The sky had been an infinite circle of blue just a brief time ago. Then titanic clouds had billowed into the blue, a brilliant white, then darkening as they approached. As Alyami ducked his head below the door lintel a cataclysmic boom shook the heavens and the earth. As he closed the heavy, wooden door behind him fat droplets began to furiously pummel the dust outside.
With the eye of a wearied professional Alyami surveyed the tavern, taking in the quality of the furnishings, the quality of the clientele (as determined by the quality of their clothing), and the atmosphere of the room. The furnishings were solid and unremarkable, the clientele remarkably diverse, and the atmosphere started with hushed murmurings, quieted momentarily as people looked up from their refreshment and friends to see the newcomer, and then rose somewhat at the sight of a man with a musical instrument. There are few inns that do not welcome a minstrel.
The landlord sidled up to Alyami and spoke in a voice attempting discretion but trained to roar over loud crowds, "Welcome to The Addled Prophet sir, I wonder if you would be playing tonight?"
"My thanks. I will play but I beg for a short time to wash the dirt from my throat and to fill my belly."
"Of course, of course. If sir would take the table by yonder window," with a short nod of the head to indicate that the present occupier of that table should shift it, "I shall be along with beer and victuals, terms as per usual."
With great relief Alyami ambled over to the table indicated, smiling and nodding to the patrons he passed, for goodwill is half the battle for a musician, laid his pack gently down, and collapsed into his chair.
The pounding rain mesmerized Alyami so that he was startled by the thump of a plate and mug by his elbow. Alyami thanked the boy and leaned over his plate, inhaling the rich aromas of this foreign land, the powerful yeastness of course ground bread, the mouth watering richness of farm raised beef, the wet clothes smell of boiled root vegetable. Alyami had a sudden sharp pang, an almost lustful need for the tart sweetness of fruit picked from a jungle tree.
Within an island of peace Alyami ate, stolidly, professionally. Life on the road gave an appreciation for the value of a large meal, the next one was an unpredictable distance away. The raging storm outside meant the inside was particularly cosy, when a sunny spring day might have meant the tavern was musty and close. A gentle peace came upon him. He was safe, fed, warm and about to do what he loved most, play. He thanked the serving boy who came to take away his plate, agreed to another pint on the house (as per the usual terms), reached for his instrument bag and withdrew his beloved rabab.
As Alyami tuned the rabab the patrons reorganized themselves, moving closer and turning chairs around to face him. A palpable feeling of anticipation ran through the crowd, eliciting smiles and grins. Once satisfied with the rabab Alyami shook out his hands, straightened his back and struck a bright, cheerful chord. At that precise instant the door opened, thunder boomed and a small man in outlandish dress was outlined in the doorway, a small smile on his face as if he had picked up on a subtle joke.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Chapter 13
The next day we tried to remove that unpleasant experience from our heads, brushed ourselves off and continued on our tour. In the summer the river plain can become quite hot and steamy, a morning mist over the river burning off early in the morning. At this point the river puts our own Lianka to shame in terms of its sheer breadth, if not in charming beauty. Bridges are simply not practicable and so a ferry is needed to cross.
Following our itinerary we realized after a brief perusal of our precious map that at some point it would be necessary to cross the river in order to see the great sights of Peirout. Without knowing the possibilities of ferries further up the river we decided to see about crossing the river from the rather ramshackle wooden pier at the riverside. Miriam expressed some trepidation about trusting ourselves to the locals but she is a tough old bird, determined to experience life. Still, we made sure to go out of our way to avoid the part of town that we had unfortunately visited the night before.
At the pier we discovered that there was no official ferry but also that the local fisherman would be willing to ferry us cross the river for a fee. We had unfortunately arrived too late for most of the fishermen, but a handsome lad was willing to row us across for a fee of six Dakra, a number reached after some haggling.
Dear reader, if you plan to travel I must recommend that you force yourself to learn to haggle. While our custom is that it is a slight to the honesty of a craftsman to think that he might not be setting out the lowest price he is willing to take for the item, this is decidedly not the custom everywhere else I have visited. After a while this activity can be quite enjoyable, rather like playing a game of cards, or telling a good story and will usually save the astonishing figure of half what you would pay by simply accepting the first price offered. To be brief, I believe that the back and forth between the quality of the boat, the prospects of other fishermen returning and the omnipresent starving grandmother, had an excellent result in that I found the cost quite cheap and yet the sparkle in the eyes of the youth upon payment led me to belief he was similarly satisfied.
