Leptopoma (snail): 'Johannes Passion' - by JS Bach. It's a very beautiful piece of music * * We read Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' or 'Song of Solomon' at Reed College - she's one of the most moving writers I know of ... where moving literature can be a great or wonderful motivation in reading English literature, and black American literature! * * Oregon Poet Laureate, Kim Stafford * "Was poet Kim Stafford a hippy?" but didn't find anything * * * "Is there an American culture of Ramadan?" * * * WSJ - "She’s Training for a Giant Climb Whether It Happens or Not: A woman does her best to prepare on Long Island with facilities closed for a simulated hike up Mt. Everest called 29029" - reminds me of my "" 2020 was the year I began hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in a digital mask, and actually in the back of the lenses of my glacier glasses... " from March, * * * * * * (Translated from German by Translate) How does Swisscom find out our location data? And what do the authorities actually see? * * * In India, life under coronavirus brings blue skies and clean air

Funky snail:


Hi Ma,

Just listening to this 'Johannes Passion' - https://youtu.be/SQl4BD6TS5w - by JS Bach. It's a very beautiful piece of music. Thanks so much for mentioning this!


And this ...
MILTON ABBEY CHURCH
VOCES8: Johannes-Passion, BWV 245 - JS Bach

https://youtu.be/KrG5TMjEHMM

*

Friday, April 10, 2020

Hi Scott,

Some of the most wonderful music was created for the church.  I’m listening to Bach’s St. John passion on WQED.  I’ve heard it live a couple of times - most recently at Calvary Church in Pittsburgh.  This airing is by Resonance Works, a small group in Pittsburgh - and they are doing a wonderful job.

Thank goodness some of this music is available via modern technology.

It’s very cold here - hope it doesn’t go down to freezing tonight because a lot of the flowering trees are just about to bloom.

Hope you had a good safe day and trust you were able to get in a good walk.

I’m trying to read ‘Beloved’ by Toni Morrison.  The black dialect is almost indecipherable to me.  But she sure can write.  We’re going to read 'Song of Solomon', one of her other books for our  Book Group gathering via Zoom in May.

Love,

Ma

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Hi Ma,

Thanks so much for your nice email!

Bach - Johannes-Passion BWV 245 + Presentation (reference recording : Eugen Jochum)

https://youtu.be/SQl4BD6TS5w

More later!

Love, Scott


--
- Scott MacLeod
- http://scottmacleod.com





*

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Hi Ma,

Just listening to this 'Johannes Passion' - https://youtu.be/SQl4BD6TS5w - by JS Bach. It's a very beautiful piece of music. Thanks so much for mentioning this!

We read Toni Morrison's 'Song of Solomon' (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/06/rest-toni-morrison-you-were-magnificent-leading-writers) at Reed College around 1981 - she's one of the most moving writers I know of ... where moving literature can be a great or wonderful motivation in reading English literature, and black American literature! Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple' too! Enjoy! (And check out Zora Neale Hurston's 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' re moving ... and which describes someone getting bit by a rabid animal - raccoon, I think - fascinatingly ... and may have explored questions of Voo Doo too ... and re its biochemistry from a substance in a sea urchin - may have read about this later???...The action in 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' all takes place in Florida ... a possibility for your book group too? Zora Neale Hurston was also an anthropologist / folklorist - as am I an anthropologist and a would be folklorist too ... and Zora was involved in the Harlem Renaissance in NY too in the 1920s, I think). :)

As I write the above an image appears on my Google Smart TV of a pool of water in a creek with mossy dark stones that could conceivably be on Harbin Hot Springs' property, but am pretty sure it isn't. Makes me want to get on with my next Harbin ethnographic book project, this one both actual and virtual, physical and digital - and engaging the new social science method I'm developing - ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy - but first my Scottish small pipes' album / CD (for the physical), "Honey in the Bag" ... as well as my next - 4th - book of poetry (https://www.amazon.com/author/scottmacleodworlduniversity). (Would also like a new therapy for 'eustachian tube dysfunction' to have developed - perhaps from Boston scientists - and even re MIT Kevin Esvelt's 'sculpting evolution' - https://www.media.mit.edu/people/esvelt/overview/ . . . or Harvard's Jennifer Lewis's soft materials / robotics - https://robotics.harvard.edu/jennifer-lewis).

All on an Easter weekend! :) Happy Easter.

Love, Scott

*
HI Ma,

Good Saturday to you as well! :)

Just found edifying this:

" 'Rest, Toni Morrison. You were magnificent': leading writers on the great American author"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/06/rest-toni-morrison-you-were-magnificent-leading-writers

And here she talks about her 1977 book:

"Toni Morrison : Song of Solomon"

https://youtu.be/RTAQHbLFi84

For your interest, and in a related vein -

"Zora Neale Hurston wroteTheir Eyes Were Watching Godin 1937 while in Haiti collecting folklore on Vodou. ... Most acknowledge Hurston's interest in Haitian Vodou, but their analyses of the impact of this belief system on her work frequently do not extend beyond perfunctory glosses."
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv47w2rj


And since Toni Morrison's "Beloved" was published in 1987, I'll bet it will have been an expression of a yet more experienced writer.

