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2012.01.01 Bahia Watson up front in The Penelopiad
"Now that I'm dead, I know everything." So begins The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood's daring response to Homer's The Odyssey. Destined to spend eternity in Hades, Penelope recounts her life's story and the murder of her twelve handmaidens by her vengeful husband Odysseus. Atwood's acerbic wit brings one of history's most powerful myths to the contemporary imagination. A provocative new look at a woman's longing, lust and culpability.See the cast of powerful women here. The show runs at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre at 12 Alexander Street, Toronto from January 10 to 29, 2012. Ticket info here and phone number is 1 416-975-8555. Map link is here. More on the book and the play here. Ladies, show yo' powa! 2011.12.31 mike ferguson orchestra studio; akim (3yo violinist)
what do i need in this life? = a musical reflection on with progressive rock/jazz/blues fusion from Mike Ferguson Orchestra Studio. love the guitar solo and astro-stellar radio signal ending! expressive of a strong heart's yearning . . . i endorse, of course. Then on to Akim Camara in his 2005 performance after a short time of training. Andre Rieu introduces 3yr old violinist, Akim Camara, during his 'Flying Dutchman Concert' at Parkstad Stadium in the Nederlands (2005). Akim (born 27 October 2001 in Berlin-Marzahn) plays Ferdinand Kuchler's Violin Concerto (Concertino?) G Major op.11 with the Johan Strauss Orchestra. 2011.12.26 etymologies for the English word religion and Chinese word ai
Etymology of the word religion 2011.12.25 The Zeitgeist Movement (Moving Forward); resource-based economy
This video has been seen by more than 12 million people. It is in English and has English subtitles. 2011.12.23 concert: Jirani Children's Choir in Daegu (they sing in 4 languages)
I went with some friends to a concert last evening — the Jirani Children's Choir. I hadn't heard of the choir, but quickly found out that it consists of children who live in the Korogocho slum area of Nairobi. Even if poverty may be lessening for the world as a whole, it continues to be an enormous problem:(wish the stats were more current). It looks as though social activists have been trying to make a difference in the slums of Nairobi since 1991 (Good Neighbors actually starting in Seoul) and in 1992 (The Jirani Project. Some of them work through the UN and their Millenial Development Goals. A Korean Presbyterian priest and a music director discovered the needs of these children and have been working together with them on site, visibly keying them in to a Higher Purpose and giving them much more confidence in their own self-worth. The entourage has performed in the USA (even at Yale University and is currently doing concerts in South Korea. It was held at the hugest, most colossal church I have ever been in. It was bigger than the Daegu Opera House. It was almost like a stadium. We arrived early so as to get a good parking spot and good seats. After a long wait, the lights dimmed and soon on stage we saw a group of about 24 young people (three-quarters of whom were female) all smartly attired in red jackets, shirt, tie, dark pants or skirt. Their voices melted and merged in the air, softening the heart, dissolving bitter residues, purging it of all traces of rancour or regret or anxiety. The first half of the concert was thus more formal as they sang some Christian hymns, a song or two from musicals in English, some songs in Kiswahili and also Korean. Their voices floated tremulously, hovered over, and planted and planked themselves nowhere else but squarely in the hearts of the listeners. For the second half, the girls wore a simple dress and the guys an East African style top with long shorts. The second half was lively and some of the children played instruments such as goat-skin covered drums, dejembe, wooden xylophone, and traditional East African harps. They did Korean hymns totally in Korean. They did Jambo Bwana and some other songs in Kiswahili. Their director and vocal instructor are to be congratulated for such excellent work and patience in changing the lives.   Here they are on Kenyan soil doing a song, Yesu ni Mwamba (Yesu is Rock), with the assistance of a local rapper (who was not at the concert). From a concert in New York: Here there are singing a Korean song at a primary school in Kenya: And another song about G-d (hananim) in Korean And Panis Angelicus (bread of angels) in Latin (words by St. Thomas Aquinas): And Heal the World: They went "full tilt boogie" in showing us the spirit of Kenyan dancing. Catch a bit of it viewed here from a side camera (from another concert) The choir has a youTube channel (click on videos to see the full list). (It rang a bell.)  Their singing reminded me of a recording I had heard back in my teen years. The Missa Luba is a version of the Roman Catholic Latin Mass based on traditional Congolese songs. It was arranged by Father Guido Haazen, a Franciscan Friar from Belgium, and originally performed and recorded in 1958 by "Les Troubadours du Roi Baudouin", a choir of Congolese children from Kamina. Here is the link to a kind of fashion video with background music from Missa Luba and another link to reports on Missa Luba by unnotables as well as notables such as working-class hero writer Studs Terkel. Anyone hearing and seeing the fresh and dynamic performance of these unified voices cannot fail to be moved. By paying attention to children, we benefit not only them now, but the children that they will beget and that generations and kids that will accompany them. One good friend said it was like "a glimpse of heaven" and commented that Africa is the continent of Great Joy. The group and conductor responded to 5 encores. I was surprised at the audience's insistence for so many encores. I had thought that the concert had many high moments and I was thoroughly satisfied and happy in sharing the reflected glows of pride from the faces of the children who were the primary focus of the evening. I was somewhat disappointed that the pastor of the church then come out to led the audience (or were we a congregation) in pentecostal prayer and shouting for/at