and Kum speaks Korean, but what about everyone else? (think like in Tekken where everyone speaks in thier native language)

Ooh, that’s a great question! I had to think a lot for some of these, and I’m still not sure on a few!

-Raven is most likely the most fluent in term of sheer numbers. With how long he’s been alive and just trying to adapt to modern versions of the same language, he probably knows a lot. Plus, gotta keep yourself entertained for millennia somehow.

-Ky is probably also multilingual in some form, both for communicating with fellow soldiers and for diplomatic reasons. He knows his native French, and I’m banking on him as least passing in English, German, and Dutch.

-Same goes for Leo and Daryl. If not for communicating with diplomats and guests, than for communicating with each other.

-Whether he likes it or not, Sol is probably multilingual in some fashion, even if it just means understanding when Ky yells at him. And with his travels, he probably picks up a bit of other languages too.

-Sin likely learned languages in a similar fashion, and considering his passion for words, it would not surprise me if he took up studying other languages just for the fun of it.

-The origins of Zepp are kinda ambiguous, so I can’t say what Potemkin’s native language would be. Consider his job, he’s likely also multilingual, but in what, I don’t know.

-For the assassins in general, they probably teach a standard language so everyone is capable of communicating with each other. Just based on geography, Millia knows Russian, Zato knows some form of Spanish, and Venom presumably was raised English (though considering his ambiguous geography and how old he was when he was taken in, it’s possible he knows a little of whatever language was local to him) and they all share some mutual language. Plus, at least knowing other languages makes it easier to move around, so they probably know a few others passably.

-Baiken and Anji are both Japanese, but I feel like since his original schtick was pretending to be Chinese to move freely, he probably knows some form of the language, too

-I guess this doesn’t count as a ‘language’ per se, but since Bridget comes from a rich family he’s probably got a more refined ‘posh’ accent and way of speaking as opposed to a working-class Cockney.

-Conversely, probably because I am not super familiar with all the varieties and because the dubbing is weird, I’m not sure what kind of accent Axl would have, but based on geography I’d say either London British or something more Cockney.

-(Unrelated, but I have this hilarious image of Sol, Chipp, Axl, Bridget, Venom and Zappa stumbling over each others’ accents because they all speak English differently. Nobody mention biscuits.)

-Testament is canonically Swiss, but I’m not sure what language he speaks since there’s four national languages of Switzerland. Considering that he’s another war vet, he’s likely vaguely experienced in most of them.

-Answer is South African and seemingly has no trouble communicating with Chipp, so he probably knows at least Afrikaans and English. Since he has an eidetic memory, he’s probably skilled in other languages just by experience, which suits a diplomat.

-The Valentines are hard to tell, but since they’re based on Aria, I presume American English by nature.

-Bedman’s origins are unknown, but considering that he’s a telepath and mostly uses that for communication, it’s likely the language barrier is a non-issue and he can automatically translate based on who he’s speaking to (into?)

-Since Faust is very likely Dr. Baldhead, That would make him at least fluent in Chinese. Since he’s trying to change his image, I assume that he learned some other language to throw people off his trail. Alternatively, considering his reality-warper nature, it is not impossible that he’s also capable of warping speech to manage a sort of allspeak-type thing so he can communicate with everyone easily. He is a traveling doctor, so that would come in handy.

#ask #long post #guilty gear #Everyone

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haitilegends · 5 years ago

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THE RHYTHMS OF DIASPORA : Godwin Louis SPEAKS | JAZZ SPEAKS - http://www.jazzspeaks.org/the-rhythms-of-diaspora-godwin-louis-speaks/

"On the process of doing research for his upcoming album Global

" I’ve spent the last seven years exploring that and studying and understanding the connection that was brought to #Haiti from West #Africa. I’ve gone to Africa five times in the last four years. The music on my upcoming album, Global, is based on the music transported out of Africa, to the rest of the world via the transatlantic slave trade.

This process of exploration began thanks to a grant that The Jazz Gallery gave me to pursue my compositional voice. During that period of 2013-2014, I was noticing a lot of connections between Haiti and New Orleans. I was fortunate enough to live in both places, and I couldn’t help but notice the similarities in terms of culture, architecture, even in terms of cuisine, musically, of course. And then historically, I found major connections rooted in the Haitian revolution. In 1790 and 1804, you had a lot of affranchis, free people of color, that fled Haiti to what was then known as #French #Louisiana. And, of course, they brought their culture and their rhythm. So I was intrigued in that and I began exploring that music, and I presented some of that at the Jazz Gallery in June 2014.

And because of that, I was able to continue to dig even deeper. I went back “across the pond” to Africa to see some of the things that were brought in and how much they’ve changed, and I’ve extended those studies to South America as well.

I began to understand that whenever I see triple meter, that’s something that’s coming from West Africa. So that’s an area that spans from Senegal to Western Nigeria, and back then we would consider that as either Upper or Lower Guinea. In places like Haiti, you hear terms like that, where they’ll say “nég Guinea” meaning, a fella from Guinea. And then also, the other term that you would hear is “nég Kongo” meaning a person from Kongo, meaning a fella from Kongo, which is modern day Cameroon all the way down to Angola. And that’s sort of like “duple meter.” So in West Africa, you have a big triple meter connection, and whenever you see technical things that are in 6/8 or 3/4 , that kind of “Afro” sound that they call it in jazz: “Afro-Cuban”, “Afro-Jazz”….that triple sound is coming from West Africa: Yoruban rhythms, Dahomey, Benin, Togo, Ghana. But whenever we’re dealing with duple meter, which is some of the sounds found in Haiti and New Orleans—you know, Congo Square.

One of the hubs for a lot of the cultures that were transported is Haiti because, in Haiti, there were tribal religions that were preserved. You have rhythms for instance, called Nago, and I found that the Nago rhythm that I always heard in Haiti is actually coming from a tribe in Benin. Nago is pretty a much the Yoruba people in Benin. So if you’re in Nigeria, you’re Yoruban, but if you’re from Benin, you’re Nago. In Haiti, there is a rhythm called #Nago, and that’s very similar to what we know today as the swing rhythm. Sort of like when you’re listening to Elvin Jones, that feels to me like a Nago rhythm.

So, the Haitians were able to conserve and preserve some of those rhythms. And also we have #Kongo, which is also a rhythm that happens to be a duple meter rhythm, and those roots are coming from Kikongo culture from Central Africa. And then we have rhythms like #Yanvalou. All of these rhythms are associated with places in Africa, the names of kings, and so on. So I think because of what the Haitians achieved in gaining independence from slavery, they were able to keep a lot of those rhythms and a lot of those tribal names. Lots of people doing research on the African influence in the United States tend to bypass Haiti, but I really found it to be the hub. The three hubs are #Cuba, Haiti, and Brazil in terms of finding that pure connection to Africa. But again, researchers and #ethnomusicologists usually go to Cuba and #Brazil but don’t know anything about Haiti. So it was interesting for me to connect it all. 💡

On the compositional process and how it related to his research:

I spent a lot of time visiting certain regions and certain tribes and listening to the different sounds and the use of language in the music. I was in Mali listening and learning, and I was sitting in a rehearsal. It was fascinating to me the way that Bambara, which is the local dialect that they were singing in…it was interesting to me how the time signature was always based on the text. So a lot of the time, you would have an over-the-bar-line idea because of the text. And I would sit trying to figure it out, and I asked them: “why is it like that? This isn’t really 6/8…I heard a bar of 5 here, a bar of 6”. And then I was told, “oh no, this is all based on the text. So I have to finish the phrase, whether it falls on a bar of 4 or bar of 5. You Americans look at it like this, but for us, it’s all based on the text.” So for me it’s about exploring the rhythm in the language. I try to have the melodies match the feeling and rhythm of the language. And oftentimes, that means writing melodies that go over the bar line. I call that a “textual approach to melody”, which is the way they would do it in Mali or with the Dahomeys or in Benin.

Now, I think the next thing will be exploring East Africa. Going to Ethiopia, to Egypt, Kenya. Because I’ve found some interesting connections, historically and musically between East Africa and West Africa, but that’s for the next excursion.

I used to play in an Ethiopian jazz band called the Either/Or Ensemble, and that was really my introduction to African music in general. I got to play with the great Mulatu Astatke, and I’m actually featured on one of his albums. The band got to travel to Ethiopia and it was an amazing experience, and that was my first time playing that music. And I found that influence in Togo. Vodoo music in Togo uses that same scale called the Anchihoye. So I’m kind of intrigued. How did that mode get from Ethiopia to Togo?

On Haitian saxophonists that inspired Godwin:

I grew up listening to a lot of this Haitian saxophonist named Webert Sicot. He was known as the Siwel saxophonist. It’s sort of like the Caribbean or Haitian version of a Trad-Jazz or Dixieland style of playing. Sort of like Louis Armstrong in the way that Louis Armstrong emotes on the trumpet: all those beautiful melodic ideas. That’s called a Siwel. And I grew up listening to that kind of sound and that super-melodic way of soloing, and Webert Sicot was one of the kings of that sound. So I was learning a lot of this language through Webert Sicot without even knowing what it was. Webert Sicot was the king of a genre called Cadence Rampa that was influenced by the French Antilles, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica. He was actually Nemours Jean-Baptiste’s [ the popular Haitian tenor saxophonist and bandleader] rival. Nemours Jean-Baptiste carved out the Compas genre as his own, so Webert Sicot decided to start his own style called Cadence Rampa. And they both are amazing musicians of course, but in terms of marketing, they decided to go their separate ways. Cadence Rampa was more French Antillean. But Compa became the music of the people because of the lyrics and accessible sound. "

SOURCE :

💡 READ MORE :

http://www.jazzspeaks.org/the-rhythms-of-diaspora-godwin-louis-speaks/

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💡Rock Paper Scissors - Godwin Louis - Godwin Louis Explores the Worldwide Impact of Afro-Caribbean Sounds and Concepts on Music and Takes them Global

https://godwin.rockpaperscissors.biz/dispatch/pu/25474

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GLOBAL by GODWIN LOUIS on Amazon Music -

https://www.amazon.com/Global-Godwin-Louis/dp/B07NDJ93NS

GLOBAL by GODWIN LOUIS on iTunes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/global/1451576702

GODWIN LOUIS | Global | CD Baby Music Store

https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/godwinlouis

----------------------------------

🎥 Watch "GODWIN LOUIS -

"I CAN'T BREATHE"

https://youtu.be/uHa_jaG9BRo

From his upcoming album:

G L 🌍 B A L

to be released on February 22, 2019

Music video featuring: Maleek Washington Directed by: Hans Johnson Blue Room Music

-----------------------------------

Godwin Louis | About💡

http://godwinlouis.com/

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HAITI⭐LEGENDS

#GodwinLouis #Global

#Haitiansaxophonist

#NewCD #Feb22 #Jazz

#MaleekWashington #HansJohnson #NewMusicMonday #BlueRoomMusic

#jazzspeaks #musicresearch #rhythmsofdiaspora

#WebertSicot

#CadenceRampa

#NemoursJeanBaptiste

#AfroCaribbean

#Compas #CompasDirect

#BerkleeCollegeofMusic

#haiti legends #haitilegends #iamgabrisan #jazz #haitian

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prevodioci-blog · 6 years ago

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Niehime To Kemono No Ou

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To support my argument, I will present several examples of the current media environments and personal experience, particularly in relation to music and music industries since music is one of the important mass cultural forms, representing current trends of peoples' mind and thinking. Without his work in the 1950s and '60s, there would be no field of study that sought to explain how the nuances and great sweeps of human history are made possible by media of communication—how media determine the thoughts and actions of people and society, in a soft” way. We know about it because we were at least, up to the coming of the Social Networks, reading books, listen to all types of different genre and good music and that has kept us as a "Sane Society' in this day and age. Then, tickled by curiosity, he read it and at the same time compared it with the previous translations. So long as Man Mind has existed, from the crude forms of mass mobilization to contemporary Meida technological mind control, it has always been the desire and aim of those who are rich, and have time to fine-tune and fine-chissel their distorted and concocted strategy of mass control to set and determine the final outcome, social arrangements and reality. John Carl Warnecke, 91, American architect (John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame), died of complications of pancreatic cancer.

