Ishah 'El theatre arts

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:11:00 +0000

The Profit by Kehlog Albran

THE crowds gathered at the foot of the Valley.
Thousands pushed their way through.
The ominous rumbling was heard for miles.

Is he down yet, a merchant selfishly cried.
Where can I see him, an old woman shrieked.
I have waited for him for over one hundred years, a withered man murmured.
The crowd hushed in unison as a glimpse of a figure appeared in the clouded distance.
He is here, they whispered.

He looked almost young yet his age was impossible to guess.
He was not tall, yet he had many tall ways.
As they stared, he sat upon a rock.
Quietly folding his arms, he began to speak:

I am here.
I am tired.
But I will answer your questions.
Bring me food, drink, and don't forget a little gold.
A little silver for an answer.
A drachma for a doubt, a penny for a thought.
For I am The Profit and what I have learned has cost me ten lifetimes.
What you are about to learn has cost you two dollars and fifty cents.

A man came forward from the crowd and said, May I ask now?
The Master nodded.
Master, what have you learned on the Mountain?
Everything, the Master responded.
Have you knowledge above man?
The Master's eyes slowly focused on the humbled interrogator and a chill came over the crowd.

The Master spoke:
In the scope of the Universe, man knows little.
But in his minute wisdom, he thinks himself a god among the other creatures of this planet.
How wrong he is can be seen by observing the uses to which man puts his tiny ration of intellect.
He gloats over his gold.
And lusts after material possessions.
And all the while his most precious possession slips through his fingers like the waters of a running brook.
He lets go the one thing he cannot nor ever will be able to purchase once it is gone, the precious possession that cannot be borrowed or sold.

Time? Is Time the most precious possession, Master?

No, my son, the Master replied, but you're close.

A scholar then asked:
Could you advise me of a proper vocation, Master?

He then said:
Some men can earn their keep with the power of their minds.
Others must use their backs and hands.
This is the same in nature as it is with man.
Some animals acquire their food easily, such as rabbits, horses and elephants.
Other animals must struggle for their food, like flamingos, moles, and ants.
So you see, the nature of the vocation must fit the individual.

But I have no abilities, desires, or talents, Master, the man sobbed.

Have you thought of becoming a stockbroker? the Master queried.

Then an eccentric looking man said,
Speak to us of Art.
And he said:
It might as easily be said that man could live without Art as that man could live without water.
Look upon the innocent scribblings of little children.
Doubt not that each of us emerged from the womb an artist.
Art is freedom.
That which is called Art, yet is made subservient to commerce is not Art.
That which is called Art, yet is made subservient to a Nation or State is not Art.
That which is called Art, yet is hanging in the Museum of Modern Art is not Art. That crap my six year old son could do, the Master explained.

WHAT of Facial Hair, a nubile lad asked.

The Master replied:
As maturity encroaches upon adolescence, as the child becomes the man (or ugly woman) he (or she) begins to grow first the downy fuzz and, subsequently, the rich, wiry outcropping that has come to be called Beard.
It is no small coincidence that a great scribe or teller of tales is called by the similar word Bard.
Many an otherwise canny person has fallen upon troubled times by confusing these words.
For it is true that a Bard can have a Beard, but a Beard cannot have a Bard.
One can shave a Beard, and, for that matter, one can shave a Bard.
But having shaved a Beard, it no longer exists.
Whereas having shaved a Bard you continue to have a Bard.
A Beardless Bard.

Then a person said, Speak to us of Poetry.
And he answered:
There was once a wise poet from the peninsula of Phara.
This peninsula was famous for two things.
It produced either people of incredible stupidity or it produced poets.
Faedil Falzar was the most notable poet ever to come from the region.
He was highly esteemed all over the country.
One day, he travelled to Capez.
There he met a girl who was totally deaf.
He fell in love with her and they were married.
Now, in the town of Capez, women were not encouraged to learn to read, especially deaf women.
So, Faedil Falzar lived the rest of his life under the curse that his most beloved young wife could never know of the beautiful verse he created the loveliest of which was this:
Oh, the beauty of the eye
Of my sweet loved one,
Thelma Y.
Who ne'er upon the course of Life
Did I intend for her; sweet wife,
A wind so foul could not erase
The piteous fury of this space,
Between the two anointed lips
And o'er her wide resplendent hips.
That she and I remain as one,
And together we could have much fun.

A woman stepped forward and asked,
What is the strangest day?

Tuesday, the Master replied.

THEN a young traveler said,
Speak to us of Home, Master.

And he answered:
There is nothing so tender as a man's Home.
Though I have not returned to the place of my childhood and the treasured memories of the past, I can envision them perfectly in my mind's eye.
Yes, I know what Home is.
For there in the far-off valley of Bhagrir, by the ancient city of Ahdrihl, near the embankment of Eurice, under the Corpit cliffs that proudly encroach upon the sea.
In a small humble house across the town square, next to a towering Cypress, that is where I was born.

Is it the Cypress with the crooked limb, Master, that points toward the setting sun in autumn? the traveler asked.

Yes! Yes! cried the Master.

With the crumbling stone wall leading down to the bay? the traveler persisted.

Exactly! the Master shouted.

Howard Johnson's! the traveler cried.

Arguments with furniture are rarely productive.

AND an orator said,
Speak to us of Silence.

And he said:
Silence can be a valuable tool.
And it can be a great inconvenience.
If a man should ask you a question and you remain silent, he may take it as an insult.
Yet if you answer him, he may take it as a larger insult.
When a person remains silent it provokes mystery, as happened many years ago in Hafnir, near Pez.

In that town there lived a very beautiful young woman.
Her beauty was unsurpassed, but she had one flaw.
For, as long as she had lived she had never spoken a single word.
One day the Calif and a group of citizens called upon her father's house as they had so often in the past years.
They were there to encourage her to speak.

The Calif cleared his throat and asked:
"If an apple tree, heavy with fruit, should go unnoticed by man, the birds, and the changing seasons, and all of the fruit should rot, never to be tasted, would not this be a Sin?"
She did not reply.

The Calif then asked:
"If a fireplace contained dry wood and kindling, would it not be a Sin never to ignite the fire and fulfill the fireplace's destiny?"
She did not reply.

The Calif then asked:
"If a bird of magnificent plumage should never venture to take to the air, the skies and places distant from its home -- would that not be a pitiful waste of Nature?"
It was then that her eyes alighted, and she looked up at the Calif.
Her soft lips smiled and parted, and for the first time in her life she spoke.

What were the words that broke her Silence, Master, the man inquired.

"Your fly is open," he recalled.

And a scholar asked, Should a man drink wines, ales and liquors to excess?
He then said:
He who drinks too much wine will feel the price of that ecstasy the next morning.
For exotic liquors must be taken in moderation or all will pay the penalty of misuse.

Man is the only creature to have the ability to create intoxicants.
No other animal has the taste for spirits.
Nature allows no other animal to taste of that pleasure, because nature depends upon all other animals to remain stable and predictable.
Man is the only animal that is allowed the dubious privilege of overindulgence.

Have you ever seen another animal drunk and falling down in the street, sobbing, stinking, and acting totally insane?
No, I haven't, Master, replied the scholar.

Then you haven't met my horse, the Master stated.

Then an athlete said,
Speak to us of Balance.
He then said:
Man cannot know the meaning of Balance until he has felt the consequences of losing his Balance.

In nature's plan of interdependence, one animal must die so that another animal may live.
This is, of course, the Balance of Nature.
But, more importantly, nature does not waste.
Man, however, causes nature to be unbalanced at times.
Animals that have survived eons become extinct at man's merciless hand.
The ground ceases to bear fruit from man's misuse of crops.
Water becomes dead and lifeless from man's foreign chemicals.

Yes, man has much to learn about Balance.

So, when you see an acrobat struggle to walk a tightrope, remember that man is not as highly balanced as he looks.
ANd that he remains the second clumsiest animal on earth.

And what is the clumsiest animal on earth, Master, the man inquired.

Oh, you haven't met my horse either, he replied.

NEVER forget: the ant can carry eight times its own weight.
Or is it nine?

It is impossible to put too much salt on cottage cheese.

Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations.

He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the Jordan, then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an open market.

If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he should not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of himself.

Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree.
Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg.
Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower.

Anyone can amass a fortune if he struggles for only that. It is he who struggles to be poor and ends up wealthy with whom we should be annoyed.

A priest asked,
What is Fate, Master?

And he answered:
It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
It is that which has caused nations to build by-ways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
It is that which has caused great fleets of ships to ply the Seven Seas wherever the wind blows.

And that is Fate? said the priest.

Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.

That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was too.

A nobleman said,
Speak to us of Fortune.
And he replied:
To those who seek great Fortune, I caution thus:
Imagine a land upon which grow copious stalks of gold, full vineyards of emeralds, munificent orchards of onyx, and but one small patch of early June peas.

In such a land, would not a pauper wear diamonds and a monarch peas?
Would not a princess excuse herself to take a gold?

A sparrow could fly to the moon if it but desired to.

Stealing a Rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly.

A youth asked,
What of Night and Day?

He then said:
The darkness of Night is less in the sky than in the mind. For which of us cannot create the illusion of Night by holding a large hollow gourd over his head?
Far different the Day, the Master continued.
It is beyond man's capacity, even for an instant, to create the appearance of Day.

But the petulant youth persisted:
What if one were to gather a thousand candles in a single room?

The Master responded:
A thousand candles do not equal a Day, even in a small room -- say, nine and a half by eleven.
It's different -- take my word for it.
Ten thousand candles, Master?
No.
Twenty thousand candles, Master?
No.
Sixty thousand candles, Master?
No.
One hundred thousand candles, Master?
No.
I give up, the youth exclaimed.
Too bad, the Master shouted, you only missed by six.

A little boy asked me a very perceptive question. I answered him forthwith. Many years later I met him again. He was now a man. He wanted to know the question he had asked so long ago. I told him I had forgotten the question but remembered the answer. To which he said,
"Never mind."

THE River of Ignorance covers most of my regrets.
Thus toad blossoms in glory, fiery purple figs, refracting the Earth's light into a brilliant dawn move me not.
Except sometimes the figs.

Spiders are relatively high in protein, but they tickle.

A lovely young woman stepped forward.
What of Beauty, Master?

He smiled quietly and said:
Can man's eyes ever remember a sunset as brilliant as tomorrow's?
As life's tired evening gently descends upon Everyman's brow, will water ever taste as sweet as yesterday's?
You see, every second that ticks by is like the fragrant blossoms of the field,
whose precious offerings are open for all if only they would
stoop to avail themselves of the treasure.
Beauty is for the few who seek it out.
Are you such a person?
Have you eyes for line and form?
Ears for delicate chords?
A touch for sensitive textures, and a taste for sweet candies?
Do the poets write for your favor, and artists labour for your judgment?
Do you collect beautiful objects and wear fragrant perfumes?
Do you spend your evenings in idyllic peace and harmony?

Do you enjoy reading beautiful crap like this?

You ask of emotional flowers, lonely corn, and orphaned flies.
You have spent your life's hours in endless pursuit of these enigmas.
Yet, I will have the answer in a moment of raindrops, a flicker of shadows, or an Angel's footstep.
If not then, surely by Wednesday.

A youth asked,
Have ye a Plene for a moment's council?
Yes, I replied, but have ye change for a Kneff?

No man ever drowned in the Sahara.
Except Arthur W. Balzak, D.D.S.

My eyes are beholden to the proud delights life has offered. My awareness never crowded with thoughts of clothed horses or images of nude trees ... until last night.

The world as seen through the window of an insane asylum is the same world as seen from the window of a dentist's office.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.

A condemned man does not request egg salad for his last meal. He also doesn't order Alka Seltzer.

There is no easy way to bathe a hummingbird.

Even the best of friends cannot attend each others' funeral.

Then a woman said,
Speak to us of Old Age.
And he answered:
Long ago, Elmir the Curious sailed a small craft up the Euriptic River.
He sought the Elixir of Youth.
It was said that a bush grew somewhere along the river bank, the leaves of which, when cooked for many hours, produced a substance which could ward off the effects of age.
For many years he combed the banks of the Euriptic.

One afternoon he happened upon a Strange Bush.
He picked as many of its leaves as he could carry and sailed back to Califen.

Late that evening he had skimmed off two small vials of the thick and pungent substance.
And he called together the elders of the city, explaining that he was prepared to sell his Elixir of Youth.

How do we know it will work, the elders asked.

Elmir was incensed by these doubts. As they watched in silence, he gulped one entire vial full.

Though Elmir lived for many years after, he never spoke to the elders again.
Many inquired of his experience, but his lips were sealed.

Then he had not discovered the Elixir of Youth, the woman shrugged.

True, the Master replied, but his wealth and fame spread throughout the land.

For he had invented Elmir's Glue.

Even the Thickest pizza on earth will be delivered cold.

Speak to us of Wood, a carpenter said.
He then replied:
From a mighty Cypress tree, man can build a ship and sail to distant lands to meet men of many philosophies.
From the same tree, a man can build a sling and destroy an entire willage.

From such a tree man could erect a temple, a prison, an altar or a funeral pyre.
Yes, man has built many things in his time on this earth.

But there is one thing no man has ever built.

What is that? the carpenter inquired.

Man has never really built a decent chicken.

A philosopher stepped forward:
Master, is not a stone a microcosm, like an olive pit?
Recondite, willing to give but little of itself?
Master, a stone may lie in a riverbed for an eon, giving nothing,
observing all, wearing smooth, dwindling, slowly diminishing,
until at last -- nothing.
But where is the stone of eons past?
In what context does it still exist?
Its atoms have spread across the seas.
Is it a stone still, Master, or is it part of us all?

The Master replied:
Do you have a question to ask, or do you want to make a speech?

A quiet woman said,
Speak to us of Virtue.

He then answered.
Goodness and Kindness are popular Virtues.
Some Virtues are much older.

The serene chaos that is Courage, and the phenomenon of Unopened Consciousness have been known to the Great World eons longer than Extaboulism.

Why is that? the woman inquired.

Because I just made that word up, the Master said wisely.

THEN a scholar said,
Speak to us of Language.

