athens georgia

White Dam and Eastern Bloc Blues

Remnants of incapacitated industry bring to mind contemporary interpretations of Eastern Bloc sounds.  This first sample, produced by the Polish nu jazz duo Skalpel, offers hip hop beats occupied by Polish jazz samples scrubbed from the archives.

“Sculpture”

Igor Boxx, 1/2 of Skalpel, recently went solo with the debut album Breslau.  Compared to the lush, polished sound of Skalpel, his tracks have a colder resonance.

“Russian Percussian”

“Fear of a Red Planet”

Aaron Funk is a Canadian electronic artist known as Venetian Snares.  During a 2005 trip to Hungary, he produced the album Rossz Csillag Alatt Született.

The concept of the album came when Aaron Funk imagined himself as a pigeon on Budapest’s Királyi Palota (Royal Palace).  Its third track, “Öngyilkos vasárnap” is a cover of the song “Szomorú vasárnap” (“Gloomy Sunday”) by Hungarian composer Rezső Seress, which has been referred to as the Hungarian suicide song. According to urban legend, Seress’s song has inspired the suicide of multiple persons, including his fiancée. The song was reportedly banned in Hungary. It has also been covered by many artists. Billie Holiday’s vocals are sampled in this track.

-Wikepedia

“Öngyilkos Vasárnap”

American Beech, Fagus grandifolia

Two Yellow Leaves

by Erinn Batykefer

October has slicked the mirror-flat rivers with yellow

leaves.  We pull them from the current

and mark time: the color of my infant skin under a bili light;

a dozen July apples carried to the kitchen

in your shirt, their yellow sugar slick on a serrated knife.

I see the high sun snapping against sheets on the line,

my hipbones pressing out and opening late one summer,

the yellow outline of bone under skin.

I see here: the 16th Street Bridge flinging skeins of yellow iron

over the flood-ochered Allegheny, this morning’s diner-

on an edge of light as blinding autumn flutters

through the poplars’ paper-coin leaves.  My leaf-shaped heart

welling up through the river, yellow.

Pink Wood Sorrel, Oxalis crassipes

Until now, I never associated shamrocks with flowers.

While enjoying a bowl of spicy vegan chili, I unexpectedly caught some live Irish music this afternoon at The Globe.  Around four o’clock, a group of grey haired men lugging instruments began filing in and shuffling furniture, while forming a circle of chairs around a central microphone attached to a small black monitor.  Initially there were seven: two guitars, one accordion, two violins, a mandolin, and a slight woman with a small harp. Luckily, I had my recorder with me, so I sampled their set.  I chose not to edit background noise/conversation, as it was part of the experience.  Listen to the first two songs below.

In the middle of the third song, a woman in a purple hoodie walked in carrying a soft, violet dulcimer case.  A man with a mustache and a violin followed.  Closest to the musicians sat a group of five children under three feet tall.  One fellow in Superman pajamas struggled to get situated in a rocking chair, and as the musicians played, he rocked back and forth to the rhythm. To listen to a couple songs including the dulcimer, click below.

 

Egyptian Walking Onion, Allium cepa

About a year ago, I snatched curious bulblets  from what looked like a large alien onion plant during a walk through a nearby garden.  One forgotten, dry little bulb sat on the kitchen windowsill collecting dust for a year.  Until last week.  I rolled a paper pot, tucked her in, then soaked.  Six days later, twin jade sprouts poked through the soil.

Itching to wander, she’s more than doubled in height in two days.

A week later, she’s ready to move out of the kitchen window.

Today Alex planted the onion in our vegetable bed at school.  Turger pressure’s low, so it’s pretty droopy, but an optimistic touch is just what it needs.

Stretching, the tallest of four plants towers above an old tofu bucket.  The bulge rises like a burp before February.

In the knot’s place, three bulblets (one with thinned, crimson skin) remain, and
a family of spiders finds pungent refuge beneath.

To jump ahead a year into the future of this plant’s life, click here.