Karate

I went to play soccer with the British Ambassador and his son Louis on Sunday. We went to an old Soviet sports complex and played in an indoor gym with a wooden floor. Our friends from the local karate dojo joined us and organized the match. Man was I sore! The game was five on five, and we were running; all of those guys are in top shape. We were hard pressed to keep the game alive, trying to keep up with a world-champion karate guy and at least three other blackbelts.

Before the match I observed a karate training and decided to come back to begin training myself. On Thursday I went to training, and was entertained to discover my body still works after so much neglect. I punched pads, did pushups, neck stretches, sit-ups, high kicks, punch-kick combos... today I can barely flush the toilet without pulling half the muscles in my shoulder, arm, and upper back. Feels great! Hopefully I can work regular karate practice into my schedule.

Mark Vorkink

Mark Vorkink and his sister were here to visit for a couple days. His parents Pat and Andy live in Ankara Turkey and are good friends with fellow foreign service workers Cathy and Roy here in Tbilisi, so the whole family came up to see the sights in Georgia. Cathy and Roy’s children Mclain and Lucy were over on holiday, so we had quite the crew running around on tours to see the ancient capital of Georgia, Stalin’s birthplace, and a winery out in Kakheti. At one big supra in Eastern Georgia, I was befriended by a group of stiff chested, heavy jowled singers, who made me sit at their end of the table and drink lots of toasts. I’m so excited to be able to not only sing with these men, but also to begin elementary communication. We must have sung twenty five toasts and had half as many wine toasts.

Luarsab couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be a host, and invited all of our best singing buddies to a supra at his father’s restaurant for another supra with singing, this time songs from western Georgia.

When Mark first arrived, I was busy until the evening, but then Luarsab and I were able to steal him away from his tour and take him into one of the side chapels in Sameba Cathedral and force him to sing! We brought along our friend Lexo who has to be one of the best young Eastern Georgian singers in Tbilisi, and sang chants for an hour. The acoustics were so good that we sounded like ten people singing, and even our mistakes sounded beautiful! These guys were so impressed to meet yet another American who knows how to sing Georgian sacred songs. Chants are so close to their hearts that to be able to share this music with a foreigner is an instant bond deeper than fifty supras of words. Mark was a big hit with his humble attitudes, few words, but deep willingness and enthusiasm to sing and learn new songs.

Short stay, but awesome to have you all here, Mark and family!

A Day is Typical When...

No day in Georgia is typical except that one can find repeating themes such as missed appointments, ‘change of plans’, and spontaneity.

Here is my ‘A Day is Typical When’ story from December 24th.

I slept through my alarm, but managed to jump out of bed in time to do a few exercises, catch a shower, and head out the door to my language lesson. I have language lessons for two hours every morning five daysa week. When I have half an hour I walk to my lessons through the concrete buildings, but on rushed days like today, I walk a block to catch a minibus which puts me a lot closer to my teacher Tamuna’s apartment building.

On the marshutka, I study flash cards:

ear: quri
perfect: brts’qinvale
century: sauk’une
I wake up: vighvidzeb

I mumble the words under my breath benieth my scarf, but sometimes people look at me funny anyway.

I pay the elevator box five cents to ride to the 13th floor which is marked with an upside down 10, where Tamuna answers the doorbell.

“Rogor khar? Kargad, rogor khar? Kargad, kargad. Mobrdzandit.” “How are you? Fine, how are you? Good, good, please come in.”

After language lesson, I take a marshutka to the Ortojala district where I’m supposed to be meeting Luarsab to continue translating a book. This book was written by Evtime Kereselidze, an extremely dedicated monk who spent his life collecting, publishing, and hiding chants and chant books from those who would destroy them. Without him, we would not have the some five thousand chants that we are studying today.

Luarsab was excited about meeting the ambassadors, so instead of working, we ate some lunch, then he went to get a haircut, beard trimming, and to wash his car. I played three games of chess with comedian father-in-law Giorgi, losing two games to one. He claimed he let me win one in order to be a good host, I claimed to have given him victory to respect his dear age. Meanwhile, I played games with Elene, the resident two year old who alternately breaks things or cries, but is always adorable. I’m definitely part of the family down there.

Time passed, and no work happened, though I was equipped with notebook, pencil, minidisc recorder, and patience. Instead, I needed to drive back to my place in Sabertalo to pick up a suit. Luarsab lent me his car for the first time, and I picked it up from the carwashing guys, who made at least two dozen, barely understood lewd comments about me needing some Georgian girls ‘gogona’.

Traffic was horrendous and I was stuck in stalemate conditions for half an hour, not three minutes from my house. A road normally three lanes on each side became six lanes of parked cars, and one barely moving lane going the opposite direction. Georgians sort of obey laws, but as soon as something like traffic happens, people peel into the oncoming lanes by the dozens. I didn’t practice my flashcards, but watched angry Georgians in their cars instead.

I realized I had forgotten my keys in my bag at Luarsab’s house. Thankfully my landlords live on the 8th floor and they have extras. Still, I was so late I didn’t have time to go back to pick-up Luarsab, he had to take a taxi to the ambassadors house. I picked up Carl Linnich on the way to the party, and we helped ourselves to mulled wine inside the ambassador mansion.

Can you believe they didn’t feed us?! We sang Christmas carols, sang Georgian Alilo’s, talked shop with the ambassador, his wife, kids, the American ambassador, his wife, et. al, and still no food. So Luarsab and I went for overpriced Chinese food down in the center of the city, and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

Later, he brought me back home, but as I had arranged to meet up with some Peace Corps volunteers nearby, we went down to meet them. This is an interesting crew. These mid-twenties Americans spend two years in the Georgian outback fending off vodka toasts and sheep fat, trying to teach english and stay warm. Mostly they’re a cheerful bunch, I’ve met them a few times, tonight four of them were lying around in the hostel they run, watching Kevin Costner’s ‘Robin Hood’. One guy kept singing “Everything I doooo, I do it forrrr yooooou....” the Bryan Adams theme song. Farely low-key scene.

Luarsab grilled them on Peace Corps questions, and we had some good laughs.

Then we decided to attend Orthodox service in the morning, so he dropped me off at my place and left. Orthodox Christmas isn’t until January 7th, tomorrow is some other special occasion featuring a special liturgy. Also featuring a need for sleep very soon.


So, in that I didn’t really know what I was going to be doing today when I woke up, this was a typical day. I wished I could have studied a little more, but one can see how it is hard to turn down such a day of events.

December 24th

The weather is still clear and cold here, we haven’t seen rain or snow in three weeks. Except for that one morning, when I looked out the window to see flakes in the sky, but by the time I left for my language lesson not a single hexagon was to be seen. Last week we had -11 but now it is +11, a difference from 12 to 52 degrees Fahrenheit. Brrrr; inside and outside.

Shesha! Firewood! I spent two hours loading the Niva jeep, driving the wood over to my district (Sabertalo), throwing it inside the downstairs door, then hauling it by hand up the elevator to the 8th and up the stairs to the 9th floor landing, where I have an eye-level-high stack. Next move, bring the little stove out of the fireplace where all the heat is escaping out the chimney, and set it up inside my room where the heat will stay here where I need it! I’ll run the pipes out the chimney and hope the don’t smoke too much on the way out.

