Hot and Humid Weekend

The Saturday is almost over.

I spent Friday evening making some quick sketches with a black dry pastel. One of the sketches was that of a table with some (apparently) useless three dimensional shapes on top, checkered table cloth to give it a sense of depth, and a window with darkness outside. The other one showed a caveman lost in a jungle, with wolves surrounding him. I don’t know where these ideas came from. Maybe I was just in a mood to sketch something for the sake of it. While browsing through the sketchbook, I also came across the oil pastel drawing I had made after 9/11, showing an eclipsed sun, a lake of lava, and skyline of a city from a distance. That was an urban nightmare for sure.

Before going to sleep, I spent some time reading Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun. This is a historic text – classic Islamic history of the world. It tells a lot about the times of the author. Although much of the geographical and scientific information is incorrect from today’s standards, the comments on sociology are interesting. One of the things which struck me was that mathematics and sciences in that time were considered luxuries, and placed after crafts, which were considered necessities. Another interesting thing was that the author has listed music as a profession in the Islamic world, which may come as a surprise to many fundamentalists out there. He has also outlined the opposition to music in the early days of Islam as a social (and not religious) thing.

It was a bright warm Saturday. I cooked some chicken in the morning. It wasn’t too bad, but it got a bit too much well-done and smoked. Take the hint.

Since it was too warm to go out, I played guitar in the afternoon for hours. First, I just played the usual major/minor scales. Then I moved on to play riffs from “Sweet Child of Mine”, some other rock classics and some of my own compositions. It wasn’t enough, so I picked “The Raga Guide” (a book on details of 72 north Indian ragas), translated raga Aiman and raga Jogiya into the western notation, figured out the notes on the guitar, and played them at various positions. Aiman with root on C seems to fit a mode of G major scale, although (like most Indian ragas) it has different intervals on accent and descent. Jogiya is very exotic in sound. After getting tired of playing these, I picked up the acoustic guitar and composed a piece using chord sequence D, G and A which can easily become a song. I am thinking about writing a song for global ban on nuclear weapons.

It is still warm and humid. I may go out for a drive around the lake. Maybe I’ll call home later tonight to tell them that I have got flights booked to visit on Eid. I hope the trip to Pakistan goes well. It is almost dark outside. Saturday night has begun.