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davidfurlongtheatre · 6 years ago

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David Furlong: interview THE FLIES

By Caro Moses

| Published on Friday 7 June 2019

Headed to The Bunker Theatre this week is a production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s ‘The Flies’, produced by Exchange Theatre – a company I am a big fan of, because of its international and diverse approach – who will as usual be staging their version of the show ‘bilingually’, with half of performances delivered in English, the other half in French.

To find out more about the show, and what to expect from Exchange Theatre in the future, I spoke to company founder, director and actor David Furlong.

CM: Some may be aware of what ‘The Flies’ is all about, but some may not: can you give us an idea of where the narrative takes us? DF: Years after the Trojan war, Orestes comes back to Argos, his birthplace, to find his sister Electra reduced to being a servant, and his mother Clytemnestra ruling the land along with her lover Aegisthus, a dictator. Sartre tells their tale as much as the story of the guilt imposed on a whole people through misinformation and ignorance. The flies, hovering around the stench of the city, symbolise the fear maintained through manipulation. What will it take for the siblings to overcome this tyranny? It’s French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre’s look at the Greek myth of the Oresteia.

CM: Your version of this is described as an adaptation: in what ways does it resemble the source material and in what ways does it differ? DF: Jean-Paul Sartre wrote ‘The Flies’ in 1944 when he was a prisoner of war and the play was an outcry against Nazi Occupation in France. Eighty years later, far right populists are rising again promoting fear of the other, of any differences. We kept exactly the words of Sartre so in this regard, it’s a faithful translation. I’ve adapted the world of the play more to a slightly recognisable world for a 21st century audience. Our set is made of piles of TVs, on which propaganda is broadcast, representing the fake news deployed to keep the citizens of Argos in ignorance and fear. This Orwellian world is never very far from ours. In 1939, The Nazis and the French collaborationists spread their ideology like this. The mediums have changed but the propaganda and the struggle against it are both the same.

CM: What made you want to stage it now? DF: Firstly, ‘The Flies’ is the show which put Exchange Theatre on the British theatre map ten years ago. Before this show, we were barely surviving through guerrilla theatre-making on the Fringe. We did the first production like a challenge to the theatre-form. This is the show that bought us a three-year creative residency at the French Institute, and subsequently our own studio space at London Bridge, where we are still based. It started to make a real shape for the company with this show.

We passed our ten-year anniversary two years ago, but did not celebrate our first decade, and then we got our first of three Offie nominations and thought we ought to celebrate the work we’ve been doing. ‘The’ Flies was the most obvious revival to do because it encapsulates all Exchange Theatre is about. It’s a Greek tragedy revisited by a French philosopher, performed by a bilingual international cast, with a Mauritian composer and a non-western drawn physicality!

CM: You’re directing as well as appearing in the show – is it difficult to do the two at once? Does being part of the cast have an influence on your approach as a director? DF: I think it used to be more complicated, but I’ve grown used to the exercise and have learned how to balance these complexities and use them for the benefit of the show. I was a trained actor first, before turning to directing in 2006, so I direct actors the way I’d like to be directed, following their impulses and preserving their agency. It means that my approach as a director can never be an over-arching knowing figure: I like actors and I love drawing very strong characters by bouncing off their imaginations, in juxtaposition with my imagery.

Being part of the cast also means that I’ve learned along the way, what I can’t do, so I surround myself with movement directors and musical directors or any collaborator who know both what I’m looking for and what they’re doing in order to facilitate it. What’s great as a director is to discover things you had not planned, too, that’s the beauty of collaboration, and then it just creates an even better work than what you had in mind.

CM: Can you tell us a bit about your fellow cast members? DF: First, they’re all bilingual French-speaking actors from a variety of origins, which makes this cast completely unique in London. We have Meena Rayann (Vala in ‘Game of Thrones’) leading as Electra, and she’s from French and diverse North African origins, alongside Samy Elkhatib, who is Egyptian, American and French, and making his professional debut as Orestes. They are joined by Raul Fernandes, Juliet Dante, Soraya Spiers, Jonathan Brandt, Fanny Dulin and myself, and we have French, Mauritian, Belgian and Indian origins as well as bilingual upbringings. Some of the most interesting questions have recently been raised in casting this show, in keeping with the current public debates: we have full gender parity, a diverse cast, a disabled performer. In addition to the cast, we have a very diverse team from the movement director drawing on non-western movement, the composer, to the three musicians from the grunge rock-band A Riot in Heaven and even our whole admin office is diverse. It’s all about the exchange of cultures and ideas at the core of the company.

CM: You’re the artistic director of Exchange Theatre, and you’ve been producing since 2006. What have been the highlights thus far? DF: The milestones are all connected. Since the first production of The Flies and getting our own rehearsal space, we have produced ten years of work so that’s about fifteen productions. Some moments were very interesting because over a whole decade we experimented with many forms of theatre and I turned from being a very vision-driven director, to be more interested in the process and crafting a narrative. I think one of the highlights is certainly after we decided to produce everything in two languages and produced two Moliere plays, and when these plays were Offie-nominated for Best Director, Best Production and Best Video Design. This recognition allowed me to work at the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre as an assistant and it has informed the running of my company so much. This all happened at the same time as Brexit. It’s very polarised. It’s like being told both “you’re welcome” and “you’re not” at the same time.

CM: What’s your own career background? How did you end up working in theatre and did you always want to be a performer? DF: I’ve always wanted to be a performer, for as long as I can remember. Growing up in Mauritius, it wasn’t really a tangible option through my upbringing because there was not really a professional viability in the area. But as a teenager I was in High School in France, and I started doing drama and just got hooked. So after my baccalaureate, I went straight to audition for national French drama schools and after two years I entered the National Theatre of Chaillot in Paris.

After graduating, having been brought up in a bilingual environment, I immediately wanted to come to London. It was back in 2004 and I haven’t left since. So aside from my roles in Exchange Theatre’s shows, I have worked a lot in the Fringe with renowned companies such as The Faction, Border Crossings, Theatre Lab, Voliere, playing great parts too, like Macbeth. In parallel, I have been keeping a strong connection with France, performing regularly in street theatre, or on stage in Bordeaux and Paris whenever I can.

CM: What ambitions do you have for the company in the future? DF: We’re working hard at getting our work to France now, as it is so informed by the cultural bridge we built across the channel. It would be really interesting to see if they perceive us as a British company just like we’re seen as a French company here. We’re also slowly building connections with the academic and research world both in languages and in drama. We took part in a language conference last year, I had an article published in a literary review this year, and one of our translations, Break of Noon by Paul Claudel which I directed last year, is about to be published. We want to keep pursuing these. When we started, we were very inspired by Cheek by Jowl both for the international ambition, and also for what Declan Donnellan brought to the craft of acting in theory. We have something to bring too.

CM: What’s coming up next for you, after this? DF: We have been awarded free business support with Arts Forward and Deutsche Bank and this has helped us to reshape the company with a more sustainable structure, a board, and allowed us to be more ambitious. We have drawn a real five-year plan with international projects as well as local activism around our idea of cultural exchange and inclusivity. We can’t announce what the projects are yet, but we have built a strong relationship with Voila Europe festival and are talking about their next edition in November (we took part in November 2018 with ‘Becoming Berenice’, and in April at Tristan Bates with ‘Noor’). We are also working hard at bringing our unique work to Paris as soon as possible.

‘The Flies’ is on at The Bunker Theatre from 11 Jun-6 Jul. See the venue website here for more information and to book tickets.

LINKS: www.bunkertheatre.com | www.exchangetheatre.com | twitter.com/david_furlong

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junker-town · 5 years ago

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A French summer in Lyon and Marseille

“No good.”

The ticket-taker at Paris Gare de Lyon shook his head after scanning the piece of paper that should have had me on the next train to the World Cup semifinals. He didn’t explain why my ticket to Lyon was invalid. Just that it was. I stood there, drenched in sweat, both from running to the station and that I happened to be in Paris during a heatwave.

I looked up to the sky and said, “Oh, my God, now you’re just being petty as fuck.”

But the accusation wasn’t directed at the station employee; It was directed at God.

The bad ticket was one in an already long list of frustrations on my journey. When my friend Zack first suggested this trip last year, he positioned it as a summertime French adventure of long walks, decadent food, lazy mornings mixed with work and relaxation that would give way to days filled with lightness and wonder. I couldn’t turn it down.

Zack, buying the pastries for one of our walks

Plus, I wanted to go to a World Cup.

The plan was to spend a few days in London before traveling to France, but my initial flight from New York to Heathrow was overbooked. What followed was two days of standby hell as I kept getting bumped from one flight to another until a merciful gate agent who recognized me from an earlier flight got me on a plane to Paris.

”Why does this always happen to you?” my friend, Graham, asked when I told him about my troubles.

The answer is God. God is fucking with me. Not out of maliciousness, I don’t think, but a shared playfulness that sometimes goes too far.

God puts problems in my path, especially when I travel, and my job is to find hidden solutions to get what and where I want. The obstacles are sometimes ridiculous — once on my walk home from school a bunch of squirrels blocked my path and came after me when I tried to scare them — but the solutions often involve finding compassionate helpers, like the gate agent who I wouldn’t have seen again if I hadn’t changed my flight to Paris or taken the advice of going to Amsterdam instead.

God’s game resumed soon after I landed in France when I didn’t see my train to Lyon on the departure board at Paris Gare du Nord. I learned from an employee who noticed my confusion that not only was I at the wrong station, but it would take a 15-minute metro ride to get to the right one.

Even then, I still made it — with three minutes to spare. I felt triumphant, smirking at God and thinking, “Once again, I’ve won.”

”No good.”

I’m not an anxious person, and I often enjoy these misadventures, but there is an overwhelming loneliness that takes hold when things go wrong in a foreign country. If you know the language, you can choose not to speak — you can choose solitude and silence. When you don’t have that choice, you’re trapped in silence. It’s suffocating.

The long line at the ticket counter almost guaranteed I didn’t have time to make it on the next (and last) train to Lyon. Before I could come up with a new plan, a worker who looked like a darker version of my uncle spotted me in the crowd and motioned me over. Most non-Nigerians can’t tell that I’m Nigerian — even some of my own friends still forget. But anywhere I’ve gone, the Nigerians there have been quick to spot me.

He grabbed my hand and asked what was wrong before pulling me into the ticket office and repeating my story to his coworker. His friend looked at him, looked at me, looked at my ticket, and then told us to give him some time to take care of two other customers.

During our wait, the Nigerian man told me how he ended up in Paris — the menial jobs he worked and how he eventually got a job at the station which allows him to send money back home. Before our paths crossed that day, he had already helped two Nigerian families who missed their trains.

Anyone who has ever been an immigrant knows they often have to pave their own paths to navigate societal structures lacking in compassion and mercy. Some are based on pure kindness, such as knowing the owners of an African grocery store who will let you defer payment for food when you can’t afford it. Others are based on small monetary exchanges. They help you solve a problem otherwise unsolvable within the standard bureaucratic system, and you make it worth their while in return.

This isn’t a point of privilege — it’s the reaction to not having any to begin with.

The man in the office spent five minutes looking back and forth from my ticket to his computer screen before printing a ticket for the last train to Lyon. The train that was supposed to be full.

The Nigerian man explained afterward that he told his friend I was his sister’s son. And though the terms of his help were never made explicit, I gave him 30 euros.

Missing that first train meant missing England vs. the United States, but once I made it to Lyon and was en route to my Airbnb, I took solace in soon being able to shower, eat, and sleep after such a long day.

Such a naive assumption. The real art of pettiness is denying victory when the person is almost at the finish line.

The first time the key fob didn’t open the gate, I thought I was doing it wrong. A few more tries confirmed the gate recognized the fob but still wouldn’t open. It was the middle of the night, and all I could do was sit on my suitcase outside — in a French suburb where I knew no one — laughing like a maniac.

After playing this game with God for so long, you’d think I’d know better.

Lyon wasn’t crowded despite being the concluding host city of the World Cup. Walking around it seemed most people visiting Lyon were there for their own adventures that just happened to collide with the biggest sporting event in the world.

You could sit outside a restaurant in the middle of the city admiring the architecture or absorbing the scenery and totally forget you were at the World Cup. It happened to me multiple times.

In the city center of Lyon, the day before the Final

As much as I was enjoying Lyon, I had yet to explore my ulterior motive for going on this trip in the first place. Marseille has had a pull on me for as long as I can remember— the more I learned about it, the stronger that force became. A city of immigrants and exiles. Of water and myths. A fiery place with open arms that doesn’t hide its struggles with poverty and corruption. A cosmopolitan city with people who are constantly under pressure to leave, but refuse to be gentrified away.

