Haale Rocks City Hall

Last night the free concert series in City Hall Square in Redwood City featured Persian-American Stanford-grad Haale (pronounced HAH-leh) performing her "psychedelic Sufi trance rock." It was a complete coincidence that I ever heard about the concert. I was taking the boys to the city last Friday on the train and decided to leaf through one of the free rags at the train station. They had a story about her and mentioned the Bay Area shows. I checked her out on Rhapsody and was blown away by her music, especially "Ay Del" from her EP Paratrooper. She's like Niyaz with electric guitars and cello. I'm serious: the blistering solos on the songs are played by a cellist using a distortion box.

I drove down and checked out downtown Redwood City, which I haven't explored for a while. They're trying to revive it from its 70s decay: the huge megaplex is new and shiny, and there are some nice restaurants and shops moving in. I arrived early and saw Haale and her band setting up. Good as her music is, it doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous. But even after the sun went down she never took off her sunglasses.

The set was taken from her two EPs and new album No Ceiling:

1. Baz Hava
2. Middle of Fire
3. Chenan Mastam
4. Off Duty Fortune Teller
5. Navayee
6. Floating Down
7. Hastee
Intermission
8. Home Again
9. Ay Del
10. Mast

11. (Persian Chant)
12. No Ceiling
13. A Town On The Sea
14. Ay Dar Shekasteh

After the show I bought a CD and talked with Haale a little. I noticed that occasionally she wasn't fretting the guitar, so I asked her what tuning she uses. She tried to explain, but finally I just asked what the strings were tuned to, low to high. She uses an open C tuning (C-G-C-G-C-E) on her guitar to get that droning sound. I made a mistake and commented that "Ay Del" wasn't on her set list anymore, and she said, "We played it!" She patiently explained "Home Again" and "Ay Del" are played together, which explains why the second one seems to start rather abruptly when I've listened online. It must have seemed like I didn't even recognize my favorite song of hers, but come on, I'd only heard it for the first time the day before, and it's in Persian. It' s a poem from Attar:

"The Beloved is always ready and standing at the door

Open the window of your heart, be ready and alert for the Beloved."

I had to compliment the percussionist Matt Kilmer for sounding like such a full percussion section with so few instruments. Haale's music doesn't easily fit into any established categories; it's an unusual musical experience but ultimately rewarding.

The Origins of "Mau Mau"

There is much disagreement as to the origin of the name of the Kenyan peasant uprising which came to be known as the Mau Mau. It has no literal meaning in Gikuyu, the language of the tribe which led the rebellion. When I lived in Kenya I heard many unconvincing acronyms like "Mzungu Arudi Uingereza, Mwafrika Apate Uhuru," Swahili for "White man return to England, African get freedom."

The historical literature is divided. The only complaint I have with Edgerton's Mau Mau: An African Crucible is his take on the origin of the name. He gives too much credence to the theory of a Gikuyu "pig latin" for "uma uma," meaning "get out, get out," supposedly heard as the police broke up an oathing ceremony. Edgerton also calls it "plausible" that the term came from a mispronunciation of "mumau," the Gikuyu word for oath.

Compounding the problem is the fact that the movement was intensely secretive, with no manifesto, written records or public relations effort. Edgerton maintains the supposed public head of the Kenyan independence movement, Jomo Kenyatta, was never a member of the Mau Mau and was in fact opposed by many members of the Mau Mau before and after independence. This would explain (for example) why no Mau Mau veterans ever regained their land or received any benefits (two widows did), and why former Mau Mau detainee J. M. Kariuki was abducted and murdered by the police under Kenyatta's dictatorship. Lucy's mother still maintains her silence 45 years after taking her oath.

The rebellion was a largely tribal undertaking, and serious business among Kikuyus is conducted in a sort of code, inscrutable to outsiders. But Karari Njama was a schoolteacher and therefore one of the educated (in the Western sense) members of the rebellion. In Mau Mau From Within, he writes, "To the best of my knowledge, the members of the Movement never used this term when talking amongst themselves about their Society.... It was simply never accepted by the Africans involved in the Movement as being anything more than the white man's name for their association."

So when and why did the white settlers come to use the term? Njama considers many origins, but traces it to a trial in Naivasha in May, 1950, of a group of Kenyans, mostly Kikuyu, who were accused of taking the oath. One of the accused identified the elders who administered the oath as the "Kiama kia Mau Mau."

Njama quotes another informant: "Mau mau was not a widely known word among Kikuyu. Its only meaning was 'greedy eating,' sometimes used by mothers to rebuke children who were eating too fast or too much. In my location..., however, it was also used occasionally when talking about certain elders who, when called to hear a case by the chief, were more interested in the few shillings or goats they would receive than in dispensing justice. These elders often magnified the seriousness of the case they were hearing in order to get from the guilty person a fine of a goat or lamb, which they would then slaughter, roast and eat... as if they were merely carrying out traditional Kikuyu legal practices. Earning a reputation for being greedy, these elders were sometimes called the 'Kiama kia Mau Mau,' or 'Council of Greedy Eaters.' It is my belief that the man who used the term 'Mau Mau' at the Naivasha Trial was referring to the men who administered the oath as bad elders, who wanted only his initiation fee and the feast of a goat...."

