Truly, this blogoverse is an amazing space. Twenty four hours ago, I did not even know there was such a musical category as ‘paganfolk’, and yet a commentor’s request concerning the translation of Japanese katakana led to a discussion of medieavalist music which led me to spend way too much time on YouTube (and too much money at Dancing Ferret)…
So now I have a request: Can anyone here tell me where I can get a copy of Faun’s DVD Ornament without ordering it from Europe?
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arguingwithsignposts
Not Ornament, but their other albums appear to be available on emusic.com, which is a site i highly recommend.
Brian J
I hate to be that guy this early in the morning, but is anyone else worried that the problems with the House bill–the relative lack of cost controls and the supposed incentives to game the system–will end up screwing us in the end? Perhaps it’s because the conservative blogs I’ve seen (Marginal Revolution and the people they link to, mostly) are not exactly in support of the reform effort to begin with and are thus more likely to make it seem like any potential problems are worse than they are, but I’ve even seen people like Robert Reich suggest there are big problems. Granted, this is just the House bill, and the process, as far as it has come, isn’t over, but I do worry that the complaints from the right will end up being right and that the system will be under enormous pressure to fall apart from the outset. It’d be hard, I think, to try to undermine the expectation of expanded coverage, but if there are issues at the outset, it would be a lot easier.
Montesquieu Python
Usually I just lurk here, but curiosity compels me: What is the hand-cranked instrument in the Faun video called? Never seen anything quite like that before.
charlied
What is that instrument that is being cranked on the left of the frame?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@charlied: @Montesquieu Python: That’s a hurdy-gurdy.
alien radio
@charlied:
A Hurdy Gurdy
Comrade Scrutinizer
But it’s not a hurdy-gurdy man, singing songs of love.
Just to be clear.
Tim F.
In what way is that not celtic music?
Svensker
Also, the flautist and harpist have beautiful manicures. Just saying.
(Am I channeling BOB?)
Violet
If you do order the DVD from Europe you want to be sure your DVD player can play DVDs from that region. You either need a multi-region DVD player or some other kind of software fix (if you’re using the DVD player on your computer).
Stupid movie companies and their annoying regions for DVDs. Pain in the rear, especially if you’re doing things legally and just want to play that cool DVD you bought in Europe or wherever.
jon
I recommend checking out NorthSide Records out of Minnesota. I hadn’t heard of Hegnigarna, Wimme, and others until I paid something like $3 for their first sampler.
And anyone who has seen Dethklok go grocery shopping would recognize these guys.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Svensker: Only if you tie it to Plato somehow.
@Tim F.: I’m not a musicologist, I just play one on TV. But define “Celtic Music” :). I’m one of those annoying people who think that Celtic Music is a marketing term, not something that relates to a specific musical type or region. We have no idea what ancient Celtic music sounded like, and much of what we call Celtic applies to music that could be heard in other regions at the same time. We also lump different musical styles under that umbrella when they don’t have many points of commonality, just because they came from Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, etc. To me it’s like calling Heath Shuler and Nancy Pelosi both Democrats.
I haven’t heard Faun until now, but it’s like listening to Medieval Babes: it’s tempting to call it Celtic, but the roots are deeper, and more European than Gaelic.
jon
Links gone bad, sorry. I’m going rogue and making them ugly, in accordance with my wish to make the blogworld less more streamlined.
Hednigarna:
youtube.com/watch?v=lkc42M1OX2A
Wimme:
youtube.com/watch?v=AeoWvR4bmbU
these guys:
youtube.com/watch?v=yGywo81G6lk&feature=related
RAM
Comrade Scrutinizer @ 12: Indeed; see The Chieftains’ “Another Country” album recorded in Nashville that seamlessly flows from Celtic-traditional Irish to U.S. country music and back in the same songs.
mario
If you like these folks try the group Qntal – very similar.
Warren Terra
I learned 2 things recently: that multi-region DVD players are cheap, and that older DVDs, even of American programs, are often deeply discounted in Britain. I don’t know about shipping costs, though.
jon
Can’t PCs and Macs be set up to play different region DVDs? I once read that it was possible, but never had a reason to try it out.
OriGuy
cduniverse.com has it for $34.89. No word on region, but as Warren Terra said, multi-region players are cheap. Others can be made multi-region, or you can just buy a cheap second one and set it for the other region.
Jesse
John: I live in Europe and can pick it up and send it to you, if you like. I’ll be coming back to the US for Christmas time, so you’ll need to wait about six weeks. We can do paypal.
bago
Faunts, M4 part 2.
PurpleGirl
Can someone point to the earlier thread referenced in the posting? I sort of remember seeing the graphics for Japanese characters but I don’t remember what thread it was in and I didn’t continue reading a couple of threads.
Jesse
@Brian J: Yeah, I feel similarly. I felt like a fairly big victory had been achieved last week, but the wind was taken out of my sails (as it were) when I sensed more and more that there might be pretty big problems with the bill. What tipped me off was a post on an academic philosophy blog: Two devastating indictments of the health reform bill making its way through the Congress. The outrage over mandated coverage does not, per se, seem like a killer to me. But if costs do not come down, then mandated coverage does start to seem like a major giveaway to insurance companies.
