JUMP AT THE SUN

Some Music

2011-12-29T06:23:00.000-08:00

Bouquet of wild music, poetic and pleasantly unruly - an invitation to journey from India to Spain via Roma roads. Generous set. la magia de un sábado por la tarde with Dj Soumnakai.

soundcloud.com/soumnakai/latcho-drom-03">DJ SOUMNAKAI

Fanfare Vagabontu

ON BEAUTY: One undergoes a radical decentering of self in the presence of art/beauty -it lets us feel "adjacent" and experience extreme pleasure at the same time. I am convinced that Gypsy Music is in possession of this kind of power to the utmost -

Taraf de Haidouks

La Caravane Passe

Founded by Polish-Romanian-Russian-Jewish Frenchman Toma Feterman, La Caravane Passe marries traditional Gypsy and Klezmer sounds to contemporary French rock ’n’ roll.

Advocating Education

2011-12-29T06:13:00.000-08:00

Lucie Horvathova is one of the few Roma in the Czech Republic with a university education. As a social worker in the community, Lucie devotes her life to helping the Roma people and improving their education status. Though she lost in the 2010 parliamentary elections, she continues to pursue a career in government, in hopes of setting an example for the community and raising awareness about major Roma issues.

"In primary, high-school and University they kept telling me "You are not Roma anymore because you study." And I used to say, But why? I behave naturally. I go to school and I keep in touch with my family. I know what is going on in the community. We have our customs and I keep them. And the fact that I go to school means nothing. I did not lose my Romanhood. It is part of my life. When everyone starts to regard education in this way - AS a Part of the Culture - our culture will evolve."

Advocating Education from Paula Echevarria on Vimeo.

Married to Roma

2011-12-29T06:10:00.000-08:00

Drinking Absente

2011-12-29T06:05:00.000-08:00

They say all the 'Juans'
look just like the devil,
but my little boy Juan
looks just like Saint Anthony.

Flamenco lyrics

Painting:'Drinking Absente' by artist Charlene Lanzel of her husband, Ronnie Magri, American Rom Musician; New York City

Papusza Poem: Earrings of Leaves

2011-12-29T06:01:00.000-08:00

Papusza (Bronislawa Wajs)

Read about the poet here: romani.uni-graz

“Earrings of Leaves”

Note: The oak apples described in the poem are a “round reddish growth on the oak leaf [. . . ] caused by insects which lay their eggs on the leaves" Ficowski

The poor forest girls
Beautiful as bilberries
Wanted to wear
Golden earrings.

Old Gypsy women and young girls
Went wood-gathering in the forest.
They lit a huge fire by the river
And sang a beautiful song about
Gypsy earrings: O my beautiful earring,
You give me beauty,
You break everyone’s heart!

The wind [had] already blown out the flames,
The river heard the song
And carried it far into the world.
They didn’t know how or whence
An oak leaf with oak apples
Fell into the girl’s lap . . .

We’ll make them wonderful
Gypsy earrings!
How beautiful you are,
Earrings of leaves!
The oak apples that you bear
Like precious stones!

(Qtd. in Ficowski 116-17)

Cocek of Happiness: Gypsy Groovz

2011-12-29T05:52:00.000-08:00

In a spa village of hot geo theromal waters that the Gypsies are not allowed to use, the "taboo happiness" of its' people is reflected in an illegally constructed pool in which the village bathes. :)
Filmed over a period of 8 years, the young of this video have grown up and the film ends with the wedding of one of those children...

CD: Gypsy Groovz: Rivers of Happiness: BBC MUSIC:
"The album’s centrepiece is a 35-minute suite called Hot Water Festival (named after the thermal springs nearby) which consists of six parts that segue nicely into each other, turning one corner after another as they slowly build towards a propulsive climax. The only vocals are the musicians’ cries of exhilaration. A sinuous clarinet rises above the quaking brass before sinking back, as a trumpet takes its place. Fiddlers dialogue with the sax and trumpet players, an accordion wheezes by, a cimbalom jangles"

Shopping: Gypsy Groovz

Muddy Waters

2011-12-22T07:04:00.000-08:00

Machers & Rockers: Chess Records and the Business of Rock and Roll

Electric blues and Gypsy fortunetelling cross paths in a song that leads like a traffic arrow from 1954 to 1964 - from the electric blues to rock and roll. Songwriter Willie Dixon: In the South, Gypsies would come around and tell fortunes. When I was little boy, you'd see a covered wagon coming and these women with their great big dresses - dog-gone knows how many dresses they'd have on - and pockets up under them. In Louisiana they have people who they say are born for good luck because they're the seventh sister or seventh brother or seventh child."
Author of Machers & Rockers: Chess Records and the Business of Rock and Roll The voodoo, the mojo, the black cat bone, the John the Conqueror root - all of it plays on that weird, poetic specificity which gives the music its tremendous mystery and power like the casting of a spell that remains unbroken. Dylan described his first hearing of the song like a voice from another world - a transcendent moment and his best work still carries its echo.

Tziganina's 'Le Secret'

2011-11-16T07:54:00.000-08:00

Nina Aurore aka TZIGANINA composed, wrote the lyrics and sings her song "Le Secret" - a song that tells the story of her family's past - relating her Roma heritage as missing branches in her family tree.

Tziganina : "This song speaks about my origins. My ancestors were bohemian in France since years 1700 and were peddlers, marksmen of cards. But eventually they hid their past and integrated by living in houses. The French registry office (civil status) changed several times the writing of my surname. But today nobody is alive to give me answers....

