Klezmer, polka, and drones

On Sunday, July 11, 3-5pm SLT, I’ll be DJing for Riel Day for Life, a fundraiser for Relay for Life of Second Life. I’ll be picking up from “French Classical Music” at 3 and playing a set of Klezmer and polka, as requested by Frau Annechen Lowey, until 4. Then from 4-5, please join me in celebrating the vibration, the overtone, the rasp, the twang–yes, the drone, in all its varied glory.

Riel Day for Life is in support of the New Babbage RFL team.

Introducing World Wednesdays

I’m happy (and somewhat daunted) to announce that the premiere episode of World Wednesdays, a new weekly one-hour show on Radio Riel, will be tomorrow, January 7, 2009, at 6 pm SLT in Wyre. The show will be broadcast on http://music2.radioriel.org. Please join us or listen as you are able. A program schedule will be publicized on the Radio Riel calendar.

For this first show, I will be playing a variety of Klezmer and Klezmer-inspired musicians.

International SL

Today I was jumping around with the Registrator-Tron and came across OfficialGreece, with quite a nice Acropolis.

[photos lost, post left for the record of old sims]

To give you a sense of the scale:

In the same block of sims: GreeceOfficial2 and GreeceCommercialPark. And adjoining corners: Syros Greece and Digital Scotland. And then just to the east: polimnia, talia, urania, euterpe, terpsichore, clio, erato, PIAXXA ITALIA, and BEST OF ITALIAN. Quite the international neighborhood!

Upcoming chaos

In light of the upcoming seasonal adjustments to local clocks, I have added a page (linked above) that will show you what time (and day) it is in various parts of the world. (Radio Riel staff live in the United Kingdom, various time zones in the United States, and Australia. It’s not always even the same day!)

These clocks are courtesy of the useful site, World Time Server. FYI, you can also enter “time in wherever” into a Google search field, and it will give you the current time in that location.

Radio Riel today

Today’s From the Library is drawn from the musical traditions of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Scotland.

nyckelharpa photo by Olov JohanssonThe fiddle is the most common instrument used, but there are two regional variations you will hear: the nyckelharpa, a keyed fiddle from Sweden (left, photo by Olov Johansson); and the hardingfele, or Hardanger fiddle from Norway. Both the nyckelharpa and hardingfele have sympathetic strings, adding almost a drone to the music. The accordion, säckpipa or Swedish bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, and jaw harp make occasional appearances.

These instruments (and the composers of traditional tunes) have been placed at the service of dancers: vals, polska, hambo, schottis, polskamazurka, and marches. Whether 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4, the dominant style of scandinavian couple dances is smooth rotation. Dips, turns, and even walking are done with a lilting, controlled pulse. Sometimes known as “turning dances,” these dances often alternate a traveling portion done in an open or varsouvienne position and a turning portion done in a ballroom or barrel hold.

Radio Riel produces “From the Library” in conjunction with the Caledon Library in Second Life. Today’s music originates from the music library of Otenth Paderborn.

For more information on the Caledon Library, current exhibits and the work of Second Life reference libraries in general, please visit the Caledon Library Web site, or one of their locations in-world.

You can listen to the program at http://music.radioriel.org, or simply visit any Caledon Library branch in-world and press Play on your embedded music player.

Victorian politics

So far it only goes back to 1885, but eventually the online Sittings By Decade (Hansard) will go back to 1805.

Hansard, the Official Report, is the edited verbatim report of proceedings in both Houses of Parliament. Hansard is not a verbatim account of debates in Parliament. It seeks to eliminate “repetitions, redundancies and obvious errors”.

On language in SL and RL

I came across an interesting new (to me) blog, with a fascinating post, Avatar’s Mother Tongue, that also has a good comment thread. The premise?

As you probably concluded from all the missing articles and strange constructions of sentences, English is not my mother tongue. At least, it is not a mother tongue of human me.