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[ by Charles Cameron — bemused by all you young people ]
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Kim Kierkegaardashian is exactly the right amount of Kardashian for me to allow into my life. It’s a twitterstream consisting entirely of combination authentic Kardashian soundbites and Kierkegaard quotes, and it’s usually hilarious.

JM Berger‘s tweet, by contrast, sets out one version of an aesthetic principle which seems to underlie much of today’s culture: mixing pop-reference in with serious culture, for serio-popular effect.

Bashar al-Assad‘s supporters do this, aligning their man with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Salafi jihadists likewise, borrowing footage from the Lord of the Rings. Dan Drezner does it — using zombies to discuss international politics — and wins an Association of American Publishers honorable mention for the 2011 PROSE Award in Government & Politics. Kim Kierkegaardashian does nothing else…

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Has this sort of hi-lo-brow mixing always happened?

L’homme armé was a French pop song from the 14th or 15th century, its melody used as the basis for Masses by composers from Dufay and Okeghem to Palestrina — and thence to Peter Maxwell Davies in our own times:

The man, the man, the armed man,
The armed man
The armed man should be feared, should be feared.
Everywhere it has been proclaimed
That each man shall arm himself
With a coat of iron mail.

It must be noted that some believe the “armed man” in question is the Archangel Michael. His fight, unlike Kierkegaardashian’s, is neither with God nor man, but directly with the Devil.

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DoubleQuotes Sources:

Kim Kierkegaardashian

JM Berger

[ by Charles Cameron — I found this little not-so-random walk educational ]
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1. Tina S plays Vivaldi:

2. Joshua Bell plays Vivaldi:

3. Tina S plays Van Halen:

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Tina S was fourteen when her two video clips were made.

There are things I’d like to post, that I don’t post at Zenpundit because I don’t want to take it too far afield, and I don’t post elsewhere because Zenpundit is where I post — so I’ve decided to post at least some of those things here on Sundays as “Sunday surprises”. I hope Sundays will give some of you a little extra time to listen, watch or contemplate… and that some of these offerings will be to your respective and varied tastes…

[ by Charles Cameron — don’t let’s go overboard, eh? ]
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I’d like to note up front that Liz Sly was talking about a pro-Morsi rally, and Leah very possibly about an anti-Morsi event…

In any case, these two tweets between them remind me that my own interpretation of “black banners” in terms of the army from Khorasan may well be due for retirement except when specifically indicated.

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I’ve been writing here for a while about the black banners of Khorasan and their apocalyptic resonance, especially for those in Afghanistan and recruiting for AQ: today I’d like to suggest two qualifications.

The first is that there are a variety of black flags flown in various parts of the world for various purposes, and have been since the Prophet first flew his black flag, the Raya. It seems plausible that the Khorasan ahadith originated with the ‘Abbasids, in support of their own miltary activities, and certainly black banners taken together with those ahadith have been a powerful recruiting tool for AQ, as illuuminated in their respective books by Ali Soufan and Syed Saleem Shahzad.

But there are black flags and black flags, some plain black, some bearing the shahada, some with what looks to be a replica of the Prophet’s seal — and the one that is most commonly called “the Al-Qaida flag” is the one that originated with the Islamic State of Iraq — see Aaron Zelin‘s post on the matterr at al-Wasat. That post, btw, is likely the one that seeded my thoughts here.

My second point, then? A problem arises when we begin to think that any black flag seen, photographed, or reported in any Islamist context is “the AQ flag” — or indeed that any of the varieties of black flag reported hither and yon would qualify for that appellation.

In Iraq, the flag with seal, okay. A black flag with shahada in a Khorasan / Mahdist context — yes, and with Mahdist overtones. Otherwise — maybe, or maybe not so much.

So could we be a little more cautious, and more specific?

As for Cairo — I wasn’t there, and haven’t see a Liz Sly photo, so I don’t know which black flag or flags she saw. And yes, she was at a pro-Morsi rally. But as Leah notes, in recent days black flags have been less prominent, and Egyptian flags more in evidence — as indeed, this photo from an anti-Morsi rally on July 3 this year suggests:

If my guess is any good, then, black flags showing up in Egypt now presumably indicate MB or Islamist but not necessarily by any means AQ sympathies, while Egyptian flags would appear to indicate dissatisfaction with Morsi and his Islamist cohorts, combined with strong nationalist sentiment and pride.

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Corrections, amplifications etc are welcome… This is a test post, really: a big question mark. I’ve an inquisitive mind to be sure — but as you’ll have seen in my previous post, I also admit to ignorance.

Oh —

And now I’m totally confused, too — El Cid just pointed me to Arch Enemy‘s Under Black Flags We March video. Eh?