The only place I have ever longed for as much as Marseille is the village in Nigeria where I was born. Both have the feeling of home but in different ways.

The village is where I was born, where I became. I can feel the history of my family and my people pulling me back to it. It is in the foundation of who I am. Marseille feels like where I can live and die as an adult, and God willing, an old man. It’s where I will be at peace. It’s the place where the longing, daydreaming, and the pain of being and feeling out of place would stop.

It was made for me, which is why when I developed a heat rash on my wrist the day before I left, I was overcome with anxiety that my body was going to break down before I could see Marseille for myself.

All you can see are trees and sky before entering the train tunnel that leads into the city. It is only when you come out the other side that Marseille unveils itself in breathtaking fashion. Sprawling hills dotted with houses and ancient buildings. Boats scattered along the coastline of the Mediterranean. In an instant, you go from trees, sky, and darkness to one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Entering Marseille

I was prepared for a day of wandering with only two places in the city I considered mandatory to see. The first was Old Port. I wanted to be by the water, watching the people, the boats, the seagulls — to know whether they did follow the trawler. I wanted to sit and simply be there.

I then roamed the city with no destination in mind, from the port to the Cathédrale La Major to the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde.

I walked through Le Panier, an art-covered neighborhood of shops, cafes and alleyways and the oldest district in Marseille. There, I saw people like the Nigerian man from the train station and young African and Arab boys following the universal dress code of football shirts and track pants. I walked past people whose stories I felt close to, and I was happy to be in a city whose identity was built by people searching for a better world. Lyon was the lightness of a vacation, but Marseille had the heaviness and the force of life.

Fittingly, the city makes you work to see the beautiful nature surrounding it. If you want to see the Instagram version of Marseille, you have to walk the steep hills that’ll take you there. Long staircases are the only way to get inside many of Marseille’s beautiful churches.

Old Port

My favorite picture of the trip wasn’t of the gorgeous landscape. It was of a woman, a stranger standing outside on the balcony of her apartment overlooking a cruise ship harbor.

She was the only person on the balcony, smoking and gazing out at the water. Like she was waiting for something, or someone, or imagining a different life than the one she had. It reminded me that even in the places where we wish to be, some people there might be looking to escape to somewhere else.

After a minute or so, she looked over at me and smiled. I raised my camera, silently asking if I could take her picture. She nodded and then she went back to smoking and gazing as if I wasn’t there.

The other place that was mandatory for me to see in Marseille was the Stade Vélodrome.

Since I was young, I’ve loved three teams: Arsenal, Marseille, and Milan. Out of those three, it’s Marseille’s stadium that I had to visit before I died. Not that I don’t love the San Siro, which is more legendary in terms of Milan’s success there, or the Emirates and Highbury before it, but they don’t represent the city and its myths for me in the same way the Vélodrome does for Marseille. San Siro and Emirates are stadiums for teams; the Vélodrome is for Marseille.

François Thomazeau wrote about Olympique Marseille in Le Monde years ago:

”MARSEILLE is a city of lies of such peculiar exaggeration that the town invented a word for them — galéjades. Marseille has a knack of turning every petty memory into myth, to try to make life bigger than it really is. And its most powerful dream machine is its football club, Olympique de Marseille OM. It sounds and reads like the name of a strange cult, which in many ways, it is - the Stade Vélodrome, the temple to the only religion that unites rival communities in town.”

When I arrived, only one person was there — a man sitting nearby, eating lunch. I had a knack for finding people in public solitude in Marseille. Had I been alone, I would have bent down and kissed the ground. I would have thanked it for Eric Cantona, Samir Nasri, Hatem Ben Arfa, Dimitri Payet, Benoit Cheyrou, Lucho Gonzalez, Chris Waddle, Franck Ribery, Didier Drogba, Steve Mandanda, Marcel Desailly, Abedi Pele, Mamadou Niang, Robert Pires, André-Pierre Gignac, Djibril Cissé, and Florian Thauvin. Even Zinedine Zidane, who never played for the team, but was born in the city and was a citizen of the team.

I didn’t want to leave. I had a World Cup final to attend, but all I wanted to do was to stay at the Vélodrome. After tweeting a selfie in front of the stadium, I reluctantly made the journey to the train station where I realized Marseille’s English account had quote-tweeted the selfie with the words, “Welcome…” and the emoji for home.

I thought of Thomazeau writing about Gunnar Andersson’s death after he had come to Marseille: “Was he trying to leave town, to make it back home to Gothenburg? Did he realise you never leave Marseille once you have been lured there?”

I knew the USWNT would beat the Netherlands in the World Cup final, but I was quietly cheering for the Dutch. The U.S. is a much deeper and talented team than its competitors. They’re so good they can often overcome tactical deficiencies by sheer ability. You don’t really suffer from not playing the best players if the second-best players are still better than the opposing team’s. I wanted the Dutch to win, to give a sign of hope that other teams were catching up to America.

The United States is an ironic soccer country in that everywhere else in the world, institutional sexism had termed soccer as too masculine for women and sabotaged the game. In America, it was seen as an effeminate sport for such a long time that it allowed women in the U.S. freedom that others didn’t have. That’s not to discount the historical sexism and misogyny, both institutional and explicit, that still exists in American soccer and sports in general. Beyond the weird perception of masculinity and sport, the USWNT’s dominance in soccer can also be traced to the implementation of Title IX in 1972.

They’re much more talented than every other team, but that dominance, while deserved, is also predicated on the imbalance of opportunity that exists in women’s soccer. The hope then, is that the powers that be in other countries will start investing in women’s soccer, creating opportunities for participation, and professionalizing the game so much that the players won’t need to suffer and work multiple jobs while trying to be athletes.

It’s because of this context of inequality and sabotage that there was a sense of universal solidarity to the World Cup final I don’t imagine exists in most male tournaments. It felt as though everyone, while cheering for their separate teams, was also cheering for the sport as a whole. The competition is still there, but so is the understanding of how delicate survival of the sport is. When the final whistle blew and the Dutch players fell to the ground in disappointment, many of their fans stood up and cheered with joy and pride as opposed to a showing of sadness.

After the game, my friends and I made our way to the city to celebrate the USWNT’s victory — a relatively well-behaved party after a World Cup win. It seemed impossible to cause pure chaos in Lyon, at least as an outsider. The only thing removing me from the illusion of lightness were occasional sightings of gun-toting military forces tasked with security during the games. We passed a group of them en route to a McDonald’s, which we soon realized was closed despite being surrounded by a large group of Algerians immersed in celebration. Their display went from peaceful to chaotic as I looked up and saw what appeared to be an incoming grenade.

It hissed upon landing, clouding the air and making it instantly unbreathable. As someone who has been pepper-sprayed before, the pain of it was familiar. There was no clearer sign that the lightness of the World Cup was over, and the chaos of the African Cup of Nations had started.

I wanted to apologize to my friends when we finally got home, as it wasn’t their fault that we got pepper-sprayed, or even the fault of the Algerian fans. I wanted to tell them that God was fucking with me. And there was no way he’d let this trip end without making me play the game one more time.

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forcri · 6 years ago

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Têtu: Madame X is clearly your most political album since American Life what was your state of mind? Were you afraid? Were you angry? Have you had enough? Madonna: A little bit of everything. I am afraid. I’m frightened by so many things that are going on in the world. As you are I’m sure. But I’m also optimistic. I feel like the future is full of possibilities. I hope I was able to channel my anger and my rage in order to create music full of joy. And I wish that these new songs will inspire people to react. As it’s what we have to do with our rage. We won’t change the world with fury. I feel every emotion you mentioned. To me, in many ways, this album is the continuation of American Life.

On “Killers Who Are Partying”, you sing “I’ll be Israel, if Israel is imprisoned. / I’ll be Islam, if Islam is attacked.” What should we understand? That you want become one with minorities? What Mirwais and I try to say in this song, is that we don’t see the world in a fragmented way, but as a unity. And I am part of that. I see myself as part of the soul of the Universe. I don’t see the world through categories and labels. But society loves to categorise, put labels and separate people: the poor, the gays, the Africans… because it gives us a sense of security. What I say in this song is that I will be every label people try to put on us. I will be on the front line. I’ll take the punches, the shots. Because I am a citizen of the world and because my soul is connected to all other humans. So I am responsible for everyone I need to take care of them. If one person suffers, I suffer. To me, this song is an act and a declaration of solidarity.

Mirwais produced 6 songs on this album, including this one. How was the reunion? We never fell out of touch. It was great working together again. ‘Killers Who Are Partying” is the first song worked on. It’s a political song but everything Mirwais and I do together, always ends up being political. Because it’s also his way of thinking. The guitar we hear during the intro of the song is a sample I recorded myself during a fado session. The sound of this guitar is exactly what I wanted. I really felt inspired by the melancholy and the feeling of this music, by the sound of Cesária Évora, by morna [music] and Cape Verde. The authenticity of the music I heard everywhere in Portugal touched me. I wanted to make this music my own and make it sound more modern. I asked Mirwais: “What do you think you can do with it Does it inspire you?” Of course, he really liked it.

In the song “Dark Ballet”, you sing “Our world is full of pain.” Are you not part of “our world” anymore? I’m not saying that your world is not mine anymore. I just say that this world where people are ruled and dominated by the illusion of fame and luck… ruled, dominated and enslaved by social media… ruled and dominated by oppressors who discriminate people endlessly… this world, I refuse to be a part of it. This song, “Dark Ballet,” was inspired by Joan of Arc and her story. It’s like a point of connection. Madame X and Joan of Arc come together. I speak her words and her language and I say: “I am not afraid to die for what I believe in.” And it’s exactly what I feel.

A year ago, you commented on a photo your manager Guy Oseary posted regarding the 20-year anniversary of Ray of Light: “Remember when i made records with other artists from beginning to end and I was allowed to be a visionary?”. Have you been allowed to be a visionary this time? I think you are taking things out of context… (Her publicist steps in: It’s unclear. Do you have another question?”, but Madonna continues) I don’t remember exactly what I wrote at the time. But I was surely was not criticising Guy Oseary. Nobody has ever not allowed me to do me anything. Yes, people criticise me, but nobody ever told me I couldn’t be a visionary. People often warn me however and say “Be careful!” (and she moves her finger like someone would when reprimanding a child).

Do you think this album will shake the music industry? I wouldn’t use this word to describe my music. Provocative, conflicting, emotional, passionate: those are the words I would use. And I also hope “inspiring.”

In the intro of “I Rise”, we can hear a sample of Emma González’ speech, one of the survivors of the High School shooting in Parkland who became an icon and advocate for gun control. Do you feel you’ve inspired this generation? I hope so. That’s what I am looking for. I see Emma as a spokeswoman and pioneer for her generation. I just keep doing what I have always done. I fight for women’s rights and humans in general. I fight for equality.

In “Medellín”, the first single of the album, you reminisce about your early days, when you were 17. What do you think of your career? I think I’ve taken a lot of shit! (laughs). That’s for sure. I feel like I’ve broken multiple barriers for women who came after me. But I’m aware that our fight is far from being over. And to be honest, I feel like I’m still fighting for the same things today.

“Like a Prayer” was released 30 years ago and created a huge controversy. Are you trying to replicate a similar controversy today? Honestly, when I wrote “Like a Prayer,” I didn’t think that the song would cause such controversy. It’s the video that shocked people: the fact that I kiss a black saint, that I dance in front of burning crosses… people saw it as a sacrilege. But I didn’t think for one second that things would be perceived like this. All of this was very controversial but it was not my first intention. This time, however, I mean to be subversive!

Provocation has always been a way for you to draw people’s attention to important matters like LGBT+ rights, racism, women… But today, it’s more the conservatives that use provocation, right? Give me examples!

People like Trump or Marine Le Pen… If you are a narrow-minded person and you use provocation, then that will be your message. Everything depends on the intention (laughs). I am not a narrow-minded person. I am not provocative so I can put people down and put up barriers or tell them “Stay seated.” I am at the opposite off that. Use provocation to destroy is not my intention.

Do you feel connected with your LGBT+ fans? Do you claim the status of the gay icon? I think it’s weird to call myself an icon. I feel blessed to have a voice, and to be able to use it to help people who don’t have one and to fight for the rights of those who are not heard. I think the word ‘icon’ is a word that other people can give you. But I can’t claim it for myself. Do you think I’m an icon?

