Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
…are all integral to this post, which is a sequel to both the immediately-preceding one and to the 28 January 2022 post on “Hope”.
If you do not already know Emily Dickinson’s poem Hope is The Thing With Feathers you should click here before you read/see/listen to the rest of this post.
Comments closedIf the almost-titlepiece of Rhiannon Giddens’ new album were new to your ears, you would probably assume it was a venerable “traditional” song, probably from Appalachia.
Listeners who already knew many traditional Appalachian songs would likely be mightily surprised that they could have hitherto missed such a superb, particularly haunting one.
In fact, Calling Me Home was authored by Alice Gerard; it was titlepiece of her 2002 album, issued in the year of her 68th birthday. (An even better album is Follow the Music, which Alice Gerrard recorded – mostly “live” – in her 80th year)
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Direct quote from Indian Prime Minister Modi, crowing, in January 2021:
Friends, it would not be advisable to judge India’s success with that of another country. In a country which is home to 18% of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.
Arundhati Roy, describing India’s ghastly pandemic reality in April 2021:
The system hasn’t collapsed. The government has failed. Perhaps “failed” is an inaccurate word, because what we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity.
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This post is the fruit of a lunchtime walk through the walled, “old city” section of Jaipur, Rajasthan’s largest city.
Approaching four million people, its metropolis has around twice as many residents as Perth’s.
Its “old” part’s hub makes any part of Perth – or of most “Western World” city CBDs – feel relatively monochrome, lifeless.
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Sequentially, the featured image is the fourth of this post’s photos, all taken within the contest’s brief timespan: a little less than four minutes.
Formally, the “snake bird” is an Oriental darter, Anhinga melenogaster – the same species who looked so very different when in repose, in #66 in Pelican Yoga’s “a shining moment” series.
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A perfectly peaceful, spacious scene?
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An attentive observer, watching a non-sleeping bird, will very rarely see a serene creature.
For most of their waking moments, most birds are obviously keenly aware of their vulnerability to predators, their opportunities as predators, and/or of how best to defend or advance their “place” within an ever-competitive hierarchy.
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Most of the birds pictured are migratory waders, becoming airborne from a wetland in Kutch, Gujarat, western India.
If you don’t already understand how birds fly, this post will point you to some lucid explanation.
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Today’s photo (copyright Doug Spencer) was taken at 7.41 am on 05 February 2020 in the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, Keoladeo National Park, Rajasthan.
Its musical companion is a sublime morning raga, performed by one of the Indian subcontinent’s most eloquent instrumentalists.
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The featured image (copyright Doug Spencer) shows produce being sold on the footpath in the “old city” quarter of Jaipur, Rajasthan, on 07 February 2020.
This post has two very different songs.
Neither is new, but each is fresh.
Both vividly remember the calls of actual produce sellers, but the second song is really about something that money cannot buy.
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