A collection of poems by a Pulitzer Prize winner. In Testimony, a poem on old age, he writes of people who would give anything "to glimpse a place where they were small / or in love once and be able / to capture in that second sight / what in the plain original / they missed and this time get it right."
"Louisiana?s Atchafalaya River Basin, the heart and soul of Acadiana, or Cajun country, is the focus of this compelling narrative by Ann McCutchan. A masterful weaving of cultural and environmental history, River Music also tells the life story of Louisiana musician, naturalist, and sound documentarian Earl Robicheaux. With Robicheaux as her guide, McCutchan embarks on a musical, visual, literary, and historical tour of the Atchafalaya, where bayous, swamps, marshes, and river delta country have long sustained nature and culture, even as industry has changed both the landscape and the people. Along the way, she and Robicheaux pay homage to distinctive voices of the region?s singular soundscape, including Acadian and Native American elders, birds, frogs, alligators, wind, water, and weather, which Robicheaux chronicles in archival recordings and musical compositions for museum exhibits, radio programs, and repositories such as the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. A CD of Robicheaux's soundscapes is included with the book"--Dust jacket flap.
"Teenager Da Chen gathers soil from the riverbank near his village in China's far south, before he leaves to attend university in Beijing, to bear witness to his past and contain the sounds of the river of his childhood. Later, spilled onto the dry earth of the North, they will merge two parts of Da's life, in this second volume of his lyrical trilogy of memoirs, a sequel to the acclaimed COLOURS OF THE MOUNTAIN. Beginning with his first train journey to Beijing from his parents farm, we rumble along with him in the overcrowded and disease ridden railway carriage to the university. Here the author faces a range of challenges, including poor living conditions, lack of food, and suicidal roommates. Undaunted by these hurdles and armed with a dogged determination to learn English and familiarise himself with 'all things Western', he must compete with every other student to win a chance to study in the US - a chance that rests in the shrewd and corrupt hands of the all powerful professors. In a richly textured story - by turns poetic, ribald, hilarious, and heartbreaking - Chen retains his indomitable spirit, but will he be any closer to attaining his goal?"
River of Tears is the first ethnography of Brazilian country music, one of the most popular genres in Brazil yet least-known outside it. Beginning in the mid-1980s, commercial musical duos practicing música sertaneja reached beyond their home in Brazil’s central-southern region to become national bestsellers. Rodeo events revolving around country music came to rival soccer matches in attendance. A revival of folkloric rural music called música caipira, heralded as música sertaneja’s ancestor, also took shape. And all the while, large numbers of Brazilians in the central-south were moving to cities, using music to support the claim that their Brazil was first and foremost a rural nation. Since 1998, Alexander Sebastian Dent has analyzed rural music in the state of São Paulo, interviewing and spending time with listeners, musicians, songwriters, journalists, record-company owners, and radio hosts. Dent not only describes the production and reception of this music, he also explains why the genre experienced such tremendous growth as Brazil transitioned from an era of dictatorship to a period of intense neoliberal reform. Dent argues that rural genres reflect a widespread anxiety that change has been too radical and has come too fast. In defining their music as rural, Brazil’s country musicians—whose work circulates largely in cities—are criticizing an increasingly inescapable urban life characterized by suppressed emotions and an inattentiveness to the past. Their performances evoke a river of tears flowing through a landscape of loss—of love, of life in the countryside, and of man’s connections to the natural world.