And he answered:
I will tell you the story of Calif Cazar.
He was the wealthiest Calif in all Fez.
And, though his wealth was measured by the cubic yard, he was the loneliest man in Fez.
For the Calif, though an educated man, could not speak the language of trees.

What happened to him? the scholar asked.

The Master responded:
The Calif studied for many years under the wisest Balsam in the realm.
He read the poetry of the Willows and memorized untold sixteenth century Cedar sonnets.
He spoke fluent Spruce.
His Chestnut was impeccable.
And he could converse comfortably in both Northern and Southern Pine.
Native born Walnuts took him for one of their own.

I should like to know more of this brilliant man, the scholar said.
Where may I learn of him?

Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 26, pages 119 through 163.

He is written up there, the scholar asked?

He is written on there, the Master explained.

A woman asked,
Which way does the Wind Blow?

And he said:
The Wind is invisible but strong like Vodka or bad breath.
The Wind is a friend.
The Wind is an enemy.
The Wind is neutral, like Switzerland.
Sometimes the Wind will blow down a tree.
Other times it won't.

There's just no telling with the Wind.

Which way will the Wind blow tomorrow, the woman persisted.
He answered:
The Wind is free and unpredictable, like a bird. It is impossible to guess which way it will blow.
She who would ask such a question would be a fool, and he who would attempt to answer it, a greater fool.

I understand, the woman said, but which way will it blow?
North, he replied.

THEN a nobleman said,
Speak to us of Bad Habits.

And he said:
A good habit is the prayer of our desires, an action that when practiced continuously becomes ingrained in our nature.
But we must beware of Bad Habits, for they can easily be formed.

If an idiot were to tell you the same story every year for a decade,
you might end up believing it through the sheer power of repetition.

Therefore beware, do not let your body become trained against itself, as happened to the man who forced himself to eat spiders and became unable to satiate his appetite and died of eating too many spiders.

You told me that story last year, the nobleman said.

A wizened priest inquired,
Is man eternal, as a mountain?

He replied:
No individual lasts forever, yet man has lasted until now.
An individual may live six score, yet mankind has lived for a thousand score or more.
Therefore I must answer:
Think not of man as a mountain, which is ageless, and never changing.
But think of man as a mountain of changes and variations.
Think of man as a temporary mountain.

AND a farmer said,
Speak to us of Wisdom.

And he answered:
Just as the passage of time will answer the question of Age, the passage of Age will answer the question of Wisdom.

Man has always sought to discover the mystery of Wisdom, just as he seeks to discover the mystery of a rainstorm, or why a potato is not expensive.

The smallest insect possesses profound Wisdom.
That small insect knows the secrets of the earth that man shall never know.
A fish knows the secrets of the sea that man shall never know.
A bird knows the secrets of the sky that man shall never know.

And what is that secret, Master, the man asked.

He replied:
It is this:
All of the creatures of earth must use their imagination.
For it is imagination that makes a piece of bread taste like steak, water taste like wine, and worms taste like chicken.

But what about the secret of the bird, the man insisted.

What bird? the Master inquired.

IF a goldfish should want a vacation, who would know?

What lives longer? A Mayfly or a Cyprus tree?

If you answer a Mayfly then you are very perceptive: you realize that in time and space, time is relative and the short life of the Mayfly could be mysteriously longer than the life of the mighty Cyprus.

If you answered a Cyprus then you are unimaginative, but correct.

The strength of a thousand windmills in a hurricane is worthless without the grain to be ground. And the water of the world's most powerful dam unharnesed could not light a single bulb.

But, more important than that is: Why am I telling you these things?

AND a beggar came forward and asked,
What is Wealth, Master?

The Master spoke:
Gold is not Wealth.
A wealthy man without honor is not a rich man.
A beggar like yourself can be wealthy compared to a rich man without honor.

After all, would you consider a man without honor wealthy, even if his Dinar laid end to end would reach from here to the Temple of Toplat?

No, I wouldn't, the beggar replied.
Why is that? the Master asked.

A Dinar doesn't go very far these days, Master.
Besides, the Temple of Toplat is across the street.

A young merchant pushed through the throng asking,
What is Money?

The Master spoke:
Do not ply your wares beneath an avocado tree.
Do what you must with forked pleasure but never encrust a seed that is destined to rule the forest of men's minds.

But what has that to do with Money, Master? the young merchant asked.

The elixir of life is like an earthworm's touch to a rose's sweetness or a length of thread as spurned by the very magnetism of Eartzil, the Master replied.

I understand, the young merchant exclaimed.

You do? the Master replied.

THEN a young man said,
What of Sugar, Master?

He replied:
There is nothing on earth as sweet as Sugar.
Sugar has made kings and brought great expeditions to explore the world.
America was discovered in search of India where Sugar could be traded for precious articles.
Throughout history man has used Sugar to build empires, and some peoples have used Sugar as money.

You're wrong, Master, everything you have said about Sugar really applies to salt, not Sugar.
It's in all of the history books.

Oh, that's right, the Master replied.

Another young man then asked,
But what of Salt, Master?

He replied:
There is nothing on earth as salty as Salt.
Salt has made kings and brought great expeditions to explore the world.
America was discovered in search of India where Salt could be traded for precious articles.
Throughout history man has used Salt to build empires, and some peoples have used Salt as money.

I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer.

EXCUSE me, Master, a short rabbi asked,
Why doesn't a nice person like you have a wife?

He then said:
I have studied philosophy for many years, and through my travels I have communicated and meditated with nature.
I have acquired many beautiful possessions of nature by opening my mind to the natural beauty of the Earth.
I have dedicated my life to uncovering the mysteries of life, and the unknown.
Through this dedication I have acquired sublime knowledge and profound wisdom.
Therefore one could actually say that I am married to the desire to achieve wisdom.
I am married to many goals and divine ambitions.

In that case, the rabbi responded, have I got a girl for you!

The Master then clopped the rabbi in the head.

What was that for, Master? the rabbi asked.

That was for trying to introduce a cheap Jewish joke into a
non-denominational book, he replied.

A man asked,
What of Ignorance, Master?

He then said:
If every man was a genius, there would be no idiots, and no gauge for the intelligence of man.
For every ignorant ill-bred man, there exists an opposite intelligent, well-bred man.
Each needing each other. Each dependent upon each other.

Remember, unless you're buying a car there is no shame in being
ignorant.
And if you are married, there exists no comfort in being intelligent.

EVEN the tallest man cannot walk through the Grand Canyon without feeling conspicuous.

AND what of Death? an old man asked.

He then said:
Through the ages wise men have explained Death.
Each had a different explanation. Each was right. Each was wrong.

And what of your explanation, oh Master? he asked.

The Master replied:
Death is like taking a mule to Caliphen City for a vacation during August.

And how is that? the man asked.

Extremely crowded, he replied, and very boring.

THE time had come for him to take his leave of this most mysterious of cities, a city in which he had seen the rise of four thousand suns.
A cloud of dust arose from the mountains upon the distant horizon.
The people who had gathered knew -- each and every one of them -- what the dust meant.
It was the coach which would bear the Master away from them, not just for now, but for all time.
A mist formed in the eyes of the women and children.
More than one stalwart man could be seen to brush away an unremitting tear.

And now the coach was present, the horses quivering in anticipation of the long drive that awaited them.
The Master's foot ascended the first step of the coach.
The door latch was opened.

Though none could speak, the words were written upon their faces:

A parting wisdom, please, we beseech you with all the earnestness our heavy hearts can muster.
Please, Master, please... a word?... a smile?... a simple gesture?...

The Master reflected deeply.
And with a hand upon the coach door he turned to them one final time.
And with his remaining hand, he gestured...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:39:00 +0000

Lazarus and his Beloved by Kahlil Gibran

Cast:

Lazarus
Mary, his sister
Martha, his sister
The mother of Lazarus
Philip, a disciple
A Madman

Scene:

The garden outside of the home of Lazarus and his mother and sisters in Bethany
Late afternoon of Monday, the day after the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the grave. At curtain rise: Mary is at right gazing up towards the hills. Martha is seated at her loom near the house door, left. The Madman is seated around the corner of the house, and against its wall, down left.

Play:

Mary: (Turning to Martha) You do not work. You have not worked much lately.

Martha: You are not thinking of my work. My idleness makes you think of what our Master said. Oh, beloved Master!

The Madman: The day shall come when there will be no weaver, and no one to wear the cloth. We shall all stand naked in the sun.

(There is a long silence. The women do not appear to have heard The Madman speaking. They never hear him.)

Mary: It is getting late.

Martha: Yes, yes, I know. It is getting late.

(The mother enters, coming out from the house door.)

Mother: Has he not returned yet?

Martha: No, mother, he has not returned yet.

(The three women look towards the hills.)

The Madman: He himself will never return. All that you may see is a breath struggling in a body.

Mary: It seems to me that he has not yet returned from the other world.

Mother: The death of our Master has afflicted him deeply, and during these last days he has hardly eaten a morsel, and I know at night that he does not sleep. Surely it must have been the death of our Friend.

Martha: No, mother. There is something else; something I do not understand.

Mary: Yes, yes. There is something else. I know it, too. I have known it all these days, yet I cannot explain it. His eyes are deeper. He gazes at me as though he were seeing someone else through me. He is tender but his tenderness is for someone not here. And he is silent, silent as if the seal of death is yet upon his lips.

(A silence falls over the three women.)

The Madman: Everyone looks through everyone else to see someone else.

Mother: (Breaking the silence) Would that he'd return. Of late he has spent too many hours among those hills alone. He should be here with us.

Mary: Mother, he has not been with us for a long time.

Martha: Why, he has always been with us, only those three days!

Mary: Three days? Three days! Yes, Martha, you are right. It was only three days.

Mother: I wish my son would return from the hills.

Martha: He will come soon, mother. You must not worry.

Mary: (in a strange voice) Sometimes I feel that he will never come back from the hills.

Mother: If he came back from the grave, the surely he will come back from the hills. And oh, my daughters, to think that the One who gave us back his life was slain but yesterday.

Mary: Oh the mystery of it, and the pain of it.

Mother: Oh, to think that they could be so cruel to the One who gave my son back to my heart.

(A silence)

Martha: But Lazarus should not stay so long among the hills.

Mary: It is easy for one in a dream to lose his way among the olive groves. And I know a place where Lazarus loved to sit and dream and be still. Oh, mother, it is beside a little stream. If you do not know the place you could not find it. He took me there once, and we sat on two stones, like children. It was spring, and little flowers were growing beside us. We often spoke of that place during the winter season. And each time that he spoke of that place a strange light came into his eyes.

The Madman: Yes, that strange light, that shadow cast by the other light.

Mary: And mother, you know that Lazarus has always been away from us, though he was always with us.

Mother: You say so many things I cannot understand. (Pause) I wish my son would come back from the hills. I wish he would come back! (Pause) I must go in now. The lentils must not be overcooked.

(The mother exits through the door)

Martha: I wish I could understand all that you say, Mary. When you speak it is as though someone else is speaking.

Mary: (Her voice a little strange) I know, my sister, I know. Whenever we speak it is someone else who is speaking.

(There is a prolonged silence. Mary is faraway in her thoughts, and Martha watches her half−curiously. Lazarus enters, coming from the hills, back left. He throws himself upon the grass under the almond trees near the house.)

Mary: (Running toward him) Oh Lazarus, you are tired and weary. You should not have walked so far.

Lazarus: (Speaking absently) Walking, walking and going nowhere; seeking and finding nothing. But it is better to be among the hills.

The Madman: Well, after all it is a cubit nearer to the other hills.

Martha: (After brief silence) But you are not well, and you leave us all day long, and we are much concerned. What you came back, Lazarus, you made us happy. But in leaving us alone here you turn our happiness into anxiety.

Lazarus: (Turning his face toward the hills) Did I leave you long this day? Strange that you should call a moment among the hills a separation. Did I truly stay more that a moment among the hills?
Martha: You have been gone all day.

Lazarus: To think, to think! A whole day among the hills! Who would believe it?

(A silence. The mother enters, coming out from the house door.)

Mother: Oh, my son, I am glad you have come back. It is late and the mist is gathering upon the hills. I feared for you my son.

The Madman: They are afraid of the mist. And the mist is their beginning and the mist is their end.

Lazarus: Yes, I have come back to you from the hills. The pity of it, the pity of it all.

Mother: What is it Lazarus? What is the pity of it all?

Lazarus: Nothing, mother. Nothing.

Mother: You speak strangely. I do not understand you, Lazarus. You have said little since your
home−coming. But whatever you have said has been strange to me.

Martha: Yes, strange.

(There is a pause.)

Mother: And now the mist is gathering here. Let us go into the house. Come, my children.
(The mother, after kissing Lazarus with wistful tenderness, enters the house.)

Martha: Yes, there is a chill in the air. I must take my loom and my linen indoors.

Mary: (sitting down beside Lazarus on the grass under the almond trees, and speaking to Martha) It is true the April evenings are not good for either your loom or your linen. Would you want me to help you take your loom indoors?

Martha: No, no. I can do it alone. I have always done it alone.

(Martha carries her loom into the house, then she returns for the linen, taking that in also. A wind passes by, shaking the almond tree, and a drift of petals falls over Mary and Lazarus.)

Lazarus: Even spring would comfort us, and even the trees would weep for us. All there is on earth, if all there is on earth could know our downfall and our grief, would pity us and weep for us.

Mary: But spring is with us, and though veiled with the veil of sorrow, yet it is spring. Let us not speak of pity. Let us rather accept both our spring and our sorrow with gratitude. And let us wonder in sweet silence at Him who gave you life yet yielded His own life. Let us not speak of pity, Lazarus.

Lazarus: Pity, pity that I should be torn away from a thousand thousand years of heart's desire, a thousand thousand years of heart's hunger. Pity that after a thousand thousand springs I am turned to this winter.

Mary: What do you mean, my brother? Why do you speak of a thousand thousand springs? You were but three days away from us. Three short days. But our sorrow was indeed longer than three days.

Lazarus: Three days? Three centuries, three aeons! All of time! All of time with the one my soul loved before time began.

The Madman: Yes, three days, three centuries, three aeons. Strange they would always weigh and measure. It is always a sundial and a pair of scales.

