A Kappa is a mythical beast, found in Japanese folklore. But, in Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s 1927 novel, Kappa, a whole nation of Kappas (cute creatures) come alive, predominantly in the male gender (though the female of the species does exist), inhabiting their very own world called Kappaland, which is almost a parallel to ours.
Kappas have cities with roads, houses, shops and public buildings; they have factories, hospitals and schools; they have trees, rivers and seas; they have politics, religion and wars; they have doctors, judges, businessmen, students, poets, philosophers and fishermen; and they experience the same emotions of love, greed, jealousy, etc. as we do. However, some of their thinking and behaviour are different – almost opposite – from ours.
We know all this because Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s protagonist from his novel Kappa, identified simply as Patient No.23 in the Author’s Preface, is there to tell us his story of Kappas and Kappaland from personal experience.
Although Kappa is hailed as one of Akutagawa’s greatest achievements – his most famous work is his collection of short stories published as Roshomon, made even more famous by Japanese director Akira Kurasawa in his epic film of the same name, which was based on two stories from Akutagawa’s Roshomon collection – I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between Kappa and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as well as Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, both of which were published much before Akutagawa’s novel.
For instance, Alice falls asleep in the garden and then wakes up to find a white rabbit, which she then chases down a rabbit hole, to arrive at Wonderland. Akutagawa’s Patient No.23 also falls asleep in a jungle by a river in the foothills of a mountain, wakes up to find a real life Kappa and chases it, only to fall down a hole in which the Kappa disappears, and finally arrives unconscious in Kappaland. Or, for instance, the references to, and description of, things in Kappaland which are similar to our human world (in this case Japan), and yet which are ‘upside-down’ or logically inverse of the human world. Alice’s Wonderland is built on a similar ‘upside-down’ or logically-inverse model.
But, perhaps, I’m being petty. After all, Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Kappa is a charming tale of a Japanese man’s accidental discovery of Kappas and his stay in Kappaland (for an undefined period) before returning to Japan. Akutagawa’s parallels between Japan and Kappaland, at times somewhat surreal, are indeed something to marvel at. The fact that Akutagawa wrote Kappa as a response to his revulsion of himself and of the Japanese society at that time (leading to his suicide at 35 years of age, soon after publishing his novel) – as it is explained in a very long Introduction to the novel by G H Healey – is, of course, unclear to the reader from the story. But, that doesn’t take away anything from the fun and enchantment of the Kappas in the novel.
[Citation: Kappa by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1927), translated from the Japanese by Geoffrey Bownas (1970), with an Introduction by G H Healey; Peter Owen Publishers, 2004.]
31 October 2008
30 October 2008
Andy Warhol prince of pop
Besides or in spite of his art, most people probably remember Andy Warhol as the person famous for saying, “In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” For Warhol, his fame was much greater than the fifteen minutes he had proposed for everybody. For him, it had lasted twenty-five years (until his sudden death due to a complication during a routine gall-bladder operation in 1987) – and it continues even today.
I knew very little about Andy Warhol until I read Andy Warhol prince of pop by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. The book is a slim and easy-to-read volume of his biography, describing Warhol’s life (born Andrew Warhola) as the third son of Ruthenian (people from an area near the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe comprising parts of Czechoslovakia, Ukraine and Hungary) parents who migrated to the United States after the First World War and settled down in Pittsburgh.
Warhol’s father, Andrej, was a construction worker who took up odd jobs when he was laid off, but “managed to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads during the toughest years of the Depression.” But it was Warhol’s mother, Julia, who was his greatest encouragement, pampering him through his ill-health during his childhood until his later years, almost till Warhol was 40 years of age, living close to Warhol in New York.
Andy Warhol is inseparable from American Pop Art – an art movement that started in the 1960s and continues today. What made Warhol famous over and above other Pop artists (such as Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wasselmann, James Rosenquist, Claes Oldenburg) was his application of this art form into media such as advertising, design, books, films, TV production and fashion. Besides, when other famous Abstract Expressionist artists of the time (such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko) remained true to their oeuvre, Warhol shamelessly experimented with different media, form and content, extending the boundaries to establish his own style and standards not only on Pop Art, but also on contemporary American culture.
Everybody wanted to be in Andy Warhol’s company – be it in his art, in his films, in his parties, in his studio (The Factory), in his magazine (Interview), and/or be seen with him. That’s probably what Warhol meant by ‘world famous for fifteen minutes’. And, true to his form, he delivered on this promise. For, by 1963, Andy Warhol had achieved fame. He was an American icon.