So the white people heard the oaths were administered by the "Mau Mau Council" and thought it was the name of the movement. By August, 1950, the rebellion was being referred to as Mau Mau in all the white press, so the timeline is accurate. The whites had a history of misinterpretations and mispronunciations in Kenya (including the name of the country itself), and Lucy considers this explanation plausible. For an interesting depiction of Kenya during "the Emergency," check out the movie "Kitchen Toto" if you can find it.

Matters Of State

Yesterday we jetted over the ridge to Half Moon Bay, where it's at least ten degrees cooler and the boys enjoyed a record-breaking three and a half hour romp in the still-freezing Pacific. On the way we were stuck behind an SUV with Utah plates. I couldn't help but notice that state gets an unfair advantage by adding an exclamation point to its name, which should be brought to the attention of someone of authority. Does Utah think it's so exciting, important or emotionally significant that it warrants some possibly unconstitutional punctuation? On top of that is the plate's command to "Ski Utah!" which I would ordinarily ignore but the exclamation point makes it persuasive to the point of coercion. We're definitely going this winter.

I would also like to see the research supporting the "Greatest Snow On Earth" claim.

They're Putting Me On

A sketch I wrote will be performed at the "You Wrote It, LIVE" event at the Improv Asylum in Boston's North End. It's called "The Ex-Tutor," and I have to admit it was inspired by all the years I've been a math tutor and ex-tutor. I'd love to see my star pupil/actress in the role of Ashley, and I'd love to see myself in the role of getting paid to write this silly stuff. What else can I do with a brain that's incapable of being serious?

Update: Here's the video of the performance. The cast was awesome. They departed from my script at the end, but I really enjoyed it!

Nine Heavens

The long-awaited new Niyaz album just arrived! Nine Heavens is a 2-disc offering: one disc of their electronic updating of Persian-Turkish folk songs, the other disc containing unplugged versions of the same songs. I started with the unplugged disc and it's intense. Niyaz belongs to a much-needed but little-appreciated niche between New Age and world music. Imagine Persian music, slowed down slightly to groove to our American ears, with heavy African drumming. Or don't.

They're fronted by singer Azam Ali, the workaholic who for years made exotic, Middle-East-influenced electronica with the new age duo Vas. She's released two solo albums and her haunting voice was featured to great effect in the soundtrack to the movie 300. Loga Ramin Torkian, the composer from the mathematically-named world group Axiom of Choice, plays every instrument known to man with a string on it and would be the only saz player worth hiring even if he weren't Azam's baby daddy. Grammy-nominated electronic musician/producer Carmen Rizzo rounds out the lineup again. Let's hope they get nominated for this album and the Grammy doesn't go to Enya again.

The songs are Persian, Urdu or Turkish folk songs, updated for the 21st century with pounding drums and electronic effects. The lyrics on the first album were taken largely from Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi, but this time other poets like Khwaja Mir Dard (Urdu - 18th century) and Amir Khosrow Dehlavi (Persian - 13th century) get the trance rhythm treatment. Niyaz is the Persian (and Urdu) word for "need" or "yearning," symbolic of the mystic longing for one-ness with the Beloved, God, the Higher Self, Reality. So far the song that really stands out is "Ishq - Love and the Veil," from a poem by Khwaja Mir Dard:

I was the veil that hid the face of my beloved
Once awakened there was no longer a veil

Is mysticism inextricably religious? To many people religion is a set of rules and a conditioning machine. To me all religions originated in somebody's experience of the reality beyond the ego, no matter how they were misused after that. I believe the mystic poets when they say terms like "love" and "heaven" refer to realities hard to describe to us folks still in the prison of Shah's story (see my previous post). How ironic that I got this terrific album with an Amazon gift card from my atheist brother.

Sorry that the only videos available from this incredible group are over a year and a half old. Here's them performing "Allahi Allah" live. It's my favorite song off their first album. Even my bro could get behind some of the lyrics: "Walk the ways of Truth / Don't hurt another / Say the name of the One." Niyaz write that their hope is to "elevate the mass perception towards Iranians and people of Middle Eastern descent during such tumultuous times." I agree more people should be hearing their message.

Prison Psychosis

My contribution to my brother's discussion group. It's from Idries Shah's Caravan of Dreams. Just don't use the m-word.

Prison

Visualize a man who has to rescue people from a certain prison. It has been decided that there is only one promising way of carrying this out.

