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dustedmagazine · 1 month

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Dagar Brothers — Berlin 1964 (Black Truffle)

Oren Ambarchi’s Black Truffle label has long been a source for challenging, rewarding music across genres from contemporary composition and free jazz to Thai mouth organ and wah-wah’d out solo bass recordings. Now it is becoming a great resource for Dhrupad music as well. Following up archival recordings of the recently departed Amelia Cuni and rudra veena virtuoso Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar is a revelatory set of lost recordings from the Dagar Brothers, two of the most important figures in establishing the documentation and preservation of this important vocal art form.

Dhrupad is the oldest form of Hindustani classical music, characterized by extensive, drawn-out improvisations. Within this lineage, the Dagar family, which includes the Dagar Brothers, their younger siblings and fellow vocal duo Zahiruddin Dagar and Faiyazuddin Dagar, the aforementioned Z.M. Dagar and his son Bahauddin Dagar, is not just a family, but an institution. Historically, the Dagars were court musicians, and to give a sense of how important the Dagar family is to Dhrupad, there are four styles of court (or darbārī) Dhrupad, and one of them is known simply as the Dāgar vānī. Ustad Nasir Moinuddin (1919-1966) and Ustad Nasir Aminuddin Khan (1923-2000) were born into this lineage at a critical period, coming of age as India broke free from centuries of British colonial rule. British colonialism had upended Indian court music and, starting in the 19th century, Dhrupad had begun to decline in favor of different styles of Hindustani classical music such as Khyal and Thumri. The development of recording technology further displaced the music from its regal context, as the music was now being presented to a much larger audience than the courts would have allowed. Indian classical music was extensively recorded on 78 rpm records from the very beginning, but the limited timeframe that the records allowed made documenting the lengthy Dhrupad music practically impossible. In the aftermath of decolonization, Dhrupad was in danger of disappearing entirely, and it was in this context that the Dagar Brothers took initiative to preserve their family tradition.

Crucial to this mission was the rise of long-playing records in the 1950s and 1960s, which provided much more space for the expansive improvisations of the Dagar Dhrupad. There were also a number of record labels emerging around this time, such as Ocora and Lyrichord, which were dedicated to producing ethnographic recordings without consideration for commercial appeal. In the mid-1960s the Dagar Brothers made the very first Dhrupad record for the EMI-Odeon label, and went on a tour of Europe organized by the eccentric French historian Alain Daniélou. Daniélou recorded the Dagar Brothers in Berlin during this tour, which remained unreleased until now due to the tape abruptly cutting out just before the brothers finished their performance of Raga Jaijavanti. Fifty years later that recording, along with a live recording made in Berlin around the same time, is now being released by Black Truffle.

The Dagar Brothers participated in these recordings with the intention of documenting and preserving a musical tradition in danger of disappearing (and promoting it to a new audience), but this doesn’t make them any less singular as artists. Perhaps the most striking thing about these releases is the intensity of the brothers’ performances, which ought to single handedly dispel any preconceptions of Indian Classical music as new-agey “chill-out” music. On the performance of Rāga Miyān kī Todī from the live recording, that intensity is present from the very beginning and doesn’t let up during the nearly 40 minute run time. The Dagar Brothers sing in beautiful droning overtones, but when the energy hits peak levels their vocal ornamentations sound like deep, commanding shouts, all perfectly on rhythm. The court music context may make one expect otherwise, but this is deeply powerful, trance-inducing music.

In the present day, Dhrupad is often associated with what is now known as drone music. La Monte Young, who is perhaps more associated with drone than any other composer, famously studied under Pandit Pran Nath, as did Terry Riley, and those two composers helped set the stage for future works exploring long tones. But what makes Dhrupad music so important in understanding the “Western” experimental music it paved the way for isn’t just the drone, but the way in which its practitioners showed the endless sonic possibilities of such seemingly “static” music. There are even some moments of vocal overlap between the two brothers that are somewhat reminiscent of the phasing techniques utilized by Phill Niblock. But even beyond its importance to experimental music, these recordings are a testament to the living, breathing power of this ancient vocal art form, and the power of music in moving both the mind and the body. The voice, after all, is the original instrument.

by Levi Dayan

#dagar brothers #berlin 1964 #black truffle #levi dayan #albumreview #dusted magazine #Dhrupad music #india #drone

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hmvw2015 · 4 years

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This November...

Do yourself a favor and vote for someone who ACTUALLY loves America and wants it to succeed.