Decidedly gay, Warhol was successful in winning over both men and women, many of them celebrities in their own right. Yet, many of them turned to him – for memorability. Warhol knew the importance of image-building, creating a memorable image for himself single-handedly. One of his dreams was to become a supermodel, but he did not attain this goal. However, what is of importance (and, perhaps, a learning for us all) is that Andy Warhol was superlatively industrious – he never stopped working, even when he was shopping, partying, or on a holiday. His huge volume of work is a testimony to this fact.
Andy Warhol prince of pop by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan is a quick and enlightening biography of America’s greatest pop artist. The book also contains a Warhol timeline, a list of Warhol’s films and books, a glossary of art terms, notes on quotes and references, and sources of research material on Warhol… making it an interesting mini-compendium on the artist.
[Citation: Andy Warhol prince of pop by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, Laurel-Leaf, 2004.]
I knew very little about Andy Warhol until I read Andy Warhol prince of pop by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. The book is a slim and easy-to-read volume of his biography, describing Warhol’s life (born Andrew Warhola) as the third son of Ruthenian (people from an area near the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe comprising parts of Czechoslovakia, Ukraine and Hungary) parents who migrated to the United States after the First World War and settled down in Pittsburgh.
Warhol’s father, Andrej, was a construction worker who took up odd jobs when he was laid off, but “managed to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads during the toughest years of the Depression.” But it was Warhol’s mother, Julia, who was his greatest encouragement, pampering him through his ill-health during his childhood until his later years, almost till Warhol was 40 years of age, living close to Warhol in New York.
Andy Warhol is inseparable from American Pop Art – an art movement that started in the 1960s and continues today. What made Warhol famous over and above other Pop artists (such as Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wasselmann, James Rosenquist, Claes Oldenburg) was his application of this art form into media such as advertising, design, books, films, TV production and fashion. Besides, when other famous Abstract Expressionist artists of the time (such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko) remained true to their oeuvre, Warhol shamelessly experimented with different media, form and content, extending the boundaries to establish his own style and standards not only on Pop Art, but also on contemporary American culture.
Everybody wanted to be in Andy Warhol’s company – be it in his art, in his films, in his parties, in his studio (The Factory), in his magazine (Interview), and/or be seen with him. That’s probably what Warhol meant by ‘world famous for fifteen minutes’. And, true to his form, he delivered on this promise. For, by 1963, Andy Warhol had achieved fame. He was an American icon.
Decidedly gay, Warhol was successful in winning over both men and women, many of them celebrities in their own right. Yet, many of them turned to him – for memorability. Warhol knew the importance of image-building, creating a memorable image for himself single-handedly. One of his dreams was to become a supermodel, but he did not attain this goal. However, what is of importance (and, perhaps, a learning for us all) is that Andy Warhol was superlatively industrious – he never stopped working, even when he was shopping, partying, or on a holiday. His huge volume of work is a testimony to this fact.
Andy Warhol prince of pop by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan is a quick and enlightening biography of America’s greatest pop artist. The book also contains a Warhol timeline, a list of Warhol’s films and books, a glossary of art terms, notes on quotes and references, and sources of research material on Warhol… making it an interesting mini-compendium on the artist.
[Citation: Andy Warhol prince of pop by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, Laurel-Leaf, 2004.]
24 October 2008
Being Muslim in ‘India Today’
As an Indian, I’m no stranger to issues of race and religion, facing it everyday, not just in the news but also while living, working and travelling in Mumbai city. It’s a complex issue, considering India’s mixed population and history, made even more ‘slippery’ by the games played by the politicians and the Press today – the very pillars of society who ought to hold upright the values of a secular state that India is.
For instance, consider this email I received from a concerned member of the media (I’ve posted it here verbatim, after taking approval from the author of the email/story):
This is a piece I wrote for India Today but the version that has appeared in the magazine is an edit that I did not agree to. It’s not clear to me how that happened since I edited the longer article down to this final version and sent it in to them. But the magazine is out and I am both angry and saddened at their careless editing of ideas that are particularly under siege at this point of time.
So, here is my edit and I would be glad if it was circulated widely on the net - more widely than the magazine!