The rescuer has to get into the prison area without attracting attention. He must remain there relatively free to operate, for a certain period of time. The solution arrived at is that he shall enter it as a convict.

He accordingly arranges for himself to be apprehended and sentenced. Like others who have fallen foul of this particular machine in this manner, he is consigned to the prison which is his goal.

When he arrives he knows that he has been divested of any possible device which could help in an escape. All he has is his plan, his wits, his skills and his knowledge. For the rest, he has to make do with improvised equipment, acquired in the prison itself.

The major problem is that the inmates are suffering from a prison psychosis. This makes them think that their prison is the whole world. It is also characterized by selective amnesia of their past. Consequently they have hardly any memory of the existence, outline and detail of the world outside.

The history of our man’s fellow-prisoners is prison history, their lives are prison lives. They think and act accordingly.

Instead of hoarding bread, for instance, as escape provisions, they mould it into dominoes with which they play games. Some of these games they know to be diversions, others they consider to be real. Rats, which they could train as a means of communication with the outside, they treat instead as pets. The alcohol in the cleaning-fluid available to them they drink to produce hallucinations, which delight them. They would think it sadly wasted, a crime even, if anyone were to use it to drug the guards insensible, making escape possible.

The problem is aggravated because our malefactors have forgotten the various meanings of some of the ordinary words which we have been using. If you ask tem for definitions of such words as “provisions,” “journey,” “escape,” even “pets,” this is the kind of list which you would elicit from them:
Provisions: prison food.
Journey: walking from one cell-block to another.
Escape: avoiding punishment by warders
Pets: rats.

“The outside world” would sound to their ears like a bizarre contradiction in terms;
“As this is the world, this place where we live,” they would say, “how can there be another one outside?”

The man who is working on the rescue plan can operate at first only by analogy.

There are few prisoners who will even accept his analogies, for they seem like mad babblings.

The babblings, when he says, “We need provisions for our journey of escape to the outside world,” of course sound to them like the following admitted nonsense:

“We need provisions – food for use in prison – for our journey – for walking from one cell-block to another – of escape – to avoid punishment by warders – to the outside world – to the prison outside...”

Some of the more serious-minded prisoners may say that they want to understand what he means. But they do not understand outside-world language any more...

When this man dies, some of them make of his words and acts a prison-cult. They use it to comfort themselves, and to find arguments against the next liberator who manages to come among them.

A minority, however, do from time to time escape.

I've always been fascinated by psychology, and this story reminded me of a few things. One was the excellent memoir No Picnic on Mount Kenya, written by an Italian who was imprisoned in British East Africa during WWII. He found the prison psychosis affecting his fellow prisoners so unbearable he decided to escape and climb Mount Kenya with equipment made from articles found in the POW camp! Just as unbelievable is the fact that the map they used (at left) was the label from their prison rations.

I was also reminded of the Stanford Prison Experiment, in which 12 college students volunteered to be imprisoned in the basement of the university's psychology building to study the psychology of imprisonment. The simulation became so real for the volunteer prisoners and guards that the experiment was abruptly terminated. Many prisoners had completely assumed their prison identities, had forgotten they were students and that they had volunteered for the experiment, that they had the option of ending their involvement at any time.

I suggested we leave, but he refused. Through his tears, he said he could not leave because the others had labeled him a bad prisoner. Even though he was feeling sick, he wanted to go back and prove he was not a bad prisoner.

At that point I said, "Listen, you are not #819. You are [his name], and my name is Dr. Zimbardo. I am a psychologist, not a prison superintendent, and this is not a real prison. This is just an experiment, and those are students, not prisoners, just like you. Let's go."

He stopped crying suddenly, looked up at me like a small child awakened from a nightmare, and replied, "Okay, let's go."

This transformation on the part of the prisoners, guards, and Dr. Zimbardo, the "superintendent," had taken only 6 days. Could we "non-prisoners" possibly be suffering from a similar psychosis or hemianopia?

Love, Love, Love

Caught Eureka's own Sara Bareilles on Letterman a few weeks ago and can't get her song Bottle it Up out of my head. As in Love Song, Sara spices her jazzy pop with a dollop of frustration with how some people want to guide her career (already?). If I'm not mistaken, she "borrows" the "love, love, love" melody, slowed down, from the Beatles' All You Need is Love, but redeems herself with lyrics like: "Soon as you start to make room for the parts that aren't you it gets harder to bloom in a garden of love."

Bottle It Up is one of those rare love songs on the charts that's not talking about the same old I-love-you-why-don't-you-love-me drama. There are a couple of songs on Sara's album that mention Love but are obviously referring to a whole nutha level. So the reference to the Beatles song is appropriate. Lately I've been experiencing a lot of coincidences related to the concept of Love. I have Sara to thank for reminding me of all the Sufi poets who wrote hundreds of years ago of their gardens and the importance of Love:

He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.
-Fariduddin Attar (12th-13th century)