from a 17th C lute ms but really a piece for the clarsach as played here.
May 5, 2008 • 7:30 pm 0
farewell to whisky
• 6:17 pm 0
The Flowers of Edinburgh
Played by jerald1610
Also known as Blata Duin-Eudain, Da Flooers O’ Edinburgh, The Flower Of Edinburgh, Flowers Of Edinburgh, The Flowers Of Edinburgh Jig, Knuckle Down, My Love Was Once A Bonnie Lad, My Love’s Bonny When She Smiles On Me, To The Battle Men Of Erin.
I <3 this tune.
• 6:05 pm 0
The Flowers of the Forest
This is a famous Scots song usually played on the highland bagpipes but here very nicely as a lute song.
Filed under: culture, melancholia, music, scotland
February 17, 2008 • 6:45 pm 0
Today I was through in Glasgow for a Killy reunion. It was fun to meet all these people that I hadn’t been at school with, although it transpired that I’d tried to teach some of their offspring. One lady there was a member of another of Edinburgh’s Buddhist sanghas and she’d just been visiting the Portobello Priory (which is where I attend) last Friday. Another nice thing this same lady told me was that she’d given a eulogy at the Scottish Parliament for a recently deceased, long-standing member of the Edinburgh Buddhist scene. So this was an ex-Killy kid addressing the Scottish Parliament—which was one of John A’s great dreams (a Scottish Parliament that is).
I’ve not been through in Glasgow for a while and about the only place I always must visit when I do go through is Borders bookstore (to be American). However I defy anyone to go into that shop and not buy something (it’s much nicer than their Edinburgh shop), and today for me was no exception.
Leafing through one of my purchases on the train home I came across the following:
On a plaque attached to the NASA deep space probe we [human beings] are described in symbols for the benefit of any aliens who might meet the spacecraft as “bilaterly symmetrical, sexually differentiated bipeds, located on one of the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way, capable of recognising the prime numbers and moved by one extraordinary quality that lasts longer than all our other urges—curiosity.”
Yes that’s you (and me:)
I think that this is the plaque referred to:
Filed under: books, education, misc, science, scotland, today, trivia
February 16, 2008 • 4:05 pm 1
ansel adams lindsay robertson
I went to see the Ansel Adams:Celebration of Genius exhibition at the CAC today. It was busy.
When I bought my ticket I actually said “Anselm Adams please”, but really I knew very little about the man or his work. I came away very impressed by the photographs that I’d seen and by what I’d learned about the man. There was a most interesting documentary film which was very informative.
Lindsay Robertson is a Scottish photographer who has been inspired by Ansel Adams. There is an exhibition of his photos on show also.
Filed under: photography, scotland
• 9:24 am 0
Scottish Climate Change Bill
That’s why the Scottish Climate Change Bill is so important. It could provide the framework for a low carbon Scotland within the right timescale, and it could place Scotland as a world leader in tackling climate change.
Tackling Climate Change.
As a nation Scotland can lead the way
That would be terrific if it came about.
Filed under: climate change, politics, scotland
February 9, 2008 • 2:21 pm 0
Shinichiro Hori
Educator hopes to revive sister school in Scotland
So what I’ve heard on the grapevine is true—interesting!
“We hope that at the Scottish school, students will be able to meet various people with different ideas. It’s great if students can realize that they can communicate with each other as the same human beings, even though we speak different languages,” Hori said.
(I see the Japan Times piece is 2004, I’m a bit out of the loop I will admit:)
January 12, 2008 • 10:24 pm 0
Gaelic Psalm Singing | MetaFilter
Gaelic Psalm Singing | MetaFilter:
Gaelic Psalm Singing
January 11, 2008 6:08 AM
THE church elder’s reaction was one of utter disbelief. Shaking his head emphatically, he couldn’t take in what the distinguished professor from Yale University was telling him. ‘No,’ insisted Jim McRae, an elder of the small congregation of Clearwater in Florida. ‘This way of worshipping comes from our slave past. It grew out of the slave experience, when we came from Africa.’ But Willie Ruff, an Afro-American professor of music at Yale, was adamant – he had traced the origins of gospel music to Scotland.
The distinctive psalm singing had not been brought to America’s Deep South by African slaves but by Scottish émigrés who worked as their masters and overseers, according…
(Via .)
Please accept this invitation to listen to the example psalms—very beautiful, haunting, and moving, and providing one very good reason for preserving Gaelic culture.
