Dudes in the hood

[imomus]

It's a beautiful sunny morning here in Venice, and I'm playing Arabo-Andalouse music in the apartment on Calle Tintoretto. Today (my last day here) I thought I'd introduce you to some of the dudes in my hood. The Calle Tintoretto lies just off the Fondamente di Mori. At first I thought mori meant "the dead" and that this was therefore a sinister "canal of the dead". (It is pretty quiet.) But in fact mori are "moors", the North African Arabic traders who, five hundred years ago, had their own quarter in Venice... right next to the Jewish quarter, in fact. You can still see them, because their statues stand in little niches in the wall. Here they are, with their turbans and samples of the goods they live by trading.



Oh, the last dude in the hood is Nikolas Montaldi, who, with Davide Fornari, has made this trip, like the last and the next one (a concert at the University of Venice on December 16th, to be confirmed nearer the time), possible. Thanks, dudes in this (gorgeous) hood!

Comments

[tassellrealm.livejournal.com]

It's a beautiful sunny morning here in Venice, and I'm playing Arabo-Andalouse music in the apartment on Calle Tinoretto.

Ooh, Ibn al-'Arabi beckons.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

true dudes don't dig new order.

[(Anonymous)]

oh, I was downtown this morning, if I knew you still were here we met...
hope to see you play again here in December, as you say
hugs

enrico

[leaflets.livejournal.com]

thanks for the tour of your neighborhood.

a story tailor made for momus!

[nato-dakke.livejournal.com]

Not related to italy so much, but you might like an inside opinion on the proliferation of keitais in shibuya, harajuku et all. Not the most serious sort of sociology, but who's doing that anymore?

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/news/20051110p2g00m0dm013000c.html

Re: a story tailor made for momus!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid that article makes monkeys out of primatologists!

Some newspaper editor has the bright idea of getting a monkey specialist to say that some human behaviour resembles chimp behaviour, and that this is a bad thing. Because, you know, primatologists are naturally of the opinion that chimps are, well, bad. Aren't they? And that the hierarchy between chimps and humans must be maintained at all costs. Mustn't it? And that it's indubitably advanced technology which is making humans more like chimps (a bad thing, remember).

What makes our primatologist look even more of a monkey is this idea that being out and about is also a bad thing, rather than an extension of habitat (http://www.imomus.com/thought130801.html).

Re: a story tailor made for momus!

[nato-dakke.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm all for more monkey-like people. The behavior described in the article strikes me as fun, minus the violent lashing out at strangers. It's really a story about "today's misbehaving young people being subhuman... so you be good".

Another point of the article, parents ignoring their children because they have the keitai bond is pretty true to my experience, though, and a development I don't like.

Re: a story tailor made for momus!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm still giggling at the idea of a monkey expert who says "Monkeys do this... and it's bad." You know, in our relativist times we're so used to primatologists telling us that humans and chimps share 96% of their gene sequence, how intelligent chimps are, etc etc. And here's an expert who seems to be saying "Chimps are a bad lot, can't trust 'em, lash out at strangers, never listen to their dad. I should know, I work with the bastards. And humans are getting just as criminal!"