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thatgamefromthatad · 3 years

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Mobile Game Review - Helix Waltz (Recommended by @raimi)

🎻 What is this app? Helix Waltz is a dress up game with an elaborate storyline that heavily involves character interactions. On the App Store it’s described as a “thrilling ballroom drama set in Baroque style dress,” which I think accurately reflects the sort of vintage European court-style setting the game takes place in. The setting also has fantasy elements, including characters of different “races” such as elves and people with animal ears and tails called Orens.

The game follows a main storyline as well as various side storylines and has a large cast of characters with their own personalities and preferences, all of whom you can build up your relationship with, which will affect their interactions with you depending on the level of favor you have with them. Rather than playing out in a linear set of stages or chapters, the story progresses as you accept and complete missions and attend balls where you have the chance to encounter other characters attending the same ball. There’s a bit of freedom in that sense where you can attend any of the available balls you want and encounter any of the characters that are there without necessarily following the main storyline, building up favor and getting to know anyone you want.

The dress up part is structured somewhat similarly to other dress up games I’ve played - there are various items in different categories (hairstyles, headwear, dresses, shoes, different types of accessories, etc.) with different attributes and rarities that will affect your “chic” level at any ball or other outing you attend, as well as how other characters perceive you depending on their preferences. You can have “beauty contests” with other characters you encounter at balls that compares your outfit’s chic level to theirs and there are other parts of the game where your outfits can compete with others players’. You can gain new dress up items through completing quests and through a gacha-type mechanic where you draw from different sets of potential items.

📝 Review Summary: The sheer number of different characters you can interact with in this game is very impressive, and it’s definitely entertaining getting to know them all and try to build relationships with them. I definitely found myself getting invested in certain characters and wanting to progress through the storyline so I could learn more. The art in this game is also very beautiful, which includes both the character designs and clothing items.

The follower who recommended this game noted that there is queer representation, including a trans character, which is a positive aspect, but I noticed there was not a lot of BIPOC representation, specifically a lack of characters with dark skin and limited options to have dark for your own character. The default character you play is white with very pale skin, and from my understanding from doing a little research, skin color changes are included as makeup items which definitely seems wrong, not only because you have to get your hands on the right item to have darker skin but because skin color as makeup seems to imply blackface, even if that’s completely unintentional (the makeup items in this game aren’t technically just makeup - they also change the shape of facial features). I definitely think this game should add different base skin tones, as well as characters who aren’t all super pale.

Full review below:

***

👍What’s good about this app? The enormous cast of characters in this game and the multi-faceted system involved in gaining favor with them and getting to know them are definitely this game’s biggest assets, in my opinion. Each character has their own unique personality, backstory, style, relationships and role within the in-game society, but what’s really enticing is the fact that the story tends to build up a bit of mystery and intrigue about different characters and families/factions, which motivates you even more to get close with certain NPCs and learn the different secrets they hold. The game is pretty immersive that way in the sense that your goal of building up enough trust and prestige to gain access to the most interesting intel/gossip aligns with the main character’s goal of integrating and positioning herself strategically amidst higher society.

That sense of immersion also comes through in the way the game is structured to allow you to interact pretty freely with the characters rather than following a linear path from one encounter to another. You encounter other characters similarly to how you would if you really were a young noble in this sort of society - by wandering around ballrooms or other settings and seeing who you run into or seeking out those that you already have some level of relationship with. You can even get letters from them! You can choose to follow closely to the main plot, or pick your favorite characters and go out of your way to interact with them, or a mixture of both. This game really focuses around character interactions in a way I’ve never personally seen before, and it’s very impressive - and fun!

Another great aspect of this game is the art, which of course is an important aspect for any dress up game. I’m not very well-versed in fashion in general, but I can say from an average Joe perspective that the clothing items and outfit sets are overall just very pleasing to look at and give me that sort of mouthwatery fashion-p*rn feeling whenever I see some extravagant “look” whether it be from real life, a game or any other sort of media. You could say I’m easily pleased though since I can say that about just about any other dress up game I’ve played or been widely exposed to (Love Nikki, Time Princess etc.). One thing I think is especially cool in this game is the perfume category which I can best describe as creating a kind of animated aura around your character that differs in appearance depending on the perfume. This works well with the fantasy-type setting of the game and gives a little extra magical oomph to the outfits. Other outfit pieces can also be animated, like jewelry that sparkles for example, which is also a nice touch.

The last positive thing I’d like to mention is the theme song of this game that plays in the main menu (and pretty much everywhere else except outings), it’s so beautiful and I love it so much I added it to my Spotify playlist I listen to every day lol. The song is Sans Toi by Sarah Natasha Warne if you’re curious.

In the video below you can see a perfume item in action creating a galaxy-like aura around the character, and hear a short clip of the song as well.

