Internet down

I've been away from the blog for some time now. I don't have internet in Sighnaghi, not to mention gas, water, or electricity half of the time, so life is increased to the wonderful essentials of work, sustenance, study, and friendship without technological dependence. But I do miss my email, I must confess.

Meanwhile, blogger has been down here in Tbilisi anyway, today is the first day I've been able to log on since being back here for almost a week.

The Fourth Polyphony Symposium is around the corner, and despite the war this summer, quite a number of foreign scholars and several foreign choirs who specialize in Georgian music are coming to Tbilisi. My own choirs sadly won't make it this year, but apparently they are organizing to perform in New York city at a Georgian photography exhibit. Good luck guys!

I am, as usual, being extremely last minute about my presentation on the mysteries of memorial archiving of chant in the oral tradition... because honestly, who actually knows how these people memorized up to 4000 chants? I'm not about to pretend that I know, but still, one has to come up with a fancy way of saying what no scholar really wants to say... "We don't know."

Anyway, there are plenty of analogues from Western music history and Byzantine chant studies, and the trick is to somehow suggest that these models have relevance for the Georgian tradition which is actually quite different.

Very disturbing clip on hate crimes in Russia

Short documentary on the rise of neo-Nazism in Russia, well worth taking a look at.
Find video here: http://current.com/items/84906361_from_russia_with_hate

Recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia: Pandora's box?

In addition to this article from the New York Times, here is some interesting discussion on the separatist issue from a good blog on the area (I don't agree, or don't know enough to agree with the Kosovo statements, but the Russia-Georgia reasoning is good).

Quote from Tataristan in reference to official recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia: “The seeds of self-destruction are built into the authoritarian system,” Mr. Akhmetov said. “It’s Moscow’s mistake.” (NYTimes article cited above)

Human Chain

All across Georgia, people gathered at 3pm to form a human chain. Apparently a real human chain stretched through all three of the Baltic countries during the independence protests in the early 1990s, and it has become a symbol of solidarity against Russian aggression in the former USSR countries.














I've never seen so many people at one time in Sighnaghi, it was pretty powerful. Even though threatening to rain, there must have been more than 5000 people on the streets that are normally occupied by no more than 50-100.

So we lined up, and kept lining up... and there were too many people, so we gradually inched our way out of town and extended our train nearly to Bodbe Convent a couple kilometers outside of the city. The two Nino's and I located ourselves amongst Tamuna's boys choir, all in red chokhas, and sang songs of protest, and songs of unity. Teuna and Sopo from Sighnaghi's St. George's Church were there, and they surprised me by singing an unpublished chant they had apparently memorized from a transcription I made and gave to Shergil five years ago.



















In terms of the protest, I found it amusingly very un-Georgian. The idea of a long chain of people demands sophisticated organization to move people to designated spots and get them to stay there.... also to form lines.... is this starting to sound funny to anyone else who has been to Eastern Europe? On top of that, Georgians like to be around other people, and think that those who say, go off on walks by themselves, are deranged, lonely, or just odd. Why not take company? So standing in a solitary line, with only your immediate neighbor to talk to, was somewhat non-characteristic, and it showed in our inability to actually form a coherent chain. Nontheless the event was gratifying, and we cheered every time the teenager with the beat-up car, stereo blasting, careened around the corner horns blasting and waving a flag out the window.