The British Ambassador and his wife invited Luarsab and I to sing Christmas carols at their party. We invited a few other Americans, including the legendary Carl Linnich, international genius of Georgian folk singing (check out www.Kavkasia.com). The American ambassador showed up and sang with us too.

I’m becoming more and more uncomfortable with the way westerners ‘party’. Luarsab and I kept looking at one another and whispering, ‘who is Tamada in this place?!’ Everyone mingling, having little conversations with one or two people, wandering again, having the same conversation again.... there was no cohesion, not even one moment when the hosts acknowledged the guests, the guests acknowledged the hosts; not even one moment when everyone could see each other all together and attentive, to know whose company they were sharing on this occasion. Couldn’t one person even gather us all together to say, Merry Christmas and thank you for coming?! So bizarre.

The caroling went well, but Carl, Luarsab, and I found ourselves in the kitchen hanging out with the Georgians mixing up the mulled wine. We’re all a little sick, and everyone knows the cure for a sore throat... we started singing Georgian songs, and worked up a little repertoire. We took these songs, the mulled wine, and ourselves back into the guest room, and launched into a Georgian caroling session, which was very well received by all. Georgians of course have dozens of carols, most of them having variations of the same words, the whole genre called Alilo (derivative of Aliluia I think).

The British ambassador here seems like a very interesting man. He was wearing a kilt, and told a story about being up in the far Upper Svanetian highland region with a bunch of singing Svans. He plays the bagpipes, and played for them at that time. Turns out this guy is chief of Clan McLaren, father of five, doesn’t mind wearing a kilt in front of Georgian chiefs of staff, and loves chess. My kind of character. We have a date to play chess and football.

Vespers Tour

I met Luarsab and Malkhaz at the Patriarchate, in a freezing undecorated room with the grand title, Office for the Preservation of Georgian Sacred Chanting. In fact, there is an extremely out of tune piano, a small table with one computer on it, an old bureau with a few cups in it, and some boxes of cds and books in the other two corners. But as far as I’m concerned, great work is coming out of this room and I want to get involved. Today our gathering was to discuss a plan I have to publish a small book of chants aimed at western audiences. Malkhaz is the director of the prestigious Anchiskhati choir, Luarsab is an expert on old Georgian photography and chanters and speaks english, and together I think we’re going to come out with a good book.
Both of them also sit on the Sacred Music Commission which tries to evaluate and advise new church choirs around Georgia.

Luarsab had a big stack of directives from this Commission which he needed to drive around to various churches in Tbilisi, so I went along. It was Saturday afternoon, Matins-Vespers service time, so we were hoping to catch members of the choirs at each of the churches. This gave me the unprecedented opportunity to see a number of choirs, churches, and congregations all on the same day.

First we went to Anchiskhati, the oldest surviving church in Tbilisi, its foundations dating from the 6th century. Princes and Princesses attended church here, but one wouldn’t know it today. It feels Old! Very few windows, cold stone, dim frescoes... it is considered conservative, and has the honor of being at the heart of the sacred music revival. The choir stands near the front of the church on the left. Interestingly, and without directive, men and women naturally split sides, the women on the left, the men on the right, leaving a long aisle from the door at the back straight to the small icon in the front, where each person goes when they first enter the church. The place was packed and I couldn’t see Malkhaz or the other choir members, but we heard them chant the beginning of the service.

Next we drove to a similarly old church across the river where Kereselidze’s choir sang at the turn of the last century, when there was a brief revival of church chant before the Communists came. Luarsab and I have a plan to write a biography of Kereselidze because he has such an interesting story of dedication to the chants in the face of ignorance, violence, and apathy from the rest of society. At this church, the service hadn’t quite begun yet.

At the next church, there was a fresh grave outside. A young priest had died in a car accident. The church was so packed, there were people waiting outside. I couldn’t hear any chanting, and I didn’t know if the service had started or not. We dropped off our paper, and headed off in the Niva jeep.

We came to a rather large church, scaffolding on the outside and inside. It looked fairly new, but Luarsab said it was old. They were remodeling it because the Communists had converted the church into a bathhouse... What? Inside, we took a side door and climbed a narrow spiral stairwell to a balcony. There I was surprised to see a bunch of guys I knew; they were the other half of the Anchiskhati folk choir called Dzveli Kiloebi, the group I will be touring with in the United States next October-November (2005). These guys were really good. Only five sang at a time, three basses, one middle voice, one top voice. Others would take turns singing. Their director Mamuka sings bass, and for a careerhe is an architect. On our way to the next church, Luarsab pointed out a new chapel which Mamuka designed.

I was interested to see a bass being a director as this is unusual. Luarsab said throughout history there have been chanting experts who didn't have good voices, and even a few gifted souls who couldn't sing a note, but knew all the chants by heart.

I think it is unusual to sing in the balcony, this was the first time I had seen this, except at Sameba, the brand new cathedral.

Next we drove way out into the suburbs of Tbilisi, which seem kind of morbid to me. Imagine wide expansive fields with nothing growing in them, trash littered about and industrial waste objects in the foreground. Roads crisscross these areas. All around are massive concrete block buildings, each about eight stories high, maybe a hundred yards long, perfect gray rectangles. There are dozens of them, lined up. I think there must be about eighty to a hundred apartments in each one. I live in one actually, back in Tbilisi.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, churches were built near these places, and we went to about three of them in the space of half an hour. All of them were packed, mostly with young people. I would guess that a third of the people in each were teenage girls between the ages of fifteen and nineteen.

The first church had just finished their service, and people were walking out. The night was freezing, the stars visible but the moon shining down even brighter. I wandered in while Luarsab found someone to give his official paper to, and noticed all of the new frescoes in this church. New frescoes here seem mostly to have the same color schemes: a strong red-brown, bright blue, and tan-brown for flesh colors... there are other colors but I always have a strong impression of redbrowns and blues.

In one of the other churches still in service, it was so crowded, I could barely squeeze inside. I went in nontheless and was able to hear the choir which consisted of three women, and one teenage boy. Compared to the guys I have been singing with and the recordings I have been listening to, they were very amateur, I guess they have very recently begun singing.

Finally we headed back into Tbilisi and drove up to the massive, well lit, Sameba cathedral. The location is incredible, one can see nearly the whole city from this vantage point, even up many of the valleys where several districts are invisible from each other. Sameba is heated! And extremely well lit. Fake marble everywhere, but it gives the impression of being very opulent.

I headed for the back stairway and went up to the choir loft to meet my buddies in the Basiani Choir. At the top of the stairs I met Shergil and his friend from Sighnaghi! I had been calling Shergil but not getting through... his phone had been lost. We made a plan to go to Bodbe Monastery and Sighnaghi on Sunday.

When Luarsab came upstairs, the Basiani choir were just about to sing a chant which we both know. Director Simon invited us to sing so we hopped up on the benches and were able to join in with the choir. The vastness of the cathedral streched out below us, a rich yellow glow shining from wall to wall; a murmur of intoning priests and shuffling hundreds whispered a call for chant. We sang together, forty voices without notebooks, loving our singing and loving the words we breathed. What a treat after such a voyage.