[Video Description: A screen recording showing a fully dressed-up character wearing a luxurious red white and gold robe over an ornate black and white collared top with a red vest and loose-fitting brown pants that have two golden stripes at the end of each pant leg. They are holding a sword, have long blond hair tied in a high-set ponytail that drapes over their left shoulder and have a large, circular golden ornament position behind their head resembling a sun or halo. They are wearing dark stockings and black high heels, and there is a sparkling, swirling aura around them with streams of light changing color from blue to purple flowing toward them. The rest of the character and clothing is still except for jewelry and accessories that sparkle and glow and some golden parts of the clothing that shimmer.]

👎 What’s wrong with this app? There are a few minor flaws with this app such as a glitch(?) I experienced a few times where I was talking with one character and another character suddenly appeared and then disappeared, which I’m pretty sure was a glitch because after it happened for some reason I wasn’t able to complete any of my goals at the ball. Also if you don’t have a great internet connection it can be very frustrating because the game will freeze often, although I can’t criticize this that much since my internet connection just sucks and I’ve experienced this with other games before that are just highly reliant on having a constant internet connection.

Probably my main problem with this game is the lack of diversity in skin tones, both in the cast of characters and in your options for your own character. Like I said there are dozens of characters in this game but from what I’ve seen so far they almost all have pale/light skin. I don’t really think the setting of this game is an excuse considering it’s a fantasy setting and there are definitely characters from different regions or backgrounds but they all just happen to have very light skin. Another reason I think there should definitely be more diversity is that there are definitely themes of racial discrimination in the story - some characters will spout stereotypes and hateful comments about other races, in reference to fantasy races or other social groups in the game, and I’m definitely not saying the targets of those comments should be dark-skinned, I just feel like if you’re going to touch on those subjects but have little to no representation of the people who experience that kind of discrimination in real-life, it seems a bit hypocritical. As a disclaimer I am mixed-race (East Asian and white) and semi-white passing with pale skin so I’m not an authority on the skin tone issue specifically but my opinion as someone reviewing this game is that there’s no reason to not have more diversity in the game, even regardless of whether it involves the themes that I mentioned.

Below is just a handful of the NPCs but as I scrolled through the list pretty much everyone had pale/light skin, Gedanh is the NPC with the darkest skin tone as far as I know:

As far as a lack of diversity in selecting a skin tone for your own character, that didn’t specifically stand out to me at first considering the main character is a pre-established character and not as much of a self-insert as in other games like Time Princess, but the fact that you can change your facial features using “makeup items” and skin tone is also locked to certain makeup items doesn’t seem fair, since it makes whiteness the default and limits darker skin tones to these specific items and corresponding makeup looks. I’m not sure what adding diverse base skin tones would look like from a programming perspective for this game but with everything else this game has going on that is so complex and impressive I feel like there’s not an excuse in this day and age to exclude something as basic as different skin colors.

While the lack of diversity is definitely my biggest criticism of the game, I’ll just add that another flaw is that many aspects of the game can be confusing and despite a pretty lengthy series of tutorial quests that teach you about different parts of the game, I still have some confusion after playing for a while. For example I’m still not even completely sure if winning a beauty contest against a character strengthens your relationship with them, and I had to look at the Helix Waltz wiki to learn how to investigate NPCs’ preferences and exactly how remaking clothes works etc. The wiki and other players are a great resource, but having more guidance in-game, even if it’s in the Help/FAQ section (which I checked and still didn’t have all the info I needed), would be an improvement.

🪞Full list of features (there are a lot but I’ll try to cover them to the best of my ability):

Storyline (main plot, side plots that unlock when you strengthen your relationships with characters and event plots)

Quests (there are quests that go along with the plot or events as well as daily quests. The daily quests are more simple such as “talk to X amount of NPCs” or “attend X amount of balls” while the other quests involve having interactions with specific characters, wearing specific dress up items to certain events, etc.)

Dress up (you dress up for every ball or other outing you attend. Each ball will have a different clothing attribute, such as a certain color or style, that increases your chic points if you wear items with the corresponding tag. Different characters also have style preferences but you need to investigate to find out each character’s preference. In addition to dress up before events, the mirror section of the main interface allows you to make whatever outfit you want with the items you have, which will be the outfit your character wears during scenes outside of outings. There are different categories of items corresponding to different parts of the outfit and for some categories you can wear more than one item from the same category, such as wearing a different bracelet on each wrist)