Samina
Not far from L18, in the posh part of Jamia Nagar, is a house on a tree-lined avenue that will always be home to me. But my life, with all its easy privileges, could not be more different from Atif and Sajid’s, the two young men shot as alleged terrorists at L18. I contain multitudes, Whitman so eloquently said. But we live in a time when even multitudes are forced to lay claim to a singular label. And so by writing this, perhaps, I will forever be labelled the voice of the liberal secular Muslim. A voice that is accused of not speaking up. Ironically, it is this very tyranny of labels that grants me this space in a mainstream national magazine.
As someone with a Muslim first name and a Hindu surname, I suppose I have always swung between labels - a poster girl for communal harmony or a confused, rootless individual, depending on who was doing the labelling. I went to a public school and have never worn a burkha. I might escape being thrown in the big cauldron with “Islamic Terrorists” but I will certainly be added to the one for “misguided intellectuals”. While there is no mistaking that it is zealous nationalists who seek to light the fire under the first cauldron, the other is a bone of contention between those who seek to define for me how to be Indian and those who seek to define for me how to be Muslim. My condemnation of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Imrana’s rape or the media circus around Gudiya will always be seen in the context of my privileged background, my gender, my religious identity. Perhaps, it can be no other way.
In this rhetoric of binaries, of “us and them”, it is difficult to find the space to create a new paradigm of discussion. And so, in conversations that throw up Islamic terrorists, rigid religious beliefs, Pakistan and madrasas, the response is inevitably another set of questions - why is the Bajrang Dal not labelled a terrorist outfit, why is the growing public display of Hindu festivals like Navratras and Karva Chauth not considered rigid religious beliefs, why should Muslims in India be answerable for what goes on in Pakistan, what spaces other than madrasas are available for thousands of believing Muslims who choose to get educated and still retain their Muslim-ness. As a Muslim in India today, not only are you fighting to shrug off the label of fundamentalist- if not terrorist - but you are also succumbing to a paradigm of dialogue which has been set for homogenous communities with clear markers of identities.
But how does one fight that when shared cultural spaces, other than those created by the market, shrink? How does one speak of the diversity of being Indian when Diwali is celebrated in schools and Eid just in Muslim homes? How does one avoid a singular label for experiences that are diverse and yet have a common thread running through them - the experience of a tailor in Ahmedabad whose Hindu patrons have stopped giving work to, the butcher in Batla House who couldn’t get a bank loan, the software professional who will now have to watch every single byte that leaves his computer.
Being Muslim in India today means many things to many people. But how easy it is to forget that one fundamental reality. How easy it is to say, as someone said to me after the Delhi blasts - “These are all educated Muslims. Don’t they know that their bombs can also kill their own?” As if everyone with a Muslim name is a terrorist’s very “own”.
Samina Mishra / October 2008
For instance, consider this email I received from a concerned member of the media (I’ve posted it here verbatim, after taking approval from the author of the email/story):
This is a piece I wrote for India Today but the version that has appeared in the magazine is an edit that I did not agree to. It’s not clear to me how that happened since I edited the longer article down to this final version and sent it in to them. But the magazine is out and I am both angry and saddened at their careless editing of ideas that are particularly under siege at this point of time.
So, here is my edit and I would be glad if it was circulated widely on the net - more widely than the magazine!
Samina
Not far from L18, in the posh part of Jamia Nagar, is a house on a tree-lined avenue that will always be home to me. But my life, with all its easy privileges, could not be more different from Atif and Sajid’s, the two young men shot as alleged terrorists at L18. I contain multitudes, Whitman so eloquently said. But we live in a time when even multitudes are forced to lay claim to a singular label. And so by writing this, perhaps, I will forever be labelled the voice of the liberal secular Muslim. A voice that is accused of not speaking up. Ironically, it is this very tyranny of labels that grants me this space in a mainstream national magazine.
As someone with a Muslim first name and a Hindu surname, I suppose I have always swung between labels - a poster girl for communal harmony or a confused, rootless individual, depending on who was doing the labelling. I went to a public school and have never worn a burkha. I might escape being thrown in the big cauldron with “Islamic Terrorists” but I will certainly be added to the one for “misguided intellectuals”. While there is no mistaking that it is zealous nationalists who seek to light the fire under the first cauldron, the other is a bone of contention between those who seek to define for me how to be Indian and those who seek to define for me how to be Muslim. My condemnation of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Imrana’s rape or the media circus around Gudiya will always be seen in the context of my privileged background, my gender, my religious identity. Perhaps, it can be no other way.