Blogged about 'Johannes Passion' and Toni Morrison and Kim Stafford and much more today here - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/04/leptopoma-snail-johannes-passion-by-js.html :)

Love, Scott


--
- Scott MacLeod
- http://scottmacleod.com

*
Re MIT's Kevin Esvelt's 'sculpting evolution' see too -

https://www.media.mit.edu/people/esvelt/overview/ and http://www.sculptingevolution.org

https://www.media.mit.edu/articles/i-m-kevin-esvelt-head-of-the-sculpting-evolution-group-at-the-mit-media-lab-and-an-inventor-of-crispr-gene-drive-ama/

in which you'll find -

A genetically modified organism could end malaria and save millions of lives — if we decide to use it

The debate over whether to use genetically modified mosquitoes to fight malaria, explained.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/31/17344406/crispr-mosquito-malaria-gene-drive-editing-target-africa-regulation-gmo



* *
Hi Ma,

I just stumbled upon the Oregon Poet Laureate, Kim Stafford, who's inspiring to me in these first 4 video beginnings, - and who's poetry I was able to get into, and feel an affinity for, right away ...

Appreciated this 5 minute interview -

Kim Stafford named Oregon Poet Laureate

https://youtu.be/y6q0juYcFUE

*
Tigard Library Presents: Kim Stafford

https://youtu.be/Oy4hLaefje8

*
Poet: Kim Stafford

https://youtu.be/0GEEkan_uRk

*
Poetry Series - S8: Kim Stafford 12/10/2014

https://youtu.be/xErdCJcjK68

"Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford on Haiku"

https://youtu.be/c3uJ_MEqPAQ


Some further Kim Stafford links -
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Stafford

http://www.kim-stafford.com
http://www.kim-stafford.com/a-few-recent-poems.html

https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/stafford_kim_1949_/#.XpIKimllA0N

https://graduate.lclark.edu/live/profiles/236-kim-stafford

https://www.terrain.org/2019/poetry/kim-stafford/



Kim Stafford has just become a kind of model for me, as a kind of activist, with roots in the Church of the Brethren, an historic peace church, as a Professor at Lewis and Clark college in Portland, Oregon, and in his presence in the media above. He also went to the University of Oregon in the late '60s and early '70s, and there are echoes of this (bits of hippiness) in his bearing, as well as in his poetry. I appreciate his connection with the land, his warmth, his vision ... echoes of the Browns in eastern Oregon ... and even re Oregon identity questions and culture for me. He also plays his guitar sometimes at readings - as folk singer with parallels to Pete Seeger. He also has an ear for Oregon sounds, Pacific NW native Americans. He has good communication skills.  He's taught poetry workshops or  "offered writing workshops in Italy, Scotland, and Bhutan" (https://graduate.lclark.edu/live/profiles/236-kim-stafford). His father was also a poet, I find interesting, and his biography is here - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-e-stafford.

I searched on "Was poet Kim Stafford a hippy?" and didn't find anything. The self-identification as hippy, or the characterization of being a hippy by writers, social scientists, academics, writers is an interesting 'lack' I find. Why don't more people identify as hippies which they may have been in the 1960s and '70s, I ask myself in these regards, sometimes.


(And see, too, Sunday, April 12, 2020's blog post regarding Kim Stafford - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/04/orange-peel-doris-acanthodoris-lutea.html)




* * *
Is there an American culture of Ramadan?
BY ABDULLAHI AN-NA‘IM

June 27, 2014

https://blog.oup.com/2014/06/american-culture-ramadan-islam/


*
THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF YEAR
Ramadan in America is the hardest and that’s what makes it the best
June 17, 2015
Haroon Moghul
By Haroon Moghul
https://qz.com/431060/celebrating-ramadan-in-america-is-the-hardest-and-the-best/amp/




* *
Went searching for 'Americans look to Ramadan too' after hearing the following PBS NewsHour introduction from yesterday, and found the above -

PBS NewsHour full episode, Apr 10, 2020
https://youtu.be/SVrL7dUxTHw




* * *

(Regarding my blog post from a few days ago - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/03/high-sierra-snow-pack-heres-beginning.html)
She’s Training for a Giant Climb Whether It Happens or Not: 
A woman does her best to prepare on Long Island with facilities closed for a simulated hike up Mt. Everest called 29029
By Jen Murphy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/shes-training-for-a-giant-climb-whether-it-happens-or-not-11586604601

. . .

High Sierra snow pack: Here's the beginning of a new :) story: " 2020 was the year I began hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in a digital mask, and actually in the back of the lenses of my glacier glasses... "

https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/03/high-sierra-snow-pack-heres-beginning.html





* * *
(Translated from German by Translate)
How does Swisscom find out our location data? And what do the authorities actually see?
In the fight against the corona virus, the Federal Office of Health receives information from the telecom provider about where we are and move around with our cell phones. At the beginning, how exactly this worked was not very transparent.

https://www.nzz.ch/technologie/wie-findet-die-swisscom-meine-standortdaten-heraus-und-was-bekommen-eigentlich-die-behoerden-zu-sehen-ld.1551278



* * *
Asia & Pacific
In India, life under coronavirus brings blue skies and clean air
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-coronavirus-delhi-clean-air-pollution/2020/04/10/ac23dd1e-783e-11ea-a311-adb1344719a9_story.html




* * * *
Further 'Johannes Passion' recordings -

Johannes Passion BWV 245 - Harnoncourt

https://youtu.be/QbVTxRicMGM

MILTON ABBEY CHURCH
VOCES8: Johannes-Passion, BWV 245 - JS Bach
https://youtu.be/KrG5TMjEHMM

Bach Johannes Passion St John Passion BWV 245 John Eliot Gardiner
https://youtu.be/dd__Ak6OONk

Johannes Passion
https://youtu.be/SQl4BD6TS5w

How's your day going? And what are you up to for Easter? Shall we create an online virtual Easter Egg hunt? :)

Love, Scott





--
- Scott MacLeod
- http://scottmacleod.com





*


Bach Johannes Passion St John Passion BWV 245 John Eliot Gardiner

https://youtu.be/dd__Ak6OONk

*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptopoma

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptopoma_perlucida

...