Ravpapa

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New book about Ziryab

Dear friends,

I am delighted to report that my book "The Language of the Heart" is now published. The book is about Ziryab, the chief musician of the court of Cordoba in Andalusia in the ninth century. The book is an historical fantasy, but includes an Afterword with a well researched discussion of the historical record. Following is a blurb for the book:

Ziryab, the Blackbird of Baghdad, born in a hovel to Ethiopian slaves, grew to be the greatest musician of the Golden Age of Arabia. This fictionalized account of his life tells of his rise to greatness: his journey from childhood in Baghdad to Cordoba, his battles with an evil wizard who hates music, how he vanquishes demons, outsmarts pirates, and uses the magic of music to rescue princesses and whole villages. Few facts are known about Ziryab's life, but much is known about the Golden Age in which he lived: the age of Aladdin and Scheherazade and Sindbad the sailor, a world of Djinni and magic. So it is not unlikely - indeed it is probable - that the magic retold in this tale did indeed swirl about Ziryab, and that the magic of his music proved more powerful than all the other.

For this story, as much as it is about Ziryab, is a story about music - the power of music to move the human heart, the magic of music to bridge from the material world to the spiritual world, the call of music to reach across barriers of nationality, religion and language to unify people. Indeed, Music is the Language of the Heart.

https://www.amazon.com/Language-Heart-musical-fantastical-journey/dp/1070100900

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May music

story · music · places

Nice to meet you again! - 29 May 1913: The Rite of Spring - today's story, actually something I saw at that place in a revival. - Thank you for lightening the mood for Haydn, - made me smile, much more than in the 2013 discussion for the Rite ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:18, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

piddling but

new items = news items? (I agree. Most I/P articles are disgraced by bloated polemical recentism that has no encyclopedic value, but there doesn't seem to be a solution) Best regards Nishidani (talk) 05:52, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Politicization essay

Stumbled across it after your comment at ARCA - after reading it, I was shocked to see it was last edited in 2010!! The article/issues discussed throughout it are virtually the same that the area’s dealt with in the last few months; it could just as easily have been written about most articles today.

Christ, it’s utterly depressing how legitimately nothing has changed in the 14 years since then. The Kip ^(contribs) 08:12, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

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