You are the definition of the word! If Têtu thinks I am an icon, then I am an icon!

Is this album a tribute to your life in Portugal? You listened to it. You tell me if you think it payed tribute to Portugal and to fado? Not only fado by the way. There are lots of other influences I took since I live there. But obviously this is where the album was born. Even if there are other influences, this album is cleary an expression of my time in Portugal. I have a house there and I go there often. My son still plays football at Benfica. But you know, I live on airplanes. The sky is my home (laughs). I hope my Portuguese is good. I had a good coach, Dino D’Santiago. He helped me a lot and introduced me to amazing musicians. He played a major part in the creation of this record.

We don’t know Dino D’Santiago well. Could you tell us more about your collaboration with him? He was kind of an interface. He is from Cape Verde and most of the musicians from Cape Verde I worked with don’t speak English. He was in the studio with me when we were recording. He told them what I wanted. He helped me musically to give life to these songs because I had no other way to communicate with them. Well, in a way, I was able to thanks to the music. We wrote a song called “Funana” which will be a bonus track. I have another song called “Ciao Bella” which is not on the deluxe version of the album. The singer Kimi Djabaté, who’s from Guinée-Bissau, sings on this track. Once again, it’s Dino who introduced me to him. When he came to sing for this album, he didn’t speak a word of English, only Creole. Dino was the translator and really helped me. When I recorded “Killers Who Are Partying” and “Extreme Occident” which are definitely influenced by morna, I sent them the tracks. I really wanted his feedback. I wanted to know if he felt the songs were authentic. His approval was very important to me.

How do you choose the people you collaborate with, like Maluma for example? It happens in a very organic way. All my collaborations are decided when meeting the people. We share a glass of champagne, we get along and we talk about the things we could accomplish together. To tell you the truth, there is nothing really deep about that. It’s very instinctive. I am a fan of every person I’ve collaborated with.

You’ve often collaborated with French people: Jean-Paul Gaultier, JR, Martin Solveig, Mirwais… What is your connection with you? Yes! What’s this connection with the French? It’s like I can’t get rid of them (laughs). They are the authors of my biggest collaborations. Mondino, Gaultier, Mirwais… I think I love them because they are very… stubborn [stubborn means têtu in French, which is the name of the magazine.] They stand up to me. The people you mentioned are very intellectual people, extremely creative, very cultured. We share a beautiful synergy. (She slams her glass on the table and yells “Aqua por favor!” Everybody jumps. She then points to a photographer and yells “Who let the paparazzi in!? Who are you? Do I know you?” The photographer stops, terrorised. « It’s Ricardo, Madonna’s official photographer » her publicist clarifies. Everybody laughs.)

On the album, you sing in Portuguese and in Spanish. Is it a way to challenge the dominance of English in pop music? That’s exactly it! I like the idea of world music. I hate compartmentalising. We don’t want to do it with people, why should we do it with music? I like to turn on to the radio in New York and listen to people sing in Spanish, take my car in Lisbon and listen to reggaeton or dancehall. It’s great. Stepping away from English is a challenge, but you know I like challenges.

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rosiemotene · 6 years ago

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One of my passions in life are arts and how we can promote our beautiful continent. I started my Pan African agency, http://www.wakaagency.biz so to bridge the gap between like-minded artisans, activist, and creators. Along my journey, I have worked and still work with phenomenal individualss, who live their lives in changing our narrative with regard to how we see ourselves as Africans, how we promote ourselves and what history needs to to be corrected. Donald Molosi is one game changer. He is a classically-trained actor and award-winning playwright. He holds an MA in Performance Studies from UCSB, a Graduate Diploma in Classical Acting from LAMDA, and a BA in Political Science and Theatre from Williams College. Molosi is featured in A United Kingdom, opposite Golden Globe and Emmy award nominee David Oyelowo and Oscar nominee Rosamund Pike. The film depicts the marriage of Prince Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams in the 1940s and the uniting of the people of Botswana. Molosi divides his time between Botswana and the rest of Africa. His second book, We Are All Blue has been named one of 2016’s most prominent African Books by several literary journals including Writivism. In 2017, he wrote a thought-provoking essay, which received great reviews globally. It also received some criticismm from people who refuse to acknowledge the negative effects that colonialism had on our cuture, tradition, identity, and ultimately how we see ourselves.

The essay:

Dear Upright African,

I am reminded of six years ago. I had just flown into Johannesburg from Kampala. I was in Johannesburg to do a screen test for a TV series about Botswana. Before the screen test was over I had already landed one of the lead roles. Of course, I was elated, mostly because even though I was enjoying an award-winning acting career on-Broadway and off-Broadway in New York City, I still had the firm desire to do something at home. A week later I was in Gaborone, script in hand, and ready to film. Then an email from the series producers popped up on my phone saying that after “much careful thought and consideration” I had been dropped from the production for “not looking African enough.” The news was more infuriating than disappointing. I found myself wishing they had told me that I had been dropped because I had not been a good enough actor during the screen tests, or that I was asking for too much money. But to say that I did not fulfilll some British self-styled Africanist director’s zoological notion of what an African looks like was to abuse even my ancestors. I tell you, Upright African, you and I must write and perform many-many stories about the Africa we know where my perfect teeth are not remarkable.

Internalized Oppression seeped into our young minds every time our teachers congratulated us for speaking well, “like a proper Brit” and in the same breath ridiculed us for having Afro-textured hair. British merchant John Locke, in 1561 wrote that Africans were “people without heads.” Trust me, Upright African, to pretend that I don’t have a head (even mind) would have been a difficult thing for me to do in high school, or in that audition room in Johannesburg. Locke also describes Africans as people with “their mouths and eyes in their breasts.” Now that would be pure comedy if that sort of language and imagery had not animalized and thingified the African so profoundly in the West’s imaginary that it is partly how Europe justified (to herself and the rest of us) her brutal colonisation of a third of the world. Perhaps Locke would be hilarious if, in 1829, European taxidermists had not exhumed the body of a Tswana King to exhibit it in the same way as a trophy animal in Spain for the amusement of Europeans who had not seen a Black man before. Perhaps asking me to perform a zoological Africanness would not be insolent if Saartjie Baartman had not been trafficked from the Cape into to being a dancing sex-slave for Parisians at Palais Royal and Londoners at Piccadilly Circus simply because of so-called steatopygia, the “condition” of having a big butt, which apparently rendered her more like an animal and therefore inferior to the European.

When I predictably lived in Paris years after high school I almost-instinctively knew how to catch the metro from Villejuif to Centre Pompidou to Porte de Montreuil. I therefore found myself questioning my education almost obsessive-compulsively: what study of French history and culture (in a Botswana school) had this been that it almost-by-definition had to displace people who look like me and you out of story whilst the bloody Eiffel tower itself was built by enslaved Africans who died in the process and whose bones remain under the magnificent monument? What if in that high school class you and I had learnt not just about the great French singers Patricia Kaas and Edith Piaf but also about their equally great contemporary Josephine Baker and how she wrote a competing narrative with her body, claiming the agency of the black female body on stage, in Paris no less? How different might our consciousness have been at that age as products of “international” schools? Would we have spent so many disorienting years after high school apologizing for (not) being African? What if we had simply learnt about African empires instead of French history? You see, we also belong in history as protagonists and not just as supporting characters. Upright African, we must also make dolls that look like little African girls. Perhaps I digress but you get me.

When the grand story of David Livingstone’s peripatetic exploits across Africa is told in Big-British-Books-On-African-History used in African schools, private or public, it introduces us to his African aides, Susi and Chuma. We are told that Susi and Chuma were loyal servants to David Livingstone. We are also told that Susi and Chuma were so loyal to David Livingstone that when he died at a location described as “the centre of Africa,” Susi and Chuma risked their own lives by carrying Livingstone’s embalmed body for months from modern day Zambia all the way to the coast of modern-day Tanzania so that the body could be shipped off to London for burial. Now, what if we dared to tell the stories of Susi and Chuma not just as servants but also as – to use that fancy term reserved for Europeans – ‘explorers?’ What if in our version of missionary history we also saw Africa through Susi and Chuma’s eyes? Would we not see that Ilala, the Zambian village where Livingstone died, is in fact not the center of Africa but simply a case in colonial cartography full of self-serving symbolism?

I wrote We Are All Blue because beneath the Grand Narratives of global history lie African stories waiting for you and me, Upright Africans in the world, to truthfully tell back into our Consciousness. With no apology. For our own humanity’s sake!

-Donald Molosi

Donald has recently published another book, Dear Upright African. His European book launch took place at the African Book Festival Berlin 2019. The African Book Festival aims to summon the finest in African and Afro-diasporic writing to Berlin. The event was curated by award-winning writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga from Zimbabwe. With Ben Okri, the festival’s headliner is another literary giant from Nigeria. This year the event focused thematically on transitions, change, upheaval and future visions – in a literal as well as figurative sense: How do African writers interpret the issue of crossing borders and trespassing, physically but also stylistically. How are personal experiences and changes in location reflected in poetry? Which political upheavals are picked up on in fiction and how are they interpreted? In which ways can and do African thinkers influence current situations.

To book him as a speaker, consultant, linguist or trainer, please contact us [email protected] http://www.wakaagency.biz

The Dear Upright African Movement. One of my passions in life are arts and how we can promote our beautiful continent. I started my Pan African agency, www.wakaagency.biz so to bridge the gap between like-minded artisans, activist, and creators.

#Africa #Botswana #Dear Upright African #Donald Molosi #WAKA #We Are All Blue

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assemblyoftheway · 6 years ago

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FROM THE KINGDOM TO AMERICA

From the Kingdom of Hueda (Judah) to the Americas and Caribbeans

‘Ouidah’ is the spelling of the town’s name current nowadays, it occurs in the European sources between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in various other forms: in English ‘Whydah’, in Dutch ‘Fida’, in French ‘Juda’, and in Portuguese ‘Ajuda’. It should be noted that the correct indigenous name for the town is Glehue. This is the local name used even nowadays when speaking in Fon rather than French. Ouidah (more correctly Hueda/Juda) is more properly the name of the KINGDOM to which Glehue original belonged to. So, strictly and originally, Hueda (Juda) was not the name of the town nowadays called ‘OUIDAH’, but rather of the KINGDOM to which it belonged in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, whose capital was Savi. The people of Hueda belonged to the same linguistic group as the Fon of Dahomey, although historically distinct from them; this language family is nowadays generally called by scholars ‘GBE’ (but formerly commonly ‘Ewe’ or ‘Adja’).

Gbe languages are: Ewe, Fon, Adja, Gen, Mina and Phla-Phera. Ewe (Hebrew) is the most popular spoken language.

The last ruler of the Kingdom of Hueda before it was captured by the forces of Dahomey on March 9, 1727 was Haffon. He became The King of the Kingdom of Hueda in 1708, he received his coronation crown as a gift from Portugal, and his coronation party included 40 of his favorite wives. The Kingdom of Hueda was centered in Savi. Savi was the capital of the Kingdom of Hueda, before advance troops from the kingdom of Dahomey met little direct military resistance, as they crossed the body of water. Documentary accounts from European traders then living in the region suggest that Dahomean troops proceeded to first sack and burn the palace at Savi and thereafter to raze European trading lodges located therein. During these attacks, tens of thousands of HUEDANS were displaced, thousands killed and thousands more removed to Abomey or designated for later SALE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. Between the first historical documentation of Hueda in the mid-seventeenth century and its fiery conquest in 1725, 183,000 captives departed from the Huedan coastal trading entrepot at Ouidah beach. ENSLAVEMENT IN the AMERICAS and the CARIBBEANS awaited a vast majority of those who would survive the terror of the Middle Passage.

Side note: Lets pause and reflect on what was just read. It just pointed out that, Huedans (Juda) were sold and enslaved from Hueda to the Americas and the Caribbeans. When looking at Duet 28:36,68 that’s exactly what YHWH said he would do if his laws, statues and commandments were not taught.

