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| Arts review A look back at art and culture events in 2009 news.bbc.co.uk |
Lhasa de Sela obituary Singer-songwriter with a compelling, brooding soundThe Mexican-American singer-songwriter Lhasa de Sela, who has died aged 37 of breast cancer, created three extraordinary albums over the course of 12 years. She achieved fame more by word of mouth than through the media, but won various awards, including the Québécois Félix in 1997, a Canadian Juno in 1998 and a BBC award for world music in 2005.The seeds of Lhasa's unusual songwriting lay in the cultural background of her parents and the nomadic lifestyle they had chosen. She was born in a cabin in Big Indian, New York state, the daughter of a Mexican father and American mother who at the time of her birth were hippies. She and her sisters grew up in a converted school bus in which the family crisscrossed North America and Mexico. They were educated at home, learning from books, music and artistic activity. Lhasa's childhood was filled with vivid experiences. Her parents, she felt, taught her to follow the heart, find her own way, be original.Settling first in San Francisco with her mother when her parents split up, she moved in her late teens to Montreal. She honed her craft singing in bars and began composing songs in three languages. Her three albums, the mostly Spanish La Llorona (1997), the French-Spanish The Living Road (2003) and, in English, Lhasa (2009), were filled with songs fuelled by dreams, love, relationships and life events filtered through an imagination shaped by folk tales.She formed a duo with Yves Desrosiers and gradually began performing and recording with a close circle of fine musicians, enjoying the creativity inspired by close collaboration. While her music drew on wide-ranging sources, from Mexican ranchera and French chanson to Arabic song, with touches of Americana, it was startlingly original in every way.Extensive touring with the Canadian all-female music festival Lilith Fair left Lhasa feeling burnt out, and in 1998 she joined Pocheros, her sisters' touring circus, in France. Songs such as Con Toda Palabra and La Marée Haute, written during this time, were windows into an intense inner world. For the circus's clown and tightrope work, Lhasa distilled often surreal images into words which she set to brooding melodies, with loping rhythms that evoked mysterious journeys. Often disconcerting, her songs express a place where imagination and reality meet, and where courage triumphs over fear and darkness. They are 21st-century songs of enchantment.Life, Lhasa said, was "a road constantly changing and, being on it, you change too". She gained a passionate following in Canada and France, and toured the UK, revelling in an early invitation from the Nottingham pop noir group Tindersticks to work with them. Her fame grew and her songs featured in the television series The Sopranos, a Madonna documentary and Sophie Barthes's 2009 film, Cold Souls.Last year, Lhasa told me that she was delighted to have arranged and produced her third disc herself, with five musicians rather than 20, recording "as live" on analogue rather than digital tape, and rejoiced in the warmth given to her pared-down arrangements. The album had been recorded before her cancer was diagnosed. When I asked whether its songs were prophetic, she described Rising as a crisis song, its images those of "somebody being caught up by a storm, pulled up into the air, like a wave rising up and down, and rising again. For over a year, I could not make head or tail of it and then it fell into place. The images are violent, even chaotic, but there is something simple and serene there too." Anyone and Everyone, the disc's final, cathartic song, expressed her happiness, she said, "feeling my feet in the earth, having a place in the world, of things taking care of themselves".Back in 2004, we had discovered inadvertently that I knew the whereabouts of an old friend of her father, who had been feared "disappeared" after the 1973 Chilean coup, and I was able to put them in touch. Lhasa's parents had played a lot of Chilean music during the 1970s and she confessed that, with childish innocence, she had dreamed then of marrying the legendary singer VÃctor Jara when she grew up, not understanding what his murder under the Pinochet dictatorship meant until she was much older. Latterly, she spoke of plans to record Jara's songs.Lhasa is survived by her partner, Ryan, her parents, and nine brothers and sisters.