Public Baths

Luarsab and I went to meet his father at the public baths in Tbilisi. We drove up a side street, skidding up over ice on the cobblestones. This is the old section of Tbilisi where immigrants have always lived. The baths district in particular is called the Arab district, because Persians built the baths here when Tbilisi was under their control (1300 and 1800). But baths have existed here much longer: in fact ‘tbili’ means ‘warm’. This place was discovered by King Gorgasali in the 5th century, who had his capital in Mtskheta, an ancient city twenty kilometers upstream at the junction of two major rivers.

The story goes like this:
King Gorgasali was hunting with his falcon. He saw his falcon take down a duck and the two fell to the ground. When the King arrived at the scene, he found both his falcon and the duck dead in a pool of steaming water. He found the water to be so hot to the touch he could hardly touch it, and realized the treasure of his discovery. He decided to found a city and named it, ‘Place where it is Warm’ -Tbilisi.

The sign outside the ticket window said in Georgian, One Lari Entry, Three Lari Sauna. We entered the next room. Naked men stood everywhere, and as usual, they were staring. Georgians have no cultural boundaries to staring you down, checking you out. It’s normal, everyone does it. No animosity, just curiousity.

We saw Luarsab’s Dad, we strolled over. I shook hands with three older men, bellies hanging over loosely draped towels, friends with Dad who, as owner of several Tbilisi restaurants, is known and respected city-wide. We sat on the bench and stripped, carefully placing each item in lockers behind us. It was so cold out today, my feet were numb in my standard Georgian dress shoes. As a mysterious solution to this dilemma, undersized plastic sandals appeared at my feet and, now in the buff, we progressed to the next level.

Through a door into a steaming room, sight decreased to near invisibility. A thick haze washed out the faint outlines of arches overhead, voices of a dozen men against the wall on our right taking showers muffled into unseen corners. There seemed to be pools to the left, but we steered to the right to join the cadre of showering men. The water gushes out of spickets overhead in strong hot streams, and though two temperature gaskets present themselves for your convenience, few of them actually work. If you want a hotter shower, you walk down the wall a few feet until you find the next jetstream that is pummeling the floor instead of someone’s back. Men are shaving, shampooing, chatting away...

We moved on towards a back corner, where at a wooden door, our plastic shoes were left behind and we entered a sauna. This was a wooden room with three tiers of benches, ten feet long. In a big box, big rocks cooked. Taking our seat among the other men, someone splashed a small bucket of water on the rocks, and a rush of stream instantly converted all the water on my body to sweat. Soon, I was adding more water to the atmosphere than already existed, and breathing heavy as I bent over my knees. My feet thawed. It grew warmer. Sweat oozed out of every pore. It grew warmer. Dad came in and politics were discussed. I listened half heartedly, not understanding. A drunk man came in as unwanted entertainment, talking loudly and obnoxiously. Luarsab’s Dad tamed him with a few experienced words, the man left.

Next Luarsab dared me to jump in the cold tub. It was deep so we could actually jump in and submerge. I was in and out before I realized how cold it was. REALLY cold. My skin just tingled, my head steamed. We headed for the hot tub. Ten men were lounging half in half out of the water around the marble edges. Everything is made of marble. We hopped in and moved to the far side of the pool, our bodies feeling nothing.

Gradually temperature returned, and I realized this pool was really hot. The water poured right out of a wall spicket into the tub. A smell like sulphur, that particular smell that is not quite rotten eggs not quite burning rubber, but something milder and not unpleasant, came out of the water. Luarsab explained that this water comes straight out of the ground, untampered, at this precise temperture. The springs have never been known to run dry. It is God’s gift.

Our eyes adjusted. The drunk man was being ushered out by a man who was clothed. He looked so out of place, I actually had to think twice about why he looked so different. I noticed there were four bare lightbulbs that lighted the whole place. It was a big room, ceilings twenty feet high, perhaps three or four arches square, if you can imagine... still I could not see across the room and could only hear muffled voices of the twenty or thirty men who might have been in there at any one time. We left and drank a beer in the dressing room.

A group of naked men were standing around jawing about the latest: NGO organizations and marginalized priests had publicly insulted the Patriarch and the Orthodox church again, declaring that a recent Holy Synod meeting of the bishops was akin to a Kruschev era Soviet meeting. Everyone is upset about it. Who are these foreign sponsored NGOs anyway, what have they ever done for us?

I was summoned to the marble massage block back in the baths....

First I lay on my stomach, and a wiry man slapped my back to loosen the muscles. Then he pulled my arms back and jerk-stretched them the way a chiropractor might. Then he cracked all my vertebrae, and quickly and deeply massaged my back. The next thing I felt was a piece of sandpaper being rubbed strongly over my back to the degree that I was sure my muscles were being peeled away like orange skins. He thoroughly scrubbed me down, then I turned over and it was the same thing.

Sitting up, he scrubbed my neck and arms and I was horrified to see rolls of black skin peeling off my body. Was I so unclean? I have a hot shower in my apartment that I’m not afraid of... but this was new exposed skin. I’m convinced I only have three of my normal seven layers of skin tonight. Feels divine.

Later I lay back down and the masseuse squeezed a bag full of suds all over my back and scrubbed me down again. Turn over, sit up, I was scrubbed to perfection until my arms were limp, my body newborn, my head rubberized. With a dreamy step, I took sixty seconds to walk thirty feet across the room to the showers where I stood under a thick stream for a minute before heading back to the conversation in the dressing room. It was over, and I found Luarsab and Dad continuing the conversation in the sauna. We sat for a minute but then we all left together.

Back in the dressing room the masseuse-man was smoking a cigarette. Cool guy. I feel like I just stepped out of time. I could have been among Romans in Britain, Greeks in Ephassus, among Persian caravan drivers arriving in Tbilisi.... the baths are a meeting grounds, a conversation grounds. A time to take off the garbs of the world, the weapons, the defenses, the clothing of identity, the passage of time. We are all human bodies, old/young, fat, hairy, muscled, scrawny, bearded/shaven... no one cares. What do you have to say?

Me, I didn’t have much to say, but Luarsab’s uncle showed up. He is a famous chef at one of the restaurants and has been to the States three times on cooking competition trips where he always wins medals. We chatted until my vocabulary was exhausted.

The owner of the baths, a Muslim man named Rasim, was very excited at my presence. Luarsab, Dad, and I sang a simple folk song from western Georgia. Glasses and vodka were produced, and soon I was drinking toasts in honor of myself, though I returned the favor by toasting their excellent hospitality and the quality of the establishment.

Imagine carrying spices and clothing from India across the Afghanistani and Persian deserts; selling and picking up new goods, then heading north across the wilderness deserts along the lower Caspian Sea. Next would have been the open steppe and canyon country of Kartli, what is now south-eastern Georgia. The vineyards of the sun-worshipping Karts would have welcomed a weary eye, and soon, the Mtgvari river would have pointed the way to a welcome destination called ‘Warm-city’. Sounds really good right about now.

After seven days traveling through the fertile fields and small villages of the Karts, the wide streets and street-markets of Tbilisi would have come into view. In those days, business must have centered around the travelers, and caravanseries were large and bustling. Next door, warm baths, hostelries, bars, and a host of hospitable men and women awaited whatever desire your foreign money could afford.

In the public baths of Tbilisi, where time stands still, an ancient identity lives on.