Mary: (In amazement) The one you soul loved before time began? Lazarus, why do you say these things? It is but a dream you dreamed in another garden. Now we are here in this garden, a stone's throw from Jerusalem. We are here. And you know well, my brother, that our Master would have you be with us in this awakening to dream of life and love; and He would have you an ardent disciple, a living witness of His glory.

Lazarus: There is no dream here and there is no awakening. You and I and this garden are but an illusion, a shadow of the real. The awakening is there where I was with my beloved and the reality.

Mary: (Rising) Your beloved?

Lazarus: (Also rising) My beloved.

The Madman: Yes, yes. His beloved, the space virgin, the beloved of everyman.

Mary: But where is your beloved? Who is your beloved?

Lazarus: My twin heart whom I sought here and did not find. Then death, the angel with winged feet, came and led my longing to her longing, and I lived with her in the very heart of God. And I became nearer to her and she to me, and we were one. We were a sphere that shines in the sun; and we were a song among the stars.
All this, Mary, all this and more, till a voice, a voice from the depths, the voice of a world called me; and that which was inseparable was torn asunder. And the thousand thousand years with my beloved in space could not guard me from the power of that voice which called me back.

Mary: (Looking unto the sky) O blessed angels of our silent hours, make me to understand this thing! I would not be an alien in this new land discovered by death. Say more, my brother, go on. I believe in my heart I can follow you.

The Madman: Follow him, if you can, little woman. Shall the turtle follow the stag?

Lazarus: I was a stream and I sought the sea where my beloved dwells, and when I reached the sea I was brought to the hills to run again among the rocks. I was a song imprisoned in silence, longing for the heart of my beloved, and when the winds of heaven released me and uttered me in that green forest I was recaptured by a voice, and I was turned again into silence. I was a root in the dark earth, and I became a flower and then a fragrance in space rising to enfold my beloved, and I was caught and gathered by hand, and I was made a root again, a root in the dark earth.

The Madman: If you are a root you can always escape the tempests in the branches. And it is good to be a running stream even after you have reached the sea. Of course it is good for water to run upward.

Mary: (To herself) Oh strange, passing strange! (To Lazarus) But my brother it is good to be a running stream, and it is not good to be a song not yet sung, and it is good to be a root in the dark earth. The Master knew all this and He called you back to us that we may know there is no veil between life and death. Do you not see how one word uttered in love may bring together elements scattered by an illusion called death? Believe and have faith, for only in faith, which is our deeper knowledge, can you find comfort.

Lazarus: Comfort! Comfort the treacherous, the deadly! Comfort that cheats our senses and makes us slaves to the passing hour! I would not have comfort. I would have passion! I would burn in the cool space with my beloved. I would be in the boundless space with my mate, my other self. O Mary, Mary, you were once my sister, and we knew one another even when our nearest kin knew us not. Now listen to me, listen to me with your heart.

Mary: I am listening, Lazarus.

The Madman: Let the whole world listen. The sky will now speak to the earth, but the earth is deaf as you and I.

Lazarus: We were in space, my beloved and I, and we were all space. We were in light and we were all light. And we roamed even like the ancient spirit that moved upon the face of the waters; and it was forever the first day. We were love itself that dwells in the heart of the white silence. Then a voice like thunder, a voice like countless spears piercing the ether, cried out saying, "Lazarus, come forth!" And the voice echoed and
re−echoed in space, and I, even as a flood tide became an ebbing tide; a house divided, a garment rent, a youth unspent, a tower that fell down, and out of its broken stones a landmark was made. A voice cried "Lazarus, come forth!" and I descended from the mansion of the sky to a tomb within a tomb, this body in a sealed cave.

The Madman: Master of the caravan, where are your camels and where are your men? Was it the hungry earth that swallowed them? Was it the simoom that shrouded them with sand? No! Jesus of Nazareth raised His hand, Jesus of Nazareth uttered a word; and tell me now, where are your camels and where are your men, and where are your treasures? In the trackless sand, in the trackless sand. But the moon will always come
again.

Mary: Oh, it is like a dream dreamt upon a mountaintop. I know, my brother, I know the world you have visited, though I have never seen it. Yet all that you say is passing strange. It is a tale told by someone across a valley, and I can hardly hear it.

Lazarus: It is all so different across the valley. There is no weight there and there is no measure. You are with
your beloved.
(A silence)

Lazarus: O my beloved! O my beloved fragrance in space! Wings that were spread for me! Tell me, tell me in the stillness of my heart, do you seek me, and was it pain to you to be separated from me? Was I also a fragrance and wings spread in space? And tell me now, my beloved, was there a double cruelty, was there a brother of His in another world who called you from life to death, and had you a mother and sisters and
friends who deemed it a miracle? Was there a double cruelty performed in blessedness?

Mary: No, no, my brother. There is only one Jesus of one world. All else is but a dream, even as your beloved.

Lazarus: (With great passion) No, no! If He is not a dream then He is nothing. If He had not known what is beyond Jerusalem, then He is nothing. If He did not know my beloved in space then He was not the Master. O my friend Jesus, you once gave me a cup of wine across the table, and you said, "Drink this in remembrance of me." And you dipped a morsel of bread in the oil, and you said, "Eat this, it is my share of the loaf." O my
friend, you have put your arm on my shoulder and called me "son." My mother and my sisters have said in their hearts, "He loves our Lazarus.' And I loved you. And then you went away to build more towers in the sky, and I went to my beloved. Tell me now, tell me, why did you bring me back? Did you not know in your knowing heart that I was with my beloved? Did you not meet her in you wandering above the summits of
Lebanon? Surely you saw her image in my eyes when I came and stood before you at the door of the tomb. And have you not a beloved in the sun? And would you have a greater one than yourself separate you from her? And after separation what would you say? What shall I say to you now?

The Madman: He bade me also to come back but I did not obey, and now they call me mad.

Mary: Lazarus, Have I a beloved in the sky? Has my longing created a being beyond this world? And must I die to be with him? Oh, my brother, tell me, have I a mate also? If this thing be so, how good it is to live and die, and live and die again; if a beloved awaits me, to fulfill all that I am, and I to fulfill all that he is!

The Madman: Everywoman has a beloved in the sky. The heart of everywoman creates a being in space.

Mary: (Repeating softly as if to herself) Have I a beloved in the sky?

Lazarus: I do not know. But if you had a beloved, an other self, somewhere, somewhen, and you should meet
him, surely there would not be one to separate you from him.

The Madman: He may be here, and He may call her. But like many others she may not hear.

Lazarus: (Coming to the centre of stage) To wait, to wait for each season to overcome another season; and then to wait for that season to be overcome by another; to watch all things ending before your own end comes−your end which is your beginning. To listen to all voices, and to know that they melt to silence, all save the voice of your heart that would cry even in sleep.

The Madman: The children of God married the children of men. Then they were divorced. Now, the children of men long for the children of God. I pity them all, the children of men and the children of God.

(A silence)

Martha: (Appearing in the doorway) Why don't you come into the house, Lazarus? Our mother has prepared the supper. (With a little impatience) Whenever you and Mary are together you talk and talk, and no one knows what you say.

(Martha stands for a sew seconds, then goes into the house.)

Lazarus: (Speaking to himself, and as though he has not heard Martha) Oh, I am spent. I am wasted, I am hungry and I am thirsty. Would that you could give me some bread and some wine.

Mary: (Going to him and putting her arm around him) I will, I will, my brother. But some into the house. Our mother has prepared the evening meal.

The Madman: He asks for bread which they cannot bake, and wine for which they have no bottles.

Lazarus: Did I say I was hungry and thirsty? I am not hungry for your bread, nor thirsty for your wine. I tell you I shall not enter a house until my beloved's hand is upon the latch of the door. I shall not sit at the feast till she be at my side.

(Mother peers from the house door.)

Mother: Now, Lazarus, why do you stay out in the mist? And you, Mary, why do you not come into the house? I have lit the candles and the food is upon the board, and yet you will stay out babbling and chewing your words in the dark.

Lazarus: Mine own mother would have me enter a tomb. She would have me eat and drink and she would even bid me sit among shrouded faces and receive eternity from withered hands and draw life from clay cups.

The Madman: White bird that flew southward where the sun loves all things, what held you in mid−air, and who brought you back? It was your friend, Jesus of Nazareth. He brought you back out of pity for the wingless who would not be along. Oh, white bird, it is cold here, and you shiver and the North wind laughs in your feathers.

Lazarus: You would be in a house and under a roof. You would be within four walls, with a door and a window. You would be here, and you are without vision. Your mind is here, and my spirit is there. All of you is upon the earth; all of me is in space. You creep into houses, and I flew beyond upon the mountaintop. You are all slaves, the one to the other, and you worship but yourselves. You sleep and you dream not; you wake
but you walk not among the hills. And yesterday I was weary of you and of lives, and I sought the other world which you call death, and if I had died it was out of longing. Now, I stand here at this moment, rebelling against that which you call life.

Martha: (Who has come out of the house while Lazarus was speaking) But the Master saw our sorrow and our pain, and He called you back to us, and yet you rebel. Oh, what cloth, rebelling against its own weaver!
What a house rebelling against its own builder!

Mary: He knew our hearts and He was gracious unto us, and when He met our mother and saw in her eyes a dead son, buried, then her sorrow held Him, and for a moment He was still, and He was silent. (Pause) Then we followed Him to your tomb.

Lazarus: Yes, it was my mother's sorrow, and your sorrow. It was pity, self−pity, that brought me back. How selfish is self−pity, and how deep. I say that I rebel. I say that divinity itself should not turn spring to winter. I had climbed the hills in longing, and your sorrow brought me back to this valley. You wanted a son and a brother to be with you through life. Your neighbours wanted a miracle. You and your neighbours, like your fathers and your forefathers, would have a miracle, that you may believe in the simplest things in life. How cruel you are and how hard are your hearts, and how dark is the night of your eyes. For that you bring down the prophets from their glory to you joys, and then you kill the prophets.

Martha: (with reproof) You call our sorrow self−pity. What is your wailing but self−pity? Be quiet, and accept the life the Master has given you.

Lazarus: He did not give me life, He gave you my life. He took my life from my own beloved, and gave it to you, a miracle to open your eyes and your ears. He sacrificed me even as He sacrificed Himself. (Speaking unto the sky) Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.

Mary: (In awe) It was He who said those very words, hanging upon the cross.

Lazarus: Yes, He said these words for me as for Himself, and for all the unknown who understand and are not understood. Did He not say these words when your tears begged Him for my life? It was your desire and not His will that bade His spirit to stand at the sealed door and urge eternity to yield me unto you. It was the ancient longing for a son and a brother that brought me back.

Mother: (Approaches him and puts her arm around his shoulders) Lazarus, you were ever an obedient son and a loving son. What has happened to you? Be with us, and forget all that troubles you.

Lazarus: (Raising his hand) My mother and my brothers and my sisters are those who hear my words.

Mary: These are also His words.

Lazarus: Yes, and He said these words for me as well as for Himself, and for all those who have earth for mother, and sky for father, and for all those who are born free of a people and a country and a race.

The Madman: Captain of my ship, the wind filled your sails, and you dared the sea; and you sought the blessed isles. What other wind changed your course, and why did you return to these shores? It was Jesus of Nazareth who commanded the wind with a breath of His own breath, and then filled the sail where it was empty, and emptied it where it was full.

Lazarus: (Suddenly he forgets them all, and he raises his head, and opens his arms.) O my beloved! There was dawn in your eyes, and in that dawn there was the silent mystery of a deep night, and the silent promise of a full day, and I was fulfilled, and I was whole. O my beloved, this life, this veil, is between us now. Must I live this death and die again that I may live again? Must needs linger until all these green things turn yellow and then naked again, and yet again? (Pause) Oh, I cannot curse Him. But why, of all men, why should I return? Why should I of all shepherds be driven back into the desert after the green pasture?

The Madman: If you were one of those who would curse, you would not have died so young.

Lazarus: Jesus of Nazareth, tell me now, why did you do this to me? Was it fair that I should be laid down, a humble lowly sorrowful stone leading to the height of your glory? Any one of the dead might have served to glorify you. Why have you separated this lover from his beloved? Why did you call me to a world which you knew in your heart you would leave? (Then crying with a great voice) Why−why− why did you call me from
the living heart of eternity to this living death? O Jesus of Nazareth−I cannot curse you! I cannot curse you. I would bless you. (Silence. Lazarus becomes as one whose strength has gone out in a stream. His head falls forward almost upon his breast. After a moment of awful silence, he raises his head again, and with a transfigured face he cries in a deep and thrilling voice.) Jesus of Narareth! My friend! We have both been crucified. Forgive me! Forgive me. I bless you − now, and forevermore.

(At this moment the disciple appears running from the direction of the hills.)

Mary: Philip!

Philip: He is risen! The Master is risen from the dead and now He is gone to Galilee.

The Madman: He is risen, but He will be crucified again a thousand times.

Mary: Philip, my friend, what do you say?

Martha: (Rushes toward the disciple, and grasps him by the arms) How glad I am to see you again. But who has risen? Of whom are you speaking?

Mother: (Walking toward him) Come in, my son. You shall have supper with us tonight.

Philip: (Unmoved by any of their words) I say the Master has risen from the dead and has gone into Galilee.

(A deep silence falls.)

Lazarus: Now you shall all listen to me. If He has risen from the dead they will crucify Him again, but they shall not crucify Him alone. Now I shall proclaim Him, and they shall crucify me also.

(He turns in exaltation and walk in the direction of the hills.)

Lazarus: My mother and my sisters, I shall follow Him who gave me life until He gives me death. Yes, I too would be crucified, and that crucifixion will end this crucifixion.

(A silence)

Lazarus: Now I shall seek His spirit, and I shall be released. And though they bind me in iron chains I shall not be bound. And though a thousand mothers and a thousand thousand sisters shall hold my garments I shall not be held. I shall go with the East wind where the East wind goes. And I shall seek my beloved in the sunset where all our days find peace. And I shall seek my beloved in the night where all the mornings sleep. And I shall be the one man among all men who twice suffered life, and twice death, and twice knew eternity.

(Lazarus looks into the face of his mother, then into the faces of his sisters, then at Philip's face; then again at his mother's face. Then as if he were a sleepwalker he turns and runs toward the hills. He disappears. They are all dazed and shaken.)

