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February 24, 2006
test
test. this is a test.
Posted by Khodadad at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2006
Threshold
I have this thrilling sensation that I am living in a historically significant time. As a historian, it has always been a question for me whether people who lived during the Renaissance ever realized that they live in a historically definitive moment.
But right now, I have exactly the same feeling. The world seems to be going crazy and haywire. Many achievements of the last 400 years of human history are now easily ignored and seemingly established laws and norms are violated. Many other things seem to be hitting a dead-end. I have the nagging feeling that this is the time on which much ink will be spilled later.
We should all remember these days, so when our grandchildren ask us about it, we don’t have to answer that we did not pay attention. It should not be the same as the 1960’s and its “if you lived during the 60’s, you don’t remember it”.
Posted by Khodadad at 11:58 PM | Comments (2)
February 11, 2006
Musical Notation
Today was one of those days that renewed my faith in academia and reconfirmed my decision of being an academic, hopefully.
I atteneded a lecture given by a Cambridge University professor of Medieval English, Dr. Christipher Page, about the history of musical notation. He talked about an 11th century Italian monk named Guido of Arezzo who was a briliant musician and a perfect snob, in the true genius fashion. He thought that the method of learning songs at his time, basically learning a song by listening to it countless times, was inefficient and time consuming. He also knew that the musical notation at his time, basically content with marking the notes and showing pitch of the lyrics, was inefficient since it did not consider the passage of time and the relation of notes to the pitch. So, he created the five-bar musical notation system we know today and managing to record songs with it. As Dr. Page mentioned, Guido did not create the five bars, he created the "space", meaning that he thought of the use of the position of notes on the page and how the space between them shows passage of time and musical pitch. He was well received by Pope John XIX and was a widely read musician. He believed that his system saves a lot of time, since there is no need for continuous listening to a song for learning it, and it is also efficient since it preserves a song the way it was composed.
Among the interesting things mentioned was the matter of the importance of notation in musical composition. Before that, each new day, the composer had to remember the sections of a song he had worked on the day before, and of course one can not remember everything. So, the music was much simpler. However, after the creation of notation, a composer could record as complicated a song as he or she wanted and could compose and then add to it later as well. This allowed the writing of complicated and multi-layer music such as symphonies. As he said, witout Guido we could hardly have a Mozart.
He was also asked about the names of the notes: "do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si". He explained that Guido noticed that in solfage of the song Ut Quaent Laxis, the note at the beginning of each verse is one higher than the one before, so he took the beginning of each verse and named the notes after them. Then, without any preperation, he started singing Ut Quaent Laxis perfectly, as if in a church, and then sang the notes in perfect harmony! It was so impressive that people could not help themselves and burst into a roaring applause!
Afterward, I talked to him about my dissertation topic and he was so kind and well articulate and encouraging that I could hardly believe. I am glad I put aside the 2 hours and went and saw this amazing person and listened to his talk. This is how I imagined academia, and I am glad that I occassionally get to see it the way I imagined it!
Posted by Khodadad at 12:33 AM | Comments (1)
February 10, 2006
Not the drawing...
In this whole ridiculous matter of the cartoons of Mohammad and the disproportionate reaction to it in some countries, what most amazes me is the repetition of an inaccurate thing in all the Western media outlets.
I constantly read and hear that "Islamic law bans any depiction of Prophet Mohammad", somehow suggesting that the outrage is over drawing the man himself. No, it is not! I am nout sure which "Islamic" expert they have been consulting (Daniel Pipes?), but this supposed "law" is not as strong as it sounds!
Various portraits of Mohammad have been common in the Islamic world, ranging from picturing him while leaving the face blank, to full drawing of the (imagined) face. Even in the Middle Ages, as early as the time of the Abbasid caliphs, we have had works showing him and other religious figures (see these: one, two, three, four and this Medieval European painting of him).
No, the problem is that they are making fun of him, and they are equating him with the terrorists, and the person involved is not exactly the most neutral person around either. He certainly has ties to the neo-cons and also is a veteran of the Cold War and its mentality (see here and here).
So, the issue is not picturing Mohammad, it's retrojecting the issues and frustrations of today and equating present criminals with someone who lived 1400 years ago and for the better or for worse, is venerated by millions of people.
Posted by Khodadad at 12:05 AM | Comments (1)
February 06, 2006
Shit happens...
I am sure everyone has seen the now classic "Shit Happens..." joke.
I think in light of the recent events (this and this), I am going to re-write the Islam entry:
"If shit happens, we burn flags and vandalize places"
Posted by Khodadad at 02:36 PM | Comments (1)
February 05, 2006
Censor
I am seriously tired of censoring myself in the academia. Everytime I point out that something might have some sort of Iranian influence, I am made to feel like I am trying to say that evrything has an Iranian influence.
While there is no problem that every single book talking about the early Islamic history manages to mention every single Greek/Byzantine influence on various Islamic institutions, doing the same for the influences of the Sasanians/Iran buys you a faint smile on the faces of your collegues. Any little article on the Golden Age of Medieval Spain and its cultural prosperity under the Umayyad and others makes sure to point out the Jewish influence on that culture, but dare anyone mention that the basic Cordoban governing style was copied from the Sasanians.
Even if a direct "Greek" influence cannot be identified, say on the Kingdom of Hira which was a client kingdom of the Sasanians, the characteristics are identified as "Hellenistic", while the fact that the kingdom itself exists within an Iranian context is ignored! In the new, politically correct "lip service" paid to the "contributions" of non-Western cultures, the order goes from Byzantium to India and China, as if the whole Iranian Plateau and the Pamirs do not even exist.
The suggestion that the all important Theme system of the Byzantine Empire was implemented in the late 7th century and the possibility of it being copied from the Sasanian system, implemented 100 years earlier results in frantic headshaking. How could the "Greeks" copy Barbarians?
I have to get into an argument with a fellow PhD student about the matter of Julius Caesar as the "greatest military mind of history". My argument is, there are hundreds of studies done about Caesar and his successes against the Gauls and Britons (of course his failure against the Germans are conveniently dealt with in a line or two). So, we know a lot about Caesar. However, how much do we know about the military abilities of the empires which successfully stopped and often defeated the Romans? Can it not be that a General X was much more of a military genius than Caesar, but nothing was written about him? After all, Parthians and Sasanians managed to stop the various Mongol and Turkic tribes of Central Asian steppes from invading their territories for 800 years! Even the mighty Romans cracked within 300 years and lost their capital.
I know that this might sound childish or boring, but I am honestly frustrated about this whole thing. Why is it that mentioning Greeks and Romans and Jews and the Chinese and everyone else and their contributions are okay, but when we get to the Iranians, I should be embarrassed to mention them?
Posted by Khodadad at 02:31 AM | Comments (3)