The summer heat is driving people crazy.
Summer Heat ( Bert Jansch )
The summer heat is driving people crazy.
Gaza ( Hamas leadership should be worried about their future )
Yemen ( no reverence for life?)
Other kinds of insanity in Zimbabwe
"Hoping that your present gravity
Will find excuse for my humble levity."
I, me , myself, I shout , O for a muse - of FIRE !
Even as we pray and should pray for victims of the wild fires raging in California. Which some people suspect could be arson – the new terrorism. Who to blame this time, the wildfire terrorist aided by the sort of wind that Malcolm X talked about at a point when the field Negroes, righteously devoid of any empathy or good wishes, "If the master's house caught a fire, they'd pray for a strong wind to come along."
Except that this time it's not oppressive masters but upright American citizens of the Sunshine State, good Californian men, women, children grandparents, families, neighbours who don't deserve any of this. You lose your house, your home, your everything, you almost lose your mind and start wailing like Gil Scott-Heron about the tragic scale of Harrisburg, "How would we ever get over losing our minds?"
Right now, I don't yet know what I'm going to say even if I know that some thinking should precede the saying – the voicing of the thought, the heavenly oration, as in "think before you speak ", although I'm sure that it's impossible for any other fellow mortal like yours truly not to speak before he or she thinks because cogito, ergo sum , voluntarily or involuntarily ( like "the shock of the moment") some micro-split-second of cognition and cogitation must precede the bird that flies out of my mouth .That's a law about the gravity of matter about which you can smile, take out a patent on that law, and smile some more as you take it all the way to the bank..
If only I could metamorphose that which I'm about to say and which you are about to read : if only I could metamorphose it all into a slightly longer version of a Chidi-like "today's quote" or "poetic thoughts" in a thread all of its own, there would probably be no askance to this aside in which I merely leave the sublime and the highfalutin far behind or rather I move from the sublime but not to the ridiculous ( certainly not) but venture into what for me is not the wholly unknown. Just some more of the day-to-day ordinary and in doing so I anticipate no response, no funny, profound or Smart Alec reply, not from you, not from any body, no "please don't use me as crutch" protestation, not even in the era when once again Jesus may be healing the sick and the lame with some miraculous ADD therapy, and if it's Sweden we're talking about, some healing would and should always be specially appealing..
"Well, the rifleman's stalking the sick and the lame
Preacher-man seeks the same, who'll get there first is uncertain" (Jokerman)
And damn! Just like Fulani cattle, I guess my feet know where they want me to go – in search of greener pastures...
As we all know, just as with African gymnastics, the world of African music, African gong-song, drumbeat and dance is a big and a complex world as they postulate in so many words, at least theoretically and no doubt in the theatre of action with / in or within the various spheres of individual bodies, individual souls, individual minds – and whilst we are still alive there's a lot of differences, but once we kick what in Krio is known as the "bokit" ( the bucket) and we enter the cooking pot or the bowels of the earth ( after phase three it's the cemetery) where we all – become - one undifferentiated collective mass of decomposing muscle and from dust to dust and into ashes all our lust , you must admit, that's indeed a lot of dust so we must make hay and dance while we can...
As to the question what's in a name - any name – sometimes, some glorification, and as you know some names should not ever (should never) be taken in vain. In the synagogue there is a dramatic moment when , in approaching the Glorious Majesty of the Almighty – the worshipper first takes three steps backwards – re-compose himself and then three steps forwards - it's said as was the tradition of reverence in ancient Persia towards the majesty of their earthly kings. However, in this case what does ADD represent, what does ADD do/ accomplish in real terms ? The product no doubt is being packeted and altruistically marketed
As this African Dance & Drum ( ADD) has it's intended applications apart from the happiness derived from self expression through drumming and dance ( Cecil Taylor says that the 88 keys on the piano which he plays like a drum) so too the drumming and dancing as life-enhancing therapy for industrial societies - relief from post-traumatic stress ( to improve the quality of life /self-awareness , awareness of the various bodily organs ( and this too I understand : in the mid-seventies of the last century ,I went to a few Hatha Yoga courses with Eugenia Basilewsky - a course mostly attended by women and to my eternal shame on each and every occasion when we rounded off the circa forty-five minute session with some Yoga Nidra, I would fall asleep within ten minutes. Such was the very deep relaxation that each and every time I would fall asleep in my Mahatma Gandhi yoga pyjamas ( like the buba and sokoto ) and someone ( a gentle lady ) would gently wake me up , as she herself would be slipping out of her yoga toga , into slightly more fashionable, but conventional street attire. It appears that each time, I was the only one who fell asleep , perhaps in response to the hypnotic suggestion of Eugenia's yoga nidra voice. So I stopped going to the course..
It's refreshing to hear from Ebrima Kamara that like Yoga, ADD which I suppose is a lot more fun, "the joy it gives...a venue where one explores forms of experience outside the scope of subjectivity " is more active? At least it helps rehabilitate and restore self-confidence to e.g. some female prisoners in the Swedish prison system, very encouraging indeed, but he could you give us an idea about the practicals of ADD by just posting a video or two of an actual work session? Please? Is that possible?
Double Double entertainment
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