Elites living in the relatively small coastal polity of Hueda profited greatly by providing a marketplace at the Hueda capital complex at Savi for the trade in CAPTIVES and in turn taxing African and European traders who used the Savi market. After Dahomey attacked, William Snelgrave suggested that King Agaja of Dahomey sacrificed approximately 4,000 Huedan prisoners to celebrate the victory. The Dahomeyan campaign of conquest brought to a close the centrality of Savi as an INTERNATIONAL TRADING VENUE, a regional administrative center, a FOCAL POINT FOR HUEDAN RELIGIOUS LIFE, and the place of final appeal in Huedan judicial matters. With the Huedan royalty humbled, Agaja moved local political and economic administration to OUIDAH. After the sacking of Savi, Huedans, living in exile around Lake Aheme near Grand Popo, mounted sporadic and unsuccessful raids against Dahomeyan Ouidah until the 1770s. Now, you’re probably wondering: Who is William Snelgrave?

William Snelgrave was an English sea captain, slave trader, and ivory trader on the West African coast. In 1727 he arrived at Hueda which had just been captured by Dahomey. His account of this event, which he learned of second hand, has been the main source of many modern historians. He wrote a book and in 1734 he published, “A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave-Trade.” For thirty years, from 1701 to 1730, Snelgrave practically lived at sea; he was the ship captain of fourteen voyages to West Africa that carried Huedans from Africa to the Americas. Ouidah alone exported more than one million captives before closing its trade in the 1860s. There is a manuscript in question, titled “A Diary of my Journey to Ardra,” which is William Snelgrave’s first documented account of his encounter with King Agaja on April 10, 1727. The manuscript is preserved in the Bank of England Archives among the Humphry Morice Papers. The manuscript Diary takes on additional significance because the original manuscript version of William Snelgrave’s 1734 publication, “A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea,” is preserved at the National Maritime Museum. In 1990, Robin Law, in a comparative analysis of the two sources, identified several important and substantial variations between the manuscript draft and the final publication. By drawing on important differences identified by Robin, between the manuscript draft and Snelgrave’s published, New Account, this essay identifies additional textual changes and discrepancies by comparing the two sources with the Diary. In addition to William Snelgrave’s Diary, there are approximately two dozen manuscripts in William Snelgrave’s hand consisting of letters, lists, accounts, ship’s logs, and trade journals scattered throughout the Morice Papers, many informing the nature of the Whydah (Hueda) slave trade before and after the rise of Dahomey that will be used as supplementary evidence. The Dahomey King Agaja, so vividly depicted in the Diary, founded his kingdom because he coveted King Huffon’s direct and unrestricted access to European trade goods. There are a few ancient maps from 1737, 1743, 1747, 1775,1778, 1826, and 1885 (which are attached). These maps show the ‘KINGDOM OF JUDA’ was on the SLAVE COAST. These maps, drawn/written by different cartographers, all show ‘JUDA’ on the African West coast in the 1700s. There is also a Slave port known as Ouidah (also known as Whydah) which is a commercial center in the modern African nation of Benin that was one of the most active slave trading ports in all of Africa.

The Kingdom of Hueda Before the Slave Trade

Hueda-era builders used architectural clay excavated from ditches/borrow pits in the construction and maintenance of now deflated house compounds and other structures located nearby. The Huedans had a PYTHON DEITY “Dangbe, who Huedans considered to have the ability to check movement and create zones of inclusion and protection. This should sound familiar to some of you who know scriptures. Do you remember in Numbers 21:4-9, when The Creator sent POISONOUS SERPENTS among the Israelites in the wilderness, and they bit the people, so that many would die? Well, he did this because the Israelites were speaking against The Creator and Moses, because they became impatient on the way to the promise land. So, they started complaining. However, the people then went to Moses, those that were left, and acknowledged that they had sinned, by speaking against The Creator and Moses. They then asked Moses to pray to The Creator to take the SERPENTS away from them. YHWH then told Moses to make a FIERY SERPENT and set it on the pole; and everyone who was bitten shall look at it and live.” So, Moses did what he was told and made a BRONZE SERPENT and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the SERPENT and LIVE. Now, as years went by, the Israelites started worshipping this Serpent, instead of looking at The Creator as protection, because our ancestors were notorious for looking towards deities, idols, and images for help and not The Creator. This is ONE OF THE REASONS we were always exiled from our land and placed amongst other nations that were our enemies (Deut. 6:14; Deut. 18:10-12; Judges 2:12; Judges 10:6-14; 1 Chron 16:26; 2 Chron. 25:14-15; 2 Chron. 28:23; Isaiah 2:8-9; Jer. 32:30-35) When you read 2 Kings 18:1-4, King Hezekiah had just become King of Judah and he did that which was right in the eyes of The Creator. When he became King the first thing, he did was remove high places (places of pagan worship), he broke images and cut down groves, and he broke in pieces the BRASEN SERPENT that Moses had made: because in those days they were burning incense to it (offering to it) and he called it Nehushtan. So, as we can see, this SERPENT became a deity, just like the Python Deity “Dangbe” was a deity that our ancestors would look to, while they were on the West Coast of Africa. HaMashiach made a comparison to the bronze serpent in John 3:14, by saying, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up, because whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” This comparison is saying, just as when someone who was bitten by the serpent was healed when they looked upon it, when Moses lifted it up, so can those, who look to HaMashiach, who was also lifted up. HaMashiach made it very clear that he is the TRUTH, the LIFE and the WAY and that he is the light of the world (John 8:12) and that you, house of Israel, are the LIGHT of the world (Matt. 5:14) and to let your LIGHT shine before men, that they may see your GOOD works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Remember, when HaMashiach was speaking, he was speaking ONLY TO THE LOST SHEEP OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL (Matt. 15:24), it was not until after he resurrected that he told the disciples to go out into the world and teach the NATIONS all that he had taught them before he died and rose again (Matt. 28:18-20). We are to only worship and give adoration directly to The Creator, NOT a deity, image or idol, person, angels, sun, moon, and stars. The Creator also spoke of this in Deut. 4:12-19 and clearly told us that we are to destroy these types of things, but do not do it unto him, however, we did it unto him. So, we need to turn from this wicked way and any other ways that are considered, in the eyes of The Creator, to be wicked.

Hueda conducted most daily activities in courtyards, as does the archaeological recovery of numerous ceramic sherds, whole vessels, grinding stone fragments, carbonized oil palm, and maize kernels (maize was an element of the Huedans diet) European visitors recorded public shrines located along roads and within the town of Savi as points of earnest spiritual negotiation. Some of these same chroniclers noted, when excavations proceeded below the main living surface of many of these rooms researches frequently encountered human crania and small locally produced earthenware offering jars. Before or shortly after the construction, it appears that Huedans excavated pits, placed offering in these excavations and then filled/covered the excavations to provide a packed clay living surface. For more discussion of the religious significance of the pits, and the other archaeological material associated with Hueda Vodun, See Neil Norman, Powerful Pots, Humbling Holes, and Regional Ritual Processes, Towards an Archaeology of Huedan Vodun ca. 1650-1727, “African Archaeological Review 26, 3 (2009), 187-218.

References - The Social History of the West African Slaving Port, 1727-1892 by Robin Law - Africa Urban Past, by David Anderson - Neil Norman, Powerful Pots, Humbling Holes, and Regional Ritual Processes, Towards an Archaeology of Huedan Vodun ca. 1650-1727, “African Archaeological Review 26, 3 (2009), 187-218. - The Archaeology of Anxienty: The Materiality of Anxious, Worry, and Fear, by Neil Norman and Jeffrey Fleisher - A new account of some parts of Guinea, and the slave-trade, by William Snelgrave

PAINTER Engraving by Jacob van der Schley. He was a Dutch engraver and painter. Jakob van der Schley aka Jakob van Schley (26 July 1715 Amsterdam – 12 February 1779 Amsterdam) was a Dutch draughtsman and engraver. He studied under Bernard Picart (1673-1733) whose style he subsequently copied. His main interests were engraving portraits and producing illustrations for "La Vie de Marianne" by Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (1688-1763), published in The Hague between 1735 and 1747

If you would like to make a video out of this information and pictures you are more then welcome too. May YHWH continue to guide and protect and please stay away from Vodun...HalleluYAH!!!

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gavy19-blog · 8 years ago

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The Face of My Soul / Reincarnation

I will begin to blog my new book: The Face of My Soul, one chapter at a time, every week, on Tumblr. Those who would like to make comments or ask questions, and contribute to the growth of our knowledge base on the ReIncarnation process of the Soul, or are just plain curious, you are welcomed to read and participate. My goal Is remember lessons learned from past lives, in order to apply them and make this life, one of the best ones! Discover if we Can possibly plan where to be born in the next life? Do we have a choice of where, when, and with whom we reincarnate next ? These are the types of questions I will be posing for group discussion at the end of each chapter. I am so lucky to remember via what I call “ memory clips” or snapshots of some of my past lives…. and will do my very best to share potential trigger tips I have discovered, so my readers can try to remember too 💕

I was advised to type a disclaimer stating: this blog is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real life historical persons is for the purpose of entertainment of the readers😀

Saturday February 25,2017 The Face of My Soul

Foreword:

Once you know who you were in a past life, everything begins to fall into place and make sense in this one. The things you enjoy. The root cause of your fears. Your longings and your hopes….. Death ceases to be a torturous thought. Because you KNOW the rebirth of your Soul will let you live once again…like the new leaves that regrow on the branches of a tree, every Spring. Reincarnation is a concept that brings clarity and understanding to such a horrible scenario as death. All Humanity is linked at the spiritual level. Therefore you need never fret nor feel lonely. Even if you don’t think so, you are never alone. You are always surrounded by energy. Our essence or energy source never dies, it just changes form. I hope my writings move you to Ask your Soul, to tell you its story. You will soon realize that Remembrance is a form of ReLiving. I guarantee you that the discoveries about yourself which you will make, will amaze you, like nothing else can! Appreciation:

I want to Thank my Mother Maku, and her Teacher Ingrid. They jointly created the mysterious mermaid’s face underwater, With her hair graciously floating all about. I asked them to paint it for me, so I could use it on the cover of this book, which I started manually writing so many years ago…and now, I have also used her image on one of my purses, which is part of my women’s fashion line. It brings me a great deal of pleasure that so many women have liked and bought it. I made it for us! I truly believe we all evolved from the Sea, so her original essence lives inside of all humanity. They sweetly surprised me, by painting her with My Face, and natural reddish brown long locks. As I wore it when I was in my late twenty's😀 I also want to Thank Maartin, for not only did he open the floodgates of my mind, He Remembered Me!

The chronicle of my journey thru many a lifetimes, is dedicated to those souls who shared precious pieces of their lives at my side. Especially those that loved me, time and time again. They helped make me who I am today, and I am grateful.

Passages of Time: Part I : The Past. C0: I Remember Thee. C1: Aquatic Tales. C2: High Up In The Caves. C3: Rough Seas and Harsh Terrain. C4: Luxury and Trade. C5: The Burdens Of A Queen. C:6 Pirate Treasures. C7: Father Knows Best. C8: Loneliness. C9: Wen Hwa, Never Say Sayonara To Me. C10: England Once Again C11: Once I was a Writer C12: Wild America. C13: Afrique. C14: WW2. Part II : The Present. C15: In This Day and Age. C16: Under The Caribbean Sun. C17: The Delicious Cuisine of Persia. C18: From the Sands of The Sahara. C19: A Young New Restless Soul. C20: So He Was Scottish. C21: My Roman Pours Me Yet Another Cup Of Wine. C22: Cowboy Days. C23: A Siren’s Call. C24: He Has Found Me Once Again, Worshiping RA. C25: A ChinaMan, long ways from home. C26 —- C? Part III : The Charted Unknown Questions: A Session to discuss possibilities: *Can we plan where to be born next? *Does Karma really happen? *Is there a Heaven or a Hell ? *Where does our Soul go when our physical body dies, and where ever that is, can we stay there for as long as we desire or permanently? *Is our future predestined or is it within our power to change or create it? *Should we seek previously loved ones, or start anew, to expand our horizons? *Are we reborn together again with previous family or friends in a different context? *How can we carry over lessons learned to start the next life with a running start? *Do we inhabit only human forms or can we also reincarnate into animals? *Is our Soul locked on the planet Earth or can it travel into Space or Other Planets? * I am sure there will be other Interesting Additional Questions and Possibilities My Readers Would Like To Discuss….. To Live in Love, That is all I Desire/CPB

Chapter 0 : I Remember Thee

Mine is an old Soul. Restless, determined and even ruthless at times.

Those who know me in this current time, see me as a successful woman, surrounded by a caring family. Involved in an encompassing career, which has shown me the world we live in today.

