A Little About My Beautiful Red Bookshelves ...

I have 3 red bookshelves next to me here at my desk.  On those beautiful shelves you will find my favourite books, except for those that are missing in action ... loaned out to friends that I really trust and admire. 

I hope to see those loaned books again one day but if not, okay.  They were good books, they will only enrich the lives of those who hold on to them.  Accidentally.  Inadvertently.  Although if the friend who has my Maurice Shadbolt book, A Touch of Clay, could return it I would be so grateful.

So I reorganised my books over two days.  It's important.  I don't have much but what I have, I like to have right.

The top shelf now contains some favourite novels (like Night Train to Lisbon and When Nietzsche Wept), some very small collections (like anything I can find by or about Katherine Mansfield), and biographies ... although biographies spreads over shelves because there are some in the travelers section ... the mountaineers, the war photographers and journalists ...

On the end of that top shelf there are a stack of travel books ... rarely used while traveling but referred to often when home.

The second shelf contains books written by wanderers and wise people (like Tiziano Terzani's A Fortune-Teller Told Me and Honey and Dust by Piers Moore Ede).  Then we move into a small collection about writing and creativity (like The Three Marriages by David Whyte).  And they stand next to my collection of books from the Middle East, (with favourites like Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa and To The End of The Land by David Grossman.  And one of my most favourite books in the world, I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti, a poet who writes the most exquisite prose too).

The bottom shelf is closest to me.  It begins with my Italian language books, dictionaries, and the books I have on Genova.  Mountaineers appear next.  Andrew Grieg's Summit Fever is a favourite but I've slipped Simon Jakeman's Groundrush in there too (about Basejumping, an exploration written back at the start of that interesting sport.)

The bottom shelf also holds the stories of war photographers and journalists - factual and fiction.  Favourites ... Small Wars Permitting by Christina Lamb and Denise Leith's What Remains.  I have John Simpson's series of books, and both of Frank Gardener's.  I just purchased A Thousand Times Goodnight on DVD, that's there next to the dvd Which Way is The Front Line from Here.

That shelf, the one that sits closest to me, ends with a collection of poetry books.  I have Pablo Neruda by Adam Feinstein and My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness ... the biography of Taha Muhammad Ali, by Adina Hoffman.  I have a collection of poetry by Eugenio Montale, sitting next to books full of poetry by Kay McKenzie Cooke and Ren Powell too.

And so you have it, unasked for ... a glimpse of those books best-loved by me.

Music I've been enjoying lately? 

Well, whenever I wander over this website, I can't resist staying a while, as their auto-play kicks in ...

A Thousand Times Goodnight, & Ane Brun's Music

A Norwegian-made, English-language film set in Ireland, Kenya and Afghanistan, and starring French luminary Juliette Binoche, would seem to wear its internationalism on its sleeve. Yet globe-trotting, at least to war zones, forms the central conflict in “A Thousand Times Goodnight,” Erik Poppe’s gripping tale of a dedicated photojournalist torn between passionate involvement with her work and commitment to her worried family. Deftly sidestepping both melodrama and family-values messaging, Poppe imbues the film with enormous emotional resonance, brilliantly grounded by his leading lady. The absence of subtitles and the presence of Binoche should open global arthouse doors for this Montreal fest grand prizewinner.

Variety.com, a review extract

I have a collection of books and dvds by war photographers and journalists.  I began reading their stories, perhaps, because if I had known of this work I think I would have been drawn to it. 

Possibly motivated by the same things that appear to motivate those who actually go out there ... the idea that if the truth were known, some things might change, other things couldn't happen. 

But I didn't find out in time and so I read and watch their stories unfold when I can.

I enjoyed the movie, 'A Thousand Times Goodnight, intensely.

You get a small glimpse of the film in the music video below.  There's not too many spoilers, as the movie is used out of sequence but Ane Brun wrote the song for the movie ...  I find it exquisite.

And there's an interview over here, with Juliette Binoche.

Indie Artists in the Middle East - a 2014 list.

I spent a part of my day working through this list of Mideast Tunes' Top 20 Indie Artists of 2014.

Curious, I visited their About:  Our mission is to bridge barriers of faith and geography to unite people committed to fostering constructive discourse in the region through music. The core of the project manifested from our desire to promote bands and musicians that would otherwise never be given a second glance in the international scene. We feel that is because most people would never think to look to regions like the Middle East and North Africa for highly thought provoking music. The need to change that is our driving force.

We believe music can change the world and that the musicians of the Middle East and North Africa will lead the way.

Founded in 2010 in Bahrain, the site has expanded to serve as a primary resource for discovering up and coming Middle Eastern talents.

