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Books!

9/15/2016

So I've been meaning to start the huge project of putting an annotated bibliography of my personal library on the website and it feels pretty daunting. So for the time being, I'm going to add books as I acquire them or consult them for the Caftan Project.

I only bought 3 books at Pennsic. I showed restraint. But the 3 I got are making me really happy.

The Splendor of Ethnic Jewelry (acquired from Mid-East Magic 2016)

This book is a catalogue of a private collection. The couple collected jewelry from around the world beginning in 1959 and they see themselves as keeping parts of these cultures alive in the face of globalization. Thankfully, they also acknowledge that once an object is removed from its culture of origin, its symbolic meaning is wholly or partially lost.

I own several books on the subject of ethnic jewelry and the quality of them is...spotty. In comparison, this book is impressive. The photography is beautiful, the quality of the items is clearly superior to many of the examples shown in other books. One of the strengths of this book is that items are labeled as specifically as possible. For most of the examples, the author lists the current country of origin, the ethnic group and then the specific tribe or social class and occasions on which they are worn.

About half of the 400+ examples are from Central Asia and in addition to Turkmen jewelry, there is a fantastic array of Uzbek, Indian and Himalayan jewelry as well as a few pieces from places like Siberia and southern Russia that I have never see before.

I also acquired:

Fabric, Ritual, Man: Weaving Traditions of the East Europe Slavs (acquired from Feed the Ravens 2016)

I'm just going to quote the summary in full:

Weaving Traditions of the East Europe Slavs (Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia) are considered here on the level of ethnographic products of the 19th-20th centuries. The articles produced by this ancient technology occupied an important place within the ethnocultural space, where their existence was not only of utilitarian character. Studying their function in the ritual and mythological contexts gives us the opportunity to understand the process of entering the weaving phenomenon into the traditional world concept, where the technology by itself is a ritual process, a way of contact between man and the world.

This book was a joint project between a handweaving club in St. Petersburg and the (Russian) State Ethnography Museum and their stated purpose is to document cultures and technologies before they all disappear in the face of globalism.

The focus of the book is how each stage of textile production functioned as a ritual to move items from 'Nature' to 'Culture'. It's absolutely fascinating and its ideas are taken up by other researchers such as Elizabeth Wayland Barber in her new book, The Dancing Goddess and several lectures I attended at a conference a few years ago that were concerned with world-wide exorcism rituals.

Two things to keep in mind about this book: It was written in 1992, so it has a somewhat Soviet world-view. The second issue is that this was translated from the Russian. Normally this would not be a problem. But not only is the translator not a native English speaker, the material is conceptually complex, academic and abstract. It's difficult to discuss in any language. So it is definitely readable and understandable, but I had to take my time to make sure I understood what the author was getting at.

Next:

The third book acquired at Pennsic was a tiny little gem somebody told me about so I rushed over to buy a copy (I cannot remember where, I feel silly.) It's called First Aid for the Excavation of Archaeological Textiles and it really is a field guide for archaeologists who find textiles in digs. Most archaeologists have a specialty in ceramics or metal objects, since they are the most common types of finds, so this book serves a practical purpose

I'm still editing photos from the trip and organizing files for the caftan book. Next up: The Met, also known to some people (ok, maybe only me) as the Happiest Place on Earth.)

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Music, Poetry and other shiny things, Part 2

9/2/2016

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Turku has recently made all of their music available at freemusicarcive.com. Click here to go directly to their music.

I mentioned the song Havada Bulut Yok in my last post and I wanted to tell you a bit more about it. Ted says, "If you ever want to make a Turkish man cry, you will play him this song."

Most of this knowledge of the song comes from Turku and the research they have done. Any inaccuracies or misrepresentation is entirely my own doing.

Translating songs and poetry from one language to another can be so very tricky. Lots of the translations of Sufi poets such as Rumi that were done around the turn of the 20th c. were translated into what English-speakers thought of as 'proper poetry'.

Which means iambic pentameter, and an end-line rhyme scheme, which means that some translations sound like they were written by Dr. Suess.

Coleman Barks began translating Rumi's Sufi poems at the turn of the 21st c. but his focus was on the inner meaning and symbolism of the poems, not their external structure. And so he worked with word-for-word translations from the original language and then wrote poetry to capture the deeper meaning.

So I find that when I write poetry now, it comes out in a free-verse format that seems to be a cross between these poetic translations of Sufi poetry and Spoken Word.

But back to the song that makes old men cry.

It was composed during World War I, when the fading Ottoman Empire was at war in Yemen. It was not going well and people began to understand that when the soldiers went away to Yemen, they did not come back.

Here is one version, from Wikipedia

There is no cloud in the air, What is that smoke?
There is no death in the neighborhood, What is that cry?
Those Yemen lands are so rugged

Over there is Yemen, its rose is fenugreek
Those who go never return, Why?
This is Moush, its roads are steep
Those who go never return, What's going on?

Saz is being played in front of the barracks
It's giving me heartache that he's barefoot
Girls cry to the ones who went to Yemen

Over there is Yemen...