Jesse
@jon: Yes. On my US-configured Mac, if I stick in, say, a Japanese DVD the DVD Player application asks me whether I want to switch my default region. I did this, once, to play such a foreign DVD. Then I switched it back (prompted when I put in a US DVD).
Quackosaur
@Jesse:
There is a limit, though, on the number of times you can change the DVD region (something like 5), so it’s not something anyone should do too much.
Kirk Spencer
@Jesse: I will point out that there’s a largish slice of people on the left playing the same purity wars everyone here notes on the right. The primary difference is that the left-siders aren’t swinging everyone else.
In this particular case we’ve the group that was pushing for single payer. “It isn’t single payer, therefore it will be a failure,” goes the indictment.
The cost controls are in there, they’re just not noticed. Three examples:
1) The Public Option’s premiums and cost-shares are to be negotiated between two ranges. Those ranges are medicare rates and the average of the other plans on the exchange. I am going to point out that MATCHING the average is not allowed. There’s a market control with this – the higher the private industries push their premiums the better the price of the PO looks.
2) There is a profitability cap, with documentation and investigation to ensure, on all plans on the exchange.
3) If an employer’s plan for employees requires premiums AND ACUTARIALLY ANTICIPATED COST-SHARES of more than 12% of the employee gross earnings, a bunch of things go into effect. For one year, the employees get a government supplement. After that year the company and/or the insurance company have some requirements that boil down to “get the cost under control or pick up the difference.”
Is it a perfect control? No. Is it going to work? Maybe. But when somebody tells you there are NO cost controls, they’re either ignorant or lying.
Irony Abounds
The biggest problem with the health care plan is that the costs to the consumers will almost certainly come before benefits – since plans will have to accept anyone, insurance premiums for most people with existing coverage will increase before the exchanges are set up. People will be screaming bloody murder and the whole thing will be repealed before the true benefits are realized.
Jesse
@Kirk Spencer: Thanks; I didn’t know about those cost-control bits.
While driving with my family recently, my mom put on Fox Business News radio. Of course, it wasn’t business per se, but slamming the Democrats for their recent efforts. The dude they had on had such an obnoxious, berating tone of voice. It went hand in hand with the content of his speech, which was also obnoxious and berating. Anyway, he had a Democratic strategist/advocate/something-or-other on, and was pushing hard on the claim that the bill that passed the House would cut costs. Here’s his argument:
“How do you know?”
Good one.
I realize that the question is actually provides an opportunity to explain the cost-cutting measures, which the advocate did (to some extent — she kept getting cut off), but jesus, could he have asked the question in a more sophomoric, belligerent way? By asking it he half seemed to present a forum for the advocate, and half to put her in a bind: “How do you know the future? What a bunch of idiot Dummycrats, making claims to knowledge about the future.”
And then he made the following argument: “why do the Democrats push for such silly things like trying to increase coverage? Don’t they realize that eliminating denials for pre-existing conditions and caps would solve 90% of the problems?”
I’m glad I’m not appearing on these radio shows. I would have blown up in his face at such flippant remarks like that, which are of course calculated to appeal to the low-information audience who thinks that there are only like at most 100 uninsured people in the whole US, none of whom are white, and must be outraged that we’re proposing to spend a trillion to get those 100 on board.
JHF
I LOVE this video and music!!!
Anyone who truly “gets” this is already on the road to how to live and prosper after all the shit comes down. Believe it.
Jess
Curse you, Anne Laurie! Curse you for all the money I just spent at iTunes!
Batocchio
I haven’t heard it called “paganfolk” before, but I own a fair amount of it, and sacred music. I have good memories of being in a period music group (we did mostly Renaissance) in college.
Kali
This is great stuff. I found several Faun albums–including Totem which has this song KaRuna–on i-Tunes. Thanks for sharing.
ellaesther
Hey!! That’s me!! I’m “commenter”! Wow. This is almost like being frontpaged! Now I have something to aspire to.
And I must say, the song that one of my translating friends led to was really rather awesome, so I’ll link to again here:
Palestinalied, which Morbo described as being “a rare medieval song which managed to have both the lyrics and music preserved into the modern day” — and then when I replied with “What does it mean? What does it mean?” Morbo said “the short answer is that it was originally Christian propaganda during the crusades. The long answer is I have no idea because everyone sings a different part of the song, the lyrics are in German, and Babelfish completely fails because they generally don’t include all the umlauts and capitalized nouns” — which totally cracked me up!
Heavy metal bagpipes, bitches!
celticdragon
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Celtic music is defined by certain types of ornamentation and use of traditional instruments while playing (mostly)traditional tunes from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, The Isle of Man, Galacia, Nova Scotia, and Brittany. Celtic reels don’t really sound like Klezmer reels becuase the ornamentation and structure is different. Also, tin whstles, Eillean Pipes and Celtic Harp can provide disticntly Celtic atmosphere.
celticdragon
@Svensker:
I play the harp, and I am always tearing at my fingernails to keep them as short as possible. Long fingernails lead to double-plucking the strings.
Joe Max
Also check out Sharon Knight for more “paganfolk” music with a bit more modern edge: sharonknight.net/
She also fronts a “celtic” rock band, Pandemonaeon, for something a little heavier: pandemonaeon.net/
There’s also the classic stuff from the 60s-70s, like Steeleye Span and Pentangle.
jetan
Everything sounds better with a little hurdy gurdy. Even “You Light Up My Life” could have been improved.