Two clear favourites emerged as I wandered through.  Youssra El Hawary, from Egypt and Mo Zowayed, from Bahrain.  But there are so many others ...

I found the following interviewe excerpt on NPR about Youssra and her music. 

'For "Al Soor," Hawary borrowed the lyrics from one of her friends, the political cartoonist and author Waleed Taher: "In front of the wall/In front of those who built it/In front of those who made it high/Stood a poor man/Who peed/On the wall, and on those who built it and those who made it high." (Needless to say, a "good girl" doesn't sing about people eliminating — but Hawary does it with a wink and a smile.)

Taher had published them as part of one of his cartoons years ago, long before the Arab Spring — but Taher's meaning gained new resonance after a huge wall was erected in Cairo on Muhammad Mahmoud Street, which leads on one end to Tahrir Square and on the other towards the Egyptian Ministry of Interior.

So it was natural, if pretty daring, for Hawary to enlist a photographer friend to go shoot a DIY video for "Al Soor" in front of the Muhammad Mahmoud wall, which is now covered regularly with fresh work from a burgeoning group of graffiti artists.

In the video, Hawary is bathed in beautiful breaking morning light; the women shot the video shortly after dawn, mostly in hopes of not having their work shut down. But the giddy happenstances of this shoot done on the sly — the random guy who asks El Hawary to snap his picture, the kids dancing, the caretaker shooing everyone away at the end — just adds to the perfect, easy magic of "Al Soor."

Indie Artists in the Middle East - a 2014 list.

I spent a part of my day working through this list of Mideast Tunes' Top 20 Indie Artists of 2014.

Curious, I visited their About:  Our mission is to bridge barriers of faith and geography to unite people committed to fostering constructive discourse in the region through music. The core of the project manifested from our desire to promote bands and musicians that would otherwise never be given a second glance in the international scene. We feel that is because most people would never think to look to regions like the Middle East and North Africa for highly thought provoking music. The need to change that is our driving force.

We believe music can change the world and that the musicians of the Middle East and North Africa will lead the way.

Founded in 2010 in Bahrain, the site has expanded to serve as a primary resource for discovering up and coming Middle Eastern talents.

Two clear favourites emerged as I wandered through.  Youssra El Hawary, from Egypt and Mo Zowayed, from Bahrain.  But there are so many others ...

I found the following interviewe excerpt on NPR about Youssra and her music. 

'For "Al Soor," Hawary borrowed the lyrics from one of her friends, the political cartoonist and author Waleed Taher: "In front of the wall/In front of those who built it/In front of those who made it high/Stood a poor man/Who peed/On the wall, and on those who built it and those who made it high." (Needless to say, a "good girl" doesn't sing about people eliminating — but Hawary does it with a wink and a smile.)

Taher had published them as part of one of his cartoons years ago, long before the Arab Spring — but Taher's meaning gained new resonance after a huge wall was erected in Cairo on Muhammad Mahmoud Street, which leads on one end to Tahrir Square and on the other towards the Egyptian Ministry of Interior.

So it was natural, if pretty daring, for Hawary to enlist a photographer friend to go shoot a DIY video for "Al Soor" in front of the Muhammad Mahmoud wall, which is now covered regularly with fresh work from a burgeoning group of graffiti artists.

In the video, Hawary is bathed in beautiful breaking morning light; the women shot the video shortly after dawn, mostly in hopes of not having their work shut down. But the giddy happenstances of this shoot done on the sly — the random guy who asks El Hawary to snap his picture, the kids dancing, the caretaker shooing everyone away at the end — just adds to the perfect, easy magic of "Al Soor."

Christmas ... as experienced by Antipodeans

I love this song, it makes me all teary every year when I'm missing home like hell because a northern hemisphere Christmas can only ever be a rotten-Dunedin-weather-kind-of-Christmas. 

I grew up near Dunedin, on the east coast of the lower South Island - situated around 40 degrees south in latitude.  We had some appalling weather some of our Christmas days. 

Anyway, Tim Minchin is an Australian living in London and he wrote this song for his baby daughter.  It started out amusing then startled me as he simply captured what Christmas is like in the lands downunder.  My mum loved her white wine in the sun.  Socks, jocks and chocolates was all Dad ever wanted for Christmas.  Later it became about golf tees and golfballs.

There's so much fuss about religion this Christmas but for me, it's simply about family and spending time with people you love.  Red wine in the sun would be quite fine with me, back home with my brothers and sister, my Dad and my nieces.  But this year ... we are 5 here in Belgium, and that's okay too.

Anyway, a little bit of Tim ...