Mother: My son, my son, come back to me!

Mary: My brother, where are you going? Oh come, my brother, come back to us.

Martha: (As if to herself) It is so dark I know that he will lose his way.

Mother: (Almost screaming) Lazurus, my son!
(A silence)

Philip: He has gone where we all shall go. And he shall not return.

Mother: (Going to the very back of the stage, close to where he has disappeared) Lazarus, Lazarus, my son! Come back to me! (She shrieks.)

(There is a silence. The running steps of Lazarus are lost in the distance.)

The Madman: Now he is gone, and he is beyond your reach. And now your sorrow must seek another. (He pauses) Poor, poor Lazarus, the first of the martyrs, and the greatest of them all.

Alain de Botton on atheism and religion

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:36:00 +0000

I found this talk on Ted yesterday and found his ideas on what atheists can learn from religion intriguing. A transcript is included on the site, which I am also posting here in case you wish to read it.

Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0

One of the most common ways of dividing the world is into those who believe and those who don't -- into the religious and the atheists. And for the last decade or so, it's been quite clear what being an atheist means. There have been some very vocal atheists who've pointed out, not just that religion is wrong, but that it's ridiculous. These people, many of whom have lived in North Oxford, have argued -- they've argued that believing in God is akin to believing in fairies and essentially that the whole thing is a childish game.

Now I think it's too easy. I think it's too easy to dismiss the whole of religion that way. And it's as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. And what I'd like to inaugurate today is a new way of being an atheist -- if you like, a new version of atheism we could call Atheism 2.0. Now what is Atheism 2.0? Well it starts from a very basic premise: of course, there's no God. Of course, there are no deities or supernatural spirits or angels, etc. Now let's move on; that's not the end of the story, that's the very, very beginning.

I'm interested in the kind of constituency that thinks something along these lines: that thinks, "I can't believe in any of this stuff. I can't believe in the doctrines. I don't think these doctrines are right. But," a very important but, "I love Christmas carols. I really like the art of Mantegna. I really like looking at old churches. I really like turning the pages of the Old Testament." Whatever it may be, you know the kind of thing I'm talking about -- people who are attracted to the ritualistic side, the moralistic, communal side of religion, but can't bear the doctrine. Until now, these people have faced a rather unpleasant choice. It's almost as though either you accept the doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you're living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.

So that's a sort of tough choice. I don't think we have to make that choice. I think there is an alternative. I think there are ways -- and I'm being both very respectful and completely impious -- of stealing from religions. If you don't believe in a religion, there's nothing wrong with picking and mixing, with taking out the best sides of religion. And for me, atheism 2.0 is about both, as I say, a respectful and an impious way of going through religions and saying, "What here could we use?" The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly, I would argue. And a thorough study of religion could give us all sorts of insights into areas of life that are not going too well. And I'd like to run through a few of these today.

I'd like to kick off by looking at education. Now education is a field the secular world really believes in. When we think about how we're going to make the world a better place, we think education; that's where we put a lot of money. Education is going to give us, not only commercial skills, industrial skills, it's also going to make us better people. You know the kind of thing a commencement address is, and graduation ceremonies, those lyrical claims that education, the process of education -- particularly higher education -- will make us into nobler and better human beings. That's a lovely idea. Interesting where it came from.

In the early 19th century, church attendance in Western Europe started sliding down very, very sharply, and people panicked. They asked themselves the following question. They said, where are people going to find the morality, where are they going to find guidance, and where are they going to find sources of consolation? And influential voices came up with one answer. They said culture. It's to culture that we should look for guidance, for consolation, for morality. Let's look to the plays of Shakespeare, the dialogues of Plato, the novels of Jane Austen. In there, we'll find a lot of the truths that we might previously have found in the Gospel of Saint John. Now I think that's a very beautiful idea and a very true idea. They wanted to replace scripture with culture. And that's a very plausible idea. It's also an idea that we have forgotten.

If you went to a top university -- let's say you went to Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge -- and you said, "I've come here because I'm in search of morality, guidance and consolation; I want to know how to live," they would show you the way to the insane asylum. This is simply not what our grandest and best institutes of higher learning are in the business of. Why? They don't think we need it. They don't think we are in an urgent need of assistance. They see us as adults, rational adults. What we need is information. We need data, we don't need help.

Now religions start from a very different place indeed. All religions, all major religions, at various points call us children. And like children, they believe that we are in severe need of assistance. We're only just holding it together. Perhaps this is just me, maybe you. But anyway, we're only just holding it together. And we need help. Of course, we need help. And so we need guidance and we need didactic learning.

You know, in the 18th century in the U.K., the greatest preacher, greatest religious preacher, was a man called John Wesley, who went up and down this country delivering sermons, advising people how they could live. He delivered sermons on the duties of parents to their children and children to their parents, the duties of the rich to the poor and the poor to the rich. He was trying to tell people how they should live through the medium of sermons, the classic medium of delivery of religions.

Now we've given up with the idea of sermons. If you said to a modern liberal individualist, "Hey, how about a sermon?" they'd go, "No, no. I don't need one of those. I'm an independent, individual person." What's the difference between a sermon and our modern, secular mode of delivery, the lecture? Well a sermon wants to change your life and a lecture wants to give you a bit of information. And I think we need to get back to that sermon tradition. The tradition of sermonizing is hugely valuable, because we are in need of guidance, morality and consolation -- and religions know that.

Another point about education: we tend to believe in the modern secular world that if you tell someone something once, they'll remember it. Sit them in a classroom, tell them about Plato at the age of 20, send them out for a career in management consultancy for 40 years, and that lesson will stick with them. Religions go, "Nonsense. You need to keep repeating the lesson 10 times a day. So get on your knees and repeat it." That's what all religions tell us: "Get on you knees and repeat it 10 or 20 or 15 times a day." Otherwise our minds are like sieves.

So religions are cultures of repetition. They circle the great truths again and again and again. We associate repetition with boredom. "Give us the new," we're always saying. "The new is better than the old." If I said to you, "Okay, we're not going to have new TED. We're just going to run through all the old ones and watch them five times because they're so true. We're going to watch Elizabeth Gilbert five times because what she says is so clever," you'd feel cheated. Not so if you're adopting a religious mindset.

The other things that religions do is to arrange time. All the major religions give us calendars. What is a calendar? A calendar is a way of making sure that across the year you will bump into certain very important ideas. In the Catholic chronology, Catholic calendar, at the end of March you will think about St. Jerome and his qualities of humility and goodness and his generosity to the poor. You won't do that by accident; you will do that because you are guided to do that. Now we don't think that way. In the secular world we think, "If an idea is important, I'll bump into it. I'll just come across it." Nonsense, says the religious world view. Religious view says we need calendars, we need to structure time, we need to synchronize encounters. This comes across also in the way in which religions set up rituals around important feelings.

Take the Moon. It's really important to look at the Moon. You know, when you look at the Moon, you think, "I'm really small. What are my problems?" It sets things into perspective, etc., etc. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often. We don't. Why don't we? Well there's nothing to tell us, "Look at the Moon." But if you're a Zen Buddhist in the middle of September, you will be ordered out of your home, made to stand on a canonical platform and made to celebrate the festival of Tsukimi, where you will be given poems to read in honor of the Moon and the passage of time and the frailty of life that it should remind us of. You'll be handed rice cakes. And the Moon and the reflection on the Moon will have a secure place in your heart. That's very good.

The other thing that religions are really aware of is: speak well -- I'm not doing a very good job of this here -- but oratory, oratory is absolutely key to religions. In the secular world, you can come through the university system and be a lousy speaker and still have a great career. But the religious world doesn't think that way. What you're saying needs to be backed up by a really convincing way of saying it.

So if you go to an African American Pentecostalist church in the American South and you listen to how they talk, my goodness, they talk well. After every convincing point, people will go, "Amen, amen, amen." At the end of a really rousing paragraph, they'll all stand up, and they'll go, "Thank you Jesus, thank you Christ, thank you Savior." If we were doing it like they do it -- let's not do it, but if we were to do it -- I would tell you something like, "Culture should replace scripture." And you would go, "Amen, amen, amen." And at the end of my talk, you would all stand up and you would go, "Thank you Plato, thank you Shakespeare, thank you Jane Austen." And we'd know that we had a real rhythm going. All right, all right. We're getting there. We're getting there.

(Applause)

The other thing that religions know is we're not just brains, we are also bodies. And when they teach us a lesson, they do it via the body. So for example, take the Jewish idea of forgiveness. Jews are very interested in forgiveness and how we should start anew and start afresh. They don't just deliver us sermons on this. They don't just give us books or words about this. They tell us to have a bath. So in Orthodox Jewish communities, every Friday you go to a Mikveh. You immerse yourself in the water, and a physical action backs up a philosophical idea. We don't tend to do that. Our ideas are in one area and our behavior with our bodies is in another. Religions are fascinating in the way they try and combine the two.

Let's look at art now. Now art is something that in the secular world, we think very highly of. We think art is really, really important. A lot of our surplus wealth goes to museums, etc. We sometimes hear it said that museums are our new cathedrals, or our new churches. You've heard that saying. Now I think that the potential is there, but we've completely let ourselves down. And the reason we've let ourselves down is that we're not properly studying how religions handle art.

The two really bad ideas that are hovering in the modern world that inhibit our capacity to draw strength from art: The first idea is that art should be for art's sake -- a ridiculous idea -- an idea that art should live in a hermetic bubble and should not try to do anything with this troubled world. I couldn't disagree more. The other thing that we believe is that art shouldn't explain itself, that artists shouldn't say what they're up to, because if they said it, it might destroy the spell and we might find it too easy. That's why a very common feeling when you're in a museum -- let's admit it -- is, "I don't know what this is about." But if we're serious people, we don't admit to that. But that feeling of puzzlement is structural to contemporary art.

Now religions have a much saner attitude to art. They have no trouble telling us what art is about. Art is about two things in all the major faiths. Firstly, it's trying to remind you of what there is to love. And secondly, it's trying to remind you of what there is to fear and to hate. And that's what art is. Art is a visceral encounter with the most important ideas of your faith. So as you walk around a church, or a mosque or a cathedral, what you're trying to imbibe, what you're imbibing is, through your eyes, through your senses, truths that have otherwise come to you through your mind.

Essentially it's propaganda. Rembrandt is a propagandist in the Christian view. Now the word "propaganda" sets off alarm bells. We think of Hitler, we think of Stalin. Don't, necessarily. Propaganda is a manner of being didactic in honor of something. And if that thing is good, there's no problem with it at all.

My view is that museums should take a leaf out of the book of religions. And they should make sure that when you walk into a museum -- if I was a museum curator, I would make a room for love, a room for generosity. All works of art are talking to us about things. And if we were able to arrange spaces where we could come across works where we would be told, use these works of art to cement these ideas in your mind, we would get a lot more out of art. Art would pick up the duty that it used to have and that we've neglected because of certain mis-founded ideas. Art should be one of the tools by which we improve our society. Art should be didactic.

Let's think of something else. The people in the modern world, in the secular world, who are interested in matters of the spirit, in matters of the mind, in higher soul-like concerns, tend to by isolated individuals. They're poets, they're philosophers, they're photographers, they're filmmakers. And they tend to be on their own. They're our cottage industries. They are vulnerable, single people. And they get depressed and they get sad on their own. And they don't really change much.

Now think about religions, think about organized religions. What do organized religions do? They group together, they form institutions. And that has all sorts of advantages. First of all, scale, might. The Catholic Church pulled in 97 billion dollars last year according to the Wall Street Journal. These are massive machines. They're collaborative, they're branded, they're multinational, and they're highly disciplined.

These are all very good qualities. We recognize them in relation to corporations. And corporations are very like religions in many ways, except they're right down at the bottom of the pyramid of needs. They're selling us shoes and cars. Whereas the people who are selling us the higher stuff -- the therapists, the poets -- are on their own and they have no power, they have no might. So religions are the foremost example of an institution that is fighting for the things of the mind. Now we may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.

Books alone, books written by lone individuals, are not going to change anything. We need to group together. If you want to change the world, you have to group together, you have to be collaborative. And that's what religions do. They are multinational, as I say, they are branded, they have a clear identity, so they don't get lost in a busy world. That's something we can learn from.

I want to conclude. Really what I want to say is for many of you who are operating in a range of different fields, there is something to learn from the example of religion -- even if you don't believe any of it. If you're involved in anything that's communal, that involves lots of people getting together, there are things for you in religion. If you're involved, say, in a travel industry in any way, look at pilgrimage. Look very closely at pilgrimage. We haven't begun to scratch the surface of what travel could be because we haven't looked at what religions do with travel. If you're in the art world, look at the example of what religions are doing with art. And if you're an educator in any way, again, look at how religions are spreading ideas. You may not agree with the ideas, but my goodness, they're highly effective mechanisms for doing so.

So really my concluding point is you may not agree with religion, but at the end of the day, religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone; they're for all of us.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Chris Anderson: Now this is actually a courageous talk, because you're kind of setting up yourself in some ways to be ridiculed in some quarters.

AB: You can get shot by both sides. You can get shot by the hard-headed atheists, and you can get shot by those who fully believe.

CA: Incoming missiles from North Oxford at any moment.

AB: Indeed.

CA: But you left out one aspect of religion that a lot of people might say your agenda could borrow from, which is this sense -- that's actually probably the most important thing to anyone who's religious -- of spiritual experience, of some kind of connection with something that's bigger than you are. Is there any room for that experience in Atheism 2.0?

AB: Absolutely. I, like many of you, meet people who say things like, "But isn't there something bigger than us, something else?" And I say, "Of course." And they say, "So aren't you sort of religious?" And I go, "No." Why does that sense of mystery, that sense of the dizzying scale of the universe, need to be accompanied by a mystical feeling? Science and just observation gives us that feeling without it, so I don't feel the need. The universe is large and we are tiny, without the need for further religious superstructure. So one can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit.

CA: Actually, let me just ask a question. How many people here would say that religion is important to them? Is there an equivalent process by which there's a sort of bridge between what you're talking about and what you would say to them?