The first anthology on animal music and communication, with contributions from leading scientists, researchers and musicians. Ever since the accidental discovery of whale song in 1967, the idea of complex animal sentience has been gaining strength within the scientific community. A growing number of researchers and academics are exploring the idea that animals enjoy music on a similar level to human beings. Animal Music is the first anthology to present an overview of the current state of this vital debate. Its authors have spoken to the leading scientists, researchers and musicians in the field to uncover hidden meanings and new perspectives. They visit the world's largest library of animal sounds, hack into the mysterious sonic world of shrimps, travel back in time to the point where animal and human songs diverged, and decode the latest neuroscientific findings about animal music and communication. The book includes exclusive interviews with Chris Watson, Jana Winderen, Yannick Dauby, Slavek Kwi and Geoff Sample as well as features on Bernie Krause, David Rothenberg and Olivier Messiaen and many more. Includes specially-compiled 60 minute CD of field recordings from the Gruenrekorder label. 01 Tikal Dawn – Andreas Bick, Germany 02 hermetica – Daniel Blinkhorn, Australia 03 Amazons & Parrots – Rodolphe Alexis, France 04 Grand Canal Springs (Excerpt) – Tom Lawrence, Ireland 05 seals – Martin Clarke, United Kindom 06 BOTO (extract) -ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE, Ireland 07 Adélie_penguins (Excerpt) – Craig Vear, United Kindom 08 Pilot Whales (Excerpt) – Heike Vester, Norway/Germany 09 Brame, septembre 2011 – Marc Namblard, France 10 formica aquilonia, sweden – Jez riley French, United Kindom 11 Schwebfliegen – Lasse Marc Riek, Germany 12 central mongolian high mountain range habitat – Patrick Franke, Germany 13 Otus spilocephalus – Yannik Dauby, France 14 untitled#292 – Francisco López, Spain 15 Summer Sunset 01 – Eckhard Kuchenbecker, Germany 16 Waldkauz-Balz – Walter Tilgner, Germany 17 WHAT BIRDS SING – David Rothenberg, United States of America
There had always been music along the banks of the Congo River-lutes and drums, the myriad instruments handed down from ancestors. But when Joseph Kabasele and his African Jazz went chop for chop with O.K. Jazz and Bantous de la Capitale, music in Africa would never be the same. A sultry rumba washed in relentless waves across new nations springing up below the Sahara. The Western press would dub the sound soukous or rumba rock; most of Africa called in Congo music. Born in Kinshasa and Brazzaville at the end of World War II, Congon music matured as Africans fought to consolidate their hard-won independence. In addition to great musicians-Franco, Essous, Abeti, Tabu Ley, and youth bands like Zaiko Langa Langa-the cast of characters includes the conniving King Leopold II, the martyred Patrice Lumumba, corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, military strongman Denis Sassou Nguesso, heavyweight boxing champs George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, along with a Belgian baron and a clutch of enterprising Greek expatriates who pioneered the Congolese recording industry. Rumba on the River presents a snapshot of an era when the currents of tradition and modernization collided along the banks of the Congo. It is the story of twin capitals engulfed in political struggle and the vibrant new music that flowered amidst the ferment. For more information on the book, visit its other online home at rumbaontheriver.com-an impressive resource.
How is the memory of traumatic events, such as genocide and torture, inscribed within human bodies? In this book, Paul Connerton discusses social and cultural memory by looking at the role of mourning in the production of histories and the reticence of silence across many different cultures. In particular he looks at how memory is conveyed in gesture, bodily posture, speech and the senses – and how bodily memory, in turn, becomes manifested in cultural objects such as tattoos, letters, buildings and public spaces. It is argued that memory is more cultural and collective than it is individual. This book will appeal to researchers and students in anthropology, linguistic anthropology, sociology, social psychology and philosophy.
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER "A fiery tour de force... I could not put this book down. It truly was terrifying and unutterably beautiful." -Alison Borden, The Denver Post From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars, the story of two college students on a wilderness canoe trip--a gripping tale of a friendship tested by fire, white water, and violence Wynn and Jack have been best friends since freshman orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries, and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey. When they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank and decide to warn them about the fire, their search for the pair turns up nothing and no one. But: The next day a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the man they heard? And, if he is, where is the woman? From this charged beginning, master storyteller Peter Heller unspools a headlong, heart-pounding story of desperate wilderness survival.
In November 1928 an empty scow was found adrift and empty in the Colorado River. No bodies were found. But since 1971 several people have come forward claiming to be the occupants; one confesses to being a murderer.
Fifteen-year-old Jessie and the other rebellious teenage members of a wilderness survival school team abandon their adult leader, hijack his boats, and try to run the dangerous white water at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.