Feliz Navidad
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
Francis Pharcellus Church
Posina Venkata Rayudu
Hi Raduyu, Merry Christmas – Feliz navidad – to you and all the goodhearted people in this world.
Thank you Klaus, thanks so much for all the moving music!
Hi Raduyu, have a nice a christmas with your familiy and your friends and I hope we meet finally some day. Yours, Klaus
Bollywood goes Christmas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm6DgA7A1oA
Greetings to your family and friends!
Hi Raduyu,
John McLaughlin (a genius on the acustic and eletric guitar) is very influenced by indian music:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McLaughlin_(musician)
His band “Shakti” is based mainly on classical indian music:
In Spain we have also a musical genre that is very influenced by indian music: It´s called “Flamenco”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamenco
Flamenco (Spanish pronunciation: [flaˈmeŋko]) is a genre of Spanish music, song, and dance from Andalusia, in southern Spain, that includes cante (singing), toque (guitar playing), baile (dance) and palmas (handclaps). First mentioned in literature in 1774, the genre grew out of Andalusian and Romani music and dance styles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people
The Romani are an ethnic group living mostly in Europe, who have been traced genetically to a group migrating from the northwestern Indian Subcontinent about 1500 years ago. Romani are widely known in the English-speaking world by the exonym “Gypsies” (or Gipsies).
There is a good movie “Flamenco” (1995) about this musical genre from Andalusia from spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Saura
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamenco_(1995_film)
One the best modern singers of the Flamenco was Camarón de la Isla (died in 1992):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camar%C3%B3n_de_la_Isla
And Paco de Lucia is probably still the technically most skilled Flamenco guitar player:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paco_de_Luc%C3%ADa
Camarón de la Isla and Paco de Lucia both made music together in the 1970s:
In his later years, Camaron´s guitar player was “Tomatito”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomatito