VÍCTOR JARA: THE RIGHT OF LIVING IN PEACE

Víctor Jara and his guitar

Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez (28 September 1932 – 16 September 1973) was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter, and political activist. A distinguished theatre director, he developed Chilean theatre by directing a broad array of works, ranging from locally produced Chilean plays, to the classics of the world stage, to the experimental work of such playwrights as Ann Jellicoe. He also played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric musicians who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement; this led to an uprising of new sounds in popular music during the administration of Salvador Allende.

Shortly after the Chilean coup of 11 September 1973, Jara was arrested; he was tortured under interrogation and ultimately shot dead. His body was later thrown out into the street of a shanty town in Santiago.

The contrast between the themes of his songs, on love, peace and social justice and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a potent symbol of struggle for human rights and justice for those killed during the Pinochet regime.

More information: Víctor Jara's Foundation

Where everything comes and where it all begins, 

the song that has been always brave will be a new song.

Víctor Jara

BLUES: AMERICAN CHORDS OF SADNESS & MELANCHOLY

Blues was born in Mississippi Delta

Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African-American work songs and European-American folk music. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes or worried notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also an important part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.

More information: American Blues Scene

Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society.

More information: Blue Radio Stations

Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa. The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later, the development of juke joints. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves.

More information: National Blues Museum of Sant Louis, Missouri

Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock evolved.

B.B.KING

B.B.King in a concert

Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer, electric guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. King introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that influenced many later electric blues guitarists.

King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and is considered one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, earning the nickname The King of the Blues, and one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" along with Albert King and Freddie King. King was known for performing tirelessly throughout his musical career, appearing at more than 200 concerts per year on average into his 70s. In 1956, he reportedly appeared at 342 shows.

On May 14, 2015, King died and his body was flown to Memphis. The funeral procession led down Beale Street, with a brass band marching in front of the hearse, playing When the Saints Go Marching In, as mourners called out BB. Rodd Bland, son of the late blues singer Bobby Blue Bland, carried the latest iteration of King's famous guitar Lucille. Thousands lined the streets to pay their last respects. His body was then driven down Route 61 to his hometown of Indianola, Mississippi.

More information: B.B.King

I was born on a plantation, and things weren't so good. 

We didn't have any money. I never thought of the word 'poor' 'til 

I got to be a man, but when you live in a house 

that you can always peek out of and see what kind of day it is, 

you're not doing so well.

 B.B.King

AGATHA CHRISTIE: LOVE, MYSTERY, CRIME & CRITICISM

Hercule Poirot

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott including Giant's Bread, but she is best known for the 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections that she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around the investigative work of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Parker Pyne, Ariadne Oliver, Harley Quin/Mr Satterthwaite and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. 

She wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap. In 1971 she was made a Dame for her contribution to literature. Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. She served in a hospital during the First World War before marrying and starting a family in London. She was initially unsuccessful at getting her work published, but in 1920 The Bodley Head press published her novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring the character of Hercule Poirot.

This launched her literary career. The Guinness Book of World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind only William Shakespeare's works and the Bible.

More information: Agatha Christie Official Web

I married an archaeologist because the older I grow,
the more he appreciates me.

 Agatha Christie

HOMO ERGASTER: THE WORKING MAN

Homo Ergaster

Homo Ergaster, working man, is an extinct hominid species or subspecies, according to some authorities, which lived throughout eastern and southern Africa between 1.9 to 1.4 million years ago with the advent of the lower Pleistocene and the cooling of the global climate.

Homo Ergaster is sometimes categorized as a subspecies of Homo Erectus. It is currently somewhat controversial whether Homo Ergaster or the later, Asian H. erectus was the direct ancestor of modern humans. The genetic variability among modern Homo Sapiens is greatest in Africa, which suggests strongly that this is the area where the species arose and has had most time to accumulate variation. Homo Ergaster may be distinguished from Homo Erectus by its thinner skull bones and lack of an obvious sulcus.

Derived features include reduced sexual dimorphism; a smaller, more orthognathic face; a smaller dental arcade; and a larger (700 and 850cc) cranial capacity.

More information: Brad Shaw Foundation

It is estimated that Homo Ergaster stood at 1.9m (6ft3) tall with relatively less sexual dimorphism in comparison to earlier hominins.

Remains have been found in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa. The most complete Homo Ergaster skeleton ever discovered was made at Lake Turkana, Kenya in 1984.

Paleoanthropologists Richard Leakey, Kamoya Kimeu and Tim White dubbed the 1.6 million year old specimen as KNM-WT 15000, nicknamed Turkana Boy. The type specimen of Homo Ergaster is KNM ER 992; the species was named by Groves and Mazak in 1975.

The species name originates from the Greek Ergaster meaning Workman. This name was chosen due to the discovery of various tools such as hand-axes and cleavers near the skeletal remains of Homo Ergaster. This is one of the reasons that it is sometimes set apart distinctly from other human ancestors. Its use of advanced, rather than simple, tools was unique to this species.

Homo Ergaster tool use belongs to the Acheulean industry and first began using these tools 1.6 million years ago. Charred animal bones in fossil deposits and traces of camps suggest that the species made creative use of fire.

More information: EFossils

To investigate the history of man's development, 
the most important finds are, of course, hominid fossils.

Richard Leakey

TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1204: THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Fourth Crusade: The fall of Constantinople

While many Western countries believe that Friday the 13th is an ominous day, it is Tuesday the 13th that Greeks, like the most part of Mediterranean countries, fear the most. Misfortune and calamity struck with the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade on Tuesday, April 13, 1204 paving the way for the Fall of the city to the Ottomans many Tuesdays later on Tuesday, May 29, 1453.

Add the numbers, however 1+4+5+3 and you get the full sum of 13. Coincidence? Greeks don’t think so!

Wait, there’s more…

The Greek word for Tuesday (Triti) means “Third”, adding weight to the superstition that bad luck comes in threes. Tuesdays are also viewed as being dominated by the influence of Mars, the god of war.

As for 13, Greeks believe that it spoils the perfection of 12 e.g. the 12 Greek gods, 12 months, 12 hours of the day and 12 hours of the night, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 signs of the zodiac etc. In fact, Philip II of Macedon died shortly after he erected his own statue next to those of the 12 Olympian gods.

In Christianity, the 13th chapter of the Revelation is the one that brings up the coming of the Antichrist.

As you know, The Grandma is battling against the Antichrist. The fight continues and nothing better than two new chapters about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a terrorific story to take energy. 

So today, beware, there’s evil lurking everywhere!

During the crusades all were religious mad,

and now all are mad for want of it.

J.G.Stedman

JOHN CALVIN & THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION

John Calvin

John Calvin (1509–1564) was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism, aspects of which include the doctrine of predestination and the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation. In these areas Calvin was influenced by the Augustinian tradition. Various Congregational, Reformed and Presbyterian churches, which look to Calvin as the chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throughout the world. 

Calvin was a tireless polemic and apologetic writer who generated much controversy. He also exchanged cordial and supportive letters with many reformers, including Philipp Melanchthon and Heinrich Bullinger. In addition to his seminal work Institutes of the Christian Religion, he wrote commentaries on most books of the Bible, as well as theological treatises and confessional documents. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530.

The Geneva Bible

After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestantism in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where he published the first edition of the Institutes in 1536. In that year, Calvin was recruited by another Frenchman William Farel to help reform the church in Geneva, where he regularly preached sermons throughout the week. 

The city council resisted the implementation of Calvin's and Farel's ideas, and both men were expelled. At the invitation of Martin Bucer, Calvin proceeded to Strasbourg, where he became the minister of church of French refugees. 

He continued to support the reform movement in Geneva, and was eventually invited back to lead its church in 1541. Calvin died in 1564. At first his body was laid in state, but since so many people came to see it, the reformers were afraid that they would be accused of fostering a new saint's cult. On the following day, he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Cimetière des Rois. While the exact location of the grave is unknown, a stone was added in the 19th century to mark a grave traditionally thought to be Calvin's.

More information: Calvinism (The Theopedia)

The torture of a bad conscience
is the hell of a living soul 

John Calvin