Throughout the years, it has been extremely easy for me to learn various languages. Spanish, English, French, Persian, Arabic, Portuguese, German, And Chinese. I may not be fluent in all of them, but I get by, for they are familiar indeed. Even some Native American sayings rise to the tip of my to tongue, when the occasion commands… and the old Elizabethan form of speaking English, is as clear as glass, to me.

I have always felt as an integrated part of this world. Of its past, present and unknown future.

I can honestly say that although I have had my share of sad and terrifying moments, my lives have been overall grand ones!

The past dramas I have lived, make me quite grateful to be who I am today. I believe people need to be more appreciative and less hateful. Each life we experience is short, at least the young productive years we are given, they do not seem long enough for me. I have noticed that for those who don’t realize this fact early on, their lives tend to slip by even faster; though they themselves feel the passage of time to be quite slow. Concluding in a torment of regrets, at an older age. Regrets, to unbearable to peacefully shoulder.

It appears, I have unconsciously managed a way to carry pieces of knowledge from the past into the present, to help me succeed. Better understand myself in the current life I am living in. That which we call instinct, are merely experiences from previous lives. Stored, intangible data, that can be of much value, if adhered to.

Of course, my version of success, may differ from its traditional definition. Success to me, is a variable, which depends much on my intent at the moment. As you will undoubtedly realize through out the course of my story.

The order in which things have happened, or their completeness, is a bit of blur. After all, who can say exactly what happened and when, in the process of recalling nebulous past lives?

Even in this modern day, if you were to ask five people watching a scene, what they saw, you would probably receive five slightly different versions. All depending on their vantage viewpoint, and their mental state of mind at the moment.

Therefore, I will not bother to dwell on the exact dates of my executions and adventures, because, I know them not, exactly!

TIPs for my readers, to help you remember your past lives:

I will now list some methods I have discovered( by accident) which have triggered many memory clips for me, perhaps they will work for you too.

A. Relaxing while listening to instrumental music. For me its Central European Gypsy, African drums or Bedouin music from the Arabian Desert tribes. Ethnic music. When You listen to these types of music you will either get a melancholy feeling or feel nothing at all. If it moves you, push on… the hardest window to open is the first one. After that, the windows of remembrance will become more easily recognizable and easily open up!

B. Really taking in the landscape, the sky, and the smells that surround you at places you visit. Both heavily populated cities and natural rural areas of nature. You will immediately recognize if that place is familiar to you or if it feels new and unknown. If it seems familiar, push on…. one clue leads to another!

C. The expression or glean in a person’s eyes. The body might be a different one from the one you knew, but if its a soul you knew from the past, you will recognize them by looking into their eyes. The same applies to their essence. If you have a strong attraction or dislike towards someone you just “supposedly” met, you can bet thats not your first encounter with that soul. I think thats what “ Love or Hate at first sight” is all about! Listen to your gut instinct, thats your Soul talking to you!

This concludes my chapter for this week. I hope it gets you thinking, testing, and analyzing. Feel free to write comments or ask questions here on Tumblr or on my FaceBook page…we are here to learn💕

Within The Seas I Cast My Spells Of Enchantment, Her Depth and Beauty, Protect and Serve Me Well/CPB Chapter 1 : Aquatic Tales Sometimes, when I gaze upon a lovely beach, And my mind be put in a tranquil state… deeply stored feelings emerge. I instinctively know what it must have felt like, to be a primitive life force, living in the Sea. Sensations of total body movement, weightless freedom, beneath the ocean waves. Not sure if I was completely human at the time, though if I can recall these memories, I must have had a Soul, even then. I imagine we were few. As I grew older, There were less and less of my kind. It was mostly a solitary life, except when I was in the beautiful warm shallows. There, I was surrounded by colorful marine life of all shapes and sizes. They shared my watery world with me. Fear must be one our most basic emotions, for I remember feeling it intensely, when seamen followed me. In those instances, I would dive deep, for as long as the captured air inside me would sustain my body below. Mayhap’s, they Meant me no harm. But sometimes when animals are curious, they inflict pain unknowingly on the object of their interest. I have only had a few Memory Clips of this primitive aquatic life. Yet they were euphorically wonderful. Swimming in clear shallow pools or water, with boulders sprouting from beneath the Sea. Sprinkled here and there, bordered by a golden sand beach. I was with a protector mate. One who was larger in size than me. We would look up at the warm sun from beneath the serene sea. Leaping up and out into the air above, smiling, and full of joy. This body of water is now called The Sea of Cortez. But back then, it was just known as Warm Time Home, in the basic language we communicated in. It was populated by many big sea mammals. Big creatures divine with a profound soulful look in their eyes. In some places, I recall being worshipped. During low tide, when the sun was setting, always a preferred time of day for me, food was laid upon the flat rocks near the shore. The offerings were carefully prepared with gratitude and adorned with flowers from the land mass inside. I would run my fingers threw my long tresses and tie the long stem flowers in them. They smelled sweet, like nothing in the Sea. They came from the green tropical verdant patches I could see far ahead. I believe this was where today we call the Caribbean Island. It was our preferred home. That was the place we swam to when the Pacific currents ran cold. The offerings were a service payment, for my vigilance of the little ones, when they played in the water. Keeping them safe from harmful sea creatures we both viewed with fear, who could harm or consume these innocents. I did my task with diligence, for the young I protected grew into adults who would provide me with shelter, when strangers encouraged by legends, searched for my kind. Thousands of years ago, the old ones, from the coastline of Africa, kept my lore alive. Through their verbal stories, passed down from generation to generation. Their decedents, the transplanted men, women and children, chained into slavery and brought to Jamaica, Cuba, Hispaniola, and other Caribbean Islands, prayed to me. I was ageless, and the Obeah knew this. I heard their prayers mixed in with the beating drums. Pleas, desires, thankfulness stated in advance for the help they requested. They conducted these ceremonies during the full moon nights when they knew I would come to rest near their shore. The primitive music touched the somewhat human part of me. Though the deep ocean was safer, the shallow sea surrounding these lands were of my better liking. I enjoyed spotting small brightly colored animals flying in the air. They reminded me of the colorful fish swimming in the reefs, yet these whisked through the air not water, and instead of scales, they had feathers. Some sang sweet songs that no fish I ever met could sing. I loved to look at the Islands with tall green mountains high above, except for the lush vegetation, they were similar to the mountains beneath some parts of what is called today the Pacific Ocean. A misnomer for sure, since those waters were nothing but tumultuous, hardly ever Pacific. I felt at ease there in the turquoise waters of my beloved Caribe, close to the humans on the land. I swam there for pleasure, and also to hunt for food, tools and decorations for my body. All was quite visible when the water was bathed in bright mid day sunlight. Off the Celtic Coast, far to the North West, I was feared. Not for acts I myself had committed, but because of superstitions created by long ago sailors. They claimed I was a sign of a “ coming doom”. A doom their own ignorance often brought upon themselves. In what today is called the Indian Ocean, I was not an evil omen. I was often called there and Gladly welcomed. I in turn, warned these people of tropical storms a brewing… providing them ample time to reinforce their homes and gather fresh water,food and supplies, before a windy devastation came upon them. My senses were keen. I could detect air pressure variances and knew when the warm ocean would suffer a sea change. I was a dual natured being, like many that lived long ago in the sea, before migrating permanently onto the land… Lessons Learned: The soul inhabits a body that is made of and part of the physical world. It is a temporary stage in order to learn via feelings and the interactions you have with other people. It is in a constant evolution. So enjoy each life by truly living it and only focusing on the people and circumstances that truly matter to you. Saturday March 11,2017 🐬

#reincarnation #past lives #the soul #the face of my soul #gavy19 #the reincarnation of the soul #to live again #life after death

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alltimebestbooks · 4 years ago

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All Time Best Books

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He said there are only two races in the world, the decent and indecent. They will maintain their innate beliefs, no matter which side they are on. The decent ones will try to help the fellow human beings and the indecent ones will be selfish and serve themselves at the cost to the others.

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Paulo Coelho's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself

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Do You Feel that life is slipping by so fast that you might never get the chance to live with the meaning, happiness and joy you know you deserve? If so, then this book will be the guiding light that leads you to a brilliant new way of living.

In this easy-to-read yet wisdom-rich manual, the author offers 101 simple solutions to life’s most complex problems, ranging from a little-known method for beating stress and worry to a powerful way to enjoy the journey while you create a legacy that lasts.

“When You Were Born, You Cried While The World Rejoiced. Live Your Life In Such A Way That When You Die, The World Cries While You Rejoice.” Ancient Sanskrit Saying

9. The Intelligent Investor

It is a widely acclaimed book by Benjamin Graham on value investing. Written by one of the greatest investment advisers of twentieth century, the book aims at preventing potential investors from substantial errors and also teaches them strategies to achieve long-term investment goals.

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Bullied in school and scolded tremendously by his father, Musk was actually a brilliant student and his life story is nothing less than a drama packed film. Ashlee Vance’s brilliant description of Musk's character, simple language and neat choice of words indeed makes this book a great read.

Considered by some as the innovation, entrepreneurial Steve Jobs of the present and future, Elon Musk became a billionaire early in life with his successful online ventures. One of the successful companies that he co-founded was the online payment gateway PayPal that was later acquired by e-Bay in 2002.

Getting sacked as the CEO, Musk did not cease to amaze friend and foes alike with his out of the box ideas, like investing in rockets! Needless to say, this deconstructed obsession with technology had his marital life go haywire.

The book 'Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and TESLA is Shaping Our Future’ is a brilliant and intelligent account of this genius young 'iron man’ told in a gripping manner. Available in paperback from Penguin Random House publication, the book was published in 2015.

11. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change

We can always change. In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg translates cutting-edge behavioural science into practical self-improvement action, distilling advanced neuroscience into fascinating narratives of transformation.

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12. How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships

Perfect your people skills with his fun, witty and informative guide, containing 92 little tricks to create big success in personal and business relationships. In How to Talk to Anyone, bestselling relationships author and internationally renowned life coach Leil Lowndes reveals the secrets and psychology behind successful communication. These extremely usable and intelligent techniques include how to:

Work a party like a politician works a room

Be an insider in any crowd

Use key words and phrases to guide the conversation

Use body language to connect

This is the key to having successful conversations with anyone, any time.

13. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma

In the book, the reader goes through a spiritual journey and into a very old culture that has gathered much wisdom over the millennia. The book advocates about how to live happily, think deep and rightly, value time and relationships, be more disciplined, follow the heart’s call and live every moment of the life.

Written in simple words, the book has turned out to be a bestseller and is more than just an endearing story. Through storytelling, Robin Sharma showcases the miracles and wonders of living a fulfilling life. In the process, the book introduces readers to enlightening yet simple principles that vouch to make life better, happier and more meaningful.

A bestselling novel, what readers all over the globe appreciate about this book is its deft amalgam of the philosophies from both western and eastern worlds. The book has been followed by important personalities around the world.

14. Becoming: Now a Major Netflix Documentary by Michelle obama

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WATCH THE NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER

In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.

15. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Every so often a book comes along that not only alters the lives of readers but leaves an imprint on the culture itself. The 7 Habits is one of those books.” —Daniel Pink, New York Times bestselling author of When and Drive

One of the most inspiring and impactful books ever written, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has captivated readers for 25 years. It has transformed the lives of presidents and CEOs, educators and parents—in short, millions of people of all ages and occupations across the world. This twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Stephen Covey’s cherished classic commemorates his timeless wisdom, and encourages us to live a life of great and enduring purpose.

16. Warren Buffett: The Life Lessons & Rule For Success

He’s been consistently voted one of the wealthiest people in the world. Time Magazine also voted him as one of the most influential people in the world; widely considered to be the most successful investor of the entire 20th century.

In short, Warren Buffett is a boss.

The man knows a thing or two about success. With a net worth of $77.1 billion, the billionaire investor's fabled business acumen has inspired everything from investment books to college courses. He is known to favor long-term investment strategies, like dollar cost averaging, which encourages the regular purchase of the same investment over time. He also has long-standing holdings in the Coca-Cola Company, Apple, and American Express among others. His now infamous letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders help shed light into how the man they call the “Oracle of Omaha,” reads the tealeaves.