My pleasure in the cost was deepened by the extraordinary effort it required to cross. While the youth's gaze was somewhat uncomfortably fixed upon Miriam, he amiably explained that the width of the river and its strong flow meant that to cross required one to point the prow a full mile upstream from the intended destination.
Upon arrival the youth wished us much luck, climbed out of the boat and immediately entered a very disheveled establishment that I believed to be a tavern. There we were standing alone upon a dock in a strange town. This is the essence of travel, the slight frisson of fear, and the excitement of curiosity. We took a deep breath and walked forward into the town.
Blessings, in the main, lives up to its charming name. Apparently Blessings had been a confluence of trading routes for centuries and therefore developed a greater wealth than he surrounding towns. The effects of this were obvious, with the buildings built of stout wood, or river stone. Some of the architecture was quite striking, with stone carved beasts staring out from the eaves of roofs. As I have mentioned before, a traveler's first priority upon arriving in a new place must be accommodation. We quickly found a clean inn that suited our needs very well. While more expensive than our recent experiences, it was also cleaner and more comfortable. Sometimes one needs to rest in comfort to restore one's energy and curiosity.
While Blessings is a pretty place, arranged in little squares and shaded by a type of fruit tree known as a "mango", what you must see is the shrine to He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come. Shortly after He descended from the mountains he walked through this town, named Asheba at the time, and transformed it. The story goes that Asheba was a town twisted in hatred, divided by powerful clans whose symbols are the creatures that still remain on the eaves. He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come simply came to this spot, sat down and put out his begging bowl. The Presence of His Peace spread throughout the town and foes quickly became friends and hatred became kindness. The town was renamed Blessings in memory, and as a symbol of the new harmony all the clans donated money towards the shrine so that they could all remember the peace and their responsibility to maintain it.
It is indeed a charming story to which I do little justice here, and the truth of it seems incontrovertible when strolling along under the gentle shade of the mango trees. Almost by accident we came out into Shrine Square. One's first reaction is to the majesty of the enormous mango tree that towers over the buildings. Then one notices that beneath this magnificent tree are statues carved from white marble. They depict He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come smiling and talking to local people while charmingly a small child is carefully placing a flower in His begging bowl. The whole scene is distinct in its informality, the genius of the piece being the everyday realism of the figures, lifelike in size and manner, yet carved out of beautiful, gleaming marble. I will never forget the joy of actually walking among those listening to He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come as He set out on his mission.
Oh to see His Blessing in such a beautiful way means that to me, seeing Blessings was indeed a blessing.
Following our itinerary we realized after a brief perusal of our precious map that at some point it would be necessary to cross the river in order to see the great sights of Peirout. Without knowing the possibilities of ferries further up the river we decided to see about crossing the river from the rather ramshackle wooden pier at the riverside. Miriam expressed some trepidation about trusting ourselves to the locals but she is a tough old bird, determined to experience life. Still, we made sure to go out of our way to avoid the part of town that we had unfortunately visited the night before.
At the pier we discovered that there was no official ferry but also that the local fisherman would be willing to ferry us cross the river for a fee. We had unfortunately arrived too late for most of the fishermen, but a handsome lad was willing to row us across for a fee of six Dakra, a number reached after some haggling.
Dear reader, if you plan to travel I must recommend that you force yourself to learn to haggle. While our custom is that it is a slight to the honesty of a craftsman to think that he might not be setting out the lowest price he is willing to take for the item, this is decidedly not the custom everywhere else I have visited. After a while this activity can be quite enjoyable, rather like playing a game of cards, or telling a good story and will usually save the astonishing figure of half what you would pay by simply accepting the first price offered. To be brief, I believe that the back and forth between the quality of the boat, the prospects of other fishermen returning and the omnipresent starving grandmother, had an excellent result in that I found the cost quite cheap and yet the sparkle in the eyes of the youth upon payment led me to belief he was similarly satisfied.
My pleasure in the cost was deepened by the extraordinary effort it required to cross. While the youth's gaze was somewhat uncomfortably fixed upon Miriam, he amiably explained that the width of the river and its strong flow meant that to cross required one to point the prow a full mile upstream from the intended destination.