Balls (this is one of the two main ways you will interact with characters and complete quests. There are a few balls you can choose to attend at any given time, hosted by a specific family or faction, with specific characters attending that you can check before you enter the ball. Once you enter the ball and dress up, you can choose to approach a certain character if that option is available - I think you can only approach characters directly if you’ve already talked to them at the ball or if you are wearing an outfit they like but I’m not sure about that part - or you can choose “wander around” and have the chance to encounter different characters who are attending)

Other outings (in addition to balls there are other places in the game where you can encounter other characters, such as the slum and the tavern, and these outings work similarly to balls in terms of character interactions)

Conversation (for basic conversation you pick from a selection of topics and you can gain favor with a certain character by correctly picking the topic they prefer. There is dialog to read for every conversation although these are stock conversations that repeat so you’ll usually want to just speed through them. When you increase your relationship with a character you can unlock special conversations with them that are more unique and tied to the plot)

Q&A (sometimes a character will ask you a question and depending on if they like your answer it can boost your favor with them)

Beauty contests (while conversing with a character sometimes you can have a beauty contest against them comparing your outfit to theirs, and if you win you get points that I believe go toward earning in-game currency - another thing I’m not 100% sure about. I think you can only have a beauty contest with female characters but there is at least one male character I’ve been able to have a beauty contest with. Sometimes a character will immediately force you into a beauty contest when you encounter them)

Dancing (sometimes when interacting with a character at a ball you’ll have the option to dance with them which opens up a short memory-based minigame. I think completing the minigame correctly yields similar rewards to winning a beauty contest. I think you can only dance with male characters as I’ve never had the option come up with female characters so far)

Gathering intel (intel is a resource in the game that is used to learn more about characters and that can be exchanged with characters for rewards. While wandering around a ball you may have the chance to eavesdrop on characters and gain intel)

Gift Box/gacha mechanic (The Gift Box section of the game is where you can draw from different gacha-type pools for items and resources. Different pools take different currencies and have different sets of items)

Remaking, dyeing and enchanting clothes (you can change the style or color of some clothing items if you collect the right resources, which changes both the item’s outward appearance and attributes that go toward chic points/gaining favor with different characters. You can also enchant clothing items, which changes their appearance and increases their chic points)

Events (there are limited-time events such as events that offer limited-time items/gacha pools and limited-time quests)

Illusion Contests (one way you can compete with other players in the game rather than NPCs. You are given preset clothes items to choose from in order to put together an outfit, and can give the outfit a name. Your outfit is scored based on a voting system where two outfits are shown and players can vote for one or the other. You get rewards based on how many votes you get and you also get rewarded for voting on other outfits)

Championship (another way to compete with others players using your owned items rather than preset items. I have not participated in the championship myself yet but from my understanding you make one outfit to defend against other players challenging you and then make outfits to challenge other players’ defending outfits. The players you have the option to challenge will be the same rank as you so the competition is balanced and I believe this competition is based on the attributes of your items and a theme set for the current championship cycle, a bit more like a NPC beauty contest than the voting-based Illusion Contests.)

⭐️ Overall Rating: 4/5 (this would definitely be a 5/5 game if they fixed the racial diversity issue but it’s unfortunate that a game that’s otherwise so complex and engaging - and has LGBTQ+ representation - drops the ball in this area. I definitely hope they at least add the ability to have different base skin tones in the future.)

I really enjoyed this game so thank you to @raimi for suggesting it! If anyone else has any game review suggestions feel free to send them 🥳

#helix waltz #dress up games #dressup games #mobile games #baroque #full game reviews #fashion games #lgbt characters #game characters #interactive fiction #recommended #court games #fantasy games #game music #image descriptions in alt text #long post

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omophagias · 3 years

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What makes the 14th century alliterative revival interesting to you? If I can ask?

(i’m going to do the best i can to answer this while every piece of premodern lit i own is taped up in a box somewhere. this post is also going to be very long because it’s my blog and i do what i want.)

first of all i just like alliteration in any form of poetry—i think it makes it more fun to read out loud and helps to accentuate and drive along the meter. it’s also the primary ornamental device in old english poetry—i think the ruin provides a pretty good ongoing example although the translation they’re using on wikipedia is a bit lackluster imo. the ruin is also interesting in itself for a variety of reasons but i’m personally a fan of the way the alliteration seems to ebb and flow in intensity throughout the poem as the poet moves between the city as it once was and the ruins that it is now. it’s also got a bit of internal rhyme near the start with the repetition of -orene words—gehrorene, scorene, gedrorene, forweorone, geleorene (undereotone if you squint)—that i love. this is largely beside the point. anyway it looks like this—

glædmod ond goldbeorht || gleoma gefrætwed, wlonc ond wingal || wighyrstum scan; seah on sinc, on sylfor, || on searogimmas, on ead, on æht, || on eorcanstan, on þas beorhtan burg || bradan rices. (the ruin, lines 33-37)

broadly, the rule is: four stresses per line, at least three of which alliterate (wlonc ond wingal || wighyrstum scan; or, more widely known and a bit looser, hwæt! we gar-dena || in gear-dagum...)