In this rhetoric of binaries, of “us and them”, it is difficult to find the space to create a new paradigm of discussion. And so, in conversations that throw up Islamic terrorists, rigid religious beliefs, Pakistan and madrasas, the response is inevitably another set of questions - why is the Bajrang Dal not labelled a terrorist outfit, why is the growing public display of Hindu festivals like Navratras and Karva Chauth not considered rigid religious beliefs, why should Muslims in India be answerable for what goes on in Pakistan, what spaces other than madrasas are available for thousands of believing Muslims who choose to get educated and still retain their Muslim-ness. As a Muslim in India today, not only are you fighting to shrug off the label of fundamentalist- if not terrorist - but you are also succumbing to a paradigm of dialogue which has been set for homogenous communities with clear markers of identities.
But how does one fight that when shared cultural spaces, other than those created by the market, shrink? How does one speak of the diversity of being Indian when Diwali is celebrated in schools and Eid just in Muslim homes? How does one avoid a singular label for experiences that are diverse and yet have a common thread running through them - the experience of a tailor in Ahmedabad whose Hindu patrons have stopped giving work to, the butcher in Batla House who couldn’t get a bank loan, the software professional who will now have to watch every single byte that leaves his computer.
Being Muslim in India today means many things to many people. But how easy it is to forget that one fundamental reality. How easy it is to say, as someone said to me after the Delhi blasts - “These are all educated Muslims. Don’t they know that their bombs can also kill their own?” As if everyone with a Muslim name is a terrorist’s very “own”.
Samina Mishra / October 2008
21 October 2008
Accusations against Milan Kundera
Looks like world-famous Czech author (now a French citizen) Milan Kundera may be in a spot of trouble.
According to news which appeared in The Editors Weblog yesterday, posted by Lauren Drablier, documents going back 50 years or so have been discovered in the Communist archives in Czechoslovakia implying Milan Kundera’s involvement in denouncing a fellow student in Prague (under the Communist regime).
This post has been reproduced entirely from The Editors Weblog story posted by Lauren Drablier on 20 October 2008:
The Editors Weblog interviewed Martin M Simecka, the author of an article that appeared in Czech magazine, Respekt on October 13, 2008.
The article claims that an authentic police report, over 50 years old, has resurfaced from the Communist security agency’s archive. The report implicates Czech author Milan Kundera. Kundera is accused of denouncing Miroslav Dvoracek, who was a university student in Prague. The denunciation led to his imprisonment for over 14 years.
Part of the document reads:
“Today at around 1600 hours a student, Milan Kundera, born 1.4.1929 in Brno, resident at the student hall of residence on George VI Avenue in Prague VII, presented himself at this department and reported that a student, Iva Militká, resident at that residence, had told a student by the name of Dlask, also of that residence, that she had met a certain acquaintance of hers, Miroslav Dvoracek, at Klárov in Prague the same day. The said Dvoracek apparently left 1 case in her care, saying he would come to fetch it in the afternoon. (...) Dvoracek had apparently deserted from military service and since the spring of the previous year had possibly been in Germany, where he had gone illegally.”
Editors Weblog asked Mr Simecka a few questions about how Respekt has handled the issue from a journalistic and editorial point of view:
EW: How did you determine the authenticity of the police report? Is this the only document you have?
MS: The experts from the Military History Institute confirmed the authenticity of the document. We also interviewed Ms Militka for the story. Other newspapers have interviewed her as well.
EW: How and why did you decide to publish the document? Did you have any doubts or hesitations before you published the article? Did Milan Kundera answer you when you contacted him before publication?
MS: Adam Hradilek, the historian who found the original document, tried to contact Milan Kundera by fax on September 11, 2008 (one month before the article was published), however, Kundera did not respond. We also know that he had received the fax. Of course we had some long debates about publishing the article, but we have no doubts about the version we have published.
EW: How was the article written and presented in the Czech Republic? As purely factual or as accusatory?
MS: Our article did not accuse Mr. Kundera, we simply were following the facts.
EW: Kundera has denounced the document and article as ‘pure lies’, how do you plan on approaching the situation now? What will be the magazine's response?
MS: In the Czech Republic it is a very heated debate, and sometimes very irrational. We have asked Czech writers, such as Vaclav Havel, to write short essays about the case.
EW: In hindsight, because Kundera has denounced the accusations, do you feel that you should have taken more precautions before publishing the article? Or are you confident that it will hold up?
