Fugato

Oud master Naseer Shamma (نصير شمة) here plays part of his composition al’Amiriyah, which tells the story of the bombing of public shelter nr. 25 in the Amiriyah district of Baghdad in 1991. Hundreds of civilians were killed (in the range 200-300 according to Human Rights Watch).

In the beginning there is a melancholy quiet, but then the havoc starts, with audible sirens, falling bombs and chaos. All in eleven strings.

Oud is العود in Arabic (al-ʿūd, literally “the wood”), a word believed to come from Persian, rud. The same word probably found its way into European languages as the name of the lute, when pious Europeans had a certain errand to run in the Near East and encountered this fine instrument.

Happy summer solstice, readers near and far (excluding the southern hemisphere). It is today at 18:06 UTC; that’s when the North Pole points closest to the sun.

Here in Reykjavík, sunset tonight is at 00:03. Yeah, three minutes after midnight.

Our time zone designation needs revising at some point.

If you think mostly with your gut, won’t the resulting thoughts be mostly crap?

Here’s John Cleese, in real life, delivering a eulogy at the memorial service for his friend Graham Chapman, who had tragically died of cancer at 48.

… and I guess that we’re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he’d achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he’d had enough fun.

Well, I feel that I should say, “Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries.”

He said this to honor his good friend, and he explained that succinctly: “Anything for him but mindless good taste.”

A relative whom I care about forwarded me (and forty-four other people) a chain letter cautioning us about the risk of getting cancer from plastic food wrapping.

That’s nonsense, of course, like everything you receive by email.

The twist? This person — who now is presumably wary of that consarned plastic — smokes as if her life depended on it, and has done so for decades.

The mind boggles.