Just in case you didn't know, Aliah (m'lady) & I are in Serbia, Vranje to be exact. Spent the weekend in Surdulica at the regional brass band competition, Vlasinsko Leto. This is the regional qualifying round leading to the big competition in Guc^a later in the summer. Since most of the bands I love most are from this area (the southeast, near the Macedonian border), this is kinda more interesting to me than Guc^a anyway.
It’s been a while I know. I’m in Istanbul, Aliah’s gone on to Tajikistan & is now officially in the sticks. No cellphone service, mon dieu!
Hmm to summarize the last two weeks:
Our time in Vranje (Serbia) was great. We met a very sweet cab driver, Dalibor, who became our fairy godfather, along with his lady Sanja. (There’s a strange gender error somewhere in that sentence, I’m certain.) They translated for us, took us all over town (& back & forth to Vranjska Banja, where we stayed mostly), & even set up a TV appearance for Slavic Soul Party (our friends we were kickin it with there). Somehow, and they couldn’t explain it either, in this town where very few people seem to work (and certainly not those under 35), everyone seems to have both lots of free time & some disposable income. See, Communism worked!
SSP invited me to join them in working with Demiran Cerimovic’s band, Vranjski Biseri (Pearls of Vranje), which was a great experience. I worked mostly with Demiran & another trumpeter (an older guy who used to be in Ekrem Sajdic’s band) & it was wonderful to get the transmission so directly. Both of these guys have tapped into something powerful & deep in their playing, and in their demeanor. They were incredibly generous & open with their information & music. I think my most profound lesson was in relaxed, focused playing at incredible volumes. These guys play so incredibly loudly (of course with dynamics, but their mezzoforte blasts the Menazeri’s fff ten time zones away) & yet with such ease & grace. Menazeri take warning: we’re gettin louder, and softer, if I have my way. I can recommend a good source for earplugs if you wannem. ;)
Then Aliah & I took the incredibly slow overnight train from Nish to Istanbul. Spent a couple of days traipsing, drinking tea under the Galata Bridge (I didn’t realize, last time I was here, that you even COULD go under the bridge; now I see it’s one of the most beautiful places in the city). Saw three clarinet players in the first three hours here. After a few days we moved into her uncle’s friend’s apartment, while he’s in England. (He’s been due to arrive back since last Saturday, and still no sign of him, so I’m still there.) It’s a nice pad in Osmanbey, near Taksim.
As I said, Aliah’s moved on to the goat-lands queasily close to the Afghan border. Since she left, I’ve been running around with my friend and fellow klarnetçi Sammy, stalking Selim Sesler, an amazing Rom clarinetist who Sammy studies with. I’ve been trying to get a lesson for 10 days or so now, and tomorrow’s supposed to be the day. Inşallah. Also just met violinist Hüsnü and his dancer-wife Rehan and hope to study with Hüsnü as well. Days have been kinda slow & introspective, with occasional wanderings into the neighborhoods I’ve never heard of; evenings filled with rakı and Selim’s clarinet.
All the time includes missing all of y’all…
From slashdot:
“The folks at Open Voting Foundation got their hands on a Diebold AccuVote TS touchscreen voting machine. They took it apart (pictures here), and found the most serious security flaw ever discovered in this machine. A single switch is all that is required to cause the machine to boot an unverified external flash instead of the builtin verified EEPROM.”
For those baffled by jargon: it’s really easy, by flipping one switch and inserting a single chip, to start up one of these machines with any program you like. The implication is that it would be very easy to commit massive voter fraud, by making a program that looks like the real thing, but (for example) tallies a Bush vote instead of a Kerry vote, say, half the time. Also from the article: “This model does not produce a voter verified paper trail so there is no way to check if the voter’s choices are accurately reflected in the tabulation.”
Jerks.