Svanetian dancing

Swani Jawni

What is the story with this picture? Who is Swani Jawni? "Pow!" "Bam!" "Pop!" Swani Jawni, caped and fearless, plies the skies looking for Arch-Nemisis, "Procrastinator"!!
Look! "Procrastinator" is writing emails! Who can stop him?! Frightened masses of music books look on in horror. Piles of flashcards scatter in terror. Dirty dishes in the sink start swearing and clanking out of town in beat-up Ladas. Bad news!
"Who can help us" scream the last tea cups?
"Wapow!", Swani Jawni is here!
"Teacup, Sleeping Bag, what's the matter?"
"Pr...pr...ProCRAstinator has been here!" cried one little minidisc.
"I knew it!" (Punches fist, "Smack!")
"This time he's gone too far," growled Swani Jawni; (black leather boots on "Scooch", dagger belt tightened "Ssst", blade-check "Chk-Chik").
"Fwoosh" -Swani Jawni takes to the skies with a fling of his cape! "Procrastinator" be gone!
Until next time, keep your eyes pointed skywards for more adventures of... Swani Jawni!


In 2001, UNESCO recognized Georgian polyphonic singing as 'a world heritage treasure' and gave some money to preservation efforts. Out of this quarter of a million dollars have come a number of interesting things including a Symposium on Georgian Polyphony in September 2002. Another project is the sponsorship of seven regional 'training centers' where master singers in the regions are given a small salary to train ten young promising students how to sing. In Georgia, teaching someone to sing means teaching them all three parts to at least one hundred songs. The famous chanters of old knew all three parts for up to 5000 songs and chants, can we imagine? Other projects include the publication of much needed books and recordings of regional folk music. These materials are trying to find their way into American markets, if we can just find a good means to do so (write me with ideas on this) (or how to be a better cartoon writer).

In September 2004, the Second International Symposium for Georgian Polyphony was held, including guest performers not only from all over Georgia, but also the United States, Canada, France, Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, and scholars from those regions and more. Half of the festival was held in Tbilisi and consisted of afternoon and evening concerts and ongoing lectures on polyphony from morning through evening. The second half of the Symposium was held six hours west on the Black Sea in a region that is called today Guria. In ancient times it was called Colchis, and Greeks and Romans were amony the many who traded goods coming in from Persia, India, and the Far East. It is in this region that Georgian three-part polyphony flourished.

For the festival in Guria, many regional choirs were invited, including a choir of old men and their young pupils from the highland region of Svaneti in the Northern Caucasus. The men were 'grizzled and chizzled' as I say, with hands as big as plates, and big bones in their cheeks and eyebrows. The boys were boys, as they are worldwide. This picture was taken when I was dancing with the Svanetian boys while the older men sang and clapped, as is custom for dance songs.

One of the most beautiful moments I witnessed with these boys happened like this: the day before the big concert in Guria, everyone was rehearsing, including the Svanetian choir. In Svaneti of course, there are no opportunities to swim because the rivers are swif-running and freezing, and are the most common cause of death, and there just isn't any water above 40 degrees Fahrenheit in lakes or rivers. So, it was indeed a sight when I saw all of the Svanetian boys with their director in the shallow sandy water of the Black Sea, rehearsing a circle dance while singing.

Can I paint this picture any better? A circle dance is what you're seeing in the photograph. People holding hands, stiff-armed to maintain equidistance, doing a complicated series of steps around in a circle, while singing a repetitive chorus song with various verses of text. Here were these boys, not knowing how to swim, dancing this absolutely ancient dance in the water, singing completely in tune with their grandfather's tuning (which sounds outrageously out of tune to my western ears). They were so delighted, it was an extreme fest of excitement and mirth. The pull of the water slowed the steps, the music had to adjust, the water was warm, the sand soft... these boys looked like they were having the best time of their lives.

At the party after the concert, because there is always a party (one wonders if the concert were just an excuse for the party, where three times more singing happens than in the concert). In fact, I want to make the point here that performance is still a relatively new thing here, a nineteenth century concept the Russians brought from Europe. Of course in feudal Georgia, nobles and kings had professional choirs, but really the oral folk tradition was passed down in activity based environments like working, feasting, and hunting. So I've read. What am I, some expert or something?

Anyway, it seems this performance/festivity relationship still exists because we had an outrageous party with about five choirs after the concert. Last year in Sighnaghi, Shergil and Shmagi, my buddies from Latali Svaneti, taught me a few Svanetian dances. Suddenly, the Svan guys started singing one of the dances I knew. No one was dancing, so I jumped up and went over to one of the boy ringleaders. We started off the steps, and pretty soon, we had most of the guys joining us. I wish you could see the singers to the right, they're a sight. I'll try to get a couple more photos in there soon.

Trio Stories

Story:
A famous 19th century Georgian opera singer wanted to show off his skills to a group of old chanters who had come into Tbilisi. They were singing in three voices in their traditional way, having a merry time. When they were finished, the opera singer turned to his group of friends and began an Italian Aria in his rich baritone voice. The old men turned towards him and watched curiously. As the aria progressed they became more agitated, and started whispering among themselves, why isn't anyone joining him? What is going on? What a disgrace to let their friend sing all alone!
The Aria singer seemed perfectly fine with singing alone and continued in a thick vibratto.
The old men found his behavior unusual, but decided that though they had never heard this strange music before, they needed to defend his honor. Before long, beginning cautiously and gradually becoming more confident, two thin voices joined above and below the aria, creating the trio that had been so lacking! :) True story.



Story:
A Soviet-era Russian musician went into Guria with a translator to recruit singers for a 100 person folk choir to represent Georgia at the Moscow competition for republic folk music. He brought a piano with him, and put up audition posters in the villages. When he had chosen his favorite singers, the local mayor came up to him and said,
"Why didn't you choose these two men here who are known as the best local singers in our region? They each know more than a hundred songs in all three voices."

The Russian called the two singers back in, and played a pitch on the piano. The expert singer sang a different note. Disgusted, the Russian called in the second expert singer. The same thing happened. He turned to the observing mayor and said,
"See, they can't even match the pitch I play on the piano, what do you mean these are your best singers?"

The mayor said, "Wait a minute, let me ask what the problem is."

The first expert singer said, "What did he want me to do, sing the same note he was playing?! He started the song, and I joined in with the first voice!"

The second singer said, "I joined in with the bass voice. Why would he want us to sing the same note he is already playing? Any normal person can do that!"

Aurelia Midis!

Aurelia is leaving Georgia after being here for six months. She is our darling, our friend, our fellow singer, she is a soulmate departed. In Georgian sentimentality this is a big deal, and though Aurelia herself didn't want to make a big deal of her parting, per her American custom, I insisted, and we threw a party for her friends to come together.

Around seven in the evening two girls came and looked through all the photos etc while I cleaned the whole apartment top to bottom and installed my new woodstove and built a fire. Around nine oclock more folks came and I was obliged to start the Supra, though there were only two men and we were the only ones really into it (actually only because he was my guest was I feeling obliged). So toasting began; first to Our Meeting, to the gathering of friends, and for the special departing of our friend Aurelia. Next toast to Sweet Memories, as we sat around looking at photographs, reminiscing about our times together, and looking to Aurelia and remembering all of the wonderful times we had together. There were nine of us filling one side of my one room apartment.