"The Secret" speaks of that, and because to be Gypsy in France is considered by so many to be a shameful thing - dirty, as you know by current events...

My blood burns, I am not ashamed of my origins, and I made many searches to know the truth. But today I am ashamed to live in France, a country which expels Rroms."

ON MY TREE, there are some branches,

written in white ink some fallen, leaves memories engraved - Names written in black ink tell us the story

Of those hidden from us all these years this beautiful secret

And it is by raising up in time that I understand better my present and reattach with pride the broken branches

Some unusual jobs Fortuneteller violinist And on some acts in passing, We can read: peddler

Is it shameful to be a Gypsy? To live by listening to the wind?

To have hidden so many years Behind this borrowed name

Today the caravan is more in our hearts and in our souls

The call of the wind the call of the song.

The bohemian life as before.

---- Why to wait so much time to re-write the missing names

That our forefathers nevertheless believed to have taken for ever.

Tziganina: tziganina@hotmail.fr

Mary's Promotion, Archetypes and Change

2011-08-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from Enlighten Next Issue 47

In 1954, the Vatican gave Mother Mary what you might tongue in cheek call a "promotion" They declared her to be "Queen of Heaven" and this became doctrine. When Carl Jung heard this, he predicted that this would be the most significant event of the 20th century. And that was after two world wars! Because when the Pope "upgraded" Mary it was an indication that the feminine archetype had changed, which is VERY significant.

Carl Jung - whose psychology is based upon an understanding of archetypes and their effect on our collective consciousness - predicted it would change everything. Sure enough, within five years of that time, the pill appeared and women's lib started. And also the civil rights movements. Those on the margins of social power - women, minorities etc, also represent the feminine or the passive in our culture.

In addition, very signficantly and at the same time, men started to express their dissatisfaction with their role, wanting, for example, to participate more in their children's lives. Men wanted to develop their feminine side at the same time that women were saying that we wanted the freedom to move into all realms and express ourselves.

So, in terms of the evolution of consciousness, it starts with the archetype and then follows on earth. Jung always said that when there is going to be change on earth, the archetype has to change first.

Blessings

2011-08-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

Luigi Cana Photo
Saintes Maries de la Mer Pilgrimmage

“...But blessing is a product of the imagination and thus no matter how many pilgrims take it away, there's always more. In fact, the more they take, the more blessing the shrine can produce (because a popular shrine grows with every answered prayer.) To say that blessings or luck is "imaginal" is not to call it "unreal." It's real enough to those who feel it. But spiritual goods do not follow the rules of supply and demand like material goods. The more demand for spiritual goods, the more supply.

The production of blessings is infinite.”

Peter Wilson

The Caravan of Summer

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lukuna/

Carmen

2011-08-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

Geraldine Farrar in 1919 Cecil B. Demille's CARMEN

1875, Paris: Great scandal followed Bizet's opera premier of Carmen. Not only was she a manipulative, free spirit who seduces good men at will, but she smoked on stage, got stabbed and died on stage too. Carmen developed a bad reputation overnight. But Controversy creates interest, and Sex and Violence sells tickets - so it was not long before Carmen became the talk of Paris - - - and when the opera premiered in Vienna, it quickly became a popular and critical success and went on to become the most popular opera of all time. Fueled by erotic fantasies Carmen's popularity in the collective psyche overshadowed reality, resulting in the Sexy Gypsy Stereotype - a stereotype Spanish Tourism loves to promote.

Gypsy Fortuneteller Stereotype

2011-08-11T09:48:00.001-07:00

Whether gazing into a crystal ball, reading palms and tea leaves or divining the future with a deck of Tarot cards, the Gypsy Fortune teller is alive and well in everyone's imagination. Though she may be considered a stereotype, with one foot in the real world palm reading happens to be a practical way for many Roma women to earn money -especially if folk believe it is in your power to reveal important future events. But, just as not all Rromani women are fortune tellers, not all fortune tellers can read the future. This stereotype will never fade.

Related: Video

Esmerelda

2011-08-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

"The general public is coming to understand that literary Gypsies are something quite different from the Romanies whose real story is both complex and moving... We do not want to say goodbye to Carmen and Esmerelda and their fictional sisters, but we should recognize them for who and what they really are."

Ian Hancock

Rhapsodic Romani

2011-08-11T09:44:00.000-07:00

CARMEN AMAYA

"...Mention Gypsies and one stereotype that comes
to mind may be a dancing Spanish Gypsy, a raven
haired woman stomping the beat of Flamenco, a
Carmen Amaya. Equally famous Gypsy performers like
1940's era French jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt or
the popular modern French based band the Gipsy Kings

fit nicely within this stereotype of the Rhapsodic Romani."

~ Carol Miller
Church of Cheese

Gypsy Stereotypes and Folklorism

2011-04-26T16:30:00.001-07:00

Uni Graz: Michael Teichmann

'Such a static concept of culture that neglects continual change and leaves outside all kinds of sociological aspects, holds the permanent danger of folklorization, that is the reduction of culture to outer and simplistic patterns or aspects. Artistic discussion on Roma and Sinti is characterised by such folkloristic attempts, especially those cultural areas of widespread public influence such as film, television and photography, which offer very few examples of truly individual perspectives.' Read Michael Teichmann's entire Essay: http://romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cd/data/ethn/topics/data/stereo.en.pdf

Be Lucky.

2010-11-26T06:42:00.000-08:00

Carsten Karlox Photo