anyway post-conquest a lot of things change; partially because english isn’t the prestige language for a couple-three centuries afterwards so prestige poetry is in latin or norman french (or anglo-norman), partially because english itself is obviously changing through absorbing a lot of norman & otherwise-french influence, partially it is the nature of poetic form to adapt. i’ve seen some arguments that end-rhyme was introduced into french-etc. poetry through diffusion of arabic poetry out of al-andalus; i’m not qualified to comment but it sounds plausible. either way, at and after the time of conquest, french verse was generally octosyllabic, and rhyming or at least assonant—

Bels fut li vespres e li soleilz fut clers. Les dis mulez fait Carles establer. El’ grant vergier fait li reis tendre un tref; Les dis messages ad fait enz hosteler; Duze serjant les unt bien cunreez. (la chanson de roland, att. turold, c. 1040–1115, lines 157-161; assonant)

Quant des lais faire m’entremet, ne vueil ubliër Bisclavret. Bisclavret a nun en Bretan, Garulf l’apelent li Norman. (bisclavret, marie de france, c. 1160–1215, lines 1-4; aabb rhyming)

alliterative verse didn’t entirely disappear, probably, but we don’t have evidence for it after the composition of layamon’s brut in 1190. the verse compositions in identifiable english that we have, like of arthour and of merlin or richard coer de lyon, tend to take after anglo-norman and french antecedents—

Merlin seyd to þe king “Al y knowe þi glosing, Y wot þou louest par amour Ygerne þat swete flour. What wiltow ȝeue me, ar tomorwe Y schal þe lese out of þi sorwe?” (of arthour and of merlin, c. 1250–1300, lines 2477-2482)

He answeryd wiþ herte ffree, “Þeron j moot avyse me. Ȝe weten weel, it is no lawe, A kynge to hange and to drawe…” (richard coer de lyon, c. 1300, lines 997-1000)

the above two are fairly representative of earlier (like, pre-chaucerian) middle english poetic literature. speaking broadly: short, metrical rhymed couplets. i should also mention, probably, that people at the time were fairly inconsistent about the scribal difference between u and v or y/i/j, that þ goes “th”, and that ȝ makes a variety of “g” or “g”-“y” cusp or “gh” or “ch” sounds and can also stand in scribally for a z or hard s.

anyway, the 14th century alliterative revival is what it sounds like: around 1350, primarily in the north and west of england, a lot of alliterative verse began to be written down. it’s…very different from the examples given above:

And þat þe myriest in his muckel þat myȝt ride; For of bak and of brest al were his bodi sturne, Both his wombe and his wast were worthily smale, And alle his fetures folȝande, in forme þat he hade, ful clene; For wonder of his hwe men hade, Set in his semblaunt sene; He ferde as freke were fade, And oueral enker-grene. (sir gawain and the green knight, “gawain poet”, c. 1370–1390, lines 142-150)

middle english alliterative verse by and large rejects end-rhyming (however, the exceptions to that rule are absolutely my favorites—more later), and brings back the four-stress line (both his wombe and his wast || were worthily smale) although in a longer and looser form than was common in old english, probably because of linguistic shifts and because of evolution of the medium. it is so fun to read out loud. sir gawain and the alliterative morte arthure are probably your most accessible examples—they’re both available in facing-page translation by simon armitage, who isn’t my favorite translator of sir gawain but does a good job of retaining the stresses. piers plowman is also representative, but reading it, to me, is a little like being trapped in the donut shop my grandpa hangs out at with a bunch of other old guys, except without donuts—it’s very old-man-yells-at-cloud. but really my interest with them is less with translation than with the way that the language sits in my mouth, and the way that i think alliterative verse sort of pulls the lines forward in a way that end-rhyme doesn’t necessarily—it feels more propulsive, more churning. it’s like a water-wheel, if that makes sense? it plays off the natural stresses of the english language in a really engaging way, and differently from iambic pentameter, which tends to get most of the spotlight when it comes to naturalistic rhythm in english poetry. and there’s a playfulness to a lot of it (especially the rhymed poems), or at least a sense of the ability to play with language, that i love and that i think a lot of people don’t really realize existed in medieval literature (or think only chaucer was capable of it.)