AB: I would say that there are many, many gaps in secular life and these can be plugged. It's not as though, as I try to suggest, it's not as though either you have religion and then you have to accept all sorts of things, or you don't have religion and then you're cut off from all these very good things. It's so sad that we constantly say, "I don't believe so I can't have community, so I'm cut off from morality, so I can't go on a pilgrimage." One wants to say, "Nonsense. Why not?" And that's really the spirit of my talk. There's so much we can absorb. Atheism shouldn't cut itself off from the rich sources of religion.

CA: It seems to me that there's plenty of people in the TED community who are atheists. But probably most people in the community certainly don't think that religion is going away any time soon and want to find the language to have a constructive dialogue and to feel like we can actually talk to each other and at least share some things in common. Are we foolish to be optimistic about the possibility of a world where, instead of religion being the great rallying cry of divide and war, that there could be bridging?

AB: No, we need to be polite about differences. Politeness is a much-overlooked virtue. It's seen as hypocrisy. But we need to get to a stage when you're an atheist and someone says, "Well you know, I did pray the other day," you politely ignore it. You move on. Because you've agreed on 90 percent of things, because you have a shared view on so many things, and you politely differ. And I think that's what the religious wars of late have ignored. They've ignored the possibility of harmonious disagreement.

CA: And finally, does this new thing that you're proposing that's not a religion but something else, does it need a leader, and are you volunteering to be the pope?

(Laughter)

AB: Well, one thing that we're all very suspicious of is individual leaders. It doesn't need it. What I've tried to lay out is a framework and I'm hoping that people can just fill it in. I've sketched a sort of broad framework. But wherever you are, as I say, if you're in the travel industry, do that travel bit. If you're in the communal industry, look at religion and do the communal bit. So it's a wiki project.

(Laughter)

CA: Alain, thank you for sparking many conversations later.

Valik and Valerik

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:56:00 +0000

Valik and Valerik. Clown duo Valeri Kashkin and Valentina Rumyantseva. "Guitarist". Валерий Кашкин, Валентина Румянцева. Клоунский дуэт Валик и Валерик. Реприза "Гитарист". From St. Petersburg State Circus, Russia.

Rabbit Creates a Clay Man

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:45:00 +0000

In a world long before this one, there was enough for everyone until somebody got out of line.
We heard it was Rabbit, fooling around with clay and the wind.
Everybody was tired of his tricks and no one would play with him; he was lonely in this world.
So Rabbit thought to make a person.
And when he blew into the mouth of that crude figure to see what would happen, the clay man stood up.
Rabbit showed the clay man how to steal a chicken.
The clay man obeyed.
Then Rabbit showed him how to steal corn.
The clay man obeyed.
Then he showed him how to steal someone else’s wife.
The clay man obeyed.
Rabbit felt important and powerful.
The clay man felt important and powerful.
And once that clay man started he could not stop.
Once he took that chicken he wanted all the chickens.
And once he took that corn he wanted all the corn.
And once he took that wife, he wanted all the wives.
He was insatiable.
Then he had a taste of gold and he wanted all the gold.
Then it was land and anything else he saw.
His wanting only made him want more.
Soon it was countries, and then it was trade.
Any thought, action or dream
Rubs up against everyone else.
The wanting infected the earth.
We lost track of the purpose and reason for life.
We began to forget our songs, we forgot our stories; we could no longer see or hear our ancestors, or talk with each other across the kitchen table.
Now Rabbit couldn’t find a drink of fresh water.
The forests were being mowed down all over the world.
The earth was being destroyed to make more and Rabbit had no place to play.
Rabbit’s trick had backfired.
And now his clay man was too consumed to run with him.
Rabbit tried to call the clay man back, but when the clay man wouldn’t listen Rabbit realized he’d made a clay man with no ears.

Rabbit Is Up to Tricks by Joy Harjo

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:18:00 +0000

Veszelka Kommandó - Engem Anyám

Please check out the music these folks are making!

http://veszelkakommando.hu

http://www.myspace.com/veszelkakommando

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 8.5.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 01:13:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, August 5th.

The show airs on Fridays on WMUA 91.1 from 12:00 to 2:30 pm EST. Two and a half hours of eclectic music from our wonderful planet - music from overseas, underground, inner space & the outer limits!

If you don't live within the broadcast range, you can stream it live through iTunes. Just go to iTunes, click on "Radio" and search for WMUA in the "College / University" and "Eclectic" sections. You can also join us on Facebook.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

To listen to a podcast of the show, click on the flash player at the beginning of the post/ playlist and enjoy listening! Also, you can check out this playlist and others from WMUA online at: http://www.wmua.org/playlists.

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Share

Skalpel - High - Skalpel - Ninja Tune
Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass - Sadhanipa - Passages - Private Music/ BMG

Pece Atanasovski Orchestra - Stojane luda delijo - Music from Dolneni - Pece Atanasovski Orchestra
Vesa-Matti Loiri - Turkish Coffee - 4+20 - Porter Records
Marijata - No Condition Is Permanent - This Is Marijata - Marijata
Noor Alam - Dilkabate Tin Daraja - The Rough Guide To Sufi Music (CD2) - Rough Guides/World Music NetworkM. Abdul Gani, M. Haja Maideen & S. Sabur Maideen - The Saint - Nagore Sessions - EarthSync
Arif Lohar and Meesha Shafi - Alif Allah Chambey Di Booty - Coke Studio Sessions - Coke Studio
Wild Children - 咒語 - (Unknown) - (Unknown)
Caffe-In - 明知山有虎 and Bomb Girl - Caffe-In - (Unknown)
Caffe-In - 加油小毛虫 (Go, Caterpiller)
Kartick & Gotam - Supreme Chaos - Business Class Refugees - White Swan
Kartick & Gotam - Heer - Business Class Refugees - White Swan
Cascadia 10 - Pharaohs of Elysium - Live - Cascadia10
The Funk Ark - El Beasto - From The Rooftops - ESL Music & Outernational Music
Hauschka - Freibad - Ferndorf - Fatcat Records
Team Me - Weathervanes and Chemicals - Team Me EP - Propeller Recordings
Suchy Chleb Dla Konia - Amsterdam [Negatyw's cover] - Suchy Paradoks - Suchy Chleb Dla Konia
Hanggai - Drinking Song - Introducing Hanggai - Return to the Sources
Imperial Tiger Orchestra - Djemeregne (original track by Muluqen Mellesse) - Addis Abeba - Mental Groove
Tandy Love - Bear Ham - Turk Jerk: Anatolian Anagrams - Fat City
Tandy Love - Asia Subs Kenya - Turk Jerk: Anatolian Anagrams - Fat City
Owiny Sigoma Band - Doyoi Nyajo Nam (Quantic Remix) - Tafsiri Sound - Brownswood Recordings
Ali Hassan Kuban - Sukkar, Sukkar, Sukkar - From Nubia to Cairo - Piranha
Abra K Dabra - The Juju is the Thing
Aktuala - Ugula Baliuè African Planet - Tappeto Volante - Bla Bla
Wulomei - Wo Wee Loo - Walatu Walasa - Acord
Barry Forgie - Mindbender - Stringtronics: Mindbender - PID

Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show 7.29.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 01:10:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, July 29th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Ikebe Shakedown - Tujunga - Ikebe Shakedown - Ubiquity Records - new

Rotofobia - Neony - Neony - Rotofobia

NOFF - Przed Znieczulenium - DEMO - NOFF

The Rebels Of Tijuana - Fire Till The Break of Dawn - Orange Juice - Echo Orange - new

Sonora Ponceña - Luz Negra - A Band And Its Music - Fania - new

El-Abranis - Athedjaladde - Waking up Scheherazade Vol. 1 - 60's and 70's Cross-Over Rock from North African Countries and The Middle East. - Grey Past (Netherlands) - new

El-Abranis - Avetheri A L'afjare - Waking up Scheherazade Vol. 1 - 60's and 70's Cross-Over Rock from North African Countries and The Middle East. - Grey Past (Netherlands) - new

Kareem Isaaq & Middle Eastern Rock - Besasha - Waking up Scheherazade Vol. 1 - 60's and 70's Cross-Over Rock from North African Countries and The Middle East. - Grey Past (Netherlands) - new

Ancient Future - Alap - World Without Walls - Capitol Records - new

Ancient Future - Indra's Net - World Without Walls - Capitol Records - new

Ancient Future - Gopi Song - World Without Walls - Capitol Records - new

Fatoumata Diawara - Kanou - Kanou EP - World Circuit - new

Buszkasi - No Cukor - FÜLE ZENEIMNEK - EGAL Cultclub - new

Therese Aune - Chameleon - Oslo 2 - Spoon Train Audio

Therese Aune - Film #1

Dav Intergalactic - Lakier - Mechanika Płynów - Dav Intergalactic

Czaqu - Zdumiony (live) - Koncert w Radiu Dla Ciebie (2008) - Czaqu

Cabaret - Lesz Koszt - - EGAL cultclub

Los Vigilantes - Ven Vamos - S/t - Slovenly Records - new

Los Vigilantes - Nina Donde Estas - S/t - Slovenly Records - new

Fatoumata Diawara - Clandestin - Live at The Sage, Gateshead - Unreleased - World Circuit - new

Meyong - "Les Peuples" en Langue Fang

Frere Merimee i - Femme de distinction

Simphiwe Dana - Ndiredi

Amy Koita - Alla Noh

Mónica Naranjo - Europa - Tarántula - Sony BMG Music Entertainment España

Univers Zero - Ronde - 1313 - Cuneiform Records

Penelope - Si Tu Reviens Chez Moi (5 Gentlemen cover) -- La Triperie - La Triperie

Les 5 Gentlemen - Si Tu Reviens Chez Moi

Les Sparks - Palladium

Distemper - Доброе утро - Доброе утро! - Distemper

Primitive Reason - Shadow Man - The Firescroll - Kaminari Records

Cheo Feliciano - Los Entierros - La Herencia - Fania

Skruvmejsel - Mr.Yr - The X-Dump: Female - Skruvmejsel

WMUA 91.1 World Music Show Playlist 7.27.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 01:07:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the WMUA 91.1 World Music Block, Wednesday, July 27th.

Catch the world music block Mondays through Fridays on WMUA 91.1 from 12:00 to 2:30 pm EST. Two and a half hours of eclectic music from our wonderful planet - music from overseas, underground, inner space & the outer limits!

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Share

Jimmy Heap & His Orchestra - Gismo - Las Vegas Grind Part One - From Meanwhile / Gismo 7"

Thirteen Senses - Crystal Sounds - Crystal Sounds - 101 Distribution
Farben Lehre - Erato - Snukraina - Mystic Production
Zmaza - Wstyd - Owszem - Zmaza
Leniwiec - PiekłoNiebo - Reklamy na niebie - Leniwiec
Farben Lehre - Urwis - Ferajna - Farben Lehre
Akurat - Kapitał - Prowincja - Akurat
Muzyka Końca Lata - Żabi - Jedno wesele, dwa pogrzeby
Suchy Chleb Dla Konia - Telefony - Ocalenie
News - Tell Me (Lebanon) - Waking up Scheherazade Vol. 2 - 60's and 70's Cross-Over Rock from North African Countries and The Middle East. - Grey Past (Netherlands)
Ronnie Bird - On S'Aime En Secret - Twistin' The Rock CD1
Silje Nes - The Grass Harp - Opticks - Fat Cat Records
Sol Y Canto - Beso Discreto - Cada Día Un Regalo - Amador Music
Ilaiyaraaja - One And Two Chachacha (Featuring T.M. Soundarajan & L.R. Eswari) - Solla Solla - B-Music
Curly Davis And The Uniques - Black Cobra Pt. 2 - Chains & Black Exhaust
The Sparkles - The Hip - 45's
Thunderball - Rio Mescalito (Mexicans with Guns Remix) - 12 Mile High Remixed - Thunderball DC
Da Cruz - Boom Boom Boom - Sistema Subversiva - Six Degrees
Ilaiyaraaja - Kholapurase Kudasathrivasi (Featuring S.P. Sailaja & Chorus) - Solla Solla - B-Music
Ocote Soul Sounds & Adrian Quesada - The Revolt of The Cockroach People - Coconut Rock - ESL Music, Inc.
Khandahar - Down at the Finckle's - Long Live The Sliced Ham - Sony
Khandahar - Survivin' Boogie - Long Live The Sliced Ham - Sony
Monomono - Awareness is What You Need - Dawn Of Awareness - Capitol Records
The Great Big Taters - Don't Go Now - Fake It - Potato Records
The Great Big Taters - Human Shit - Human Shit - Potato Records
Besh O Drom - Ayelet Chen - Ha Megfogom az Ordogot - Sony Music Entertainment
Kerekes Band - Ethno Funk - World Music from Hungary - Sony Music Entertainment
Delicate Steve - Butterfly - Luaka Bop Presents Xingu - Luaka Bop
Tom Ze - Roquenrol Bim-Bom - Luaka Bop Presents Xingu - Luaka Bop
Baoku t.c.r - Freedom - OKODORO ORO The Realistic Reality
Susana Baca - Bendiceme - Luaka Bop Presents Xingu - Luaka Bop
Javelin - Bye n Bye - Luaka Bop Presents Xingu - Luaka Bop
Balkanbeats / Ot Azoj Klezmer Band - Turkish Honga - Balkan Beats Vol. 2 - Eastblok Music
Cheo Feliciano - Los Entierros - La Herencia - Fania

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 7.22.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 01:03:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, July 22nd.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Share

Hollywood Persuaders - Drums A Go Go - Drums A-Go-Go - Crossfire Publications
Ocote Soul Sounds - Pirata - Taurus - ESL Music & Outernational Music

