#kufiyaspotting again

I'm gonna try to get back to logging kufiya related incidents. Kufiya wearing has really blown up since October 7 (no pun intended), and I've been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material. But here is a start. Did this really happen? Who knows, but it the report is indicative of a wider trend.

#kufiyaspotting: Roy Wood (The Move, Electric Light Orchestra, Wizzard)

Roy Wood (The Move, Electric Light Orchestra, Wizzard) sporting a kufiya, at The Village Underground, New York, March 2002. Shared at thetradersden.org by member El Reet. Courtesy my pal Tim. (Not sure who the guy on the right is.)

Raïna Raï at SOB's in New York City, February 1991

I had not known until yesterday that the rai band Raïna Raï had toured the US. (I found this posted on a FaceBook group I belong to.) According to wikipedia, this was in 1991.

The ad is somewhat curious, I'd never heard of the band described as the "sultans" of rai. Plus the claim that they were "direct from Algeria" is somewhat misleading. The members of the band were originally from the Algerian city of Sidi Bel-Abbès, but the band was started in Paris in 1980, where it has been based ever since. The most prominent member was guitarist and leader Lotfi Attar, and what was distinctive about their music in the eighties was the strong guitar element. The band is apparently still active.

On the other hand, they may have arrived in New York "direct from Algeria," as they did do concerts in Algeria. They appeared, for instance, at the first rai festival organized in Algeria, in Oran in 1985, and their performance there can be heard on the album Le Raï Dans Tous Ses Etats, released in 1986 (and very expensive used!).

Raïna Raï is probably best remembered for their 1985 track "Ya Zina," based on the song "Ya Zghida,"
-->originally recorded by Boutaïba Sghir and Messaoud Bellemou. Check out their official "Ya Zina" video below, featuring Lotfi Attar's very strong and distinctive guitar work, and at the end, percussion from qaraqeb, borrowed from the Gnawa (Diwane as it's known in Algeria) tradition. [added 7/9/21 and, thanks to John Schaefer's keen eye, someone from the Diwane milieu playing tbel.]

You can check out Boutaïba's "Ya Zghida" here.

drone life 2: NYPD drones

In December 2012 the NYPD arrested the artist Essam Attia for posting 100 posters around the city suggesting that New York's finest were using drones to control crime. In particular, given the image, it intimates a targeting of the undocumented. (The image of the fleeing family is lifted from a warning sign developed by the California Department of Transportation to warn drivers, on I-5 north of San Diego, that illegal immigrants might be crossing.)

The posters also are riffing on a current iPod add seen around town:

Just a month after Attia was arrested, CBS News reported that the NYPD might be considering using drones in its crimefighting efforts.

A year earlier, anti-war activists in the city, led by a US army vet who had worked with drones during two tours in Iraq, were posting signs saying: “Attention, authorized drone strike zone.”

Stay tuned...

Kufiya affectation, courtesy shirt woot vs. New York magazine's OWS kufiya

Shirt.woot launches a new original t-shirt design every midnight(central). This shirt design came in third in the Hipster Animals derby.

Along with a posted commentary (October 10), which included these lines:

"Personally, I’m sick of all these button-down mainstreamers giving me static about my scarf. “It’s September,” they say. “It’s basically still summer,” they say. “You can’t possibly be cold,” they say...“What’s wrong in your brain that makes a cheesy, affected fashion accessory seem more important to you than your physical comfort?”

Affected? Pshuh! “Dude,” I always want to say (before deciding to just sneer at them with silent disdain instead), “35% of the surface area of my body is neck. A scarf is essential for maintaining my core body temperature, OK?”

That’s right. Scarf life, y’all. Recognize.

On days when I wear a keffiyeh, though, that’s totally affectation, I’ll give you that."

More tongue-in-cheek hipster bashing. But then there's this. Is this "affected," shirt woot?!

Even New York magazine's cover story (October 24), which the image above thematizes, is much more positive than shirt woot, which tries to be cool. Although it does so in a kind of abashed, rather apologetic, but hopefully post-irony tone: "The Kids Are Actually Sort of Alright." Dude, seriously, let this sixties-era geezer tell you: these kids are way better than alright. Viva #ows.

I really, really, like that the person on the cover wears two, mixed-together scarves: an American flag scarf (we are reclaiming our country!) and a kufiya (we are inspired by the Arab spring and maybe, just a bit, by Palestine).