All of a sudden at around ten oclock, Luarsab showed up with Giorgi Donadze and Simon, the two directors of Basiani choir, as well as Giorgi's brother Gela, who is an expert singer, his wife Nino, and her younger brother Pimen, also a singer. Luarsab and I had arranged to buy twenty tuna steaks earlier, and as all the women were tied up in discussion, Luarsab and Gela cooked up the steaks. What a role reversal! The women sat around the table chatting and drinking, the men scrambled around looking for spatulas and salt, making a big ruckous in my makeshift kitchen at the far end of the room. Aurelia and I exchanged a laugh about this as we're always talking about gender roles here.

I had to include the newcomers, so as Tamada, I repeated the first two toasts briefly, allowing them to add their words, and then proposed our third toast to Friendship. One can say anything on this theme, it is so heartfelt and beautiful. Really, I'm feeling now the love of friends distant as I go through a difficult time wondering if I should go to some theoretical musical graduate program or not, and the love of friends close as they remind me each day how strong I am to be continuing with my passions in the face of family tragedy. Such friends I have, could I have ever asked for more Lord?

So many excellent singers were present, as Tamada I demanded extra singing. Luarsab and I are now at the point where he can start any of our known songs, and I will join in on either the middle or bass part, as was the old custom. They never used to give notes, a count-in, or have a director or conductor. The first voice starts singing and when you hear your part you join to create the Whole. Without three voices, the song is crippled, like a stool without it's three legs.

I was happy to give Thea and Mindia the photos I took and developed from their Svanetian wedding Supra that I attended out in Tsalka (four hour marshutka ride on dirt roads from Tbilisi). Thea is Shergil and Shmagi's older sister, and she married Mindia who is from the neighboring mountain region Khevsureti. These are known as the two roughest highland regions in all of Georgia, from whence come the strongest fighters, the most unique songs and dances, the strangest customs, the most backwards logic, and the most loyal people one can imagine.

Then I gave toasts to Family, to Georgian Songs, to the Departed, to Faith, and to the Mother of God. Folk stayed well past 2am, and Aurelia's ride came around 3am. Good luck Aurelia, we will miss you!!

Neumes

The other evening Luarsab brought over a disc full of photocopies of 19th century Georgian handwriting. But there is something special about this writing: above and below the words are little lines and dots: musical notations for the master chanters who wrote these liturgical texts. Without formal notation, these lines and dots are the shorthand cue markers indicating how to chant the text! Amazing. But unbelievably, no one can really read these marks today, even though it was only two or three generations ago that chanters were still teaching music using these primitive neumatic markings. How could this knowledge have been lost so thoroughly and so quickly? Check out the history of the Soviet Union, RIP.

I'm very excited to be looking at these handwritings, trying to figure out what they represent. What was the key? To be honest, the key was a vast oral knowledge passed down through the ages by generations of conservative, preservationally minded liturgical chanters. These people already knew the Modes, so they had the melodic phrases of each mode in their minds. As each week brought a new mode into the chanted service, the chanters knew which melodies to sing their texts to. The only other item to know was how this particular text fit in with the melodic phrases.

The neumes simply marked up or down at the appropriate points in the text. But we don't know all of these melodic phrases, or all of their special modes, so we can't really understand what the chant melody consisted of simply from the shorthand markings of a past master chanter. You see the dilemna.

Furthermore, the neumes only indicate movement for the first voice, and we know that these were three voice chants. What were the other two voices doing and why don't we have neumes for those voices? Because we think master chanters automatically knew how to harmonize, as long as they knew the first voice line. Even the basses had to know the first voice chant line, so that they could successfully harmonize to it.

On top of that, each region had its own chant school with distinct harmonization rules. The differences between eastern and western Georgian chant are drastic at this level. However, the similarities in melody and modal melody phrases are remarkable. An order existed all around Georgia that was uniquely adapted to fit the musical culture of each region. Village choirs developed their own harmonic based loosely on a nearby chant school (run by monks) and influenced by the local folk music.

Now a vote, who says go to graduate school to spend lots of time in a classroom learning how to speak academic talk and write about these facinating topics? Who says spend the next seven years enjoying life, interacting with humans instead of books, singing, traveling, and being poor?

I'm having a major crisis in this debate, I welcome your responses! Love -j

A Window View

Wesleyan threw up a new email system, and told me I was far over quota. Apologies, but my account has been disabled for five days. This morning I woke up with an inspiration of genius and learned how to expunge my Trash folder, and voila, everything works again. So I'm still at jagraham@wesleyan.edu

Today is a gray morning. I'm looking out my window at my favorite menu of Soviet concrete. There is a big ridge half a mile away covered in Soviet City, beyond that is gray sky, and a darker gray mountain ridge about five or ten miles away. There is yellow concrete, gray concrete, mixed brick/plaster/cinderblock concrete, peeling concrete, and on the new building half way up the ridge, freshly painted concrete.

Tbilisi is not always gray, in fact, three days ago I had the miraculous sight of seeing a massive snow covered mountain between the hills that surround the city. I had never seen this mountain before, and it appeared as if one of the mythic Narts had decided to move his homeland closer by. He just picked up his mountain and moved it. It was a huge pointy peak, the kind of mountain photographers love, I thought, is this K-2 or Matterhorn...? No, it must be the famed Mount Kazbeg, inspiration of poets and highlanders, of church builders and Promethian mythologists. I had no idea one could see Mt. Kazbeg from Tbilisi. We were in a car, and turning a corner, my glimpse of the snowcaps disappeared as if an illusion. I have never seen the mountain before nor since, but they say Narts are unpredictable.

Back to my window view. The architectural style here is to build a concrete frame with minimal re-bar for a ten or eleven story building. The gaps in the frame are filled in with a hodgepodge of bricks or cinder blocks. On nicer buildings, these would be plastered over and painted gray or off-white. On many of the buildings out of my window the bricks, yellowing, redrust, or brown, are still exposed. When the Soviet Union fell, people were desperate for space, and many walled in the small balconies attached to their apartments with whatever building materials were available. These appendages look like gnarly fungi desperately protruding from their mother trunks. If you're wondering, precarious is the word I'm thinking of too.

Laundry hangs on lines on most balconies, roofs are made of tin, and doorways of metal or thin new wood with windows. Many windows have bars over them, mine included, though I'm on the ninth floor of this building. Crime was rampant a few years ago, and I suppose people repelled off the roofs to rob apartments? I have no idea. The bars are nicely decorative and I hardly see them anymore. One can get used to any prison in the world I suppose, sometimes we don't even see the ones we live in.

I have firewood! Any squatters in my chimney are now in peril...

Nateli and Gira

I live on a big wide street lined with concrete apartments. One has the impression that it is not very far to the other side of the street, not very far to the next block, or the main artery avenue which runs into central Tbilisi, but in fact everything is built on such an elephantine scale that it takes a long time to walk anywhere in this neighborhood. This was not a construction project on a human scale.

It seems people have compensated by putting up little makeshift shops here and there every other block. In New York City, shops seem to be built into the first floor of buildings, every corner is a shop or a bar... here no shops were planned except on the major avenues (an eight minute walk from my apartment), so people have put up little shacks where they sell cigarrettes, Fanta and CocoCola, old Russian chocolate bars that seem to have survived since Communist times, and 'Mono' cards to put money on your cellphone. Some more upscale shops might have a walk-in area where you can view all kinds of canned goods, sausages, toiletries, and basically anything that doesn't require a refrigerator. Other shops have a gas oven, and one can see two or three hard-working women making cheesebreads, mini-pizzas, bean-breads, potato-breads, meat-breads, all of them similar to calzones. These 'hachipouri' one can buy for between thirty and sixty cents apiece and is the cheapest way to survive in Georgia.