Mão Morta - Oub' Lá (Demo '87) - Mao Morta K7 - Cobra Discos
Ancient Future - Lakshmi Rocks Me - World Without Walls - Capitol Records
Ancient Future - End of the Beginning - World Without Walls - Capitol Records
Ilaiyaraaja - Mayakkama (Featuring Vani Jairam) - Solla Solla - B-Music
Ilaiyaraaja - Vaa! Naailukku Naall (Featuring S.P. Balasubrahmanyam) - Solla Solla - B-Music
Zdenek Liska - Aquatic Babicak (Song) - Malá Morská Víla - B-Music
Zdenek Liska - Games / Echoes - Malá Morská Víla - B-Music
Ilaiyaraaja - Solla Solla (Featuring S.P. Balasubrahmanyam) - Solla Solla - B-Music
Ilaiyaraaja - Raja Rani Jaakki (Featuring S.P. Sailaja & Malaysia Vasudevan) - Solla Solla - B-Music
Ilaiyaraaja - Thithikkum (Featuring S.P. Sailaja & S.P. Balas) - Solla Solla - B-Music
Ancient Future - Turkish Taffy - World Without Walls - Capitol Records
Ancient Future - Nyo Nyo Gde - World Without Walls - Capitol Records
Derdiyoklar - Dazlaklar - Oyun Havalari ve Halaylar - Türküola Müzik
Derdiyoklar - Çiftetelli - Oyun Havalari ve Halaylar - Türküola Müzik
Curly Davis & The Uniques - Black Cobra Pt. 1 - Because You're Funky
Ludger - Cowboy Sale - Le Motel des Astronautes - Éditions Haïku
The Opposition Party - Agbadza - Live At Primitive - The Opposition Party
Vern Blair Debate - Super Funk - Texas Funk - Jazzman
Captain Planet - Dame Agua - The Ningané EP - Bastard Jazz
Loga Ramin Torkian - Az Pardeh- Through the Veil - Mehraab - Electrofone Music
Razika - Nytt Pa Nytt - Program 91 - Smalltown Supersound
Silje Nes - Giant Disguise - Ames Room - FatCat Records
Elakelaiset - Pottajenkka - In Humppa We Trust - live
Elakelaiset - Humppa - Elakelaiset
Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band - Djurdjevdan - Live from the 2010 Golden Festival - Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band
Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band - Kalasnjikov - Live from the 2010 Golden Festival - Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band
Baoku - Free Nigeria - Okodoro Oro The Realistic Reality - baokutcr.com
Sakis Zachariades Staff - It All Sounds Greek To Me - Steel Gallery Records
Monomono - Awareness is What You Need - Dawn Of Awareness - Capitol Records
Koes Bersaudara - Hari Ini - To the So Called 'The Guilties"
Rəmiş - Tekcə sənnən xoşum gəlir - Albom Kolleksiyası - İnstrumental Musiqilər
Dara Puspita - A Go Go - A Go Go
Los Bunkers - Cancion De Lejos - Canción de Lejos - Big Sur Records
Los Bunkers - Sabes Que - Canción de Lejos - Big Sur Records
Khandahar - Down at the Finckle's - Long Live The Sliced Ham - Sony
Khandahar - Survivin' Boogie - Long Live The Sliced Ham - Sony

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 7.15.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 01:00:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, July 15th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Intended Immigration - Tangodeur - Sneak Peek Passport - Wooden Hat Records - new

Genesis - Supper's Ready - Foxtrot - Wea Int'l

Canzoniere Del Lazio - Ballu - Spirito Bono - Indie Europe/Zoom - new

Sparks - Biology 2 - Sparks - Rhino

Poom Puwarin - Tai Por Karm Bar (Die Because Of The Chubbiness) - Luk Thung! (The Roots Of Thai Funk) - ZudRangMa - new

Todd Rundgren - Miracle In The Bazaar - A Cappella (AP13 Vinyl Rip) - Rhino / Wea

Todd Rundgren - Lockjaw - A Cappella (AP13 Vinyl Rip) - Rhino / Wea

Les Hou-Lops L`intégrale volume 1 - Blue Jeans Sur La Plage - Tout ira très bien

Tillman Sillescu - Army Angels - Action And Adventure Vol 1 - Freeplaymusic, BMI - new

Tilly & The Wall - Rainbows in the Dark - Bottoms of Barrels - Team Love Records

Thawal Pukathorn - Pu Ying Yang Nong (Women Like You) - Luk Thung! (The Roots Of Thai Funk) - ZudRangMa - new

A Taste of Honey - Hong Kong Sci-Fi Girl Garage Band 7

Evy - Une question qui se pose - Girls in the Garage Vol 12 - Romulan

Les Princesses - Oh ! dis-moi - Girls in the Garage Vol 12 - Romulan

Buppha Saichon - sao na khoi khu - mon rak luk thung (o.s.t.)

Mundo Cão - Caixão da Razão - Mundo Cão - Som Livre

Natisú - Perros Para Colgar la Ropa - Natisú - Natisú - new

Neeraj Shridhar - Ishq Ka Kalma - Dhan Dhana Dhan... Goal - Neeraj Shridhar - new

Pony Bravo - El Rayo - Si bajo de espalda no me da miedo (y otras historias) - El Rancho Casa de Discos - new

Yulduz Usmanova - Schoch Va Gado - The Hundred Thousand Fools Of God/ Theodore Levin - Indiana University Press

I Giullari DI Piazza - Canto Di Afrodite (Song Of Aphrodite) - Earth, Sun & Moon - Lyrichord

Radio Bagdad - Giną jak we mgle (wersja radiowa) - Giną jak we mgle - maksisingiel - Radio Bagdad - new

Radio Bagdad - A ja nie! - Słodkie Koktajle Mołotowa - Radio Bagdad - new

Radio Bagdad - Londyn Dzwoni - Londyn dzwoni (Singiel) - Radio Bagdad - new

Radio Bagdad - Czas Naszych Czasów - Słodkie Koktajle Mołotowa - Radio Bagdad - new

Radio Bagdad - Tak bardzo przypominasz mi - Kupując czerń - Radio Bagdad - new

Radio Bagdad - Kupując czerń - Kupując czerń - Radio Bagdad - new

Radio Bagdad - Magister - Słodkie Koktajle Mołotowa - Radio Bagdad - new

Radio Bagdad - Bedziem Robić Politykę - Słodkie Koktajle Mołotowa - Radio Bagdad - new

Radio Bagdad - Patrzymy Wam na Ręce - Słodkie Koktajle Mołotowa - Radio Bagdad - new

Husnu Ozkartal Orkestrasi - Su Derenin Sulari - Psych Funk 101 - World Psychedelic

Kukumbas - Respect - Psych Funk 101 - World Psychedelic

Zmaza - Wstyd - Owszem - Zmaza

Funk Inc. - The Hill Where The Lord Hides

Farben Lehre - Terrorystan - Farbenheit - Farben Lehre - new

Zmaza - Sam na sam - Sam Na Sam- Singiel - Zmaza - new

Leniwiec - Deportacja 68 - Z tarczą lub na tarczy - Leniwiec - new

Leniwiec - Narodowość nieznana - Z tarczą lub na tarczy - Leniwiec - new

Leniwiec - PiekłoNiebo - Reklamy na niebie - Leniwiec - new

Farben Lehre - Urwis - Ferajna - Farben Lehre - new

Akurat - Kapitał - Prowincja - Akurat - new

Pece Atanasovski Orchestra - Stojane luda delijo - Music from Dolneni - Pece Atanasovski Orchestra - new

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 7.8.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:57:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, July 8th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Django Reinhardt - Brazil

Samba Chula De São Braz - Samba, Cachaça E Viola - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - Plataforma de Lançamento - new

Clecia Queiroz - Pimenteira - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Roberto Mendes - Beira-Mar - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Tiganá - Maçalê - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Baianasystem - Ôxe Como Era Doce - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Lucas Santtana - Amor Em Jacumã - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Manuela Rodrigues - Barraqueira - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Marcella Bella - Quando O Samba Quer - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Márcia Castro - Frevo Pecadinho - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - - new

Radiola - Gelo Liso É Paraíso Pra Quem Sabe Dançar - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Orkestra Rumpilezz - Floresta Azul - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Mateus Aleluia - Cordeiro De Nanã - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Quinteto Sao Do Mato - Kuzey Mane - Musicas Minas - Music From Minas Gerais/Brazil - BM&A/ Musica Minas - new

Alejandro Carbajal - Conclusiones Personales

Blasted Mechanism - Blast Your Mind - Mind at Large - Toolateman

Blasted Mechanism - Start To Move (Paranormal Att - Mind at Large - Toolateman

Nelio Guerson and Carlos Guerson - Forro Dos Cumpadre - Top Hits From Brazil - Independent

Seu Jorge - Carolina - Carolina - Mr. Bongo - new

Brothers of Brazil - Samba Around The Clock - PunkaNova

Brothers of Brazil - I Hate The Beatles - PunkaNova

Amarguinhas - Just Girls - Amarguinhas - IPLAY

Amarguinhas - Diabo à solta - Amarguinhas - IPLAY

Buraka Som Sistema - Sound of Kuduro - Black Diamond - Fabric 591 Limited

Buraka Som Sistema - Hangover (BaBaBa) - Hangover (BaBaBa) - Enchufada - new

Ilê Aiyê - O Mais Belo Dos Belos - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Hugo San E Orquestra De Pagode - Sinfonia Primeira De Pagode - Brazilian Sampler From Bahia (Songlines #77 Bonus CD) - new

Los Gatos Salvajes - La Respuesta

Forro In The Dark - Nonsensical (Album Version) - Light A Candle - Nat. Geo Music

Forro In The Dark - Saudades de Manezinho Araujo - Nat Geo Amazon Sampler - Nat Geo Music - new

Os Haxixins - Depois de Um LSD

Os Baobás - Down Down - Mocambo CS 1.246

Vitor Ramil + Marcos Suzano - Que Horas Não São? - The Rough Guide To Brazilian Café (CD2) - new

Andreia Dias - Noites - Brazil New Series - BMA Brazil - new

Dois Do Samba - Contrariedade - Musicas Minas - Music From Minas Gerais/Brazil - BM&A/ Musica Minas - new

Chico Pinheiro - Ao Vento - Brazil New Series - BMA Brazil - new

The Real Tuesday Weld - (Return I will) to Old Brazil

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 7.1.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:53:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, July 1st.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Share

Dub Colossus - Guragigna - Addis Through The Looking Glass - Real World Records - new

Bang On A Can - Andriessen: Hout - Industry

Kai-Jo Brothers - Chewit Tee Pan Nam - new

NAIV - Chto Nam Delat (What Must We Do)

Слот (Slot) - 2 войны (2 Wars)

Наив - Обыватель - Наив - Обывател

NAIV - Nie Nie Bedzie Nas

สล็อต แมชชีน (Slot Machine) - จันทร์เจ้า (Goodbye) - new

Les Dirigeants Africains - Smod - new

Thievery Corporation - Culture Of Fear - Culture Of Fear - new

he Phenomenal Handclap Band - The Journey to Serra Da Estrela (Fujiya & Miyagi Remix) - Friendly Fire Recordings 2011 Sampler - new

Los Fabulosos Cadillacs - Vamos Ya! - Nacional Records Sampler 2011 | The New Sounds Of Latin Music Volume 2 - new

Monareta - Fried Speakers - Nacional Records Sampler 2011 | The New Sounds Of Latin Music Volume 2 - new

Lumerians - Black Tusk - Knitting Factory Records 2011 Spring Sampler - new

Femi Kuti - Dem Bobo - Knitting Factory Records 2011 Spring Sampler - new

Carminho - Escrevi Teu Nome No Vento (Fado Carriche) - Fado - EMI new

Bombino - Ahoulaguine Akaline - Agadez - Cumbancha Discovery - new

Blind Note - Chiraki Par - Blind Note - Muziek Publique - new

Susana Baca (Featuring Quetzel) - Que Bonito Tu Vestido - Afrodiaspora - Luakabop - new

Forty Thieves Orkestar - Last Band Standing - Last Band Standing - Enja Records - new

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan - Mann Ki Lagan - Sufis at the Cinema - Saregama - new

Jess Lége, Joel Savoy And The Cajun Country Revival - Corina - The Right Combination - Valcour Records - new

Nils Økland, Sigbjørn Apeland - Sylkje-Per - Homage a Ole Bull - ECM Records - new

Momo Wandel Soumah - Toko - Afro Swing - Fonti Musicali

Excerpt From Life In A Day Soundtrack - Angolan Women Singing - Life for a Day/ Miguel Malta - new

Doc Watson & Clarence Ashley - The Coo-Coo Bird - The Original Folkways Recordings 1960-1962 - Smithsonian Folkways

Lee "Scratch" Perry - Having A Party - Scratch Came, Scratch Saw, Scratch Conquered - Megawave

Asha Bhosle - Ina Mina Dika - Aasha - Saregama -

El-Abranis - Athedjaladde - Waking up Scheherazade Vol. 1 - 60's and 70's Cross-Over Rock from North African Countries and The Middle East. - Grey Past (Netherlands) - new

Caddywhompus - The Weight - The Weight - Chinquapin Records/ Community Records - new

The Flaming Tsunamis - REFUSE TO DIE - Zombies vs Robots - EP - Community Records

Farben Lehre - Erato - Snukraina - last.fm

Leniwiec - PiekłoNiebo - Reklamy na niebie - last.fm

Farben Lehre - Urwis - Ferajna - last.fm

Akurat - Kapitał - Prowincja - last.fm

News - Tell Me (Lebanon) - Waking up Scheherazade Vol. 2 - 60's and 70's Cross-Over Rock from North African Countries and The Middle East. - Grey Past (Netherlands) - new

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 6.24.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:48:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, June 24th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Jerry Goldsmith - Our Man Flint - Our Man Flint (Original Soundtrack) - 20th Century Fox

Wall Of Voodoo - Ring Of Fire (Remix) - Ring Of Fire (Remix) The Morricone Themes (Live) 12" - Index

Maya Beiser - Cello Counterpoint by Steve Reich & World to Come by David Lang - Live at TED Conference June 2011 - Maya Beiser - new

Maya Beiser - Kashmir - Provenance - Innova - new

Apocalyptica - Burn - Worlds Collide - Red Int / Red Ink

The Ethiopians - In Dis Ya Time

The Ethiopians - Train to Skaville - Train to Skaville: Anthology 1966-1975 - Trojan Records

The Ethiopians - Conquering Lion of Judah

The Maytals - Monkey Man - Monkry Man - Sanctuary Records

Paolo Conte - L'Ultima Donna

Freshlyground - Fire Is Low - Radio Africa - Freeground Records/Sony Music Africa - new