This book takes a look at Buffett’s life. From humble beginnings in Omaha, up to present day where the 86 year old is still going strong. We take a look at his first taste of business at the ripe old age of 6, following on with his major successes and failures along the way. The aim of this book is to be educational and inspirational with actionable principles you can incorporate into your own life straight from the great man himself.

17. The Power of Positive Thinking

An international bestseller with over five million copies in print, The Power of Positive Thinking has helped men and women around the world to achieve fulfillment in their lives through Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s powerful message of faith and inspiration.

In this phenomenal bestseller, “written with the sole objective of helping the reader achieve a happy, satisfying, and worthwhile life,” Dr. Peale demonstrates the power of faith in action. With the practical techniques outlined in this book, you can energize your life—and give yourself the initiative needed to carry out your ambitions and hopes

18. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Stress is a lot like love - hard to define, but you know it when you feel it. In this classic work, 'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living', Carnegie offers a set of practical formulas that you can put to work today. It is a book packed with lessons that will last a lifetime and make that lifetime happier! This book will explore the nature of stress and how it infiltrates every level of your life, including the physical, emotional, cognitive, relational and even spiritual. Through techniques that get to the heart of your unique stress response, and an exploration of how stress can affect your relationships, you'll discover how to control stress instead of letting it control you. This book shows you how. Using the power of habit and several techniques for smoothing out the stressful wrinkles in our day-to-day lives, we'll move towards a real-world solution to living with less stress, more confidence and a deep spiritual resilience that will insulate you from the inevitable pressures of life. The target of the book is to help readers understand what suits their respective lives best to help them reframe it in a constructive manner, subtracting worry from it and how they could focus on living each day with joy and contentment. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) was an American writer and lecturer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking and interpersonal skills. He was born in an impoverished family in Maryville, Missouri. Carnegie harboured a strong love and passion for public speaking from a very early age and was very proactive in debate in high school. During the early 1930's, he was renowned and very famous for his books and a radio program. 'When How to Win Friends and Influence People' was published in 1930, it became an instant success and subsequently became one of the biggest bestsellers of all time. Carnegie loved teaching others to climb the pillars of success. His valuable and tested advice was used in many domains and has been the inspiration of many famous people's success. One of the core ideas in his books is that it is possible to change other people's behavior by changing one's reaction to them.

19. The Atomic Habit by James Clear

No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving - every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.

If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, listeners will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field

20. Sapiens - A Brief History Of Humankind

From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity's creation and evolution - a number one international best seller - that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be "human".

One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one - Homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?

Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago, with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.

Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because, over the last few decades, humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become?

This provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.

#allyimebestbooks #bestbooks

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saxafimedianetwork · 4 years ago

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The EU intends to preserve the Laas Geel caves “The Altamira of Somaliland”, discovered in 2002, the best and oldest cave art in Africa

By Xavier Aldekoa, Laas Geel (Somaliland)

Fear of demons saved them. Elderly Moussa Abdi Jama, 77, squints to protect himself from the sun and looks up at the rocks he once feared. “We all thought it was a cursed place, the home of the djin, the evil spirits, we didn’t know it was something valuable.” Moussa was 19 years old when that fear overcame: it was a day of lightning and thunder. He was a goat herder and his flock had taken refuge from the storm in the caves of a rocky and steep elevation in the middle of an arid plain, so he had no choice but to go look for his animals. Then he saw them. On the stone walls of some twenty caves and rock shelters, there were hundreds of brightly colored cave paintings depicting human figures, cows, dogs, and wild animals such as giraffes, antelopes, hyenas, monkeys, or jackals.

A Somalilander man visiting Laas Geel (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

Moussa Abdi Jama: “We all thought it was a cursed place, we did not know it was something valuable”

“It was the first time that I saw those paintings. I was scared, but I was surprised. I liked them. People said that these figures were the work of the devil and were made with human blood, but I spent the night there with my goats and nothing happened.” On that rainy day, Moussa unwittingly witnessed one of the greatest cave gems in Africa: the paintings by Laas Geel. Also one of the last treasures that has arrived practically intact to this day.

Located at an elevation of 950 meters in the middle of a stone desert and dry bushes, halfway between the port of Berbera and Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, the place remained hidden from the international community until November 2002, when a team French archaeologists visited the area and reported a find from yesteryear: the caves contained the oldest known cave paintings in Africa. In total, 350 figures of humans, wild and domestic animals, and enigmatic geometric symbols between 5,000 and 11,000 years old, which are considered the best example of rock art on the African continent due to their variety and their almost miraculous state of preservation.

Detail of Laas Geel’s paintings (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

“People said that these figures were the work of the devil, made with human blood,” says Moussa.

Most of the pieces, very stylized and with light lines, retain an excellent chromatic richness. Old Moussa brushes his graying hair and smiles at the question of whether he knows what the explanation is. It happened, he says, thanks to the devil: that fear of Jinn transmitted for generations kept the inhabitants of the area away from the caves and kept that prehistoric diamond unscathed throughout the centuries.

Climbing the steep hill leading to the first caves, Somalilander Ahmed Ibrahim Awale, founder of the environmental organization Candlelight and one of the greatest experts in Laas Geel, escapes a gesture of pure satisfaction. For Awale, it is a place of undeniable importance, the Somali version of the Lascaux caves in France or Altamira in Spain, as it is the oldest Neolithic art site in the entire Horn of Africa.

Awale is a tall man and must slightly hunch as he enters one of the openings in the rock, the ceiling of which is filled with red and white figures, colored with pigments drawn from root sap, sand, or dust from crushed rocks. Above his head, a human figure dressed in a white robe raises his arms in front of a multicolored cow with exaggerated horns. “This was a place reserved for some kind of spiritual ceremony. A magical place. These cave drawings show us how those people lived in those ancient times and another important thing: how climate change has transformed the ecosystem and the way of life in this area”.

A Somaliland soldier in one of the rocky shelters of Laas Geel (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

The treasure is made up of 350 figures of humans, animals and geometric symbols between 5,000 and 11,000 years old.

The current aridity, with temperatures that touch 40 degrees, was not always the norm and from the height of the caves one can guess two sandy tongues that converge just at the foot of the mountain. “Here before there were two rivers and permanent fresh water,” explains Awale, “it was a green place, full of vegetation, so in the paintings we find wild animals that no longer exist here in our days such as giraffes, antelopes or hyenas, but also domestic ones, like cows or dogs. And yet no camel appears, because its introduction from Arabia was later. “

And it’s not just Laas Geel. In the surroundings there are several more rocks with cave paintings, although not of the same importance or so well preserved, as well as tombs and prehistoric funerary monuments. All of them are vestiges of the nomadic shepherd caravans that sailed the region for millennia and dotted rock art various points of the geography of Northeast Africa such as the basalt engravings in Djibouti, the paintings of Harar in Ethiopia or the rock sculptures of Eritrea. But while that cultural heritage in neighboring countries was studied for decades, the political instability in Somalia relegated the gems of the past within its territory to oblivion.

Awale has visited Laas Geel dozens of times, whose name means camel pit, but he especially remembers the first time. “I came shortly after the French archaeological mission and when I saw them it was truly amazing. I have seen hundreds of archaeological sites but nothing like this, it is wonderful to be able to study such a well-preserved place”. Between the works, there are interactions difficult to observe in cave paintings such as one in which a woman gives her dog a drink. “These are unusual everyday scenes that give us extremely valuable information about what life was like before the arrival of Islam.”

Nicolás Berlanga, ambassador of the European Union in Somaliland/Somalia, during a visit to the caves (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

The 12-month, 200,000-euro EU plan will be implemented by the Red Sea Cultural Center

Awale speaks passionately about caves but also with some relief. For two decades, he called out with the Somali scientific community for efforts to preserve an endangered heritage. He feels that their voices have finally been heard.

Eighteen years after its discovery by the West, an international plan seeks to reactivate a heritage that had also been neglected for political reasons. Although Somaliland, which declared itself independent from Somalia in 1991, is a de facto country, with its own constitution, government or even currency, it is not an internationally recognized state and depends on the Mogadishu executive in the south, most concerned with stabilizing a territory engulfed in chaos and violence for two decades.

Now a multinational effort aims to safeguard Laas Geel. Earlier this month, the European Union announced a 12-month plan, endowed with 200,000 euros, to be implemented by the Red Sea Cultural Center, based in the Somali capital. The project, supported by a report carried out by specialists and archaeologists from the University of Granada, aims to protect the site with the installation of fences – currently anyone can touch the paintings with their hands -, underline its importance at international conferences and improve the access to the caves to turn Laas Geel into a tourist attraction.

A Somaliland soldier drinks water on a hill near Laas Geel (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

Ahmed Ibrahim Awale: “It teaches us how it was lived then and how climate change has transformed the ecosystem”

For the European Union ambassador to Somaliland/Somalia, the Spanish Nicolás Berlanga, the paintings are not only important for the African country, they are a world heritage. “The origin of humanity comes from this area of the Horn of Africa and therefore these vestiges are part of our own history. When we help build roads or a water system, it is for the benefit of local people, but in cultural matters, borders are transcended. The benefit of its conservation is for everyone”.

Culture can also be an element of diplomacy. In the plan promoted by the European community includes the proposal for Laas Geel to be declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and for this, understanding between the governments of Somalia and Somaliland has been essential, since only the first, which refuses to recognize Northern self-determination has legal authority to formally present the report. For Berlanga, “it is difficult to agree Somalia and Somaliland on political or security issues, but culture can be a vehicle to build bridges between the two.”

The director of the Red Sea Cultural Center and author of several books on the history of Somaliland, Dr. Jama Muse Jama, also advocates that the caves be an intergenerational bridge. In addition to taking care of the conservation and conditioning works, your organization will organize events throughout the country to explain the importance of the archaeological site. “It is an awareness project in which we want to involve young people so that they learn about the history and heritage of their country and appreciate the preservation of this world heritage site.”

If the efforts pay off, it will never again be necessary for the fear of Jinn to keep Laas Geel’s treasure safe.

A detail from Laas Geel’s paintings, with a disproportionate cow and a human figure in a white robe. Whites and reddish are the predominant tones (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

A Somalilander man visiting Laas Geel (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

Detail of Laas Geel’s paintings (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

A Somaliland soldier in one of the rocky shelters of Laas Geel (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

Nicolás Berlanga, ambassador of the European Union in Somaliland/Somalia, during a visit to the caves (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

A Somaliland soldier drinks water on a hill near Laas Geel (XAVIER ALDEKOA)

This article was transtlated from Spanish to English by Googletranslater, you can read here for orginal language

Altamira

The Cave of Altamira is a cave complex, located near the historic town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain. It is renowned for prehistoric parietal cave art featuring charcoal drawings and polychrome paintings of contemporary local fauna and human hands. The earliest paintings were applied during the Upper Paleolithic, around 36,000 years ago. The site was discovered in 1868 by Modesto Cubillas.

The @EU_in_Somalia intends to preserve the #LaasGeel #caves “The #Altamira of #Somaliland”, #discovered in 2002, the best and #oldest #CaveArt in #Africa, @aiawaleh @JamaMusse @yyusufd @NBerlangaEU @UNESCOEU @UNESCO @SomaliHeritage @HIPSINSTITUTE

#Ahmed Ibrahim Awale #Altamira Cave #Cave Art #Caves #European Union (EU)#Hargeisa Cultural Center #Horn of Africa #Jama Muse Jama #Laas Geel #Las Geel rock paintings #Nicolas Berlanga Martinez #Paintings #Red Sea Culture Center #Rock Art #rock cave painting #rock paintings #Somaliland #UNESCO World Heritage Site

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mariajustinteriordesigns · 5 years ago

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Paris: 5 Must-See Spots For Design Lovers

Paris is always a good idea. Especially in Springtime. And yes, this is all beginning to sound extremely clique because I’m also writing this post on Valentine’s Day. All I need now is to mention the film, “Amelie”. Okay, too late. This is definitely the cheesiest intro to a Paris story…

I promise this gets better. Much better. Because I have 5 incredible tips for you for next time you travel to the (clearing throat), city of lights. But first, back story…

New issue of HOLLY!

Okay so did you know that in the latest issue of HOLLY magazine (shown left, click on the image to buy it directly, it will ship to you no matter where you live because we want the WHOLE WORLD to have it), anyway, in this issue of HOLLY there is a HUGE story about me in Paris?