A couple hundred yards from my apartment there is one of these 'hachipouri' stands attached to a walk-in shop. A University is nearby so they get a lot of lunchtime business from the kids. Naturally, I've stopped by there often over the last couple of months to pick up something quick to eat, so they know me a little. Today was special though, because after getting a haircut around the corner and having to put up with four women in their thirties asking me if I had a wife yet, Nateli invited me inside their little hachipouri stall when I stopped by to get a pizza for lunch.

First I was offered coffee and instead of politely refusing as I probably should have, I said 'sure'! They invited me inside to wait for my pizza, and sat me down on a little stool. The place was like a closet, with just enough room for two people to stand and one to sit down. It was warm because of their ovens, so I was happy to have a little break with a coffee. We made all the typical Caucasian conversation gestures first, whereby one gets to know one another: "Where are you from?" "Do you have a wife and kids?" "Do you like Georgia?" "What are you doing here, are you working?"

Nateli has two kids, and her boy is named Joni! Very unusual name in a land of Dato's and Giorgi's (named for the most famous king, David Aghmeshenebeli, and for Saint George, patron warrior saint). Gira also has two kids, and one grand child. She was Armenian I think but has lived here a long time. I told them my usual spiel about "studying Georgian language and church chants, I'm a student from America, my family lives in Vermont which is a small state near Canada and New York State, I like Georgia very much, and I will live here one year." But beyond all that, we were actually able to converse! It was the first time that I felt like I was actually communicating in conversation, though granted I am still a two year old with this grammatical structure. We made jokes and they confided many things that I understood little of except that they seemed like typical complaints about crazy bosses, low pay, that kind of thing. Both of them were in very jovial moods though, we had a great time making up our own language to communicate in.

After awhile we started talking about their business and they confided that though they sell a lot of hachipouri in any given day, they make a pitiful five cents on each one sold because all the profits go to the owner of the shop. They are just workers there. They work all day in this closet cooking food and make between two and three dollars per day. I said, you need a tip jar! I didn't know the word for tips but they don't have tips in Georgia anyway so I had to describe the whole concept to them. They said that kind of thing doesn't really exist, but we decided that the first tip jar in Georgia could be in their little stall, so I put in one lari for each of them (sixty cents) and made their day.

For their part, they said they will be my mothers here, and I'm to come get food from them whenever I'm hungry. So cute! Seeing as my cooking consists mostly of potatoes, sausage, and eggs with bread most of the time, I think I'll be down there more often than not with our new found friendship.
 

Fighting Cold

Cold. Not that this place is colder than say, Vermont. But cold is a life-threatening condition which in Vermont we have somehow learned to deal with well. Only when the car breaks down, the pipes freeze, or we read of some lost hiker are we reminded of the danger of cold. Not so here. It feels like more of a daily struggle. For example I'm trying to heat my apartment with two archaic space heaters. I figured out today that my apartment is about thirty square meters, with two large, single-pane windows, an air-leaking air-conditioning unit, a bathroom fan which pumps in cold air, and an internal door which leads to an open stairwell -- also leaking in cold air.

Today I taped over the bathroom fan with a plastic bag, bought a new space heater, and taped the door and windows with sticky foam padding. When the door and windows close now they push on the foam strips, and seal pretty tight. I tried masking tape around the air-conditioning unit, but the tape won't really hold. My new space heater is 'energy efficient' and shuts itself off fairly frequently. I don't know what its internal thermometer is guaging because it is still freezing out here. Maybe it is measuring 70 degrees an inch away from it's heating cells, but I'm measuring two sweaters, one hat, and one scarf over here. This isn't going to work.

I'm on the top floor of this building, and someone industriously put in a chimney and fireplace, so I actually have the possibility to make fires here. The problem is finding wood. This country does not have very much wood, and I've seen none for sale. Last year in Sighnaghi, we had to order a truckload of wood two weeks in advance, and have it delivered from another village in the valley. In Sighnaghi, it is common to see older women cutting little saplings and even brush, and hauling it back to their houses to burn. Winter is formidable here, and for the majority of people who can't order a truckload of wood, I don't know how they cope.

In Tbilisi there are gas lines that run to many apartments, so some people have gas heaters. The heaters and the gas are expensive. Most people have little electric space heaters with open red coils. Twelve years ago during the civil war, there was no electricity in Tbilisi all winter, and sometimes no gas or water either. My friends tell me that it was a time for real neighborliness; whole groups of families would share in making outdoor fires in the streets and cooking together. During the worst fighting, no one could go outside after twilight because of snipers and gunfire.

Today there are no gunfights, there is electricity, gas, and water, but still we fight the cold. It is flu season, and most people I know are sick. I've been sick for ten days. In the mornings I get up to cold, and the only way to get warm is exercising. Yoga is too tame. I'm relying on high school basketball warm-up routines right now. Nights are better because it's still cold but I'm getting into a warm sleeping bag under covers, hmmm. Days are full of sniffling since nose-blowing noises are some of the most offensive sounds to make in public.

Still no snow. Cold wind. Especially on the lookout points like Saint David's church where all the famous 19th century literati are buried, and up on Narikala Fortress. Muddy slush is coming I'm told, but now days are usually a battle against wind. Sometimes at night, the wind howls so loud outside the windows, whisking around on brooms between all the tall buildings. I imagine I am in a tall tree swaying back and forth, and hope that this will actually never happen. Solutions to cold will arrive soon I have no doubt. Meanwhile, work goes on with a background of trying to survive.

Aurelia is visiting from Sighnaghi where life is even more of a challenge without running water or electricity except late at night. She has a story or two to tell.


Dreaming a stillness
That falls swiftly like sudden
Snow in Tbilisi

Twelve stars bored of light
Without elegance or glamour
Flicker out tonight

Leaning gently north
Narikala’s bulwark idles
Sentinel to Wind

Ofoto Links

I have some photos up in Ofoto if people want to look at them. Here are the sites:


Colorado-Utah, June 2004
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=4xi3poy.fc69t7i&x=1&y=77p1i4

October in Georgia
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=4xi3poy.19cqv30y&x=1&y=-qwew2h

November in Georgia
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=4xi3poy.8v3vevi&x=0&y=qao7e9
 

So Who Were These Chanters?

So who were these ancient singers? In whose work are we indebted to have this incredible body of sacred chant? My secret theory is that the composers were monks, living in University centers where many hymns were inspired and learned through a network of traveling chanters. The ancient kingdoms of Georgia had been melded through conquest and intermarriage in the 11th century, and it was at this time that the ‘Golden Age’ of feudal Georgia allowed the arts to flourish. Georgians from time immemorial have been singing, so the hymnographers of this renaissance period had an incredible musical language upon which to base their hymns. It must have been very exciting to change the chant melodies from the imported Greek to the vernacular harmonies of Georgian folk songs.