Another translation I've heard that resonates with me more deeply goes, in part, something like this:

There are no clouds in the sky, why this haze?
It is the smoke of battle,

Why are the young men playing music in the square, there is no wedding today. They are marching off to war.

So I heard this for the first time at a Turku concert that they played on our way to Zlatne Uste's Golden Fest in New York about 2 years ago. Ted explained the lyrics and the history and the longing for someone who will never come back.

Farzad played the improvisational section on violin with such passion and tenderness and I was just taken up with it. I danced, hiding in a corner, with tears running down my face and the smell of smoke in the back of my throat.

I listened to their recording of it, endlessly, it seemed. I've performed it twice now, it feels like a compulsion, like something jagged twisting in my gut.

This song was written a hundred years ago, during the 'war to end all wars', and nothing much has changed.

It makes me think of Syria, and Yemen, and all the places in Africa where people are saying goodbye for the last time. And feeling powerless to help. And feeling such anger that we do this to ourselves over and over and over again.

There are two other songs that do this to me, An Old Song, and Lullaby Behind the Lines.

So the first time I performed it, I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote this poem:

I have a belly full of bones
You dwelt within my belly when your father went to war
He wiped my tears and I told him to be brave
Come home again, again, again

I have a belly full of bones
I carried you in my arms when your father came home from war
My mother wiped my tears and told me to be brave
A box of bones, be brave, be brave
Come home again, again, again

I have a belly full of bones
I carried you at my hip and sang a lullaby of bones, of bones
None wiped my tears or told me to be brave
Come home, again, again, again

I have a belly full of bones
You carry your spear and dream of war, of war
No tears for you, your father was brave and…
Come home again, again, again

I have a belly full of bones
Your bride upon my threshold, telling news of war, of war
I wiped her tears and told her to be brave
I lie, I lie
Come home again, again, again

I have a belly full of bones
Your son within her belly dreams of war, of war
I have no tears
We lie, we lie
Come home again, again, again

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Music, Poetry and other shiny things: Pennsic 2016

9/1/2016

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Hi everybody. It's been quite a month. I spent about 10 days at Pennsic, then two weeks traveling for research on the caftan book. It's going to take me quite a few blog posts to get updated, so bear with me.

Pennsic (Pennsicwar.org) was amazing. This is the first time I've been back in 12 years so some things were very familiar and some things were entirely new.

I camped down in the bog with Orluk Oasis for the first time as guests of Carla and Ted from Turku. I was right on the edge of the lake so I had wonderful shade and I spent part of every morning relaxing in front of my tent and making tajs to sell at MidEast Magic.

I 'guest taught' at a class on Ottoman singing and at the Guedra, but I didn't teach any classes on my own. I felt a little guilty, but limiting my commitments made this feel like a real vacation. I promise I will teach lots next year.

I think my favorite thing about the event was a Sufi evening that Ted, Carla and I put together. Well, mostly Ted and Carla.

Almost a year ago, Ted began an online class for vocalists and musicians to learn a song composed in the 15th. century. It was probably written in Samarkand in the Timurid Empire and we know it became very popular in Ottoman Turkey.

And yes, it took eleven months for us to learn this thing. It's 8 1/2 minutes long, there are no repeats, no chorus, it's in a dead language and the time signature is 14/9.

Yup. 14/9, you read that right. I can sing it, I can dance it, but I CANNOT count it. That's Carla's job.

Here is an instrumental version, this one has lyrics.

So quite a few of us worked on the song all year and then Ted taught a series of four classes at Pennsic. Carla also had the brilliant idea to make a large banner with the lyrics on it using Spoonflower's fabric print-on-demand service. It was hugely helpful, and is beautiful too.

So once we all knew the song, we hosted an invitation-only Sufi evening. It was invitation-only because we wanted it to be participants only, no audience. We worked from a list of songs, Sufi hymns, improvised saz music and mystical poetry, but we let it all unfold in a natural way. Ted's playing is exquisite as always, and there was a lovely woman who played a kamanche (spiked fiddle) which is one of my favorite instruments in the world. I brought a stack of poetry books and people found things they wanted to read and could participate that way, as well as singing illahi (Sufi hymns) and the song we learned Rast Kar-i Muhtesem.

I also recited a poem I wrote inspired by the Turkish song Havada Bulut Yok, while Ted played the song. I am beyond honored at the kind reception it received, it was a hard thing for me to write but everyone at the gathering helped create such a safe space to open up.

The folks at Orluk also came out of nowhere with Turkish coffee and Turkish tea, fresh fruit and snacks.

What also made me very happy is that the attendees were so diverse. There were SCA oldsters like myself and others,but in at least one case, this was the person's first event ever. Some of our guests we have known for multiple decades, some people were new friends who found us through the online class or the classes we did on site. Some attendees have gone very deeply into Eastern research and personas, and some have only a limited interest in Eastern things.

I sat by the lake for a long time after everyone left, feeling very at peace, and very loved. And Ted, being Ted, had next year's song up on our online course before the rest of us made it off site. I cannot wait to do this again.

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Books!

Music, Poetry and other shiny things, Part 2

Music, Poetry and other shiny things: Pennsic 2016

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