MS: Our biggest problem was how to talk to Mr Kundera – we knew very well that he has not communicated with the media for over 25 years. On the other hand, until now Mr Kundera has not said anything else about the case – other than claiming that it is a lie. There are many questions that need to be answered, but Mr Kundera is not communicating to the media.
EW: You are comparing Kundera to Günter Grass. Does this mean that you are expecting Kundera to admit?
MS: Originally, I hoped for it but now I do not expect that Kundera will admit.
EW: Where do you see this debate going? Will it continue to grow?
MS: Yes, especially in the Czech Republic, the debate is going to be huge. I am afraid the result may be that politicians will close the Military History Institute.
EW: What does it change if Kundera is guilty or not? Who will be affected the most?
MS: This case could open the debate of the past, but it seems that it can also close it for years and years. That would be the saddest story.
EW: What do you expect from Vaclav Havel?
MS: Vaclav Havel has written for us – more or less defending Mr Kundera.
EW: Do you think other cases of velvet revolution heroes will appear? Have you opened Pandora’s box?
MS: Some other cases may come up, but I do not think they will ever be as big as this one.
[Citation: Covering the accusations against Milan Kundera, on The Editor’s Weblog, posted by Lauren Drablier on 20 October 2008.]
According to news which appeared in The Editors Weblog yesterday, posted by Lauren Drablier, documents going back 50 years or so have been discovered in the Communist archives in Czechoslovakia implying Milan Kundera’s involvement in denouncing a fellow student in Prague (under the Communist regime).
This post has been reproduced entirely from The Editors Weblog story posted by Lauren Drablier on 20 October 2008:
The Editors Weblog interviewed Martin M Simecka, the author of an article that appeared in Czech magazine, Respekt on October 13, 2008.
The article claims that an authentic police report, over 50 years old, has resurfaced from the Communist security agency’s archive. The report implicates Czech author Milan Kundera. Kundera is accused of denouncing Miroslav Dvoracek, who was a university student in Prague. The denunciation led to his imprisonment for over 14 years.
Part of the document reads:
“Today at around 1600 hours a student, Milan Kundera, born 1.4.1929 in Brno, resident at the student hall of residence on George VI Avenue in Prague VII, presented himself at this department and reported that a student, Iva Militká, resident at that residence, had told a student by the name of Dlask, also of that residence, that she had met a certain acquaintance of hers, Miroslav Dvoracek, at Klárov in Prague the same day. The said Dvoracek apparently left 1 case in her care, saying he would come to fetch it in the afternoon. (...) Dvoracek had apparently deserted from military service and since the spring of the previous year had possibly been in Germany, where he had gone illegally.”
Editors Weblog asked Mr Simecka a few questions about how Respekt has handled the issue from a journalistic and editorial point of view:
EW: How did you determine the authenticity of the police report? Is this the only document you have?
MS: The experts from the Military History Institute confirmed the authenticity of the document. We also interviewed Ms Militka for the story. Other newspapers have interviewed her as well.
EW: How and why did you decide to publish the document? Did you have any doubts or hesitations before you published the article? Did Milan Kundera answer you when you contacted him before publication?
MS: Adam Hradilek, the historian who found the original document, tried to contact Milan Kundera by fax on September 11, 2008 (one month before the article was published), however, Kundera did not respond. We also know that he had received the fax. Of course we had some long debates about publishing the article, but we have no doubts about the version we have published.
EW: How was the article written and presented in the Czech Republic? As purely factual or as accusatory?
MS: Our article did not accuse Mr. Kundera, we simply were following the facts.
EW: Kundera has denounced the document and article as ‘pure lies’, how do you plan on approaching the situation now? What will be the magazine's response?
MS: In the Czech Republic it is a very heated debate, and sometimes very irrational. We have asked Czech writers, such as Vaclav Havel, to write short essays about the case.
EW: In hindsight, because Kundera has denounced the accusations, do you feel that you should have taken more precautions before publishing the article? Or are you confident that it will hold up?
MS: Our biggest problem was how to talk to Mr Kundera – we knew very well that he has not communicated with the media for over 25 years. On the other hand, until now Mr Kundera has not said anything else about the case – other than claiming that it is a lie. There are many questions that need to be answered, but Mr Kundera is not communicating to the media.
EW: You are comparing Kundera to Günter Grass. Does this mean that you are expecting Kundera to admit?
MS: Originally, I hoped for it but now I do not expect that Kundera will admit.