So who were these monks? Were they similar to the monks of Western Europe? Much of Georgian history has been filled with war and danger, many monks hid in extremely remote locations. However, during this ‘Golden Era’, the chanting schools flourished, and monks must have been learning relatively safe and concentrated in high numbers. Can we suppose that the new chants were being learned in force by many people? Who was teaching the new chants?

Three part harmony! Set to the familiar texts of the Orthodox service ritual, and suddenly accessible as part of the mainstream musical culture, the new chants must have rejuvenated church experience.

Their culture constantly under attack, I imagine the Georgians of the 10th-12th centuries being fiercely committed to their traditional arts. Haystacks and villages can be burned, church stones toppled, nobles and monks beheaded, but something lives on... what can we call it? My sister would call it the Georgian ‘folk soul’. Yes, something like that. So this is my idea: the new chants suddenly tapped into an ancient stream that is the Georgian folk soul. The mysterious force which binds these people to their land, their dancing, their food, their traditional honor and laws, the mountains, their families and clans... and to singing because it is somehow the web that holds all the emotional energy of the people together.

After all, what is it said that Heroditus wrote in 400BC about Georgians marching to battle? “They have a peculiar singing that is strange to the ear”.

Chants were never written down, a complex musical notational system was not developed (many manuscripts contain neumatic notations, but these appear to have been personal cues to a master singer who already knew harmonic movements and modes). But why should the chants be written down? Village folk singers knew thousands of songs by heart. Epic poems were memorized, mythological stories remembered, complicated group folk dances practiced. Folk memory did not necessitate a written record, and suddenly, chants were of this folk soul.

A unique alphabet and examples of writing have existed in Georgia since between 500BC-400AD (earliest inscriptions from the 5th century AD in a Georgian monastery in Palestine). But I imagine this writing system remaining a code of the elite and educated. A villager who could memorize thousands of chants or an entire epic poem could survive without writing a little bit longer.

Chanters and lay people alike probably knew thousands of chants. In 1949, a remarkable recording allowed three of the last living chanters to preserve a small portion of their knowledge. One man knew 500 chants by heart, another 2500, and a third, with the help of his book marked with neumatic notations, claimed for the record that he could sing 3500 chants if there were enough reels to record him. Can we imagine this?

I think that amidst centuries of turmoil and conquest, the Georgian folk soul survived largely through the help of the Orthodox church, which the Persian, Turkic, and Mongolian invaders never succeeded in wiping out. Yet what is in Orthodoxy? Deep faith, strong ritual... and what is at the heart of the ritual? Yes, chanting. I don’t mean singing. I mean, the chanting of holy texts which remind us of our humility before God and Jesus Christ.

In times of crisis, can we imagine chant being a vehicle for the preservation of the Georgian folk soul? To remind us of our courage, hope, endurance, and strength, to know right from wrong, to have faith in the future, to find our roots in ancient tradition, all these things chant was able to give.

For hundreds of years, these chants were passed down generation to generation. With the chants that have survived the trials of the last two centuries, we analyze and try to understand, we sing and try to feel, we remember in some deep place the folk soul of this land, this place in time and history. Our efforts look back in time to the great chanting tradition we seek to uphold. Our singing hangs suspended in the present moment of a church loft, the beams of light on the fresco faces revealing timeless eyes, timeless ears. And who will hear, who will sing, who will remember?

Those of us in this movement now feel like we are the beginning of the other side of the Hour Glass. There was a time when countless people knew countless chants. A crisis time came when 35 volumes of carefully transcribed chant were saved from marauding Communists by one monk named Evtime Kereselidze. These books are largely the only chants to have survived to our present revival movement, and are fueling the spinning, churning excitement that will lead again to countless people knowing countless chants. (small exaggeration here).

MacDonalds

This morning I went to MacDonalds for the first time in Georgia, and it was actually quite a pleasant experience. Up on the third floor, there was a special birthday party room, and I was one of the guests. The birthday boy, Gabri, was turning two and he had a number of little cutie friends there to celebrate with him. Gabri's father is Avtandil, a man who works in the Patriarchate, and with whom Luarsab and I have often sung chants.

When I arrived, two staff members were just starting a puppet show in Georgian. The puppets were the MacDonalds characters, and I wish I could have understood the language because I actually don't know any of these characters except MacDonald himself. There was a masked bad guy, and a couple muppets, and a purple squidhead, and a floppy carrot-head. The kids were pretty into it, including Luarsab's little Elene. Gabri wasn't very interested in the puppets actually but kept trying to peak around the backside of the mini puppet theater to see who was doing all the talking. Smart two year old.

The puppet show was complete with an American soundtrack, compliments of the staff person with the stereo remote. She had the volume really high and everytime the music went on, all of us parents jumped two feet. After the puppet show there was Karaoke to bad Georgian pop music for the kids, followed by happy meals, cake, and coffee for the parents. Lots of balloons, and some attempted dancing. One little blond munchkin had recently learned to walk, and spent the whole morning staggering around from chair to wall to random calf. So adorable. Gabri was intent on collecting all the balloons for himself, but tiny Elene put up a fight for her balloon.

Next, all the kids went over to the playroom and took turns coming down the twisty slide. Great fun to do it over and over again. Finally, there was a catwalk modeling run, with little Georgian girls wearing MacDonalds scarfs, and MacDonalds crowns. They waltzed into the room one by one, saw all the parents staring at them, and turned right around and headed out. A couple of the older girls understood the concept, and gave a little toss of the hair at their turn. A two year old girl came in and simply stared at me until the staffer came in and took her hand to lead her out.

The party ended with a big mess-making: plates on the floor, static balloons stuck to all surfaces, HappyMeal toys being pulled apart, some kids crying, some squealing... anything that was available to throw on the floor was being properly arranged in the Mess by two little squirrelheads...

MacDonalds is a kids Jerusalem here. Bright colors, play toys, puppet theater, and modeling. Concept.

Are we still children, or is it gone forever?

Princes

When we left Sameba Cathedral, it was freezing outside. The military guys had been standing out there all day, and they looked cold as hell. We walked down the street with the soldiers, priests, dignitaries, old men, old women, young people. It was a big mix of people. First off we found a restaurant and ordered some khinkali (meat dumplings) and chacha (the strong stuff). The place was stuffy with drunk men and cigarette smoke, but as usual Luarsab was even more willing to sing than me, and soon we had struck up a song or two in our corner booth. The waitress showed up with an extra bottle of vodka compliments of some other table, and soon a man came over to give a toast to Georgian songs and the foreign visitors. Before we left the restaurant, the atmosphere had changed; we could hear laughter, even some drunken singing as the Georgians took on the new flavor. Luarsab remarked that there is nothing to bond a group of Georgians than singing.

We left the restaurant, went down to the Patriarchate to get our car, and sure enough, we were invited to a dinner that evening with the Patriarch and Saakashvili. We couldn’t turn that down, so we hung out with some Basiani guys for an hour singing songs. Lexo showed me some Georgian wrestling moves. He is the coolest bear of a guy, I would love to get to know him better. Simon and I sightread through some chants, and one of the other guys taught me and Aurelia bits of a Gurian song. These guys sing for the Patriarch in the Basiani choir, and travel with him worldwide.