Freshlyground - Vula Amehlo - Radio Africa - Freeground Records/Sony Music Africa - new

Freshlyground - Doo Be Doo - Nomvula - Wrasse Records

Freshlyground - Human Angels - Nomvula - Wrasse Records

Freshlyground - Ma' Cheri (Live)

Freshlyground - Pot Belly (Live) - Wrasse Records

Irka Mateo - El Morro de Montecristi - Anacaona - Irka Mateo/ Socan

Malaika - Never Change My Mind - Sekunjalo - Giant Steps

Spirit - Fresh Garbage - Spirit - Sony

The Negro Problem - The Meaning Of Everything - Post Minstrel Syndrome - Smile Records

Mike Oldfield - Platinum, Part 4: North Star/Platinum Finale - Platinum - Blue Plate Caroline

Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Perpetuum Mobile - A Brief History/ Mary And Max Soundtrack - Virgin

Chico Buarque - Feijoada Completa - Chico Buarque

Chico Buarque - Ate O Fim - Chico Buarque

George Adams - I.J. - Live At Montmartre - Timeless Jazz Legacy

Laika And The Cosmonauts - Rikki On The Loose - Cosmopolis - Grand Pop

Laika & the Cosmonauts - Theme from 'The Avengers' - The Amazing Colossal Band - Upstart

Spirit - Mechanical World - Spirit - Sony

Jerry Goldsmith - You Are A Foolish Man Mr. Flint!; It's Got To Be A World's Record; Stall! Stall! Flint's Alive!!!!; End Title - Our Man Flint (Original Soundtrack) - 20th Century Fox

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 6.17.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:44:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, June 17th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Mitchell Froom - Thrill Factor - The Key of Cool/Café Flesh - Slash

Shakti - Mind Ecology - Natural Elements - Sony/Columbia

Lisbon Underground Music Ensemble - Free Style Boogie - Live Recording at Teatro Gil Vicente - Coimbra, Portugal - November 2006

Gloria Ríos - El Relojito (Rock Around the Clock), México 1956

Jazzimodo - Castillos en el Aire - new

Svjetlana - Secret (Metatheory Remix) - new

Braids - Plath Heart - Native Speaker - Kanine Records - new

Braids - Lemonade - Native Speaker - Kanine Records - new

Matias Cena - 5 Norte 5 Sur - A Todos Nos Mintieron - Carter Vol.3

Matias Cena - No Todos Queremos Mediador - A Todos Nos Mintieron - Spies Vol. 1

J. Magan & M. Rodriguez vs Nari & Milan - Musica Magica vs Etnika (2mischt Bootleg)

Buke And Gass - Your Face Left Before You - Riposte

Milan Nikoli & Balkan Beat Orchestra - Milioni

Kailasa - Kaise Main Kahoon - Yatra (Nomadic Souls) - Songlines CD #75 (April/May 2011) - new

Ahmad Zahir - Yak Dil Mega Boro

The Devil's Anvil - Shisheler - Hard Rock From The Middle East - 101 Distribution

The Devil's Anvil - Misirlou - Hard Rock From The Middle East - 101 Distribution

Dariush - Cheshm-E Man - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Googoosh - Talagh - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Googoosh - Bemoun Ta Bemounam - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Googoosh - Gol Bi Goldoon - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Kourosh Yaghmaie - Gol-E Yakh - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Marjan - Kavir-E Del - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Mehrpouya - Soul Raga - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Mohammad Nouri - Biya Bar-E Safar Bandim - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Nosoh Afarin - Gol-E Aftab Gardoon - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Parva - Mosem-E Gol - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Ramesh - Sharm-E Boos-E - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Sima Bina - Naz Kardanet Vaveyla - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Soli - Miravi - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Soli - Negar - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Zia - Helelyos - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Zia - Kofriam - Pomegranates - Finders Keepers - new

Kate Miller-Heidke - Career Advice

Basic Sounds of Pittsburgh - Down Beat

Sunrise Movement - Running Wild

Rah Band - Downside Up - The Very Best of - Shocking Music

Mitchell Froom - Thrill Factor (Reprise) - The Key of Cool/ Café Flesh - Slash

WMUA 91.1 World Music Show Playlist 6.15.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:16:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the WMUA 91.1 World Music Block, Wednesday, June 15th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Ad Ville Que Pourra - Les Bois Noirs - Menage a Quatre - Xenophile
Nicky Lee et Les Playboys - Dansons le Meringue
Barachois - Pot-Pourri - Barachois - House Party
Jacques Lebreque - La Parente
Chuck and Albert Arsenault - (Unknown)
Chuck and Albert Arsenault - A la Clair Fontaine
Chuck and Albert Arsenault - (Unknown) - Live at NERFA 2008
La Vent du Nord - Lanlaire - La Part Du Feu - Borealis Recording
Genticorum - Violon Guerisseur
Genticorum - Tout le Long du Voyage - Nagez Rumeurs - Roues et Archets
Genticorum - Reel Circulaire - Nagez Rumeurs - Roues et Archets
Genticorum - Cascou
Genticorum - La Bibournoise - La Bibournoise - Mad River Records
Genticorum - Le Moine Blanc - La Bibournoise - Mad River Records
Le Vent Du Nord - Octobre 1837 - La Part Du Feu - Borealis Recording
Claude Dubois with Eric Lapointe et Garou - La Chasse Galerie - Celine sur les Plaines
Les Maudits Matous - Martin de la Chasse Galerie
Vishten - Mariez-Moi (Avec Paroles) - Vishten
Vishten - Les Yeux Noirs
La Bolduc - La Bastringue
La Bolduc - La Chanson du Bavard
Oscar Thiffault - Le Rapide Blanc
La Famille Soucy - Les Fraises et Les Framboises
La Famille Soucy - Son p'ti Bidou Lie Lie - Un Party Ben l'fun
Jacques Labreque - Ah Toi! Belle Hirondelle - Le Quebec en 100 Chansons
Garolou - Ah Toi! Belle Hirondelle - Tableaux D'Hier Vol. 1
Les Gendarmes - Radio - Les Gendarmes
Les Gendarmes - Sold Out - Les Gendarmes
Les Gendarmes - Do What Mama Said - Les Gendarmes
Pierre Noles - Paint It Black
Willie Lamothe - Je Chante a Cheval - Le Quebec en 100 Chansons
Guylaine Guy - A Rosemont Sous la Pluie - Le Quebec en 100 Chansons
Stan Rogers - Cape St. Mary's - For The Family - Gadfly
Genticorum - Le Brandy Culotte - La Bibournoise - Mad River Records
La Vent du Nord - L'Adieu du Soldat - La Part Du Feu - Borealis Recording
La Vent du Nord - Petit Reve 5 - La Part Du Feu - Borealis Recording
Paolo Noel - Carre Saint-Louis - Le Quebec en 100 Chansons

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 6.10.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:03:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from the Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, June 10th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Share

Seun Anikulapo Kuti & Egypt 80 - Slave Masters - From Africa with Fury: Rise - Knitting Factory Records

Joan Soriano - Aye Belie - El Duque de la Bachata - iASO

Dengue Fever - Uku - Cannibal Courtship - Fantasy

Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens/ Soul Brothers - Hamba Phepa Lami - Jive & Soul: The Very Best Of - Demon

Madou Sidiki Diabate, Ahmed Fofana & Alex Wilson - Donkan - Mali Latino - Alex Wilson Records

Da Cruz - Curumin - Sistema Subversiva - Six Degrees

Ali Reza Ghorbani - Dar Achegi - Songs of Rebirth/ Tribute to Rumi - Accords Croises

Wganda Kenya - La Trompeta Loca - The Afrosound of Colombia Vol. 1 - Vampisoul

Lapiro De Mbanga - Constitution Constipee - Listen to the Banned - Heilo

Rachid Taha - It's an Arabian Song - Bonjour - Universal

Carla Bley & Paul Haines - Rawalpindi Blues - Escalator Over The Hill - JCOA

Karsh Kale - Supernova - Cinema - Six Degrees

Ricardo Parreira - Meditano - Nas Veias De Uma Guitarra - HM Musica

Nirmala Rajasekar - Sarasuda - Into the Raga - Innova Recordings

JPP - Hammennys "Perplexcity" - OArt Music - OArt Music

Fruko & Joe Arroyo - Fruko y Sus Tesos - Rebelion Tropical - Nascente

Fruko Y Sus Tesos Piper Pimienta) Canto A Panama Rebelión Tropical: The Very Best Of - [Disc 1] Fruko Disc

Yaars - Scrooge - Persian Underground - Songlines Recordings

Tito Puente - Mambo Diablo - Greatest Hits - Fania -

Latin Dub Sound System - Babalu Remix - Global Local Festival Champions - Songlines Recordings

Fania All Stars - Estrellas De Fania - John Leguizamo - Ghetto Klown - Music From My Hood - Fania

Felix Lajko - Boban Markovic Orkestar - Crni Voz - Best of Fono - Fono

Le Vent du Nord - Elise - La Part du Feu Borealis Records

Robin and Makyn

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:22:00 +0000

Robin and Makyn
by Robert Henryson

Robyn sat on a good green hill,
Keeping a flock was he
Merry Makyn near him till,
"Robin, have ruth for me;
I have loved thee loud and still
For years now two or three,
Doleful in secret; unless thou will,
I fear I shall doubtless die."

Robin answered, "By the Rood,
Nothing of love I know
But keeping my sheep under yon wood--
Lo! where they wander a-row:
What has marred thee in they mood,
Makyn, I beg thou show;
Or what is love, or to be loved?
Fain I would learn that law."

"At love's lair, to learn its lore
Take there this a-b-c:
Be kind, courteous, and fair as fair,
Wise, generous, hearty
So that thou need not to endure
What hidden hurts may harm thee;
Fight thy pain with all thy power,
Have patience and be privy."

Robin answered her again,
"I know not what is love,
But I am marvelous uncertain
What makes thee thus to grieve:
The weather is fair, I have no pain,
My hale sheep climb above;
And should we play upon this plain,
We both would earn reproof."

"Robin, pay heed unto my tale,
Work all as I have said,
And thou shalt have my heart all hale,
Aye, and my maidenhead.
Since God sends thee beauty for bale,
And mourning is remade,
I plead with thee, if I turn tail,
Doubtless I am but dead."

"Makyn, this morning it may betide,
While ye waylay me here,
My sheep may hap to stray aside
While we have lain full near;
I fret this moment as I bide
That they shall disappear--
What freights my heart I will not hide;
Makyn, be of good cheer."

"Robin, thou rob my ruth and rest;
I love but thee alone."
"Makyn, adieu, the sun goes west,
The day is nearly gone."
"Robyn, I grieve; I am distressed
That love will be my bane."
"Go love, Makyn, wherever thou list,
For mistresses I want none."

"Robin, I stand in such a stall;
I sigh, and that full sore.
"Makyn, I have been here this while;
At home God grant I were."
"My honey, Robin, talk awhile,
If thou wilt do no more."
"Makyn, some other man beguile,
For homeward I will fare."

Upon his own way Robin went
Light as the leaf of a tree;
Makyn, spited of her intent,
Watched Robin across the lea
And vowed to spurn him without stint.
Then Makyn cried out on high,
"Now may thou sing, for I am spent!
What ails this love in me?"

Makyn went home and did not fail,
Weary of learning to weep.
Then Robin in a full-fair dale
Gathered together his sheep,
When some part of what made Makyn ail
Into his heart did creep;
He followed her fast till he could hale
And tell her, "Take good keep!

"Abide, abide, thou fair Makyn,
One word for anything;
For all my love, it shall be thine,
Without any departing.
O take my heart, for to have thine
Is all my coveting;
My sheep till tomorrow's hours nine
Will need of no keeping."

"Robin, thou hast heard sing and say
In gestes and stories old,
The man that will not when he may
Shall have not when he would.
I pray that Jesus every day
Increase their cares and cold
Who shall contend with thee to play
By firth, forest, or fold."

"Makyn, the night is soft and dry,
The weather is warm and fair,
And the greenwood is here nearby,
We may walk privy where
No gossips will be near to spy
Upon our trysting there;
Therein, Makyn, both ye and I,
Unseen we may repair."

"Robin, that world is all away
And quite brought to an end,
And never again after today
Shall I come as thou wend;
For of my pain thou made but play,
Vainly did my bough bend;
As thou hast done, so I shall say,
'Mourn on, I think to mend.'"

"Makyn, the hope of all my weal,
My heart on thee is set,
And ever to thee shall I kneel
While I have blood to let;
Never to fail, as others fail,
Whatever grace I get."
"Robin, with thee I will not deal;
Adieu, for thus we met."

Makyn went home, blithe anew,
Across the forest floor;
Robin mourned, and Makyn flew,
She sang, he sighed full sore;
And so she left him woe and rue
In care and in dolor,
Keeping his herd beside a sleugh
Upon the forest floor.

