Le cygne (The Swan): Camille Saint-Saens

I couldn't think of a better way to end the month. I adore Saint-Saens' music, being as influenced as he was by two of my favourite composers, Sebastian Bach and Amadeus Mozart. Saint-Saens famously wrote,

"What gives Sebastian Bach and Mozart a place apart is that these two great expressive composers never sacrificed form to expression. As high as their expression may soar, their musical form remains supreme and all-sufficient".

Camille Saint-Saens (9 October 1835 – 16 December 1921), was a French late-Romantic composer and he is known especially for his 'Carnival of the Animals', a musical suite of fourteen movements, most of which relate to various members of the animal kingdom, from the Lion and the Tortoise, to birds, (Aviary) and fish, (Aquarium). Le cygne (or The Swan in English) is the 13th movement and is the most famous movement of the suite. Enjoy..

Man's inhumanity 2: Burned alive by angry mob..

I came across this story titled Gay African Man Beaten, Burned Alive by Angry Mob (Extremely Graphic Video) in which the assertion was repeatedly made that the victim of this gruesome incident captured on film was a gay man, beaten and burned alive because of his sexuality. At the same time, the story points out at length that nobody knows who the victim is, or even in which country the incident occurred. The only thing the author seemed to know for sure is that the victim was a gay man.

Well, I am way too squeamish to have watched more than the first few minutes of the video and so I am unaware if anything was said or done by those in the video to confirm what was said in the story about the victim's sexuality.

If there is anyone who has the stomach to watch it in full, I would be grateful if they could confirm to us whether in fact the video reveals that this was a gay man and that he was so brutally put to death because of his sexuality. Otherwise, I am inclined (with all due respect to the unfortunate victim in the video), to think of this story as another instance of gay people jumping on the 'victim' bandwagon.

That aside, what this video clearly shows us in graphic detail, is the degree of cruelty and inhumanity that we humans are capable of. And the presence of a large crowd of spectators too, obviously amused and entertained, speaks volumes. In which way now are these murderers better than the person that they killed? On whose behalf were they doing this? God's?

Click here for Man's inhumanity 1

Trouble sleep, yanga wake am..

Fela from 1972. I grew up listening to music like this. Timeless..