Then we went over to this big restaurant on the river, where we had to wait around to get past security. We were in a room at two tables with all the Basiani guys, it was really a great time. Wes and I had heartfelt toasts with the big bani twins from Guria, Zura and ?. Also talked a lot with Pimen and Nino. Gio Donadze said condolences for my father. We sang lots of songs with Luarsab, Simon got drunk and touchy feely. At one point the blonds almost sang for Saakashvili and Ilia II, but then Saakashvili left (to go to some other Supra no doubt, it being the anniversary of the Rose Revolution). Later we did sing Guruli Nanina for those who were left, and we met the Bishop of the Orthodox church in Canada, who was a very giggly man. Wes really liked this bishop.
We met so many bishops in the last two days, amazing. The best part of this Supra was singing with Basiani though. We were in a separate room from all the dignitaries and speeches, so we just had a grand old time with dancing, singing, and hysterics. Great food and drinks, these people know how to throw a party.

Funny story:
When we were in Sameba, it was whispered that people were saying that we were the Bagrationi heirs from Spain. We didn't really know what this meant, but apparently chairs had been brought for us to sit on. Turns out that the Bagrationis had been the royal family in Georgia for several hundred years, but were exiled to Spain by the Russians. A recent picture had been circulating, and the son of the current Bagrationi noble is a blond guy, and in the photo he had been wearing a chocka! So, unbeknownst to us, we were returning royalty for the day. That might explain all of the attention that we were receiving, even above and beyond being our fair appearance in this country of mostly dark haired people, not to mention Wes and I having strong brotherly resemblances. (check out photos in Ofoto albums).

Georgia is starting to become one big action movie. This morning Luarsab came and picked us up again and, dressed in chockas, we went to the Sheraton Metekhi Palace (Five Star Hotel) to sing a concert for a foreign women’s club. There were about forty women there from the States and Europe and we sang about six or seven songs and talked about Georgian music to them. They loved it and one Georgian women, Lali Connan, cried through the whole performance. Turns out she was an expert dancer with the Rustavi Ensemble in the 1980s, and best buddies with Hamlet Gonashvili, the most famous of Georgian singers (Futen guys will remember his Orovela). Amazing. Beautiful views of Old Tbilisi from the tenth floor, there is snow on the outer hillsides now.

From this gig we learned that we were invited to another supra with the Patriarch because the Secretary thought we had been undervalued the night before. We showed up too early, so we relearned Guruli Aghdgomasa Shensa, which we later performed for a room full of visiting priests, monks, nuns, and bishops from all over the world. We were the only foreigners in the whole room. One priest from Cyprus was particularly excited about our singing and wanted to hear Tsintskaro. We befriended a big jolly bishop from Greece who became a novice at age seventeen, lived on Mount Athos for twenty years, and has now established four monasteries in central Greece near Miteura. His name is Archimandrate Dionysus. He was interested in Aurelia's name, so he whipped out his hi-tech cellphone and called one of his nuns in Greece to ask for the etymology of her name. Turns out this nun was not only American but the aunt of the Hanson brothers, and within twenty seconds Aurelia was talking with her across the Seas. Strange world over here. Georgian monks and nuns were super appreciative of us, but we barely had a wave from the Patriarch. Actually we received no sign from him, not even that he was listening. Oh well. We performed a Kakhetian Mravalzhamier, then two Aghdgomasa Shensas. I think that we were outsiders, and performers, non-Orthodox... anyway, most people appreciated us.

Luarsab loves hanging out with us on so many levels. He likes to practice English, we bring him much attention, and he likes the intellectual conversation, the constant possibility to sing at the drop of a hat. He likes to show us off and thereby show himself off. He likes to make the point that Americans are not all bad, and also that foreigners can take part in this sacred music revival. He is full of love and charisma, I love him dearly.

There was a string quartet of cutie fifteen year old girls at this dinner. They were excellent musicians!! Unbelievable. Wes was enthralled to hear Western music again after so much Georgian singing for the last two months he has been here. It's true we are saturated with music and culture here, but it is so alive, so vibrant and often spontaneous, that I think I speak for both of us when I say our appreciation for all art seems to be at an all time high.

After the Patriarch and many of the more than a hundred priests left, we sat around and traded songs with the girls, and drank toasts. Some Basiani guys came in and reminded us that they were performing that night at the Opera House. We didn’t really know what the production was and thought we could just show up and get tickets. Turned out that the event was long sold-out and we needed passports to get in because Saakashvili was going to be there. Luarsab found this man Nikolas Memanishvili, who is a young man (only twenty four!), but already a famous Georgian composer who lived in Vienna for six years before being called back by Saakashvili to direct the main State Theater. He is short and round, very quiet and humble, we call him Nika.

Nika graciously drove us back to Sabertalo, where we ditched the chockas, donned our passports, and raced back to the Opera House. There we met two Likas, one from Sighnaghi, the other Shergil's cousin, and went through the artists entrance downstairs past heavy security. We got seats right away, just as the whole thing was beginning, because it turned out that Nika was not only VIP but the artistic director for the whole event, having composed six or seven pieces and coordinated all the other artists in attendance.

What a beautiful Opera House! Four levels of balconies above us, beautiful chandelier lighting, massive stage.... there were many groups who performed one or two songs, including a contemporary Georgian music choir of about twentyfive women. Maybe it was the Gori women’s choir, the one I have a cd recording of? Basiani sang one song near the beginning of the program, it was a Tsmindao Ghmerto that the Patriarch wrote himself we found out later. This was the one piece I completely slept through from pure exhaustion. Dance troups came out, and they were unbelievable. The men were precise, warlike; they leap through the air, and spin, twitch their legs super fast, and stick out their barrel chests. All of the most beautiful women in Georgia were on the stage tonight.

Twelve women danced as absolute twins in timing and stature, twirling and gliding around the stage with princess hats and gowns on. Their movements were delicate, seductive, untouchable, or pure nature. How to describe? One had the sense that this type of movement was reserved for angelic beings. Our normal activity of movement in walking, running, squatting, even standing... these are such awkward base movements that we have only become accustomed to through exposure. If a leopard could think, would it appreciate human movement? I don't think our habitual movements are the most developed. Well, if I can get away with that statement, I would like to contrast it by saying that humans have the ability to learn to dance, and these women tonight embodied the highest form of grace I can imagine a human having in movement. Even a leopard could have appreciated this.

An Adjaran dance troup came on, forty men in a straight line, dancing in very close formation, their knees bending in absolute unison. They fanned out in synchronized movement, then fanned back together again into a very tight unit before spreading out to do fancy moves. Together and spread with unbelievable agility and speed. This was a serious warrior dance. All of their movements looked like they could seriously maim anyone who was up there on stage without the knowledge of their movements. Kicks, spins, thrusts, very fast footwork which placed them in awkward looking positions out of which came unpredictable leaps and attacks. It was a dance in the sense that we were sitting in the Opera House with Saakashvili, but I definitely felt a kind of primordial awe for these men, as if I were a child and they were going out to battle advancing Persians in defense of lives and culture. Georgians have fought wars against invaders for all time.

The last of the forty times that Tbilisi has been sacked and destroyed was as late as 1794. There is a story about this battle. Three hundred men from one of the Highland regions came down out of the mountains to defend their allies in Tbilisi, but they came too late, the battle was already lost. An outrageous number of Persians were already in the city (maybe a quarter million). Rather than returning to their impenetrable highland villages, where the Persians would never have dared attack them, these three hundred souls attacked the Persians, and died to a man.