~ Scan my interest list and pick out the one that seems the most odd to you. ~ I'll explain it. ~ Then you post this in your journal so other people can ask you about your interests.
Aahhh... trying to get two-for-one, I see! Well, I'm willing to answer both questions.
The Melungeons are a mixed-race peoples (a culture of disappearance as some have called them [for this general construct, see Sakolsky and Koehnline, editors, Gone To Croatan: Origins Of North American Dropout Culture for a discussion of other such "invisible peoples" in the United States]) of the southeast US (specifically, the southern Appalachians, along the Tennessee/Virginia border) who have only come to wide attention in the past 10 years or so. Their exact origins are still a matter of some controversy. The best place to look for a starter course is: http://www.melungeon.org/?BISKIT=2416851145&CONTEXT=cat&cat=10005 If you look up "melungeon" in google, you will get a lot of hits---many of which are garbage, and many more of which are dead links. It is a fascinating topic, but not one that has a simple answer
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WOW...I'm glad I asked those questions, both answers are intriguing. I will definitely be investigating those links when I get a chance....and who knew they'd both be connected with the upper South/mid-Atlantic region?
Yes, it's a fascinating area. That general area is also the sight of origin of the Ben Ishmael Tribe of Indiana, a mixed-race, vaguely Muslim group which formed a settlement on the White River in Indiana, which eventually became Indianapolis. They moved up from the middle southeast to the area which is now Cincinati at the end of the 18th century, at which point the Tribe split into different clans, some of which returned to the southeast (and the darkness of history), the rest continuing to the northwest. From the White River settlement, they began a seasonal migration that took them north to the Kankakee River in the Spring, to the area of Champaign-Urbana, IL 'til Autumn, and then back due east to the White River for the Winter. They remained there until the early 20th century, when the state of Indiana passed the nation's first eugenic sterilization law designed specifically to get rid of them. The clans broke-up, and many of them ended up in Chicago and Detroit---two cities which became very important in the early history of
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Good question, Frank. If you are much of a blues fan, especially the Delta Blues, or the Chicago Blues that derived there from, you've probably heard reference to mojo hands, as in the Muddy Waters song "I Got My Mojo Working". For more, see The Lucky W Amulet Archive online, which is where I get all my HooDoo supplies, including my own personal mojo hand---it is essential that any mojo hand be personalized for the specific individual, since it works on the principle of "sympathetic magic". See this specific page on the Lucky W site: http://www.luckymojo.com/mojo.html
In March of 1913, an extraordinary show took place at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City. More than 1,000 pieces of art from some 300 European artists were shown, and this was a major introduction for the American public to European Modern Art.
Hobohemian is just a contraction of hobo and bohemian. It was used---still is used to some degree---to denote those intentional hobos who were also fellow travellers with the radical and avant-garde communities in the US in the early 20th century.
Aahhh... that romantic image of the opium den! The source of my interest here can be traced back to Nick Tosches' extraordinary book The Last Opium Den. Originally written for "Vanity Fair", in which it appeared with a great selection of illustrations from late 19th and early 20th century pulp magazines and books. He envisions the opium den thus: "dark, brocade-curtained, velvet-cushioned places of luxurious decadence, filled with the mingled smoke and scents of burning joss sticks and the celestial, forbidden, fabulous stuff itself. Wordless, kowtowing servants. Timelessness. Sanctuary. Lovely loosened limbs draped from the high-slit cheongsams of recumbent exotic concubines of sweet intoxication."
Probably not very realistic. The evidence---historical, anthropological, biographical, etc.---suggests it was almost always quite different. Nonetheless, the image has a romance and a beauty to it.
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Also, what oh what is moorish science?
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Aahhh... trying to get two-for-one, I see! Well, I'm willing to answer both questions.
The Melungeons are a mixed-race peoples (a culture of disappearance as some have called them [for this general construct, see Sakolsky and Koehnline, editors, Gone To Croatan: Origins Of North American Dropout Culture for a discussion of other such "invisible peoples" in the United States]) of the southeast US (specifically, the southern Appalachians, along the Tennessee/Virginia border) who have only come to wide attention in the past 10 years or so. Their exact origins are still a matter of some controversy. The best place to look for a starter course is: http://www.melungeon.org/?BISKIT=2416851145&CONTEXT=cat&cat=10005 If you look up "melungeon" in google, you will get a lot of hits---many of which are garbage, and many more of which are dead links. It is a fascinating topic, but not one that has a simple answer ( ... )
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Good question, Frank. If you are much of a blues fan, especially the Delta Blues, or the Chicago Blues that derived there from, you've probably heard reference to mojo hands, as in the Muddy Waters song "I Got My Mojo Working". For more, see The Lucky W Amulet Archive online, which is where I get all my HooDoo supplies, including my own personal mojo hand---it is essential that any mojo hand be personalized for the specific individual, since it works on the principle of "sympathetic magic". See this specific page on the Lucky W site: http://www.luckymojo.com/mojo.html
That should help.
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you and the community "williamwilliams" are the only two users with this interest.
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Yes, I know that.
In March of 1913, an extraordinary show took place at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City. More than 1,000 pieces of art from some 300 European artists were shown, and this was a major introduction for the American public to European Modern Art.
See: http://rds.yahoo.com/S=2766679/K=%22armory+show+of+1913%22/v=2/SID=e/l=WS1/R=2/IPC=us/SHE=0/H=1/SIG=12bql2gqf/EXP=1106270683/*-http%3A//xroads.virginia.edu/~MUSEUM/Armory/entrance.html
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okay, that left me speechless. i'm going off to peruse european modern art for a while now.
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I sometimes try to imagine what it must have been like to be there when that show opened. What a time to have been alive!
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Hobohemian is just a contraction of hobo and bohemian. It was used---still is used to some degree---to denote those intentional hobos who were also fellow travellers with the radical and avant-garde communities in the US in the early 20th century.
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For more, follow these links:
www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/143783.html
xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/White/hobo/chapter2.html
hobo.web-log.nl
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/White/anthology/hobo.html
Also see two books from Charles H. Kerr books, Hobohemia, by Frank O. Beck and From Bughouse Square To Beat Generation by Slim Brundage.
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Aahhh... that romantic image of the opium den! The source of my interest here can be traced back to Nick Tosches' extraordinary book The Last Opium Den. Originally written for "Vanity Fair", in which it appeared with a great selection of illustrations from late 19th and early 20th century pulp magazines and books. He envisions the opium den thus: "dark, brocade-curtained, velvet-cushioned places of luxurious decadence, filled with the mingled smoke and scents of burning joss sticks and the celestial, forbidden, fabulous stuff itself. Wordless, kowtowing servants. Timelessness. Sanctuary. Lovely loosened limbs draped from the high-slit cheongsams of recumbent exotic concubines of sweet intoxication."
Probably not very realistic. The evidence---historical, anthropological, biographical, etc.---suggests it was almost always quite different. Nonetheless, the image has a romance and a beauty to it.
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