however! the works from the alliterative revival that combine alliteration and end-rhyme are some of my favorite poems in the english language (for a permissive definition of “english”), because they tend to develop these incredible complex, elaborate structures of rhyme and meter. so there are two poems in this category that i’m going to talk about, and i can go for…a long time on the second one. i’m not really going to bring up sir gawain on its own much more because, no room, but it’s really one of my favorite arthurian works, in part because of the alliterative verse, in part because i just love the figure of the green knight and the awful castle hautdesert threesome setup; it’s also one of the more accessible examples of the core of the genre (at least to me—i bounced really hard off of malory, the mabinogion is fun but deeply weird in a way that might put off beginners, and i think chrétien de troyes really depends on how you’re introduced—english translations of french arthuriana tend to be prose translations, which is a whole different post but suffice it to say i don’t think they work.)

first is the three dead kings, which is an expansion on the “as you are so i once was / as i am so shall you be” type of memento mori motif that was pretty common at the time; three kings on a boar hunt run into three corpses who identify themselves as their ancestors and tell them to stop fucking around and take death seriously. so, thematically—i think memento mori art and literature is a lot of fun, in general; the combination of the focus on life’s transience with macabre and often enthusiastically ghoulish imagery—

Lo, here the wormus in my wome — thai wallon and wyndon! Lo, here the wrase of the wede || that I was in wondon! (the three dead kings, att. john audelay, c. 1426, lines 98–99)

—and the vision of life still continuing after death and among the dead, not necessarily solely in the sense of the resurrection but in a community of the dead on earth who speak to and concern themselves with the living, it’s just very fun. (afterlives by nancy mandeville caciola is an absolute blast on that front, by the way.) the three dead kings is also structurally complex in a really enjoyable way: it’s not bob-and-wheel (which you see very famously in sir gawain, the little two-word bob and four-line abab wheel at the end of each verse), but the five-line cdccd bit that i’d call a sort of wheel; and then the main body of each stanza has this very fun abababab scheme where the a- and b-words still half-rhyme with each other. from the stanza i quoted above, you get “fynden — fondon — lynden — Londen — byndon — bondon — wyndon — wondon”. i think it plays very well with the meter.

aside from that, i love the imagery of it; it ranges from, like i said, almost comically grotesque—the dead king whose legs are like leeks wrapped in linen, the worms wallowing and winding in the womb (interesting word choice, also)—to this very sere, wintry atmosphere; the last stanza has a half-line about the “red rowys of the day,” the red daylight, that i just love. and i’m a big fan of the way that, kind of like sir gawain in miniature, the three dead kings opens with this celebration of chivalric performance that’s suddenly pulled askew by the intrusion of supernatural—or, like, really, the most natural; what’s more normal than death, or than cyclical renewal?—forces.

the second poem is pearl. (the linked translation is not my favorite; simon armitage has a facing-page one that’s pretty good, but my favorite overall is marie borroff’s (rip), who also did my favorite sir gawain.) i’m going to do my best not to just go on and on about pearl for ages, because this post is already very long, but it’s also, i think, one of my favorite poems, period. its structure is very hard to talk about briefly, because the way that it’s built is integral to its subject. in brief: 101 stanzas, each of 12 lines in abababab-bcbc rhyme, divided into 20 cantos (the 14th canto has 6 stanzas, the rest 5), for a total of 1212 lines. within each canto, the first and last line of each stanza repeat these linking words and phrases (except the first line of each canto, which does so to the final line of the canto preceding, and the final line of the poem, which paraphrases the opening line.) this is all because pearl is in part about heavenly geometry, the square/cube of the heavenly city (12 furlongs on a side, filled with 144,000 maidens) and the circle/sphere of the pearl, and the way that those two shapes are interposed on each other—there’s a lot of structural/behind-the-scenes numerology and geometry to talk about, but like…i won’t right now. it’s also, in the poem itself, something that can’t fully be talked about—

An-under mone so great merwayle No fleschly hert ne myȝt endeure, As quen I blusched upon þat bayle, So ferly þerof watȝ þe fasure. I stod as stylle as dased quayle For ferly of þat frelich fygure, Þat felde I nawþer reste ne trauayle, So watȝ I rauyste wyth glymme pure. For I dar say wyth conciens sure, Hade bodyly burne abiden þat bone, Þaȝ alle clerkeȝ hym hade in cure, His lyf were loste an-under mone. (pearl, “gawain poet,” c. 1370–1390, lines 1081–1092)

briefly—the narrator sees the heavenly city and nearly dies on the spot, only protected by the fact that this is all taking place in a dream-vision. borroff translates a bit of that as:

As a quail that couches, dumb and dazed, I stared on that great symmetry Nor rest nor travail my soul could taste, Pure radiance so had ravished me.

like…i love that. so much of pearl is about mortal and divine perception, about the unknowability of death and the depth of grief and the final breakdown of the consolatio as a literary-philosophical genre, and about the way that the dead who have transcended death and come out the other side are residing because of that transcendence in a fundamentally alien sphere of cognition, marked out by the impossible-to-withstand radiance of the heavenly city.

but what pearl is about-about, it’s generally agreed, is the death of the narrator’s young daughter. she is the pearl who he lost; grieving her, he falls asleep in a garden and has a dream. in this dream, he wakes up in a fantastical garden or forest, divided by a river, and on the other side of that river is a beautiful young woman who identifies herself, and who the narrator identifies, as the “pearl”. the rest of the poem is a back-and-forth between the narrator and the pearl-maiden, which is largely him asking questions and her explaining biblical parables to him. but describing the conversation as that really does it an incalculable disservice, because what it is is, on the one hand, a grieving parent asking these very human, tender questions of his lost child—are you really her? why did you have to go? where are you? are you happy where you are?—while the child offers only these very stern, cold rebukes—þou most abyde þat He schal deme—and abstruse explanations of the parable of the vineyard; and on the other hand, someone who has been made greedy and grasping and willfully uncomprehending in his grief, refusing to understand that the child he lost is happier where she is now, and that she can be happier there, and that he cannot join her before his decreed time. and he’s not at fault for being that way, but he’s thinking in ways that are fundamentally limited by the mortal realm that he can’t yet exit and she’s thinking in ways that are incomprehensible to people who haven’t also undergone the same apocalyptic, in the word’s sense of “unveiling” (but also, i mean, she’s in the heavenly city), reorientation of thought and being. it’s a very tender poem that i think also manages to prefigure some of the staples of eldritch horror.

and i love how the structure plays into that; the alliteration is looser than the three dead kings—there’s basically no caesura (the || that shows up sometimes in three dead kings and is more or less mandatory in old english verse), and sometimes there’s only 2 alliterations to a line, because the lines are shorter, or none at all—but it’s still got these wonderful repetitions of sound across the stanzas, tied into the repetition of the key words at the beginning and end. the whole thing builds up and up and then collapses back onto the beginning, as the narrator gradually believes he’s understanding more and more and then, in his attempt to ford the river before his time, is thrown back into the mortal world; the poem’s like an impossible staircase. it’s this massive crystalline structure enclosing a deeply human core. there is, to my knowledge, nothing else like it. it—and the other works, including sir gawain, attributed to the “gawain poet” on the basis of stylistic similarities—survives in a single manuscript, cotton nero a.x, which fortunately survived the ashburnham house fire in 1731.

to close off on the alliterative revival at large, it fell out of fashion over the 1400s; in england, the chaucerian tradition—end-rhymed iambic pentameter—dominated, and while alliterative-meter poetry still had some currency in the scottish court that ended with james vi/i stuart’s ascent to the english throne and transfer of his court to london. in modern usage, alliteration as its own technique does crop up in poetry—and i’m always happy to see it—but alliterative meter (as in, four-stress lines, or even the looser form of sir gawain or the three dead kings) is much less common and most people encounter it either through translations of beowulf or through some of the poetry in the lord of the rings (from dark dunharrow || in the dim of morning…)

#.ask #anonymous

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ivandimarcofotografo · 4 years

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The big picture: Nadav Kander’s diminutive Batman

Holy smoke! The acclaimed photographer takes us by surprise with a touching portrait of his young son

The photographer Nadav Kander has sometimes seemed capable of almost anything. His cover portraits of powerful men – Barack Obama and Donald Trump among them – have become memorable, troubling, newsworthy images. His reportage photography, notably a series of journeys along the Yangtze in which he captured a vision of China’s often haunting incongruities, won him international prizes. An ongoing series of nudes, painted white, or shot in uncompromising closeup, have been widely acclaimed as redefining a tired genre. But this picture, of his son, Oren, dressed as Batman, is something of a surprising one-off in his work.

Kander, who grew up in Israel and South Africa, and who has long been based in London, includes it in a new book of his portraits called The Meeting. In his introduction to the book, Kander, 58, says that his ambition is always to “make a portrait that stirs a viewer [to] complete what I call ‘the triangle’ by bringing their own story or state of mind to the picture”. Many of the portraits in the book, bodies emerging out of blackness, famous faces juxtaposed with unknown subjects in rural South Africa, make just this kind of earnest demand. But what to make of Oren, standing on the ornamental wall of the caravan park?

Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/dec/15/the-big-picture-nadav-kander-diminutive-batman

#Photography | The Guardian #photography

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meijhana · 4 years

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Dungeons and Dragons Christmas 2019!

This ornament went to a player who has had 4 different characters to contribute to the party this year.

The first is Gil, the triton cleric. Gil hasn’t left the party, but the player wanted to try something new, and we had another player who was going to be able to play full time who wanted to play a triton cleric. So Gil got adopted by a new player!

Then came Solomon, also known as Sol. He was a Fire Genasi monk who was a bit of a charlatan, and kept his face and true identity secret. He met an unfortunate end being crushed into lava underneath a large metal structure.

Next we had Oren, the Fallen Aasimar fighter. He was a great fella. He was noble and loyal, and that was ultimately his downfall. When the Underdark settlement of Sluplidop (I have no clue how to spell that) was being destroyed by falling rocks, he rushed back to try to save an NPC (and then rolled like a 2 on his dex save...). Rest in peace, bud.

And finally, we’ve got Mandus, the tiefling bard! He’s overly trusting, but his inspiration has saved our butts many times in the few short sessions he’s been with us!

#dungeons and dragons #sammy's art #d&d #handpainted ornament #this one took forever #and i'm not 100% happy with mandus's face #but it's done #and all of his characters are immortalized now

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mealha · 4 years

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The big picture: Nadav Kander’s diminutive Batman

Holy smoke! The acclaimed photographer takes us by surprise with a touching portrait of his young son

Continue reading... from Photography | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2sriEZG

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jeffreyhowardz · 4 years

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7 Awesome Tips to Decorate Your Garage Door for Christmas

December started, and as the month begins, a holiday feel starts because Christmas is arriving! Decorating for the holidays is always to be a fun; hanging the lights and putting the showy decorations over the grass and rooftops. And, after that stepping back to appreciate your creativity. Homes including windows are styled with lights and adjusted with wishes and greeting decals, it is so exciting. But, what about the garage?

I’ve often seen people ignoring their garages, but they aren’t the thing to ignore. The tips on the best way to beautify your garage door for Christmas will help you to make a house blissful during the holiday celebration.

Below are the 7 fascinating garage door decoration tips to enhance the Christmas celebration. Take a look;

#1 Herb Wreath

You can get magnificence the garage door by using the herb wreath. When you open or close the garage door, the new aroma will welcome you. The base of the wreath can be made of grapevine. At that point, you can place a few herbs on it to bring the new odor.

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#2 Mistletoe Kissing Ball

The next thing to brighten the garage door is the mistletoe kissing balls. You can do this thing at home before the Christmas festivity. It will give a generous welcome when you open the garage door. Use the flower froth as the base. Beautify it with sheet moss and mistletoe sprigs.

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#3 Wooden Christmas Tree

If you need to appreciate the provincial feeling before the garage door, you can use the wooden Christmas tree. Ensure that the space is sufficient to put this thing. You can pick the little, yet thin Christmas tree. Improve it with a spectacular shining sparkle and Christmas balls. Moreover, you can add your family’s most loved ornament like jewelry, to make it look dazzling and fabulous.

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#4 Christmas Magnets

Magnets are an especially simple approach to vamp up the garage door. You can dig up one that matches any occasion themes and matches your tastes. You might need to test your way to check whether magnets are possible on your door before purchasing the bigger reviving magnets.

#5 Decorate with Candles

Just like decorating the main entrance with candles makes your home more beautiful. In the same way, you can even decorate your garage doors to enhance the look. But, you must be cautious when putting candles on the garage door because of the fire. To ensure that the decoration of a candle is safe, you need to place them in glass holders or lampshades. You can purchase unique containers in different home art and craft stores. To get the more alluring look, add the bright strips of ribbons on every holder.

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#6 Use String Lightings

If you need a more secure option to shimmer the garage door, you can use the string lighting. The fringe of the garage can include vivid lighting. Use the LED lighting for an advanced look.

Also Read: Should I Switch to Solar Christmas Lights

#7 Wrap a Bow Around It

Maybe the easiest way to enliven your garage doors is to put a bow on or around the garages. Large bows are strong items, which are used for cars and other large gifts. Bows with an amplified lace are particularly effective because you can wrap them around the door and after that tie them off within the garage by hanging them.

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Do you have any useful tip on the best way to adorn your garage door for Christmas? If yes, then do share with us in a comment below!

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Author Bio:

Oren Linder is the author and founder of ASAP Garage Door Services Inc that provides garage door repair services in Bergenfield and other areas of NY. Oren loves to write about home improvement and his expertise is in garage door.

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