Two records from the "Éthiopiques" series

v/a Éthiopiques 1: L'Age D'Or De La Musique Éthiopienne Moderne"
Gétatchèw Mèkurya Éthiopiques 14: Negus of Ethiopian Sax

Two more discs of Ethiopian jazz from the 1960s and 1970s to add to the collection, bought by my beloved and/or me at the concert where The Ex played with Gétatchèw Mèkurya in Amsterdam. Éthiopiques 1 features a lot more vocal stuff than I am used to from the series, while the Mèkurya disc is more typical of what I expect from the series (I know all about Les Éthiopiques, having previously acquired Éthiopiques 4 and a vinyl record compiling various Ethiopian jazz tracks).

One thing I am struck by with a lot of these tracks is how reggae-ish some of them sound, at least to my untrained ears. I wonder, could the proto-reggae musicians and producers in Jamaica have all taken their Rastafarianism seriously enough to take an interest in Ethiopian jazz? That would be mad.

Anyway, these records are great. You can't beat the Ethiopian jazz.

Overheard in HMV

"What's Bruce Springsteen doing among all the people beginning with S?

"Maybe it's something to do with the Irish alphabet".

Heroes of the Internet #5: the Black-People-Love-Us couple

Sally and Johnny are an ordinary white couple, unexciting in every way, except one - Black people love them!!! Thanks to this, they get to lead a life of continuous excitement, in which they give each other high fives and say "you da man!" to their many Black friends.

You don't believe it? Check out the pictures, or the testimonials from their many Black friends.

Unlike many Heroes of the Internet, they are not known to have been present for Rick Santorum's concession speech.

Trapped in the Closet latest

I have seen TITC episodes 13 - 22 and can reveal the following:

1. Twan's former girlfriend, the woman he suspected of grassing him up to the cops, turns out to have had his child while he was in prison.

2. But said former girlfriend is now dyking.

3. Rufus the Pastor has decided to stay with his wife and renounce his gay lover.

4. But said gay lover is in hospital - and like all gay people who go to hospital, he is not there because he is getting his appendix out, but because he has The Package.

5. This means that everyone in TITC is in big trouble.

And Will Oldham plays a cop.

EDIT: It is in fact an inference of characters in TITC that Pastor Rufus' gay lover is in hospital because he has The Package; the Nosy Neighbour and her comedy chubster husband have deduced that this, rather than some routine tests, is what has him in the sickhouse. They have also taken it for granted that he must have given The Package to Rufus. Who knows, maybe TITC will prove to have misdirected them.

A Big Bear

Icebear Knut is now a year old. He is a very big bear now.

Here he is today. And here he is when he first appeared in public.

Knut found time to blog about his birthday.

Picture from the BBC. Knut's surprisingly dark looks come from his fondness for rolling in mud.

I Know All About The Visual Arts

Last night I was out in the Irish Museum of Modern Art where this Anne Madden person was giving a talk about painting and art and stuff. It was only half way through her talk that I registered that she was not just a commentator on the arts, but an artist herself. And it was only afterwards that I registered that the husband named Louis she mentioned is in fact Louis Le Brocquy (also an artist). I have heard that they live quite near me, so maybe I will run into them in Devitt's sometime.

Good Dog, Old Cat

Ghillie the springer spaniel is to receive a PDSA bravery award later this month. Two years ago, when he was just nine months old, Ghillie saved his owner's life. The owner, Mary Wilson, had collapsed while they were out for a walk, but Ghillie barked to attract the attention of passers by, leading to Ms Wilson being rushed to hospital for life-saving treatment.

Pussywillow of Shropshire, meanwhile, is believed to be Britain's oldest cat. The 26 year old lived a semi-feral existence until four years ago, when a human family let her move in after she survived a fox attack. Pussywillow likes to curl up by the stove.

Diplomacy

I am adjudicating a game of Diplomacy. This is the boardgame based on the timeless wisdom of political realism (this might be a more informative link). Here is a map showing the situation, with the next turn being spring 1904:
Two of the countries are being played by siblings. Can you guess which two?

live music: Gétatchèw Mèkurya and the Ex get together in the Paradiso in Amsterdam

I was in Amsterdam recently for a celebration of Frank's APA reaching 100 issues. Many of us who were there went to see Gétatchèw Mèkurya and The Ex playing together.

Just to refresh, Gétatchèw Mèkurya is an Ethiopian jazzer, while The Ex are a long-lived Dutch punk band. At this gig they were joined by Mèkurya and a couple of other brass players (Mèkurya is a saxophonist). I do not know exactly how The Ex got into Ethiopian jazz, but it seems to have become a real thing of theirs – if you go their concerts they are as likely to be selling copies of Les Éthiopiques as their own records. They recorded an album with Mèkurya recently, and are no strangers to collaboration generally, having previously recorded an album (and probably played some live dates) with a small orchestra. The Ex's music is far less straight-jacketed than their status as a "punk" band might suggest, and even on their own their music has a fluidity that makes an association with them and musicians from looser traditions highly appropriate.

So I loved this gig. The music has a bouncy and incredibly dancey quality that made sitting still or chin-stroking nigh impossible. For maybe the first time with The Ex I found myself really seeing the point of the singer, with his interventions strongly assisting the beat as it pounded along its way; I missed him when songs did not require him. This was all more fun than I could shake a stick at, and I am only sorry it did not go on for even longer.

"Mangal Pandey: The Rising"

On the other hand, there are good films in the world, notably this one. Henry The Cow will not be too surprised to learn that it has an anti-colonial theme, being about Mangal Pandey, one of the first Indian soldiers to mutiny against the rule of the British East India Company in 1857. I will talk about it at more length later, but for now I can say that I have enjoyed my first Bollywood film.

Picture from the Wikipedia entry on the film.