on the road: my quest for the horned violin
Back in my reading-everything-about-Romania phase, I found an article about the horned violin played by Roma musicians. The article mentioned a fall targ (or market) that happens once a year near Cluj where the Roma (primarily Hungarian Roma) come together to sell their wares. While last year I was just getting used to Romania in […]
on my mind: Jim Wallis, Hello Dolly. . .
I was watching Jon Stewart the other day and there was a guest appearance by Rev Jim Wallis who has a new book out about values in America. At one point in the interview he talked about the current ideal that “greed is good” rather than the older adage of “enough is enough.” He of […]
earworm: music transplants
Recently I’ve heard two American tunes pop up in our Roman Catholic Mass as hymns and hearing these “music transplants” make me smile and warm my musical soul. The Sanctus (Holy, Holy) of our Mass is set to the tune of Go Down Moses. This tickles me to no end because here is an American […]
on the road: Anniversaries in Bucharest
We were fortunate to be in Bucharest for a few days before Christmas for a few important anniversaries. In December of 1989, a change/shift happened in Romania. Some call it a revolution; others have the view that it was a violent bit of theater. Regardless, the last weeks of December that year are historic. We […]
earworm: manele
Not surprisingly, one of the aspects of Romanian culture I’m most interested in is music. So here is the first post (hopefully of a series) on Romanian genres of music. The first up is manele music. While it is a far cry from Romanian folk, classical, or pop, manele is inescapable in Romania. It blasts […]