What are you reading, watching and listening to? - All languages

[MacAnDàil]

These are not equivalent. While the (electronic) music I like the least did not exist at the time of Mozart, the equivalent to S3RL is perhaps a gaudy pub song, not Mozart. And, while tastes will account for one's choice of Today's Mozart, nobody would say it's S2RL.

In any case, I discovered this version of Clair de Lune by a critically acclaimed jazz saxophonist composer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8rzewm2hhE

[rotting bones]

I just wanted the contrast to be as strong as possible with minimal effort. If you want to make it a time period thing, you don't even have to go to the pubs. Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro is full of playfully salacious material. My impression is that Mozart had no problem with degeneracy. It's only the mores of his era that held him back. In case anyone thinks operatic music is epic and non-degenerate, Verdi's La Traviata provides counter-examples like Libiamo ne' lieti calici and Sempre libera. Although if that is what you are arguing, you are probably talking to a Nazi, and they might disregard anything written post-Enlightenment even if it precedes the 20th century.

[Vijay]

Hindko is a language that's apparently closely related to (and somewhat mutually intelligible with) Punjabi spoken in a wide area in northern Pakistan. One part of this area is the Neelam Valley in Azad Kashmir. This is a song in Hindko by Khalid Dukhi from the Neelam Valley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ_E5Nj7K0o.

[xxx]

brezhoneg

[Vijay]

This is just a well-known movie song from the Hindi version of the Indian movie Roja (1992). It's called "Yeh Haseen Vadiyan" and is a love song but set in Kashmir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr0mE7aJziA

[Qwynegold]

I finished reading Riddar Kasus hjärta och andra sagor om grammatik (Sara Lövestam) which I mentioned in another thread, and now I'm reading Trollkarlen från Övärlden (A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin). I knew I had read this book as a kid, and remember liking it, but absolutely nothing about the plot or characters had stayed in my memory. My ex, who's not into anime, really, really loved Studio Ghibli's adaptation of that one book (is it the second or third in the series?).

[Vijay]

Lohri is a winter folk festival celebrated in and around Punjab, including in Jammu. This is a Dogri Lohri song (supposedly the oldest Lohri song in Jammu): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8nQZDg6M14.

[Birdlang]

This Batak Simalungun song. Pos Ni Uhur Mai. I believe this particular recording is from around 1999 to 2001.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A2yAQCO_XEw
Organ & keyboard heavy music is common in Batak pop music, especially by the late 80’s early 90’s when everyone switched from band format to accompaniment by a cheap programmable organ/keyboard plus occasionally guitar or sax and also usually flute and string instruments, because of cost efficiency.

[Vijay]

Another song in Bhaderwahi by Mool Raj Misher, this time from 2018, called "Gaid Chiwan Kero Baat":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dx0DCWeEAI

[MacAnDàil]

I watched a documentary of the Himba by Himba themselves called 'Himba are shooting'. It's so much better than many non-participative documentaries because you get a closer and more accurate view.

[Vijay]

This is a song in Purgi, apparently from Kargil, called "Yolagina Afsos":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXyz-tekac8

[foxcatdog]

Justin Bieber - Yummy (Indian Version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g07bn5XbgDc

[rotting bones]

So far, I haven't been able to find a replacement for this song as my all time favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JJdu82xSgc I don't like this translation, but it's better than nothing: http://www.geetabitan.com/lyrics/rs-a2/ ... ation.html

[xxx]

brezhoneg #2



but maybe a little too far east...

[Vijay]

This is another song in Changthang, a variety of Ladakhi spoken in southeastern Ladakh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLZJN6htCTM

[Man in Space]

Chipmunks on 16 Speed – “Eye of the Tiger”

[Pabappa]

i tappears your bomper is ben tand your fender is dented

in the year 2095, long after humans have gone for all time, our names live on for the amusement of our successors

[Ares Land]

I'm very late to the party, I suppose, but I really liked the Witcher, and I've picked up the books.
So far I think I like the book bests... I don't know if it's an artifact of Polish translation or something, but it reads just as if Stanislaw Lew was writing sword-and-sorcery.

Also, I'm rereading the Nicolas_Eymerich,_inquisitore novels by Valerio Evangelisti. It's only available in Italian, or in French translation, unfortunately, but if you ever want to read something in French or Italian...

It's a fairly strange science-fiction / fantasy mix. In the 14th century, our titular inquisitor investigates mysterious phenomena and awful heresies, with a connection with a pseudo-scientific plot in our day. The fantasy part is usually much better than the science-fiction part (Although one of the best episodes as a wonderfully horrific interpretation of William Reich!). Evangelisti has done his work and it shows; the fantastical elements usually involve demonology and heresy, and the author has borrowed freely from contemporary sources.

There are some fourteen books in the series, and Evangelisti tends to improve over time. In the early works, characters other than Eymerich are caricatures, they get more well-rounded as the series progresses.

Eymerich himself, however, is a wonderful character. He's everything you'd expect from an inquisitor: cruel, nasty and fanatical but with a real complexity behind his character. He still hates women, Jews, Muslims, and in fact, pretty much every one but the pope, but you still kind of root for him. He never hesitates to lie, torture or kill, but he's otherwise pretty strict on proper procedure, and condemns the worst excesses of his peers (Eymerich was a real person who did codifiy inquisitorial procedure. As far as we know, though, he never fought with giant ameobas or vampires, or zombies).

Oh, one thing I like is that it's European fantasy, or more specifically fantasy centered around the medieval European world; not something you'd see every day. Eymerich mostly travels around France and Spain (fairly logical, as he's the inquisitory general of Aragon under the Avignon papacy); he speaks Catalan but gets by in Castilian and Provencal; there are plenty of nice little touches that help with the more fantastic parts. (A surprising enduring theme is the rivalry between Franciscans and Dominicans)

[chris_notts]

I didn't like the Witcher very much. The main character was a bit bland and the story seemed to take a very long time-hopping route to somewhere interesting.

I have been enjoying Star Trek: Picard (also known as Star Trek: Brexit) though. Like all the new Trek shows, it seems to be a marmite thing, people either love it or hate it. I like the fact that, despite the love the writers obviously have for the character, it humanises Picard by making him deal with a career-ending disaster that people on both sides still blame him for, and that it does make more time for character in general than other Trek shows. It also dials down on the racial stereotyping, since Romulans are now allowed to be actual people instead of cardboard cut-out villians. I admit that it is a bit slow though, and the Borg cube scenes are often a bit boring.

[chris_notts]

It also much, much better than Star Trek: Discovery, that turned the Klingons into weird monsters that baa like sheep and had a ship powered by magic mushrooms which can bring the dead back to life.