I first read this that they were old guys in their 40s. Oof.

It actually spends a reasonable amount of time talking about the music and the festivals of the area, but of course is more about the efforts to save ancient manuscripts when the city and region were taken over by extremists. A tremendous book.

I dunno, "Mario Guerrero" sounds pretty foreign to me.

Decoder Ring did an excellent episode on the very short swing revival just over a year ago. slate.com/podcasts/dec...

Man, if I could justify it, I would fly out just for this.

Songhai and Tuareg and related groups are some of my favourite music these days. Have you read The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu?

Here he is posing with skis he won in an event. Narrowing it down, I would say this was 1927 or 28. He handed them on to Dad, and two years ago we donated them (and a lot of other items, mostly from his trapping days) to the Royal Alberta Museum, at the museum's request.

Dancing to Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast" has been a big hit as well. And damn, what a moving ending.

Bless