http://www.metafilter.com/tags/Pasolini Posts tagged with 'Pasolini' at MetaFilter. Thu, 15 Sep 2005 04:12:36 -0800 Thu, 15 Sep 2005 04:12:36 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://www.metafilter.com/45137/Dark%2DWas%2DThe%2DNightCold%2DWas%2DThe%2DGround%2Dby%2DBlind%2DWillie%2DJohnson Ry Cooder once said <a href="http://www.commongroundmag.com/2005/cg3204/journeys3204.html" title="'Dark Was the Night' is a 'moan.' A moan is simply a style of wordless singing. And since it is a lament without words, we are left to wonder about the singer’s personal story, experiencing only his pain. Johnson’s 'Dark Was the Night' moan is both gorgeous and eerie at the same time as the sliding notes on the guitar strings chase and match the singer’s haunting, wordless vocals."><em>Dark Was The Night--Cold Was The Ground</em></a> was <em>the most soulful, transcendent piece of American music</em> recorded in the 20th Century. <em>Unearthly</em> and <em>music of the spheres</em> were common descriptions long before both became fact when it was included on a golden record was affixed to the star bound <a href="http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html" title="The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim.">Voyager</a> space probe. My first encounter with <em>Dark Was The Night</em> was while watching, and then listening to the soundtrack album of, Piero Paulo Pasolini’s <a href="http://www.glyphs.com/words/film/95/stmatt.html" title="Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian filmmaker who was also a poet, essayist, marxist and homosexual. But he was in all things an outsider. He was shunned by the Catholic bourgeoisie for his marxist views and his homosexuality. The marxists shunned him for not toeing the line in his philosophy. And his writings on film and literary theory were often dismissed by the intelligentsia because of his lack of academic credentials and a perceived lack of rigor in his work..."><em>The Gospel According To St. Matthew</em></a>--or as it is known in Sicily kickin' Bootsville, <em>Il Vangelo de Matteo</em>--which is, in my humble opinion, the Greatest. Jesus. Movie. Evar. Ironically, coincidentally and serendipitously, it was an apt choice by Pasolini, as the <a href="http://www.cptryon.org/xpipassio/hymns/dark.html" title="Dark was the night, and cold the ground/On which the Lord was laid;/His sweat like drops of blood ran down;/In agony he prayed ">hymn</a> from which <a href="http://austin360.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=State+of+the+Blues%3A+The+Soul+of+Blind+Willie+Johnson&expire=&urlID=7713431&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.austin360.com%2Fmusic%2Fcontent%2Fmusic%2Fblindwilliejohnson_092803.html&partnerID=540" title="Johnson's haunting masterpiece 'Dark Was The Night (Cold Was The Ground)’’ was chosen for an album placed aboard Voyager 1 in 1977 on its journey to the ends of the universe.... Should aliens happen upon the spacecraft and, with the record player provided, listen to that eerie, moaning, steel-sliding memorial to the crucifixion, they will know almost as much about the mysterious Blind Willie Johnson as we do.">Blind Willie Johnson</a>'s wordless moan derives is a song about Christ’s passion—his suffering and crucifixion. (Continued with much more within) tag:metafilter.com,2005:site.45137 Thu, 15 Sep 2005 04:12:36 -0800 blindwilliejohnson blues bottleneck gospel interplanetary moans music ParisTexas Pasolini rycooder slideguitar sublime tablature transcendent Voyager y2karl