Dennis Hollingsworth

Summer Music 2007

A month ago, Alberto dropped in with a case of music and here are some of my picks:

I've listened to half of them, most of them in the 5 star category.

Yes, 5 star categories.

We've particularly enjoyed some of Kiko and Lourdes' music.

Googling for lyrics, I found the YouTube links of their music videos:

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Morena Mia
Miguel Bos?

Here is a roughly patched together fan video of the duet version of Morena Mia with Miguel Bose y JulietaVenegas. Their voices compliment each other, this is a favorite of mine that I'm listening to all the time.

Pokito a Poko
Chambao

I like the Andelusian reach into the muslim across the Mediterranean. A chambao is a beach encampment, as I understand the word. After a summer in Codolar, such a life is very appealing.

It is interesting to me that the styling of the band is very bohemian/hippy while the music is very suavecito, Sade style. Stephanie and I watched a Netflix movie El Bola and likewise, there was a plot structure that juxtaposed a kind hearted bohemian family against a cold hearted bourgeois (a fighting word, an insult in our art world) family father. But I thought that both families were striving to grow and prosper within the present system, that they were both bourgeois even though each occupied a different part of the spectrum. Likewise, true bohemians are repelled by the system, of society at large. Hobos in the old parlance, hermits, many of the homeless... much of us in the creative aspect of larger society adopt stylistic cues from those who have chosen to opt out. I believe I had touched upon this phenomenon in this post. The ambition to succeed within society at large defines us cleanly within the bourgeois category. A true bohemian wouldn't give a damn about art at all.

And yet still, art derives energy from this "other", the true bohemian, because transgression is fundamental to the story of art. In a way, we in the arts digest the hard realities and excrete express it into culture. We use artifice to do so, strategems. A story cannot tell everything becasue it would never end. So a storyteller must edit and in doing so lies at least a little bit. In doing this he contrives artifice to make it succinct enough to be able to tell the story so that we can recieve his meaning within a normal attention span. This is Picasso's famous "lie that tells the truth". The key notion that separates the wise from the foolish in all the arts is a self awareness of the indispensability and limitations of artifice.

Ahi estas tu
Chambao

Con la mano levant?
Macaco

More revolution.

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Stephanie and I will be lerning Spanish (Castellano) for the rest of our life. Listeninng to o strong enunciation is imporant for a student, the less so as you learn more. Listening to lyrics is a good way to get started.

Wrap your lips around these palabras...

Mama Tierra (D?a Mundial de la Tierra)
A bette,r less polished/commercial version here,
Macaco

Every time I listen to this I think of Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Mercy Me". I think of all the good that we've done over the years, how the skies have gotten cleaner in Los Angeles since we've lived here... and how the downward trend of our little part of the Mediterranean seems to dive into the muck. There's a scary decline in the dolphin population in the Bay of Biscay due to the agressive net fishing there. Crown of Thorn Starfish are reported to be devouring the Great Barrier Reef and whaling is not yet universally banned.

It's not a linear story, we've done good things and things go wrong, but that's life, isn't it? Things have been bad, things have been better, bad things continue to occur.

As long as we keep striving as art like this reminds us to do, everything will be alright.

Right?