6874 – Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down

Pretty cool… a lot of anonymous activity in last Sunday’s entry… folks debating about heading down to Orlando this for the honeymoon. I agree, it might be a good idea to postpone. It’s rare that I see anonymous non-spam activity. Hope the entry is helpful!


I got 17 out of 18 on the arcade sound quiz. (I missed the one about Zelda/FF/Bad Dudes – I was never a good nintendroid.)



Why is something so destructive, so lovely?


Danny likes “reality tv”.

Amish in the City and the Survivor series, in particular.

I remain a skeptic and suspect behind the scenes scripting.


Big Kahuna has been very generous to me lately. I think that having a work ethic while other people act like little punks might have something to do with it. I got a new chair, she offered to take some call this weekend, and some other nice fringes. Hopefully that’ll mean a raise sometime soon, too.

Heartbreaking case last night… old man with Alzheimer’s. He’s a habitual wander off, and apparently his caregivers can’t give him the attention he needs. He’s constantly taking off on his family. The last time he took off, he had a moment of clarity and tried to commit “suicide by cop”.


Now none of my LJ mail is making it to me automatically. Forgive me if I don’t reply immediately.


I’ve had lovely chats with Sammy, Whims, Phillykat, Jen and K lately… it seems I only rarely get pinged from AIM, ICQ, or MSN anymore, with last night being a pleasant exception.

Speaking of the first two… I’m glad to hear Sammy’s back in CoH, and There’s having trouble opening up on my system. I think it’s something to do with the new update. Reinstalled, and it works fine now. Had a grand time running around and getting reacquainted with folks.


Duran Duran got back together… Why couldn’t it have been The Talking Heads ? (A whole album is streamable from there.)


Building a cultural bridge through monkey-chanting

This weekend the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden will be the setting for an unusual cross-cultural collaboration. “Sethu,” or “Bridge,” employs 50 artists from India, Indonesia and Minnesota to re-tell an ancient Hindu myth. It also includes the Indonesian art of ‘monkey chanting.’

Minneapolis, Minn. — The Ramayana is a 2,000 year-old epic story that might be described as the Hindu equivalent of Homer’s Iliad. The hero is Rama, a model figure who lived his whole life by the rules of dharma.

To be brutally brief, Rama is banished to the forest and must battle an evil demon to restore his kingdom. Ranee Ramaswamy, founder of Ragamala Music and Dance Theater in Minneapolis says the Ramayana binds the Hindu world together.

“The Ramayana is a very sacred text,” she says. “And it teaches the ideal way of life is to follow your duty. If everybody followed their duty, and then there would be no chaos in the world. That’s the model built behind the story.”

Several years ago, Ramaswamy saw the Ramayana performed for tourists on the island of Bali. She was entranced.

“Every village in Bali has their own choruses,” she says. These are community members, who perform every night. And I saw it at night, at 7:30, out by the temple, and it was like being in a dreamland.”

Ramaswamy was so transported she enlisted the Walker Art Center to recreate the experience in the Twin Cities. Sethu is a multi-cultural fusion of performance styles, including Javanese and Balinese gamelan, and South Indian dance and music.

If that isn’t exotic enough, there’s also monkey chanting.

Monkeys play a key role in the Ramayana. A monkey army assists the hero Rama in regaining his kingdom. The art of monkey chanting or, “kecak,” (pronounced ‘keh-CHACK’) originated in Indonesia, which is why Ramaswamy recruited a small team of Balinese masters to teach it to Minnesota volunteers.

Team leader Dewa Berata says kechak isn’t easy to learn because there are three different interlocking chants happening at the same time.

“Three thing going on,” Berata says. “The hardest, not keep your part but how to you say your part but you listen to other part.”

Jim Hodges is one of several Minnesota volunteers, some who belong to the St. Paul-based Shubert Club Gamelan Society, who took up the kecak challenge.

“It’s a helluva lot of fun and it’s kind of silly at the same time,” he says. “But it’s also terrific to be doing this in an ensemble with a bunch of people who were total strangers a couple weeks ago.”

Hodges and a few other volunteer performers only needed a little coaxing to demonstrate their skills.

Hodges says when people find out he’s learning the art of monkey chanting, they become extremely curious.

“People at work,” he says, “they say what’s it like doing this stuff? And I pull out this chart and start to do it and I feel like an idiot because it’s so out of context. But here, it just fits together, it just rocks.”

The enthusiasm and joy Hodges has felt during rehearsals is what the performers want the audience to feel this weekend. They believe the production is yet another example of how art can bridge cultures.

via fuzzybumblebeeSite Meter


The Missing Children’s Day Ceremony scheduled for Monday Sept. 13th 2004 has been postponed due to the effects of Hurricanes Frances and Charley and the anticipated impact of Hurricane Ivan on the State.


Archive

1 year ago – written missives with bro, newbie likes the doobie, digital clouds, Hurricane Fabian, Stratego, Yoni Yantri, BK snoops, gave frankie the mooch some pasta and a pan.

2 years ago – Great dreams, care-were-bears, Big Bird (IMT) is a thief, Private moon landing. (never took place, sadly.), newtie play,

3 years ago – 9/11 observations.

4 years ago – Tattoo trend, questions memes.. hmm, #4 came true!, Possibility of a Seed donation


Until Later, Dear Journal!

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