Upon arrival the youth wished us much luck, climbed out of the boat and immediately entered a very disheveled establishment that I believed to be a tavern. There we were standing alone upon a dock in a strange town. This is the essence of travel, the slight frisson of fear, and the excitement of curiosity. We took a deep breath and walked forward into the town.
Blessings, in the main, lives up to its charming name. Apparently Blessings had been a confluence of trading routes for centuries and therefore developed a greater wealth than he surrounding towns. The effects of this were obvious, with the buildings built of stout wood, or river stone. Some of the architecture was quite striking, with stone carved beasts staring out from the eaves of roofs. As I have mentioned before, a traveler's first priority upon arriving in a new place must be accommodation. We quickly found a clean inn that suited our needs very well. While more expensive than our recent experiences, it was also cleaner and more comfortable. Sometimes one needs to rest in comfort to restore one's energy and curiosity.
While Blessings is a pretty place, arranged in little squares and shaded by a type of fruit tree known as a "mango", what you must see is the shrine to He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come. Shortly after He descended from the mountains he walked through this town, named Asheba at the time, and transformed it. The story goes that Asheba was a town twisted in hatred, divided by powerful clans whose symbols are the creatures that still remain on the eaves. He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come simply came to this spot, sat down and put out his begging bowl. The Presence of His Peace spread throughout the town and foes quickly became friends and hatred became kindness. The town was renamed Blessings in memory, and as a symbol of the new harmony all the clans donated money towards the shrine so that they could all remember the peace and their responsibility to maintain it.
It is indeed a charming story to which I do little justice here, and the truth of it seems incontrovertible when strolling along under the gentle shade of the mango trees. Almost by accident we came out into Shrine Square. One's first reaction is to the majesty of the enormous mango tree that towers over the buildings. Then one notices that beneath this magnificent tree are statues carved from white marble. They depict He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come smiling and talking to local people while charmingly a small child is carefully placing a flower in His begging bowl. The whole scene is distinct in its informality, the genius of the piece being the everyday realism of the figures, lifelike in size and manner, yet carved out of beautiful, gleaming marble. I will never forget the joy of actually walking among those listening to He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come as He set out on his mission.
Oh to see His Blessing in such a beautiful way means that to me, seeing Blessings was indeed a blessing.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Something new to do.
I think I'm going to buy an electric guitar and learn how to play reggae music.
Other than the cultural omnipresence of rock 'n' roll there are two genres of music that have consistently held my attention over the years, Irish folk music and reggae. Irish music takes me to an idealized version of home, all rambles in the countryside and jolly pubs. Reggae takes me away to sun bathed palm trees and a hammock, with a complete lack of hurry.
I've given the Irish music a solid try and I would say it has been success, but I am stagnating. Essentially what I do is play the same thirty songs that I have learned, and even the ones I cannot properly play I don't practice enough to really improve. This is OK, in the genre my best instrument is my voice, and I have found that once you know a song you can go months without playing it and generally do just fine when you come back to it. At some point it seems likely that I will play an Irish ban again.
So, on to reggae. The internet is a wonderful thing, you can get free lessons on almost everything and I have had a peak at some of them. As with many things it seems remarkably simple with basically three ingredients, but it will be a challenge to learn (which is probably what I need). Ingredient one is the ability to play barre chords, the ones where your index finger covers all the strings, the type of chord (major,minor etc.) comes from the shape of the other fingers, and the pitch comes from moving that shape up and down the neck. Ingredient two is the ability to pull off the strings with the left hand quickly, but not enough to take your fingers off the strings completely. The third is the ability to keep the rhythm while playing only on the backbeat.
I can play some barre chords on an acoustic guitar so I should manage this area relatively quickly (although some of the chords used are pretty weird). I have been trying the pull off thing with my acoustic guitar, and can basically do it, and an acoustic guitar is more difficult for this. The tricky thing is going be the last bit.
I'm a white guy from Europe. I keep time on the one and the three. ONE two THREE four. Black guys from Africa keep time on the two and the four, the backbeat. one TWO three FOUR. The melody is the same in both cases but the emphasis in the rhythm is different. Incidentally, this is a big part of why rock/blues/country music is popular, it has both rhythms, white rhythm on the big bass drum (BOOM) and black rhythm on the snare drum (THWACK). The beat of rock is BOOM THWACK BOOM THWACK.