• Lhasa de Sela, singer-songwriter, born 27 September 1972; died 1 January 2010World musicUnited Statesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Fox News debate lacks enlightenment | Barbara O'Brien I've been embroiled in a 'debate' that started over Tiger Woods's Buddhism, but religions can't be compared in this wayBrit Hume, a senior political analyst for Fox News, startled viewers last week when he said the scandal-ridden Tiger Woods would benefit by converting from Buddhism to Christianity. "He is said to be a Buddhist," Hume said. "I don't think that faith offers the kind of redemption and forgiveness offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger is, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'"The camera then cut to the Jewish and visibly embarrassed William Kristol, who mumbled that he hoped Tiger Woods at least returns to golf.Several editorialists called Hume's remark boorish and bigoted. But America's militant Christians came roaring back, accusing Hume's critics of attacking Christianity. I trust cultural anthropologists have been taking notes.In response to what Hume said, I wrote on my Buddhism website that "Mr Hume is right, in a sense, that Buddhism doesn't offer redemption and forgiveness in the same way Christianity does." But, I went on to explain that Buddhism has its own path to spiritual purification. To my dismay, another Fox News personality named Bill O'Reilly used my words out of context to imply that I had agreed completely with Brit Hume, when I was only conceding a meaningless (to me) doctrinal technicality.I was similarly misrepresented by Peter Sprigg of the conservative Family Research Council, who twisted my words to portray Buddhism as a path without hope. Buddhists, according to Sprigg, believe they are doomed to trudge wearily through one life after another working off evil deeds because they lack redemption. Um, no.At the New York Times, columnist Ross Douthat argues that Brit Hume began a productive public discussion that should continue. "The differences between religions are worth debating," Douthat writes. "Theology has consequences." Religion shapes the course of lives and nations, after all.I say this is foolish. At different times in my life I have devoutly followed both Christianity and Buddhism, so I know both religions intimately. And I say they cannot be "debated".Buddhism and Christianity have much in common. They both offer salvation. They both value peace and compassion. Large chunks of the Sermon on the Mount would fit comfortably into the Buddhist sutras, with very little tweaking.However, these two great religions are understood and practised within very different conceptual frameworks. They cannot be compared side-by-side, as if they were two models of cars, without distorting one to fit into the conceptual framework of the other.The practice of Buddhism is a means to see deeply into the nature of existence and the delusions that snare us and cause us to harm ourselves and others. Atonement – fully acknowledging and accepting responsibility for our harmful acts – is part of this practice, as is forgiving others and ourselves. Awakening to wisdom liberates us from suffering and from the weary slog through life after life that so distressed Peter Sprigg.By contrast, Christianity is centred in the faith that Jesus offered himself to be sacrificed to redeem the souls of mankind. Salvation, sought through faith and devotion, comes from God's divine mercy and forgiveness.Which is "true"? Here I agree with the late Joseph Campbell: "All religions are true, but none are literal."Buddhism stresses that the truth of enlightenment cannot be contained in words and concepts – which makes "debating" a bit tricky – and instead is found in direct experience. Christianity's doctrines are more easily explained but require believing improvable things – the existence of God, souls, and eternal life in heaven, for example.How can such things be "debated"? Especially when (as my experience shows) people who already are certain they are "right" have an astonishing ability to misunderstand the other side of the argument?Yes, theology has consequences. So, if religions must be judged, judge them by the conduct of their followers. As Jesus said in Matthew 7:16, you will know true prophets from false ones by their fruits. But no debates for me, thanks.BuddhismTiger WoodsChristianityReligionFox NewsUnited StatesBarbara O'Brienguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
India's Communists Uncertain After Jyoti Basu's Death Brush aside the flowery tributes for Jyoti Basu, a longtime leader in India's Communist Party, and what Basu leaves behind is a party in decline, unable to stand up for the increasingly urgent needs of India's poor feedproxy.google.com |
Would you like to work beyond 65? A watchdog said people should be allowed to work beyond the age of 65 and with more flexible hours. Do you agree? newsforums.bbc.co.uk |