G-d and Yesu. I couldn't help but feel he was intentionally or otherwise stealing the thunder of the choir. I couldn't understand why he would do that. I appreciated his generosity in hosting the event and not charging admission, and maybe the majority of the audience were Christian, but, it was in fact on the early side of midnight, and for the sake of kids in the choir and audience, I thought they should have wound it down in quick fashion after the choir had finished singing. The choir left the stage and the pastor was still rousing the emotions of the audience. I thought for a moment that he would tear off his shirt and start to whiplash himself. I thought of the excessive (to my mind) show of emotions of the North Koreans mourning the death of Kim Jong Il . Koreans have deep emotions, but they can at times let their emotions run away on them or, put differently, cancel out reason. Emotion is good but it should be judiciously balanced by at least a modicum of reason if at all possible. The lights went out after the choir had left and a few of the audience started to file out. The pastor was still going on, milking the audience and bringing them to the brink of something I don't know about. A hymn followed, then sung again, and again. The lyrics were projected onto the large LED or jumbotron screen which was above the stage on its back wall. Our group decided to make an exit in the dark and we slipped out to the lobby. So did others. CDs were bought and that took some time, but the pastor and the amped instruments and synthesizer were still bellowing it out in the darkness in the charged chamber, the overpowering crescendo mix of pitched pipes of throated passion interspersed with a running interjection to the effect that they themselves were the different ones because they were the ones of G-d. It was getting a bit too exclusionary for me. Partially in refuge, I stepped outside and was embraced by the cool, clear air of a quiet Korean winter night. Passion and emotion are both good, but considering that some of the kids were 7 yo or so and considering that they had sung for 2 hours and done 5 encores, one would have thought that a short closing comment or song would have sufficed. In the book Forgotten Truth by the great multi-Faith spokesman Huston Smith, he explains that the word mystic derives from the Greek root mu, meaning silent or mute — muo = "I shut my mouth" — and by derivation unutterable, which is the respect in which the word lends itself. He later quotes Dionysius: the mysteries of heavenly Truth lie hidden in the obscurity of the secret Silence, outshining all brilliance with the intensity of their darkness. from the opening chapter The Divine Gloom from Mystical Theology. The sense of unity that was felt through the music led to joy, and for that we should be thankful. (Praise G-d, JHVH, Adonai, Deus, Allah.) All things considered, though, very little could have more uplifted my spirit than the singing of the Jirani Choir and their fine selection of songs and imaginative choreography. They had used black lights and some kind of paint in one song that involved hand gestures. It reminded of The Famous People Players show that I had seen with my older sister Liz and mom some years back. Many thanks to friend Sonya for the invitation. Sonya had already seen the performance a week ago, but decided it was worth seeing again with more friends (the more, the merrier). She had led to show the way on the drive to the venue through the busy, many-fleeted streets of Daegu to the church. More links
2011.12.22 going for hot choco at angel-in-us café; testimonies & tunes attesting to the afterlife
Last night, it was rainy and the air was full of good ions [could this be called a watershed moment?] [hehe] Somehow wanting to assimilate and also oscillate, and also thinking that a hot chocolate once imbibed would subside well inside and help bridge me into new moments of profound realization, I decided to venture beyond my gated residence, even though the streets were puddley. For, according to our old saying, the three learned professions live by roguery on the three parts of a man. The doctor mauls our bodies; the parson starves our souls; but the lawyer must be the adroitest knave, for he has to ensnare our minds. Therefore he takes a careful delight in covering his traps and engines with a spread of dead-leaf words, whereof himself knows little more than half the way to spell them.The ongoing investigation by professionals still continues to probe beneath the 9/11 Commission's slick veneer of purported, unsupported, distorted, contorted facts passed off as truth. Anyway, back to our book review. I recommend you google "Bonnie McEneaney" or go here to the Huffington Post article or here at ABC News or this blog post and video to get more on these first-hand accounts and affirmations of life after death. If death is a messenger of joy (Bahá'u'lláh), we should not fear it. Since we hardly ever know when our appointed time will come, we must make sure that we make each day count and that we live up to our noblest nature and highest purpose. I close with the song Angel by your side sung by Lady Antebellum. Injoy. [inset 2011.12.22] In addition to Lady Antebellum, my recent foraging forays onto the net yielding another emerging talent with a tune that ties in: Somong, of Korean and Afro-American descent currently calling south Florida home. His soulful take and turn on Wind Beneath My Wings should put the reader in a restful frame of mind. [end of inset] Remember your ancestors. Pray for their spiritual progress in the next realm. In turn, they could even give you [us] a helping hand down here in our cellular entity world. More... 2011.12.17 banded together: 7 songs on themes of spiritual longing, emptiness, anti-war, ...
It's an interesting and positive sign that musicians are expressing such things as spiritual emptiness, longing, renewal, grace, perfection, etc in their songs. They ask questions about the meaning of life, what do we take with us when we die, the futility of war, what else is there to us besides body and flesh?
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Margaret Atwood's Toronto premier of 
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