[ by Charles Cameron — of Ozymandias, as Shelley’s story-teller friend reminds us, all that remains are “vast and trunkless legs of stone” ]
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I am very fond of the long view, in which each of us becomes (physical) dust and enters (mental) oblivion — not necessarily in that order — see Shelley, Osymandias, best read by the wonderful Eleanor Bron…

I take the video below, with its scenes both of a young girl playing a tribute of flowers to the fallen of 9/11 and of Osama bin Laden, set to Fauré‘s plangent and beautiful Pie Jesus, dona eis requiem — Blessed Jesus, grant them peace — as truly comprehensible only in that long view, where oblivion meets forgiveness…
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The notes accompanying the video tell us:

Uploaded on May 4, 2011
Pie Jesu (from Requiem by Gabriel Fauré)

Words : Tommaso da Celano (1200 – 1265)
Music : Gabriel Fauré (1845 – 1924)

Conductor : Michel Corboz
Soprano : Alain Clement
Organ: Philippe Corboz
Berne Symphony Orchestra

Recording on May 1972, in Casino de Berne, Switzerland

Verse :

Pie Jesu Domine (Merciful Jesus) ,
dona eis requiem (grant them rest) ,
sempiternam requiem (grant them everlasting rest) .

Notes:

1) The War in Afghanistan (1979 – 1989)

was a conflict involving the Soviet Union and her puppet against the indigenous Afghan Mujahideen and foreign “Arab–Afghan” volunteers. The mujahideen found military and financial support from a variety of sources particularly Saudi Arabia and the United States.

2) September 11 Attack

The September 11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda led by “Osama bin Laden” upon the United States on September 11, 2001. Nearly 3,000 victims include 343 firefighters and 60 police officers died in the attacks.

The United States responded to the attacks, invaded Afghanistan. This war is not over yet.

3) Osama bin Laden (1957 – 2011)

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On 1979 he joined the Afghan Mujahideen as a volunteer. After withdrawn USSR, he founded “al-Qaeda” in the war-devastated land and took the decisive action on September 11 2001. U.S. President Barack Obama announced that he had been killed by US armed forces on May 2 2011.

Fauré’s Requiem is one of the classic works of sacred choral music, and Michel Corboz deservedly one of the pre-eminent conductors of that repertoire.

This video, as you may have guessed, comes from the same source as the other examples of strange pairings of music and visuals which I discussed recently in Taylor Swift, Sara Mingardo, JS Bach and a quiet WTF, and I hope brings closure to that piece.

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I tracked down the picture of the young girl. it is titled:

Cazzandra Peterson leaves flowers at Ground Zero in memory of father William Peterson during the 7th annual 9/11 memorial ceremony September 11, 2008 in New York City.

Family and friends of the victims, heads of government and others gathered at the annual ceremony to remember the attacks that killed more than 2,700 people with the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

(September 10, 2008 – Source: PETER FOLEY/Getty Images North America)

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Pie Jesus, dona eis requiem.

[ by Charles Cameron — further notes from the frayed edges of what’s significant ]
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Okay, you all know I’m interested in the graphics of terrorism and their symbolism, and only a day or two ago I posted Of dualities, contradictions and the nonduality on the two into one phenomenon — well, here’s an addendum:

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The upper image, showing the Jabha al-Nusra logo — Sunni, left — alongside the Hezbollah insignia — Shi’a, right — morphs into the single image in the lower panel, thereby resolving the sectarian conflict in Syria by filmic means.

The video from which these two shots were taken, alas, was the work product of the US Government, as part of an effort of outreach by the little-known Digital Outreach Team at the State Department, who at the time of writing appear to have 193 videos uploaded.

The BBC notes:

According to the Associated Press news agency, the 50-member Digital Outreach Team tweets, posts Facebook updates and uploads video to YouTube in Arabic, Punjabi, Somali and Urdu, in a bid to counter the radical jihadist message. It seems it’s even had exchanges with terror suspects such as US-born militant Omar Hammami, a former member of Somalia’s al-Shabab.

The two images above were taken from a video titled Secret meeting between Hassan Nasrallah and al-Zawahiri, but the Beeb’s article focused on what it termed a “spoof Al-Qaeda video”, which I’ll call Pharaoh Ayman speaks to the dancing girls for want of a better name:

The team’s al-Zawahiri spoof opens with a notice that “fizzy drinks should be consumed while watching this production” – a twist on the usual message at the beginning of al-Qaeda videos saying “it is not permitted to add music to this production … Taking the classic preaching-to-camera format, the three-minute clip features a voiceover in which the Egyptian-born militant repeatedly bungles his speech by saying things like: “The butchers, ahem, sorry, I mean the mujahideen”. In the video – issued by the US State Department’s Digital Outreach Team – al-Zawahiri is backed by punkah-wallahs. The clip then cuts to a shot, as though from behind the speaker, to reveal a troupe of dancers performing in front of him.”

But see for yourselves, punkah-wallas and all:

For your further Sundance consideration, and from the same studios, you might also like the lowest and slowest nasheed ever recorded.

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Speaking of graphics — coming up on ZP when I have had a chance to read a little more of El Difraoui, reviews of:

Beifuss and Bellini, Branding Terror

Abdelasiem El Difraoui, Al-Qaida par l’image. La prophétie du martyre