Maybe the “me” in Paris isn’t so interesting to you (ha ha) but trust me when I say THE STORY (wow) took weeks to produce and it’s definitely worth the 5 Euro mag price just to have the Paris Story because the tips are really so good and there are about 13 pages of PARIS in this magazine. That’s enough to make any Francophile swoon. It’s the best travel story ever. I feel strongly that you’ll book a flight immediately after reading it. It’s that good.

So now I wish to tell you a little bit about how we produced this story, who photographed it and how I ended up going home with an afro in my suitcase.

Okay, so it was around midsummer last year (2019) during an editorial meeting that the HOLLY team decided that I will go to Paris for my next travel story. I definitely had no problem saying Oui to that. But why Paris? Well, besides the obvious (food, fashion, design), I wanted to pick a location that had deep, personal meaning, like the previous two travel stories I’d done. If you remember, the first city was Hannover where I live, Copenhagen was next because my husband works there and I have a lot of clients there, and then Paris because this is the first city that I fell in love with when I was 22.

After deciding on Paris, we had to find the RIGHT photographer. I am picky and the magazine is very picky when it comes to who we hire. It cannot just be a “friend” or someone without a portfolio or anyone off the street. They definitely run a very strong and successful publishing house for a reason – their expectations for all freelancers is high – particularly for photographers because magazines are primarily visual and sell based on how appealing they look.

The lovely HOLLY photo editor, Lisa N., came to me with several portfolios to suggest. She knows I love a certain aesthetic and style and so she shows me what she imagines I’ll love instantly. She’s so good!

Though in the first few months of working together with my team, before they eally “knew” my style, it was a more difficult and long process for us all. I felt bad rejecting certain suggestions and I know it was hard on them (and on me because I don’t like to turn people’s ideas down). But I also came into this project with a very strong vision of my own and I didn’t want to lean in too much and lose my own style and flair. Plus, they hired me to help create a magazine called HOLLY so my input has to be there because without that, there isn’t a project.

Still, I have always viewed this a team project and I value and respect my team. However, when issue one came out in January 2019, I knew it needed to evolve aesthetically. We all knew. It needed to be more “me” somehow and now we are there. The current issue, January 2020, is different from the January 2019 issue and the team and I see that and love it. We know this came through a lot of hard work but the change was needed in order to embrace fully what I, and my community, represent online: creativity, curiosity and international flair, handmade, attention to detail and the love of being at home and making it a nice place. And yeah, THE COMMUNITY has to be part of the magazine just like it’s part of decor8 online.

So back to Paris and photographer selection. Lisa N. showed me some portfolios and the minute I saw Oliver Fritze, I felt a connection. Not only does he shoot for my favorite French magazines MilK and MilK Decoration, but I loved that his photos were not so warm and cozy, or “yellow” as many Paris photos are often shown in magazines and books with warm lights and pastel balloons, they were more cold and “fashion” with a blue-tone to them, but also very detail-oriented, a little abstract, and I could see he had the potential to capture emotion but to make it still feel like how Paris feels to me: Chic.

I wanted to present Paris in HOLLY mag with this more cool, blue tone since I first went to Paris as a young woman in winter, and I photographed the city on my Canon film camera back then in black and white. Over the years, it’s rare that I’m in Paris when it’s warm. Now that I think about it, I’ve been to Paris about 20 times in my life and it’s always during sweater or even wool jacket weather, so showing Paris in the middle of January in HOLLY, shot by the great Oliver Fritze, would definitely capture my vision of Paris for a shopping and eating story.

Once we discovered Oliver was originally from Germany and spoke German, I was thrilled. I thought he was French, speaking only French, which would have presented many challenges for us to work together. Later, I was told he is fluent in English, French and Italian too. Oliver was getting more and more interesting to me with such a diverse background – he speaks 4 languages and has lived in 3 countries (that I know of) and when we had a chat on the phone, I knew immediately that he was a professional that I could imagine working with for 3 days. Because honestly, you have to work so closely with a photographer when you are directing a story, the last thing you want are communication problems or to work with someone who is a pain in the ass (!).

Once we booked Oliver, I booked my tickets and found a hotel. Then the research period began. I turned over every stone to find the best places, referring to previous spots I’d visited as well like Bonton, Merci and many more. Several of my favorite spots had closed, so I researched for weeks to find great places where Oliver and I could take photos for this story.

My team back at HOLLY also compiled suggestions. And in the end, a shoot list was provided with a map to both Oliver and I from my team. We met in Paris and began working together immediately on a Sunday. Each day we wrapped up around 8pm. It was an intense but wonderful three days. Oliver felt like a long-lost brother to me, albeit a much cooler and sophisticated version of how I’d often imagined my older brother would be. I loved that he has a family and a wife, and that he was so tied in to art and design. I also liked how he enjoyed hosting me in Paris, I didn’t feel like a burden or a tourist - he instantly made me feel like I was part of the city. I loved his spontaneity best. Sometimes we’d find a good place just by walking around and he’d say, let’s go here, do you like it, want to include it? And we’d just ask the owners and start shooting. It was a great adventure for me to get out from behind my laptop and explore. We really worked well together. He also shared secret spots, like the pet shop where magazines “rent” pets for photo shoots, the restaurant under the bridge that’s built into stones (it’s in the magazine!), the food halls at Le Bon Marche (that I’d never known before) and a section of Paris that has about 500 African beauty salons and afro shops (where I bought an afro for a costume party I was hosting a week later). Speaking French, he was able to get us everywhere without hassle. We rode the metro, taxis, buses. We walked and walked, talked and talked and worked so hard to produce the PARIS story that you can see now in the magazine. It’s full of beautiful things, so I hope that you’ll check it out.

Now, for the grand finale, the fireworks, the moment of truth (le moment de vérité)… I want to share 5 places we went to that were really special to me, to show you photos that didn’t appear in the magazine because I think they are really lovely and worth showing. Ready?

1. 25 Hours Hotel (Terminus Nord )+ NENI (to eat!)

I must start with a good, affordable, hotel because that’s what we want most when we travel to Paris. A great bed, fantastic shower, delicious breakfast, ideal location, safe and secure, wonderful decor… This place has it all. I loved having breakfast each morning at Neni. It’s a gorgeous spot to eat inside of the hotel and is open day and night. The food is exquisite but the breakfast buffet was most impressive.

2. Amelie

What a cool concept. You can walk-in and try your luck at seeing the whole gallery, or you can call or email in advance for a special appointment. Basically, you get to walk around the living gallery of the owner, Amélie du Chalard, who bought this property just to live in the roof and use the rest of the space to sell art, sculpture and other beautiful things. This is everyone’s dream come true - her magical life - to live in Paris surrounded by art and so much beauty. You really can’t miss this place. It’s not in the tourist guidebooks, so count this as your super special, precious gem of a tip.

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oopsjustafewthingsiforgottoabout · 6 years ago

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Leighton Michael Jones

Basics

FC: Broderick Hunter

Known as: LJ, Lei, Lei-Lei (pet name), Ten Ton (Jersey Number is 10 in any sport), Age: 24 Birthday: January 3, 1994 Sign: Capricorn Sexual Orientation: Pan Weight:. 185 lbs Body: Muscular Height: 6′3″ Eyes: Dark Brown Hair: Black, usually a fade. Sometimes the top is a little long Accent/Sounds Like: Broderick Hunter, but sometimes if you catch him when he’s mad, sick, or very tired, an African accent can be faintly heard. His dad has a thick-ish accent still and it has rubbed off on him a little. He tries to hide his accent when he can though. Species: Human Race/Ethnicity: Dominican, Jamaican, African, and French (with some other European stuff) on his mom’s side, and African and Indian on his dad’s side.

Leighton knows Swahili, Spanish, French, German, Patois, and Hindi. He can speak Spanish, Swahili, and French the best, but can understand the other languages just fine. He grew up mainly hearing Spanish, Swahili, and French in his household and with family. He rarely brings up the fact he knows so many languages.

Leighton’s lifelong dream is to take a picture with a tiger (one that is safe and being treated well of course!).He LOVES cats, big and small. They’re sort of his obsession. He also loves dogs though (mainly because they’re just as playful as he is).

Born: Ramstein Air Base, Germany Raised: Lived in Germany until he was about 2 years old then moved to Montreal, QC where some his mother’s side of the family lives. Sister was born in Jamaica when her mother had to go down there to take care of some family. They also lived in Texas for a while. Went back to Europe for a short period of time, then came back the U.S. and lived in California. Went to high school in Georgia, where his family stayed. Currently Located: TBD Occupation: TBD Former Occupation: In highschool Leighton worked at a hip pizza place. He also worked in retail for a few months before he went off to college.

Relationship Status: Single School/Education: High school diploma. Currently a medical student. Style: Most of the time his fashion is comfortable. He Habits: Taps his foot or taps pencil when deep in thought, chews on earbuds chord

Throughout high school, he played football and soccer. He plays basketball for fun.

Personality

Positive Traits: playful, positive, silly, persistent, supportive, happy, courteous, polite

Negative Traits: stubborn, oblivious at times, impulsive, curious, impatient

Likes: jokes, bad jokes, playing basketball, colorful outfits, traveling, hammocks, food, home-cooked meals, helping people, pizza, when his older patients flirt him (he finds it cute), harmless pranks, giving piggy-back rides, kissing in public, any kind of music people can dance to

Dislikes: people who abuse animals, people who abuse people, people who wear socks with sandals, under-cooked rice, bad Jamaican food, having to hide parts of himself from his family, being alone for too long, people who stand too close to you in line, clowns, sore losers, people who can’t take a joke, bouncers at clubs who take themselves too seriously, frogs, spiders,

Favorite Places: TBD

Essentially, Leighton is a very friendly and fun-loving guy. Right now in his life, he is going through his version of true freedom, so sometimes he’s a little hesitant to dive into very serious relationships. He can also have a hard time being serious if it is outside of work or school.

Family & Relationships

Relationship with family: Close, but enjoying his distance from them Mother: Jasmine Avita Bacot (43) -dentist Father: Daewon “Wayne” Mbadinuju Jones (46) -retired veteran, now works as a well-paying mechanical job of sorts Siblings: Kali Elizabeth Jones (21), Biology major and

Daewon’s parents found themselves in America when he was just a young boy. His family lived in Queens, New York for a while before moving to New Jersey. Growing up, Daewon was often bullied and ostracized for being darker than the other kids and for having a different accent.He was teased for always smelling like curry and dressing differently. He begged his parents, who also ran into social issues of their own, to help him “more American”. Some neighbors insisted his family try going to their Christian church. At first, it was just to blend in show everyone he was just like everyone else. As he grew older, however, his faith in Christianity grew stronger because it was through the Christian church he was able to “have it easier”. He started going by the name Wayne and became a very devout man.

After he graduated highschool at 18, Daewon joined the U.S. Air Force. During basic training, however, Daewon faced similar issues he had growing up. He was tired of ethnic name giving him problems. One of the sergeants on his first day took one look at his surname, shook his had, and said,” How ‘bout I just call you Jones?” Once Daewon was out of basic training, he changed his last name to “Jones”, making Mbadinuju his middle name he never speaks of.

While stationed in Germany when he was 21, he met a gorgeous woman, 18 at the time, in a bar while he and his fellow airmen were out on the town. It was love at first sight. Jasmine Bacot, an African, Jamaican, Spanish, and French Canadian, was in Germany with her father, an engineer. The two hit it off instantly. Within a year they were married and when Jasmine was 19, she found out he was pregnant with a son.

As he started his family, Daewon fell back in love with culture. Faith brought him a loving wife and a healthy boy. Somehow Daewon found a way to balance and celebrate culture while staying a devout Christian. He saw the diversity of his family as a blessing and celebrated it. While in Jamaica, visiting Jasmine’s family, the couple gave birth to their daughter three years later.

Leighton and his family are close, especially his sister, but he is enjoying his time away from them. His parents are loving and supporting, but strict. Their Christian values made Leighton and Kali feel like they couldn’t fully be themselves. Sure, they were encouraged to be creative and expressive, but with a few limitations. Daewon and Jasmine attended every competition, school event, and any other extracurricular activities, despite the two of them having their own busy careers.

Partners: Through high school, Leighton had three or four girlfriends. He had a high school crush on guy but only told his sister about it. When he moved away after high school, he had his first gay experience with a guy named Chase. They didn’t work out because Chase wanted to get serious while Leighton wanted to explore his new life. There was one more guy after that.

TWs:

#leighton #bios

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