One created a kingdom of earth and became suffused with it.
One created a kingdom of one and hid himself in it.
One created a kingdom of love and filled it with two and a challenge to entice them.
One created a kingdom without number and became lost in it.
One created a hole and pondered in it.
One created a throne and a castle but rarely dwelled there.
One created a kingdom of mystery of awe and of wonder, and an ocean of tears all about it.
One created a kingdom of sorrow and filled it with souls of all manner of complexion and humour.

Between the kingdoms, there were seven paths.

One path led around a hill, and its passage could not be described.
One path was covered with water.
One path was hidden under earth and mountain.
One path was painted with letters, sygils, and symbols, mostly forgotten.
One path was so broad it was easily mistaken.
One path was too narrow, and surrounded by demons.
One path led back on itself when walked on facing forward

——-

with apologies to Tolkien, a riff on his “Verse on the Rings of Power”, this was inspired by some thoughts after reading Raphael Patai’s The Hebrew Goddess on the trancendent and imminent aspects of divinity.

A piyut (piyutim, pl. hebrew) is a sacred musical poem, sung as part of a communal prayer service but just as often after a good meal with friends and family. I was raised with these songs and tunes, learning a new one occasionally while eating as a guest at someone’s house, or at a weekend gathering, or in Israel at Yeshiva. I always hoped there was some archive because I was hearing quite a few of the common melodies and worried that there were likely thousands more that were fading into obscurity or limited by geography. (Ever wonder what shabbat tunes are kept in the piyutim of Kurdish Jews?) Then I stumbled on this site, piyut.org, which is just such an archive. I am so thankful. They even have something like a comprehensive collection of musical scales… I’m not certain what is meant by “musical scales” on this page, but I chose one at random and I found some musical expression that was completely new to me. I suspect that the music found on this site would also be appreciated by audionauts of sufi sacred music such as the Qawallis of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. But this archive is so diverse, I am still plumbing its depths of ancient sounds and their contemporary echoes.

I don’t know when this website was founded but from their about page it seems quite active with a passionate group of musicians, academics, and other scholars working on something they know is unique and essential to preserve and promote. This statement on that page summed it up nicely:

The vast majority of the poetic and musical creativity of the Jews emerged in various Diaspora communities during the past two millennia. Since the founding of the State of Israel and the immigration of the majority of these ancient Diaspora communities to Israel, large sections of the great tradition of piyut have been lost or forgotten. Finding access to the remnants that remain is not easy. The brief history of the modern period created, in many cases, a gap between the tradition of the past and the modern society and culture that developed in Israel. Tradition generally, and the legacy of piyut in particular, has stayed alive and meaningful only among a small portion of the Israeli population.
As time has passed, the need for people to connect with these roots has grown greatly. It is a need to access the voices calling from the depths of time, absorbed in emotion and wisdom of the many generations that sang these piyutim. We will widen and deepen our language and understand ourselves and our nation better as part of understanding our ancestors and their traditions better.

To change the ipod from shuffling songs to shuffling albums follow these steps:

1) Go ahead and shuffle your songs
2) Press the center button three times
3) select the shuffle setting you want (“songs”, “albums”, or “off”)

Once you have done this you will once again be able to change the shuffle setting via the ipod classic Settings.

For regular readers of this blog curious whatever happened to my 100gb Archos Jukebox/Rockbox player (blogged of here) a short note. The Archos is ok but (since soon after the periodic completion of this spaceling’s ambient solar orbit) the Archos took to rocking it with the Junkions on Planet Junk (at the bottom of my junk pile).

But looking back all nostalgia like for my tech-Gomi, the Archos Jukebox was an energy whore, that required me to lug around an AC adapter to service it’s unquenchable thirst for electrons. And it couldn’t shuffle albums.

“Shuffle Albums” was the killer feature I pined for in an mp3 player so when I discovered the ipods were capable of that (and the newer archos’ and cowons still could not) I shelled out for my little slice of Apple. (iTunes free thanks to Ubuntu Linux + Floola, I should add).

Why is shuffle albums so important? For the same reason that “Album List 2″ is an essential plugin for winamp — it provides for the ability to listen to a random album (just like those old giant 100 CD jukeboxes could). Industry folks talk about how the revolution of the mp3 was that it liberated tracks from the medium of “Albums.” Tracks could be listened to individually, mixed and shuffled at random, and most importantly, sold individually. But the medium of albums is still important for much of the music I listen to, whether it be Beethoven’s 9th Symphony or Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians: I want to listen to my tracks sequentially in the order suggested by the composer artist’s imagination. Or said differently: context matters, provenance matters, and please don’t use tech to manipulate art as a commodity.

The Archos is still accessible and usable and I’ll find a place for it in some future project. But aside from random firmware scares (see above shuffle surprise), I’m pretty damn pleased with this little apple unit. Wish Apple’d be more open with their firmware though and less jerky about opening up their tech to 3rd party itunes alternative ipod managers.