EW: Where do you see this debate going? Will it continue to grow?
MS: Yes, especially in the Czech Republic, the debate is going to be huge. I am afraid the result may be that politicians will close the Military History Institute.
EW: What does it change if Kundera is guilty or not? Who will be affected the most?
MS: This case could open the debate of the past, but it seems that it can also close it for years and years. That would be the saddest story.
EW: What do you expect from Vaclav Havel?
MS: Vaclav Havel has written for us – more or less defending Mr Kundera.
EW: Do you think other cases of velvet revolution heroes will appear? Have you opened Pandora’s box?
MS: Some other cases may come up, but I do not think they will ever be as big as this one.
[Citation: Covering the accusations against Milan Kundera, on The Editor’s Weblog, posted by Lauren Drablier on 20 October 2008.]
14 October 2008
Being creative
“You only have to look at your children’s drawings or listen to the odd little phrases they coin to know that man is born with a creative urge. Yet sadly, most people lose this urge as they grow older.
Many ‘primitive’ societies seem far wiser than us in the way they nurture this quality. For example, I have in my home some masks and statues from New Guinea, tapa cloths from Samoa, and aboriginal paintings. Artists like Picasso learned much from this kind of art, and the artistic impulse – seen in acts like body painting and tattooing – seems more widespread in their communities.
But we ‘civilised’ folk in pursuit of such worthy ends as direct marketing allow this inherent ability to atrophy. We have come to think only a special, gifted few can be ‘creative’.”
– Drayton Bird, British direct marketing guru, in ‘The birth of an idea’ from his book Commonsense Direct Marketing
Many ‘primitive’ societies seem far wiser than us in the way they nurture this quality. For example, I have in my home some masks and statues from New Guinea, tapa cloths from Samoa, and aboriginal paintings. Artists like Picasso learned much from this kind of art, and the artistic impulse – seen in acts like body painting and tattooing – seems more widespread in their communities.
But we ‘civilised’ folk in pursuit of such worthy ends as direct marketing allow this inherent ability to atrophy. We have come to think only a special, gifted few can be ‘creative’.”
– Drayton Bird, British direct marketing guru, in ‘The birth of an idea’ from his book Commonsense Direct Marketing
10 October 2008
Toumani Diabaté
Toumani Diabaté is from Mali (West Africa). He plays the kora, a 21-stringed traditional Malian musical instrument. The music from the kora, whether solo or accompanied by a band or vocals, is so melodious that, some say, it can transport the listener to the seventh heaven.
Toumani Diabaté is represented by World Circuit Records, London. You can buy his CDs from, or listen to his music on, their website. To listen to his music, choose any of the 3 albums displayed at the bottom of the screen and click on the ‘listen’ link.
You can also watch a video of Toumani Diabaté’s performance on YouTube here (4 minutes of bliss) and a short intro to playing the kora here.
[Citation: World Circuit Records; YouTube.]
Toumani Diabaté is represented by World Circuit Records, London. You can buy his CDs from, or listen to his music on, their website. To listen to his music, choose any of the 3 albums displayed at the bottom of the screen and click on the ‘listen’ link.
You can also watch a video of Toumani Diabaté’s performance on YouTube here (4 minutes of bliss) and a short intro to playing the kora here.
[Citation: World Circuit Records; YouTube.]
08 October 2008
The Daily Beast
Tina Brown, British-born but now American citizen, former editor of famous magazines like Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, talk-show host and winner of many journalism awards, has launched her very own news website called The Daily Beast.
What is The Daily Beast?
According to its website (and in Ms Brown’s own view), “It’s a speedy, smart edit of the web from the merciless point of view of what interests the editors. The Daily Beast is the omnivorous friend who hears about the best stuff and forwards it to you with a twist. It allows you to lead the conversation, rather than simply follow it.”
The name of the website was chosen by Ms Brown from her favourite novel: Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop, a satire on London’s Fleet Street, home of the British press.
Visit The Daily Beast here.
What is The Daily Beast?
According to its website (and in Ms Brown’s own view), “It’s a speedy, smart edit of the web from the merciless point of view of what interests the editors. The Daily Beast is the omnivorous friend who hears about the best stuff and forwards it to you with a twist. It allows you to lead the conversation, rather than simply follow it.”
The name of the website was chosen by Ms Brown from her favourite novel: Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop, a satire on London’s Fleet Street, home of the British press.
Visit The Daily Beast here.
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