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Searching, propulsive, and deeply spiritual, Accordion Eulogies is an odyssey to repair a severed family lineage, told through the surprising history of a musical instrument Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez never knew his grandfather. Stories swirled around this mythologized, larger-than-life figure: That he had abandoned his family, and had possibly done something awful that put a curse on his descendants. About his grandfather, young Noé was sure of only one thing: That he had played the accordion. Now an adult, reckoning with the legacy of silence surrounding his family’s migration from Mexico, Álvarez resolves both to take up the instrument and to journey into Mexico to discover the grandfather he never knew. Álvarez travels across the US with his accordion, meeting makers and players in cities that range from San Antonio to Boston. He uncovers the story of an instrument that’s been central to classic American genres, but also played a critical role in indigenous Mexican history. Like the accordion itself, Álvarez feels trapped between his roots in Mexico and the U.S. As he tries to make sense of his place in the world—as a father, a son, a musician—he gets closer to uncovering the mystery of his origins.
Arranged alphabetically by subject and/or concept and richly illustrated, the present vademecum deals with various aspects of Arabic manuscript studies. A companion volume to my recently published The Arabic Manuscript Tradition (2001) and its Supplement (2008), this work constitutes an indispensible aid to students and researchers.
Elie Wiesel called the genocide of the Armenians during the First World War ‘the Holocaust before the Holocaust’. Around one and a half million Armenians - men, women and children – were slaughtered at the time of the First World War. This book outlines some of the historical facts and consequences of the massacres but sees it as its main objective to present the Armenians to the foreign reader, their history but also their lives and achievements in the present that finds most Armenians dispersed throughout the world. 3000 years after their appearance in history, 1700 years after adopting Christianity and almost 90 years after the greatest catastrophe in their history, these 50 ‘biographical sketches of intellectuals, artists, journalists, and others...produce a complicated kaleidoscope of a divided but lively people that is trying once again, to rediscover its ethnic coherence. Armenian civilization does not consist solely of stories about a far-off past, but also of traditions and a national conscience suggestive of a future that will transcend the present.’ [from the Preface]
In this New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, the son of working-class Mexican immigrants flees a life of labor in fruit-packing plants to run in a Native American marathon from Canada to Guatemala in this "stunning memoir that moves to the rhythm of feet, labor, and the many landscapes of the Americas" (Catriona Menzies-Pike, author of The Long Run). Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez worked at an apple–packing plant alongside his mother, who “slouched over a conveyor belt of fruit, shoulder to shoulder with mothers conditioned to believe this was all they could do with their lives.” A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first–generation Latino college–goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in. At nineteen, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group of Dené, Secwépemc, Gitxsan, Dakelh, Apache, Tohono O’odham, Seri, Purépecha, and Maya runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories alongside his own, Álvarez writes about a four–month–long journey from Canada to Guatemala that pushed him to his limits. He writes not only of overcoming hunger, thirst, and fear—dangers included stone–throwing motorists and a mountain lion—but also of asserting Indigenous and working–class humanity in a capitalist society where oil extraction, deforestation, and substance abuse wreck communities. Running through mountains, deserts, and cities, and through the Mexican territory his parents left behind, Álvarez forges a new relationship with the land, and with the act of running, carrying with him the knowledge of his parents’ migration, and—against all odds in a society that exploits his body and rejects his spirit—the dream of a liberated future. "This book is not like any other out there. You will see this country in a fresh way, and you might see aspects of your own soul. A beautiful run." —Luís Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels "When the son of two Mexican immigrants hears about the Peace and Dignity Journeys—'epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America'—he’s compelled enough to drop out of college and sign up for one. Spirit Run is Noé Álvarez’s account of the four months he spends trekking from Canada to Guatemala alongside Native Americans representing nine tribes, all of whom are seeking brighter futures through running, self–exploration, and renewed relationships with the land they’ve traversed." —Runner's World, Best New Running Books of 2020 "An anthem to the landscape that holds our identities and traumas, and its profound power to heal them." —Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River
Transport yourself to a country beyond the boundaries of civilization, where civil war rages and armed gangs rule the streets. This is a place of absolute poverty and despair, where the outermost provincial city lies in ruins, a desolate and barren city that resembles hell itself. On a frosty winter morning, Apollo is forced to leave his home by his wife, wandering the empty streets of the devastated city, cold and hungry. Seeking solace in his memories, Apollo recounts a series of surreal and diverse episodes, including a great love story, scenes of bizarre funerals, and countless unbelievable stories that could only have occurred in this forsaken city. Amidst the harshness of this day, Apollo experiences two strange encounters that will change his life forever. The first is a chance meeting with a dog, also abandoned and alone on the streets, who will ultimately save Apollo from certain death. Apollo names the dog Angel and they embark on a journey together. The second encounter is even more profound, as Apollo meets Esma, a person living on the margins of society, excluded from family and community. Esma’s story of humiliation, life in a totalitarian empire, and years spent in psychiatric facilities leaves a deep and lasting impression on Apollo, causing him to question everything he once believed. This captivating and haunting tale offers a poignant commentary on the human condition and the power of hope in the midst of darkness. Written with exquisite prose and a deep understanding of the human experience, it is a story that will stay with you long after the final page is turned.
Seeing Through Music levels the critical playing-field between film-music and so-called 'serious music', reflecting upon gender-related ideas about music and modernism as much as about film. It proposes a history of twentieth-century music that would include the scores of a number of the major Hollywood movies discussed here.
Former dancer Jacqui Malone throws a fresh spotlight on the cultural history of black dance, the Africanisms that have influenced it, and the significant role that vocal harmony groups, black college and university marching bands, and black sorority and fraternity stepping teams have played in the evolution of dance in African American life.
In The Tango Machine, ethnomusicologist Morgan Luker examines the new and different ways contemporary tango music has been drawn upon and used as a resource for cultural, social, and economic development in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In doing so, he addresses broader concerns about how the value and meaning of musical culture has been profoundly reframed in the age of expediency where music and the arts are called upon and often compelled to address social, political and economic problems that were previously located outside the cultural domain. Long hailed as Argentina s so-called national genre of popular music and dance, tango has not been musically or socially popular in Argentina since the late 1950s, and today the vast majority of Argentines consider tango to be little more than a kitschy remnant of an increasingly distant past. Nevertheless, tango continues to have salience as a potent symbol of Argentine culture within the national imaginary and global representations. Ultimately, Luker argues that tango in Buenos Aires is not exceptional, but in fact emblematic of musical culture in the age of expediency, where the value and meaning of music and the arts are largely defined by their usability within broader social, political, and economic projects. Luker tackles here some of the core conceptual challenges facing critical music scholarship; the book will be an important resource for readers in ethnomusicology and music, anthropology, cultural studies, and Latin American studies."