The majority of my coworkers are heading home for the holidays, so there is an excitement about the air, somewhat bittersweet, as I will be here for the holiday season (Christmas not being an issue, but New Years w/ dear old friends is always nice) and just not going home to see everyone. Though I miss family and friends dearly, I’m not really homesick. I’ve never been one to get really homesick, brief spurts at most. One of the few benefits of melancholic misanthropy is that one’s mood doesn’t change much no matter where one is.
Besides Kabul tourism, I’ve found a new pastime, a painful one, more painful than Kabul tourism at least. As many of you all know, I’m a poser music dork, and definite music hoarder. Though I left my collection at home, with no reasonable way to bring 500+ cds w/ me, I did bring my external drive. So as difficult as it is, twice I have deleted most of the music off the laptop HD and put on new music from the external. I then force myself to go through the music—album by album, full song by full song. I’ve reacquainted myself with a few old favorites: Gallon Drunk, James, Op Ivy, Mano Negra (oh how I used to love Mano). And I’ve found that I really enjoy some music that I’ve overlooked, i.e. Led Zeppelin and Elton John. Though, of course, I still listen to way too much Talking Heads and Police (why I never burnt and didn’t bring that boxed set, I will never know...i may have to ask someone to send it to me).
****Also after a 4-year gap, the new Chocolate Genius album was dropped a few weeks ago. Of course, I recommend it to everyone. If you don’t like it, you should learn to. You will learn to. Of course, I haven’t found a track on the album as good as “My Mom”, the album is stellar nonetheless. The RnB is all over the place again, but much more up-tempo this time. Most surprisingly, its not an hour of scratchy whispered drunken baritone ramblings about a miserable, woe ridden drug riddled life.
But the pictures, I promised pictures...it might go over two posts cause there are quite a few. A
flickr account may be impending.
This is the King's Tomb in Kabul. A Khan is buried here.
His father off on the peak of an adjoining hill a few hundred yards away. I get the names mixed up. I will learn them before I leave.
The hill is a kite-flying hotspot. Kite sellers line the large plaza in front of the tomb.
A hillside chocked full of mud brick houses and an old wall running up the crest of it. Generally when you get out of the city’s center and off some of the main roads where a lot of reconstruction has and is happening, you really start to get a picture of how badly this city was ravished by the fight for control of it.There are more photos in the post below.
12 comments:
How are you posting pics w/o a flickr account?
E,
I point...and THEN i click. I try to take the shutter off before doing either. If your talking about the quality of the pictures on the post, bits wise, i think blogger takes quite large files. The speed at which they upload would indicate such.
S,
There is a little icon somewhere on the "create a post" window that brings up an picture upload pop-up. But it takes forever to upload the pictures, i'm hoping flickr is quicker.
Cool pics Quasim. One question- "shooters in the tail car" - I assume you mean the armed guards who follow you around, and not some esoteric postmodern reference? Just checking. If so, that's a very frightening tourist picture you just painted.
Glad to hear you are doing well. We miss you here. We both walked by SoHo yesterday and by force of habit looked in the window.
Be safe, KW
Hiya! Great photos? Can I pinch a couple to put on my blog?? I will reference you and refer to your blog. I particularly like the hillside houses one, and the view of the snow-capped hills.
And with music, I have over 1200 songs if you are interested. But I don't think we have much overlap in music taste. I have a lot of world, lounge, chill, punk and Australian music.
Vasco,
Pinch all the photos you want. I can send them to you too, if they don't come out well.
Music, I'm always up for more music. And if you happen to have any Garageland albums that I dont, I would love to grab those. I just like to hoarde music, so we'll have to do a swap sometime. I'll bring the harddrive around if you want to grab some of mine.
KW,
Your assumption is correct. An SUV filled w/ guys w/ AKs that, while protecting us, unfortunately make it obvious that we are a target, if there was any doubt. If this was some Lacanian reference to decentralized identity, I would have clarified. Or atleast namedropped like I just did.
Next time you walk by SoHo, can you ask someone if Evan P. is still working there and get his email address for me? Or pass him mine? Much appreciated if you get the chance to do this.
Hows the planning going? I'll drop an email.
qas, you mean so much to me that i clicked "always allow popups from this site" on my browser
you're welcome
tamer
i have another reminder of how much i mean to you tamer...i just found the delta blues mix you made me recently, and it has a wonderfully heartwarming "with love" on it. Unfortunately, it has no track names. You remember who it mostly consists of?...q
The fact that you claim to be this eclectic lover of music, hoarder of music, yet refuse to listen to Camp Lo and give it its proper due is infuriating. Uptown Saturday Night = brilliant.
Really.
Listen to it for what it is. Really listen. You'll see that it's not just music, but a way of life. I'll send it to you (by way of ones and zeros) if it has somehow escaped your grasp.
That is all.
I've listened to Uptown, but only on a superb, if not pristine, sound system. The infamous Thiel hook-up via Sykes. It was transcendental experience to put it gently. You were there, you forget so quickly? I don't want to corrupt that moment. I will forever cherish that moment. I will not let that moment be corrupted. I thank you for that moment.
I know you've listened to it. I was mostly there. As much as one could be in those conditions. Either way, you need to listen repeatedly, for hours on end. The madness will only lead to nirvana (not the Kurt Cobain type, but the utopian type).
Shoot it up Bronston. (You do realize that soon PositiveMode will also be inundating Kabulog with Camp Lo-related comments?)
Ahh. I remember those conditions. A much as one could in those conditions. I'll work on that nirvanna thing.
And yes, I realized that dropping you a line would bring all sorts of new "modes" to Kabulog. We'll see, well I'll see how wise that choice was.
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