Reggae is a very stripped down version of the African beat, the guitar (and sometimes keyboard) keeping the rhythm by just playing a chord on that beat, and the pull-off technique keeps that chord very short. This is very different than the almost constant strumming common in most European music.
So, all I have to do is go, "chucka chucka chucka chucka" nice and slowly and sing over the top. It's just that for the first month or two each "chucka" will seem to be in exactly the wrong place.
One of my whimsical dreams has been to form a band that combines reggae and Irish folk, either by putting that reggae backbeat on Irish tunes, or by simply playing one set of Irish music and then everyone changes outfits and instruments and plays a reggae set.
Other than the cultural omnipresence of rock 'n' roll there are two genres of music that have consistently held my attention over the years, Irish folk music and reggae. Irish music takes me to an idealized version of home, all rambles in the countryside and jolly pubs. Reggae takes me away to sun bathed palm trees and a hammock, with a complete lack of hurry.
I've given the Irish music a solid try and I would say it has been success, but I am stagnating. Essentially what I do is play the same thirty songs that I have learned, and even the ones I cannot properly play I don't practice enough to really improve. This is OK, in the genre my best instrument is my voice, and I have found that once you know a song you can go months without playing it and generally do just fine when you come back to it. At some point it seems likely that I will play an Irish ban again.
So, on to reggae. The internet is a wonderful thing, you can get free lessons on almost everything and I have had a peak at some of them. As with many things it seems remarkably simple with basically three ingredients, but it will be a challenge to learn (which is probably what I need). Ingredient one is the ability to play barre chords, the ones where your index finger covers all the strings, the type of chord (major,minor etc.) comes from the shape of the other fingers, and the pitch comes from moving that shape up and down the neck. Ingredient two is the ability to pull off the strings with the left hand quickly, but not enough to take your fingers off the strings completely. The third is the ability to keep the rhythm while playing only on the backbeat.
I can play some barre chords on an acoustic guitar so I should manage this area relatively quickly (although some of the chords used are pretty weird). I have been trying the pull off thing with my acoustic guitar, and can basically do it, and an acoustic guitar is more difficult for this. The tricky thing is going be the last bit.
I'm a white guy from Europe. I keep time on the one and the three. ONE two THREE four. Black guys from Africa keep time on the two and the four, the backbeat. one TWO three FOUR. The melody is the same in both cases but the emphasis in the rhythm is different. Incidentally, this is a big part of why rock/blues/country music is popular, it has both rhythms, white rhythm on the big bass drum (BOOM) and black rhythm on the snare drum (THWACK). The beat of rock is BOOM THWACK BOOM THWACK.
Reggae is a very stripped down version of the African beat, the guitar (and sometimes keyboard) keeping the rhythm by just playing a chord on that beat, and the pull-off technique keeps that chord very short. This is very different than the almost constant strumming common in most European music.
So, all I have to do is go, "chucka chucka chucka chucka" nice and slowly and sing over the top. It's just that for the first month or two each "chucka" will seem to be in exactly the wrong place.
One of my whimsical dreams has been to form a band that combines reggae and Irish folk, either by putting that reggae backbeat on Irish tunes, or by simply playing one set of Irish music and then everyone changes outfits and instruments and plays a reggae set.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Trapped and Powerless
I am trapped and powerless to do anything about it. I live in a place I dislike in many ways, spending almost all of my time alone. Now, I have a means of leaving, I could either simply leave my wife, or file for divorce and get the money from the house and head off somewhere else. If I don't want to leave my wife then I have no ability to move.
When people are powerless they are treated as such, as if they are inferior. After all, what can they do about it? Since I have no power my opinion matters less, I am less respected. The only way my position can change is if someone else decides to change it.
I am a menial servant and there is nothing I can do about it.
Still, it is dramatically better than my last job, it's just everything else that is worse.
When people are powerless they are treated as such, as if they are inferior. After all, what can they do about it? Since I have no power my opinion matters less, I am less respected. The only way my position can change is if someone else decides to change it.
I am a menial servant and there is nothing I can do about it.
Still, it is dramatically better than my last job, it's just everything else that is worse.
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