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 6.3.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 14:05:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from The Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, June 3rd.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Louis Andriessen - De Stijl - De Stijl; M Is for Man, Music, Mozart - Nonesuch

Ação Direta - Repugnável - Resistirei

CPG - Mindennek te Vagy az Oka

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Dahomey - Minsato Le, Mi Deyihome - World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's a Real Thing - The Funky Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa - Luaka Bop

Ray Manzarek - Whirling Dervish - The Whole Thing Started with Rock and Roll - Mercury

Mogollar (Les Mogol) - Wild Flower - Danses et Rythmes de la Turquie - World Psychedelia

Akashic Record - Free Time - Akashic Record EP

Karsh Kale - Mallika Jam - Cinema - Six Degrees

The Aay Jays - Dachi Waliya Mor Mohar - 4 Tunes Played By The Group - EMI

The Aay Jays - The Aay Jays Theme - 4 Tunes Played By The Group - EMI

Skorpió - Szevasz, Haver - 1974 - Well Hung - B- Music

Skorpió - Másképp Dobogna

Skorpio - Menetirány - Ünnepnap - Hungaroton Records

Janko Nilovic - Drug Song - Soul Impressions - Vadim Music

Youssou N'Dour - Redemption Song - Dakar - Kingston - Universal Music

Vinicius Cantuária & Bill Frisell - Calle 7 - Lagrimas Mexicanas - eOne Music

Brother Jack McDuff - Hunk O' Funk - 1970

The Funkees - Slipping Into Darkness

Black Sugar - Understanding - 1970

Matata - I Feel Funky - 1970

Talvin Singh & Niladri Kumar - River - Together - World Village

Edip Akbayram - Kolum Nerden Aldin Zinciri - Yillar - Emre Grafson Müzik

Brian Eno & David Byrne - America Is Waiting - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts - Sire

Nancy Ajram - Mo'gabah / نانسى عجرم - معجبة - Ya Tabtab - Art Line Music

Sabina Odone - Mariposa Blanca - Sentencia De Amor Imposible - Feria Music

Experience Unlimited - Functus

Funk Inc. - Bowlegs (early 70's)

Funk Inc. - The Thang

Masimbabele - The Unknown Cases

David Byrne - Two Soldiers ( LP Version ) - The Complete Score From "The Catherine Wheel" - Sire

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 5.27.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 14:04:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from The Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, May 27th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

David Byrne - Ade - The Catherine Wheel - Sire

Talking Heads - I Zimbra - Sand in the Vaseline - Sire

David Byrne - Big Business - The Catherine Wheel - Sire

LiLiTS - Nina Engreida - Sueltas

Ofo & The Black Company - Allah Wakbarr - World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's a Real Thing - Luaka Bop

Shantel - Eyes Of Mine - Ethno Music: The Best 2010 - Ethno Music: The Best 2010

Goran Bregovic - Bijav - Ethno Music: The Best 2010 - Ethno Music: The Best 2010

Lisa Ono - Swing Time In Honolulu - Ethno Music: The Best 2010 - Ethno Music: The Best 2010

Tabla Beat Science - Big Brother - Ethno Music: The Best 2010 - Ethno Music: The Best 2010

Romany Rota - Diri Diri So Kerdjan - Ethno Music: The Best 2010 - Ethno Music: The Best 2010

Daiqing Tana - Dancer In The Darkness - Ethno Music: The Best 2010 - Ethno Music: The Best 2010

Gunesh Ensemble - The Rhythms of the Caucasus - Rishad Shafi present Gunesh - Rishad Shafi present Gunesh

Alexandrina Hristov - Fata Merge Pe Jos - Om de Lut - A&A Records

Kaba Mane - Chefo Mae Mae - Chefo Mae Mae

Makishi Band - Basamora - Ba Samora

Gojogo - God Doesn't Make Junk - Gojogo - Gojogo

First June Repression - Serie C - CaputMundi! - First June Repression/ last.fm

AfroCubism - Keme Bourana - AfroCubism - World Circuit

Kante Manfila - N'na Niwale - N'na Niwale

Kante Manfila - Ni Kanu - Ni Kanu

Νίκος Ξυλούρης (Nikos Xylouris) - μπηκαν στην πολη οι οχτροι (The Enemies Have Entered The City)

Red Mass - Cadavre Mecanique - Summer Love EP - Semprini Records

Fiskales Ad Hok - Pet Cementerio (The Ramones) - Absenta Musical Vol.1 Punk Ska - Absenta Musical Vol.1 Punk Ska

LiLiTS - Contrareloj - Absenta Musical Vol.1 Punk Ska - Absenta Musical Vol.1 Punk Ska

Renaud Sechan - Chanson pour Pierrot - Ma Gonzesse - Decca International

Mustafa Ozkent Orchestra - Uskudar - Genclik Elele

MNDR - Cut Me Out - Green Label Sound

Lonely Drifter Karen - This World Is Crazy - Grass Is Singing

Darren Johnston Quintet - The Big Lift - The Big Lift - Porto Franco Sampler

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 5.20.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 21 May 2011 15:11:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from The Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, May 20th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Albino! - Heavy Heavy Afrobeat - Deconstruction of the Transitional Movement - Live In San Francisco
Café Tacuba - El Outsider - SiNo
Goksel Baktagir - Yalniz Sen - Okyanustaki Sesler 2 - Cananim - Kaf Müzik
Serkan Çağrı - Resim
Mozdah Jamalzada - Hazarawatan.Com - Agar Tu Yarake- Man Bashi - Act One - Hazarawatan.Com
Krakatau - Rhythm of Reformation
Novalima - Ruperta (Zeb Remix) - Coba Coba Remixed
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo Feat Angelique Kidjo - Gbeti MaDJro - Cotonou Club
Abdulrahman Surizehi - Bya Bya - Rakhshani Love Songs and Trance Music from Balochistan
Terakaft - Kek Amidi Nin - Aratan n Azawad
Talvin Singh & Niladri Kumar - River - Together
Alison Krauss & Union Station - Paper Airplane - Paper Airplane
Seun Kuti And The Egypt 80 - African Soldier - From Africa with Fury: Rise
Sväng - Humaljärvi - Schladtzshe!
Alireza Ghorbani & Dorsaf Hamdani - Enivrement - Ivresses
Rua Macmillan - Kitchen Criminals - Tyro
Amine & Hamza - The Challenge (excerpt) - Perpetual Motion
Ojos De Brujo - Memorias Perdías - Bari
Jeff Nhore - Afara Koa Tsy Atao - African Beats: Essential African Grooves
Ges-E & Osmani Soundz - The Calling - Nasha V3
Zakir Hussain - Water Girl - Making Music
Dhol Foundation - After The Rain - Drum-Believable
Yat-Kha - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - Re-Covers
Shantel - Eyes Of Mine - Ethno Music: The Best 2010
Gojogo - Firebird - 28000 Days - Porto Franco Sampler
Violentango - A Fuego Lento - Buenos Aires 3 AM
Darnakes - Παράξενα Λόγια (Strange Words) - Libra,Το προξενιό της Αντιγόνης

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 5.13.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 May 2011 19:43:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from The Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, May 6th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Cafe Tacuba - Seguir Siendo - Sino
Cafe Tacuba - Tengo Todo - Sino
Mexican Institute Of Sound - Cumbia (Deathface Remix)
4th Ward AfroKlezmer Orchestra - Greater Lagos Wed. Night Talmud Meeting - East Atlanta Passover Stomp
Stamatis Spanoudakis - I Perivevlimeni ton Ilion - San Proseuxí
Cordero - Emiliano & Jovita (live)
Maggie Bjorklund - Playground Stars - Coming Home
Orkestra del Sol - Passe Par Tout - The Moveable Feast
Molotow Brass Orkestar - Guggisbärger Lied - Czarny Forever
Sonny Okosun - Highlife - Something Wild - Original Movie Soundtrack
Gyedu-Blay Ambolley - Bend Down Low - Bend Down Low
Mandingo Griot Society - Africa - Mandingo Griot Society
Orlando Julius Ekemode - A Dara - Dance Afro-Beat
Sonny Okosun - African Woman - Which Way Nigeria?
Zimbabwe Cha Cha Kings - Mudiwa Lucy - Vimbiso
3rd Generation Band - Obiye Saa Wui - Afro-Beat Airways: West African Shock Waves (Ghana & Togo 1972-78)
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Tere Bin Nahin Lagda - Bend It Like Beckham Soundtrack
Basement Jaxx - Do Your Thing - Bend It Like Beckham Soundtrack
Etni-Ka - Ay Laçin - Pangea
Etni-Ka - Fadik - Eve Dönüş
Göksel Baktagir & Serkan Çağrı - Akdeniz
Kua Etnika - Denau
Jali Bakary Konteh - Combination - Konteh Kunda
Tanja Tzarovska - Home - No Record Of Wrong
Tanja Tzarovska - Down - No Record Of Wrong
The Guggenheim Grotto - Diamond - The Universe Is Laughing
The Cuban Cowboys - Mauricio - Cuban Candles
Sol y Canto - Banana - El doble de Amigos / Twice as Many Friends
Cafe Tacuba - 53100 - Sino

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 5.6.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 07 May 2011 20:24:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from The Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, May 6th.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

The Cuban Cowboys - Oh Celia - Diablo Mambo - Muy Nice Music

The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra - Two Sides of the Truth - Live at Bluesfest, 2011 - The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra

Les Chauds Lapins - Je t'aime - Amourette - Barbès Records

Les Chauds Lapins - Presque Oui - Amourette - Barbès Records

The Cuban Cowboys - Better Off - Cuban Candles - Muy Nice Music

Rebirth Brass Band - Do Whatcha Wanna (Jazzhouse SDP Remix) - SDP Presents ReBirth ReVisited - Slow Drag Productions

Steeleye Span - Padstow - Tempted and Tried - Shanachie

Bonnie Dobson - Un Canadien Errant - Bonnie Dobson - FolkPhile

Maggie Bjorklund - Summer Romance - Coming Home - Bloodshot Records

Urban Species - Listen - Listen - Talkin Loud/ Mercury

Ebo Taylor - Love And Death - Love And Death - Strut

Ebo Taylor - Peace On Earth - Life Stories - Strut

Delhi 2 Dublin - Tommy (Sonicanimation Remix) - Planet: Electrified (Planet Electric Remixed) - Delhi 2 Dublin Music

Floanne Ankah - Poême - Floanne Ankah - Floanne Ankah

与人乐队 - 第303个 - 遇事拘谨 - 与人乐队@last.fm

与人乐队 - 自杀咨询热线 - 遇事拘谨 - 与人乐队@last.fm

4th Ward AfroKlezmer Orchestra - Der Yeminite Tantz - Der Yeminite Tantz - 4th Ward AfroKlezmer Orchestra

Janaka Selekta - Reborn - Pushing Air - Chaiwalla's Boombox

Justo Betancourt - Pa' Bravo Yo - Fania Records 1964 - 1980: The Original Sound Of Latin New York - Strut

Uproot Andy - El Botellón - Uproot Andy - Uproot Andy

Joan Soriano - ¿Qué pasará mañana? - El Duque de la Bachata - iASO Records

David Starfire - Sitarfire - Bollyhood Bass - Six Degrees/ Fontana

Natacha Atlas - Batkalim - Batkalim (Basha Beats' Rise To Freedom Remix) - Six Degrees

Forro In The Dark - Nonsensical (Album Version) - Light A Candle - Nat. Geo Music

Shareholder Tom - Stopover Abeokuta - Havanna Asmara, via Colonia - Büro.9 Music

Kara Güne - Oy Dunya - Yalan - Kara Güne

Yellow Sisters - Tubab Woman - Tubab Woman - Indies Scope

Uppers International - Dankasa - Afro-Beat Airways: West African Shock Waves (Ghana & Togo 1972-78) - Analog Africa

Watcha Clan - Quinto Regimiento (Hip Hop Version) - Radio Babel - Piranha

The Beginning Of The End - Funky Nassau (Part 1) - Soul Hits Of The 70's Didn't it blow your mind Vol. 5 - Rhino / Wea

Plus - I got to continue with my program for an extra hour & featured these tracks (currently not on this week's podcast):

Machito - Tanga - El Padrino - Fania

El Abanico - Wganda Kenya - The Afrosound of Columbia Volume 1 - Vampi Soul

Bideew Bou Bess - Allah Baye - Ndoumbelane - Ndoumbelane

Nam Mun Pang - Sroeng Santi - Thai? Dai! - Finders Keepers

Balval - Mon Etoile - Le Ciel Tout Nu - Whaling City Sound

Fania All Stars - Estrellas De Fania - John Leguizamo Ghetto Klown - Music from My Hood - Fania

Beautiful Nubia and The Roots Renaissance Band - Monkey Wear Shoe - Sun No Dey Sleep - Eniobanke Music

Jim Guttmann - Descarga Gitano - Bessarabian Breakdown - Kleztone

Tom Zé - Roquenrol Bim-Bom - Estudando A Bossa: Nordeste Plaza - Luaka Bop

Grooved Pavement World Music Show Playlist 4.29.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 07 May 2011 19:42:00 +0000

Here's the playlist from The Grooved Pavement World Music Radio Show, Friday, April 29th.

We had special guests Bideew Bou Bess in the WMUA studio performing live and talking about their music.

Be sure to check out & "Like" the WMUA 91.1 Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/wmua91.1

If you like a particular song and are interested in purchasing it for yourself, just follow the link.

Tony Vacca - Dakar Calling - The Senegal-America Project - World Rhythms
Bidew Bou Bess - Mbeuguel
Bidew Bou Bess - Et Bibson
Bidew Bou Bess - Le Joola
Gotan Project - Tu Misterio - Ya Basta! - Bleu Blanc World
Bidew Bou Bess - My Feeling - Ndoumbelane - Bidew Bou Bess
Bidew Bou Bess - Paludisme (Roll Back Malaria) - Ndoumbelane - Bidew Bou Bess

Bidew Bou Bess - Xam Xam (Knowledge) - Live in the studio (not on podcast)
Bidew Bou Bess - OMD (Vision for the Millennium) - Live in the studio (not on podcast)
Bidew Bou Bess - Fola ak Fayda (Believe in Yourself) - Live in the studio (not on podcast)
Bidew Bou Bess - Allah Baye - Live in the studio (not on podcast)

Le Trio Joubran - Nawwar - Bleu Blanc World - Harmonia Mundi
Smood - Dakan (Because Music) - Bleu Blanc World - Bleu Blanc World
Davy Sicard - Zwazo La Kol (Warner) - Bleu Blanc World - Bleu Blanc World
Donso - Mogoya (Comet) - Bleu Blanc World - Bleu Blanc World
Caravan Palace - Suzy - Cafe de la Dansw - Wagram/ Bleu Blanc World
Shusheela Raman - Raise Up - Believe - Believe/ Bleu Blanc World
Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - Ne Te Fache Pas - Sons d'Ailleurs - Strut/ Bleu Blanc World
Avishai Cohen - Seven Seas - Bleu Blanc World - EMI/ Bleu Blanc World

Also - check out the recent selections of excellent songs on "Bleu Blanc World" from Songlines Magazine.

Eli, Eli

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 02 May 2011 21:00:00 +0000

Eli, Eli by Hannah Szenes

My God, My God, I pray that these things never end,

The sand and the sea,

The rustle of the waters,

Lightning of the Heavens,

The prayer of Man.

אלי, אלי, שלא יגמר לעולם

החול והים

רישרוש של המים

ברק השמים

תפילת האדם

The voice called, and I went.

I went, because the voice called.