Mankala

rules as listed at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, where they have the game in their Africa wing(let).... ero and i learned the game there, when we and the cat shared a studio on 1st Ave., a block or so away. the game we later purchased has different rules but we liked these better:

all moves clockwise

3 possible moves

1. "scooping move" -- pick up all seeds and move them one cup left
a. move cannot be used to move seeds into home cup
b. move cannot be used to move seeds into opponent's cup

2. "scattering move" -- pick up all seeds and drop them one by one into cups to the left. you can drop seeds into opponent's cups but not into either home cup

3. "the home move" -- a scattering move that ends in a home cup. this move is rewarded with an extra move. it can be repeated for continued extra move(s)

To win: move all seeds from your playing cups to your home cup before your opponent can do the same.

Fado, doce veneno ...

William Beckford, and 18th-century English traveller in Portugal, commented on modinha, but may as well have been talking about fado, which would emerge later ....

"Those who have never heard this original sort of music, must and will remain ignorant of the most bewitching melodies that ever existed since the days of the Sybarites. They consist of languid interrupted measures, as if the breath was gone with the excess of rapture, and the soul panting to meet the kindred soul of some beloved object. With a childish carelessness they steal into the heart, before it has time to arm itself against their enervating influence; you fancy you are swallowing warm milk, and are admitting the poison of voluptuousness into the closest recesses of your existence."

as quoted in Vernon, A History of Portuguese Fado

Slowly, quietly, attentively

Writing an introductory essay on the work of Adriana Lisboa, I can't help but recall this sequence from Ron Fricke's film.