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Had to put up just one more…

At 11pm every night during the Fes Festival, Morocco’s Sufi Brotherhoods would perform in a courtyard at a cultural center called Dar Tazi. These concerts were open to the public, although the cops seemed to be on high riff-raff alert, so the scene at the door was something like a velvet rope. The shows ran the gamut, from hypnotic a

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Another phenomenal moment with Tartit.

The most striking music I heard in Fes was by Tartit, a Tuareg (Tamasheq) ensemble from Mali. Two of the men played ngonis, which they tuned by adjusting tight leather straps with their thumbs. The women played hand drums; one of them would occasionally pour water on the cloth covering her instrument, resulting in a deeper tone. Her hands were

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I woke up in my own bed yesterday to the sound of a Philly garbage truck, and in my haze, I thought the sanitation workers were shouting in Arabic. I’d been in Fes, Morocco for only a week, yet my consciousness was pretty well altered. I’ve finally got it together enough to provide photo-album links on Shutterfly, not only of

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…and an unforgettable experience at the Fès Festival of World Sacred Music. Writing will ensue. But first, unpacking and regrouping. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

I’m going abroad tomorrow for a week. Posting will resume again soon.

That is the published view of Michael Goldfarb, John McCain’s new Deputy Communications Director, on the matter of torture techniques once practiced by the Khmer Rouge and the Soviet secret police. Another example of torture-opponent McCain’s lack of principle. By the way, it’s time to pull the mask off McCain’s “I was wrong” routine — his apology for backsliding on the

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