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“Lovers’ (or Sentimental) Rai is the least studied and least appreciated style of Rai outside of Algeria. It had none of the markers of the other Rai styles that captivated Western audiences and commentators — it was not “traditional,” a “music of protest,” and did not show “World Music eclecticism” — but it was the most popular style of Rai in the ’90s in Algeria.” —
Some “Sentimental Rai” songs:
Cheb Nasro - Ndirek Amour
Cheb Hasni - Dak El Marhoum
“Lao-Tzu said ‘the five colours make a man blind, the five tones make a man deaf,’ because if you can only see five colours, you’re blind, and if you can only hear five tones in music, you’re deaf. You see, if you force sound into five tones, you force colour into five colours, you’re blind and deaf. The world of colour is infinite, as is the world of sound. And it is only by stopping fixing conceptions on the world of colour and the world of sound that you really begin to hear it and see it.” — Alan Watts - Lecture on Zen
Alex loves rape and Beethoven: what do you think that implies?
Stanley Kubrick: I think this suggests the failure of culture to have any morally refining effect on society. Hitler loved good music and many top Nazis were cultured and sophisticated men but it didn’t do them, or anyone else, much good.
“There is something I recognize about religion that us evengelical atheists haven’t really grappled with yet, which is that it gives people a chance to surrender. What religion says to you, essentially, is: you’re not in control. Now, that’s a very liberating idea.” — Brian Eno
“Celebrity is like bad sex. Celebrity calls into existence the virtual aspect of our nature, its ability to be something different, something beyond what we expect of our species. The intercourse of public and celebrity draws attention to one thing that breaks the spell: the complete incompatibility of the public’s desire with that of the celebrity. The sordid fact is that both jerk off on the other, but can never come together.” — McKenzie Wark
‘I want you to make sure tomorrow’, said Faisal, ‘that the people are told precisely what operation I’m having. The Minister of Health will probably dress it up with long medical words, but I want the announcement to use the words that everyone understands – bawassir , piles.’
Robert Lacey – The Kingdom: Arabia & the House of Saʻud
Perhaps we shouldn’t be so enthusiastic about making contact with intelligent extraterrestrials. Scientists point out that on the earth, there are two types of animals: predators like cats, dogs, and tigers (which have eyes to the front of their face, so they stereoscopically zero in on their target) and prey like rabbits and deer (which have eyes to the side of their face in order to look around 360 degrees for the predators). Typically, predators are more intelligent than prey. Tests show that cats are more intelligent than mice, and foxes are more intelligent than rabbits. Humans, with eyes to the front, are also predators. In our search for intelligent life in the heavens, we should keep in mind that the aliens we meet will probably have evolved from predators.