Bosnian Epic Poetry

You have to admit this is just really cool - a website dedicated to the art of oral poetry:

http://oraltradition.org/zbm
Here is a snipet of a famous Bosnian oral epic with bilingual text and also a sound file to go with it.

My New Blog

OK in the attempt to become world famous - nah just kidding..... anyway here is my latest and greatest blog:

http://morselsofamusement.pnn.com

morsels of aMUSEment is based on the concept that I chat about everyday world news events through the lens of some of my favorite poetry. I've started off with a piece about the Iraqi bombings today with some allusions to one of my favorite poets of all time Yehuda Amichia - check it out.....

Mayan Gods and the Dresden Codex

I've been playing around with the Dresden Codex which for those of you who don't know is one of the few surviving documents from the Mayan Empire written in Mayan Glyphs. I started looking at a copy of the Codex for FREE which I found here:

http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/codices/dresden.html

along with a book I bought on amazon called "Commentary on the Maya Manuscript in the Royal Public Library of Dresden" by Ernst Forstemann. It begins with noting different types of Gods so I looked around on the Internet and found a list of Gods for FREE with glyph pics here:

http://www.pauahtun.org/DesktopIcons/DriveLetter.html#mglist

which I thought was pretty useful.

Book Review: Night Wraps The Sky

I never knew much about Russian Futurist Poet Vladimir Mayakovsky before reading this book. Only really that he was around in Russia's Silver Age of Poetry (which I LOVE by the way) and that he shot himself in the heart in 1930. It has been a long time since I really got excited about a book but this one has done it for me. It's an interesting blend of commentaries about his life and art from those who knew him as well as segments from his own writings. He is such a fascinating person a true tour de force. He had such a passionate nature that it really explodes off the pages. Such a tragedy how his belief in how socialism could change society for the better turned into such disillusioment with the Stalinist regime. Nevertheless I really find his radicalism and his passion to be inspiring. So much so that I'm on my way hunting about the net to find recordings of his poems and their Russian and English texts. Here is what I have so far:

You can find the book at amazon for around $15 - but your local Borders will have it too.

Here are some FREE recordings:

http://www.shanson-plus.ru/forums/index.php?showtopic=35164&hl=МаЯковский - Poems read by his longtime love Lilia Brik (the site is entirely in Russian and you do have to register in order to download it - but it's worth it everything on the site is FREE and they have some really great stuff that is hard to find anywhere else).

and this one in English

http://www.uvm.edu/~sgutman/mayakovsky.htm

Although it runs off Real Audio which I personally can't stand since I can't get it to run here at work where they try to block all my attempts to actually make productive use of my day. I prefer mp3s.

Beowulf Full Recording in Old English

Well it has taken me a really long time but I FINALLY found a recording of the entire Epic Beowulf read in Old English. The only down side is it will cost you $25. The good news it is really well done. Considering it is a really hard to come by item I think it is well worth the price. Here's the link for you:

http://fileserver.wheatonma.edu/mdrout/index.html

Latvian 7 Day Ring

I just bought a little Latvian 7 Day Ring for myself. I know the story behind it is that a woman had 7 suitors and after all the charms had fallen off she was married to the only suitor left. What I'm curious to know is what do the 7 different symbols on the ring stand for?? Anybody know??

Genghis Khan - The Secret Histories

I went to see the new Sergei Bodrov movie "Mongol" last weekend. It was pretty good and got me interested in the history of Genghis Khan. So I looked up "The Secret Histories" which was written by the Mongols themselves and later transliterated/translated by the Chinese in the 14th Century I believe. It is the Chinese versions that have survived history to tell us today about Genghis Khan. So I found this site:

http://www.elibrary.mn/index.php?module=book&bid=50&sec=audio

It is fascinating - the Secret Histories written in modern Mongolian (which is Cyrillic by the way) and it also has audio files. I'm sure most of us don't know how to speak Mongolian but it's really neat to be able to listen to one of the greatest sagas in history in Mongolian itself.

To help you out - look for the red buttons that start with "TAT" that is your download buttons for the audio and further to the top of that page you will also see the same word - that is your download for the text.

Tartar Language Resource

I'm curious about the Tartar language of the Russian Crimea. I heard some audio samples and thought it seemed extremely hard but interesting. Here's the only link I've run across so far for learning it:

http://www.tatar.com.ru/down.php

Unfortunately it is all in Russian but the link I've given you above is the page where they have some free stuff to download if you're curious.

Learning Esperanto

OK I know it's kind of a hippie concept - one language for all the world to speak but you have to admit it would be soooooo much easier!! So anyway I've gotten kind of hooked on Esperanto. I found this terrific site:

http://en.lernu.net/

It has so much stuff you won't know where to start at first. I recommend registering (it's an all FREE site so no need to worry about whipping out the plastic) because then they send you a guide as to where to start off and how to proceed from there.

I'm just in the baby stages but so far it looks like a really great resource. Sound files, exercises - the works.