The Lone Elm

Basque Music

Last night we were treated to an unusual concert of choral and orchestral Basque music at the Putney School.  In addition, there was a folk dance just before intermission, and the audience got to sing along at the end!  The music is complicated in rhythm and harmonics, and lush, rich and dynamic.  The group did a very credible job. This is certainly a type of music that is not played or sung much in the United States, so it was a very interesting evening.

Composers included J.C. Arriaga, who evidently was born exactly 50 years after Mozart, Jesus Guridi, and Lorenzo Ondarra.  Amazon has recordings for Arriaga and Guridi.

Some general background and links (not all of which work) on Basque music can be found at Buber's Basque Page: Music.  There I found the tune and words for one of the Christmas songs that was done last night - "Hator, Hator" or "Ator, Ator".

A link from Buber's takes one to a fascinating group, Xarnege, that plays the music that merges the music of Gascony and the Basque Country (click on the door to get into the web site).  To get a flavor for their music go to the MP3 tab.  I tried out the  song titled  Sorlekuaren minez which starts out with voice and a drone of some sort, and then ends with a perky dance tune.  Their CD is titled Gaueko lan musika - Musica de contrabanda (Pyrene-2004).

Of a completely different nature is another link of Buber's to recordings that an American made in 1940 of songs sung by Basques living in California.  These are now held by the Library of Congress and can be listened to on the internet. A search in Amazon for Basque music shows that there are also Alan Lomax recordings in Basque Country from the early 1950's - one is for Navarre and the another is for Biscay and Guipozca.

6,000 BC Tsunami

Power Line refers us to a story about scientists' conclusions of the impacts of the eruption of Mt Etna  some 8,000 years ago.  The huge, resulting tsunami wreaked havoc across the Mediterranean  Sea and Northern Africa.  A video is on the entry showing the wave action.  Very cool!  Interesting comment line on Power Line as well.  Other info at Science Daily and an overview of volcanic activity in the Mediterranean in Time Europe.

Litvinenko Poisoning

This morning, the Times of London is reporting that Litvinenko's guest for sushi dinner the evening of December 1, is suffering significant pulonium poisoning.  The amatuer sleuths are going wild, and have some very interesting analysis.  TRex at Firedoglake discusses what it would take to deliver the pulonium; bottom line is that this is a method requiring considerable sophistication. Also really interesting is Larisa Alexandrovna's idea that the pulonium might have been delivered via cigarettes. AJ Strata thinks this is a "botched nuclear contraband effort."  If the pulonium was being brought into Britain, what did the conspirators plan to do with it?  Wretchard at Belmont Club (see comment interchange) suggests that the intent was to engage in a mass poisoning (looks like they had plenty of material for that!).   The additional commentary is also interesting.  Litvenko had recently converted to Islam and appeared to be quite wealthy.  Wretchard's conclusion is pretty depressing:

"Effectively we've just stumbled on a new weapons system with absolutely wonderful properties in the realm of terrorist warfare. I'm going to speculate that the bulk supplies are under positive control in Russia. They won't let the merchandise out until its ready to be used. It will be delivered just in time for the same reason nukes are kept under strict control until they are ready to be used. Even murder has logic.

But since any reasonable mass radioactive poisoning scenario will be effectively the equivalent of a unclaimed small tactical nuke or dirty bomb, the incident reveals our lack of a doctrine to deal with such threats. And if thousands of kids were poisoned with polonium tomorrow, would Blair nuke Russia? Or Pakistan? Would Pelosi even countenance the suggestion? Not as far as I can see.

We are in a war for our lives, whatever alternate universe certain people think they live in. And as Karen Carpenter said, "we only just begun"."