Wedding Small Stones

Kaspa & Fiona have taken over my blog for today, because they need our help. 

They are both on a mission to help the world connect with the world through writing. They are also getting married on Saturday the 18th of June.

For their fantasy wedding present, they are asking people across the world to write them a ‘small stone’ and post it on their blogs or on Facebook or Twitter. 

A small stone is a short piece of observational writing – simply pay attention to something properly and then write it down. Find out more about small stones here. 

If you’re willing to help, we’d love you to do things: 

1) Re-post this blog on your own blog any time before June the 18th and give your readers a chance to hear about what we’re doing. You can simply copy and paste the text, or you can find the html here. 

2) Write us a small stone on our wedding day whilst we’re saying our vows and eating cake, post it on your blog, and send it to us.

You can find out more about our project at our website, Wedding Small Stones, and you can also read our blog at A River of Stones. 

We also have a July challenge coming soon, when we’ll be challenging you to notice one thing every day during July and write it down. 

Thank you for listening, and we hope we’ll be returning from our honeymoon to an inbox crammed with small stones, including yours. 

Kaspa & Fiona

My Hotmail account has been hacked

Not for the first time. A series of spam emails have been sent out to just about everyone I have ever contacted from my Hotmail address. Please let me know if this caused you any problems.

M

White blackface?

Following my last blog about blackface I had an exchange of messages on Facebook with a reader of this blog, who commented:

“I still don't see how a ‘blackened face’ is any different from blackface - even when looking at it ‘objectively’, outside of our own time and culture. If they really meant it for more theatrical purposes, having nothing to do with race, then why did they always use black? Surely that wasn't the only color they had available.”

My comment back to her was that she was speaking as someone who found it difficult to imagine living in a world where she had never seen a person of African heritage and where something like soot was plentiful. I doubt if not considering those two things was really being ‘objective’.

Whilst acknowledging that the term ‘morris’ in ‘morris dancing’ has been linked to the word ‘Moorish’, I am still going to suggest that we can distance blackened faces in British rituals from theatrical blackface, and I am going to do it by the following analogy.

Here is a picture of Xhosa initiates in South Africa…

… surely if they really mean their white face-paint for ritual purposes having nothing to do with race then why do they always use white? Surely that isn’t the only colour they have available.

In fact we have no evidence to suggest that they are imitating white people any more than the Australian Aborigine below is, or Makua women in Mozabique are.

I hope that readers get the point of this analogy.

Il Ciarlestrone

Adriana Crespi calls it Il Ciarlestrone, Pierfrancesco La Mura calls it Il Ciarlavotto, and Maria Grazia Galatà recites it as Il Giabbodonte. I have no idea why there are so many Italian versions of this piece. Adriana Crespi's is below - see if you can guess what the original is:



          Era brillosto, e gli alacridi tossi
          succhiellavano scabbi nel pantúle:
          Méstili eran tutti i paparossi,
          e strombavan musando i tartarocchi.


          «Attento al Ciarlestrone, figlio mio!
          Fauci che azzannano, fauci che ti artigliano,
          attento all'uccel Giuggio e attento ancora
          Al fumibondo chiappabana!»


          Afferò quello la sua vorpi da lama
          a lungo il manson nemico cercò...
          Cosí sostò presso l'albero Touton
          e riflettendo alquanto dimorò.


          E mentre il bellico pensier si trattenea,
          il Ciarlestrone con occhiali brage
          venne sifflando nella fulgida selva,
          sbollentando nella sua avanzata.


          Un, due! Un, due! E dentro e dentro
          scattò saettante la vorpida lama!
          Ei lo lasciò cadavere, e col capo
          Se ne venne al ritorno galumpando.


          «E hai tu ucciso il Ciarlestrone?
          Fra le mie braccia, o raggioso fanciullo!
          O giorno fragoroso, Callò, Callài!»
          stripetò quello dala gioia.


          Era brillosto, e gli alacridi tossi
          succhiellavano scabbi nel pantúle:
          Méstili eran tutti i paparossi,
          e strombavan musando i tartarocchi.

Quote of the day, 26th May 2011

"A world of unseen dictatorship is conceivable, still using the forms of democratic government."
                    Kenneth Boulding (1910 - 1993)
                    economist, mystic, and poet.

The People's Republic of Stokes Croft

An interesting video clip from The Guardian web site - the area of Bristol which saw mass protests over a proposed supermarket. There is criticism that the activists themselves are people who have moved into the area, but the activism itself is very encouraging because it typifies grass-roots decision-making and mutual aid.

Françoise Hardy

When I was eight or nine years of age I hoped I would grow up to look like Françoise Hardy. I was wrong on so many counts!