chillaxing

The weekend has come. It's still bitterly cold. The sun shines but decidedly glacially. I'll go out later this afternoon to see if there's anything good left after three weeks of official winter sales and three reductions already. For now, I'm amusing myself with various media, and I'm going to share.

Dick Cheney gave an interview on CNN. Renowned news analyst Jon Stewart interprets it for us here:

A Bengali photographer saved his skin just barely by coming to Germany. In Bangladesh some people apparently didn't like what he photographed and threatened to take his life. It's akin to killing the weatherman for the cold. Here are some of his photos. The first shows a kid strongly attached to his Koranic school - triggering fits of rage and threats of violence against the photographer but not against those running the school.

Lastly, two CDs I've been listening to lately. The first one is Emigrante by the Orishas, music that some call Cuban hiphop. I don't know, I don't listen to hiphop. I know that the band is composed of three or four guys who left Cuba for Europe and try to save their musical roots by recklessly transposing them into modernity, pumping up the beats, writing about being away from mother Cuba and singing with the force of a European winter day. It's to Compay Segundo what Irish coffee at San Francisco's Buena Vista Café is to a tall Starbucks.

The second CD is a musical riot by Mahala Raï Banda. Despite what you might guess from the name, they are not North African but Romanian. They supercharge their traditions by fusion with unlikely additions. On the CD, a Moldavian army brass bands duels with a Haiduk folk ensemble in a frenzied turmoil of unstoppable energy.