Regular readers will
know that the Chinese instrument, the guzheng,
is weapon of choice for half my home.
It’s a big stringed box, tuned to a pentatonic scale with frets set on
high bridges that allow for exceptionally deep bends. My good friend sent me a Youtube clip of a
young lady who is playing what must be the Korean name for a guzheng, referred to as a
“gayageum.” She refers to herself as
Luna and the clip has her wailing out Hendrix’ “Voodoo Chile, Slight Return:” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM7DQYCg03w
She looks marvelously cool, and confident with her headset
and her precision bends. I shared this
with my wife and daughter, the hardcore guzheng-ers
who were immediately into it. My daughter
dug in and found a version Luna has of Jimi’s “Little Wing” (attributed to the
Stevie Ray Vaughan cover on the Youtube clip) that is somehow even more
striking then the thunderous Voodoo Child.
The whole house is 含商咀征[1] with ancient Chinese, contemporary Korean,
Hendrix. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPtBdY5i8BA
Next thing I knew my daughter had her own pop song out and
was trying to pick out the tune, Luna-style.
Wonderful. Properly inspired I asked
to take a seat at the big old guzheng and
cranked up the ‘Electric Ladyland’ original and had a go myself. The pentatonic is essentially a blues scale
and it fits oddly well. It’s not to
hard to find the basic notes and pick out the rhythm and then with a little
practice you can bend and bend away. Ms.
Luna, I’m not sure precisely where you are but you’ve a household full of fans
over here in Beijing.
I avoid Facebook. But Luna does have a Facebook page,
appears to be from South Korea. She has
an album out on iTunes and has wished all her fans a Happy New Year. What a funny world we live in. OK. Go
Luna and go Korean soft power. Once
again Korea punches way above its weight.
That remarkable peninsula and its ability to communicate with the world,
to stay piercingly relevant, is going to be savings grace for reconciliation
between the two clumsy, giant neighbors, China and Japan.
Only drawback to this exercise is that Youtube gives you
dozens of “real” Hendrix videos you’ve never seen before arrayed on the side
and you’re drawn in to a Youtube distraction tangent, of “rock-porn” looking at
actual live Hendrix videos, from this show and that. This thread lead to a farm-league documentary
on “The Last 24 Hours of Jimi Hendrix” which, was only slightly more redeemable
than real-porn, raised lots of interesting questions, but answered few with any
degree of surety: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYEttnuZez0
.
The conspiracy theory hinted from recently released
COINTELPRO FBI docs was that Jimi was murdered, and that this had something to
do with his connections to the Black Panthers, to whom he was making donations
and whose leadership clearly were murdered by the U.S. government. And that the assassination was supported by the FBI, working in
collusion with the Mob and shady managers.
But in the same breath the piece suggests that all of Jimi’s money was
stolen by the same rapacious managers who left him with nothing and presumably he therefore had nothing he could donate to revolutionary causes, either. I found another article by his U.S. manager
that said it was all bosh and that stories were being made up to sell books. What are we
to make of all this? Certainly it does
seem that his character was besmirched in the days following his death with the
suggestion that heroine was involved, when it clearly was not. A black man reinterpreting the national anthem, to the nation's youth at Woodstock, may indeed made the likes of J. Edgar Hoover nervous. The internet is like a hydroponic hot-house
for conspiracies.
Normally it's a pretty dry gulch here around the DB. I’m pursuing this effort for me and myself
and I do nothing really to promote this Dustybrine blog, other than a daily tweet
and sending the occasional link to friends.
On a good day five or six people have a look. But today we had 133 page views. Hmm. I
realize it’s small-beer next to Korean soft power like Psy, but for a day at least, it would appear that my hermit’s
cell has, collected a little congregation. Cool. But wait . . .
Thoughts turn to conspiracies. Perhaps we have attracted the unwanted
attention of some local authorities.
Writing about the Beatles use of the Mellotrone yesterday and the lack
of snow. Yes, I think I see a
connection. It still hasn't snowed today, either. Odd.
Fortunately the “Blogger” interface upon which this is
hosted, lets you check the origin of all this new traffic and it would appear
that this newfound interest hails from the U.S. and a wee bit from Germany (?)
and Russia (??). Ahh, but maybe the
Chinese authorities are using a proxy server, tunneling out to the U.S. to
cover their investigative tracks. And
perhaps there is a connection to Lennon who played the Mellotrone and both his
and Jimi’s murder . . . Right. OK, well
whoever you are, here at the crossroads, I trust you’re enjoying things. Welcome.
Do etch in your thoughts below, if you like. It will help to settle the controversy.
Folks on a chat board at my Alma mata: The Fletcher School
of Law and Diplomacy, had posted this interesting Reuters article on the role
of EU an NATO countries supplying the Chinese military with differentiated
multi-use technology in opposition to the post-Tiananmen ban, set all the way
back in 1989. http://www.reuters.com/investigates/china-military/#article/part5 If this is the case with European
businesses, is the line really that more strictly towed by the U.S. businesses? If a PRC submarine has critical enabling
technology from Germany, is there really nothing differentiated onboard from
the U.S.? Sounds like another set of
people conspiring.
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