A Sense of Doubt blog post #2325 - GET VACCINATED!!!

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2325 - GET VACCINATED!!!

The year of living dangerously.

It is the year of living dangerously because if you are not vaccinated, you are at great risk from the Delta variant of Covid-19 (the novel coronavirus sars cov-2), and you are putting others at risk if you go around shedding the virus after contracting it and maskless as well, as many non-vaccinated people have taken the lifting of mask restrictions as a license to infect others.

I hate to be judgmental and to shame others. But really?

This issue has become a litmus test for intelligence. I just do not see any way to explain it better than that. I hate being dismissive of other human beings, some of whom I love and/or respect who have for one reason or another chosen not to get vaccinated.

We are living in a time in which news media, people on social media, and your obnoxious co-worker, whomever, have spread information viruses: distrust in science, fake beliefs in fake news, propaganda rhetoric, misguided ideas about personal liberty and civil rights, and more.

There's good science behind these vaccines. There's good science supporting the public health measures about masks and distancing. Listen to the science. Shut out the propaganda and GET VACCINATED.

There's no microchip.

The injection site is not magnetic.

The m-RNA vaccines do NOT "rewrite your DNA" because RNA is not DNA. And that's more SCIENCE.

Vaccines do not cause autism any more than 5G wireless.

Seriously.

If you are unvaccinated, you at grave risk to get the Delta variant which is much more contagious than earlier mutations of Covid and MUCH MORE DEADLY.

And even if you survive the Delta variant, those you infect before you know you have it (or even after if you are truly a selfish asshole) might not be so lucky.

How is this even a question?

GET VACCINATED NOW.

Please.

And thank you.

Now some good reading to better understand what I am persuading about, verified, credible, fact-checked, science-based FACTUAL INFORMATION.

Moderna says vaccine works against delta variant, as WHO warns of global spread

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/06/30/coronavirus-latest-updates/

Moderna said Tuesday that its coronavirus vaccine was effective against the more contagious delta variant first identified in India. The Biden administration said that it was shipping 2.5 million doses of the Moderna shot to Bangladesh, where the delta variant is prevalent. (Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)

By Erin Cunningham

June 30, 2021 at 3:37 a.m. PDT

The coronavirus vaccine developed by U.S. biotech firm Moderna is effective against the highly contagious delta variant, the company said in a release Tuesday, offering some hope even as the World Health Organization warned that the variant has spread to at least 96 countries.

Moderna said blood samples from fully vaccinated individuals produced antibodies against multiple variants and researchers measured only a “modest reduction in neutralizing titers” against the particularly virulent delta, first identified in India.

“As we seek to defeat the pandemic, it is imperative that we are proactive as the virus evolves,” Moderna chief executive Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. “These new data are encouraging and reinforce our belief that the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine should remain protective against newly detected variants.”

Did you find love overseas because of the pandemic? The Post wants to hear your love story.

The company, whose vaccine uses messenger RNA technology and requires two doses, submitted the data to the bioRxiv preprint server ahead of peer review. Moderna last month also signed an agreement to provide the United Nations-backed Covax initiative, which seeks the equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines worldwide, with 500 million doses beginning later this year.

As much of the world still awaits coronavirus vaccine supply, the delta variant is tearing through unvaccinated populations everywhere from Britain to the United States to South Africa.

It has reached 96 countries, the WHO said in a weekly epidemiological update Tuesday, a number it warned was probably an underestimate as most nations lack the genome-sequencing capacity needed to identify virus variants.

According to the WHO, delta is 55 percent more transmissible than the virulent alpha variant first identified in Britain last year, a version that spurred infection waves in multiple countries. Now, the delta variant “is expected to rapidly outcompete other variants and become the dominant variant over the coming months,” the WHO said

On Wednesday, France’s leading government scientific adviser said in a radio interview that the country was likely to suffer a fourth wave of infections caused by the delta variant, which accounts for at least 20 percent of new cases there.

But “it will be much more moderate than the previous three waves because the level of vaccinations is different compared to before,” Jean-François Delfraissy told French public radio, according to a Reuters translation of his remarks.

More than 63 percent of adults in France have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, the French Health Ministry says, with 41 percent fully inoculated.

Some countries with similarly high vaccination rates, including Britain and Israel, are grappling with new outbreaks of the delta variant but say widespread immunization has helped mitigate some of the pathogen’s worst effects.

In places such as Africa, however, where about 1 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, the variant is helping give rise to new infections and deaths. According to the WHO, new coronavirus cases in the African region increased by 33 percent over the past week, with covid-19 deaths jumping 42 percent.

In Russia, where vaccine uptake remains stubbornly low, authorities on Wednesday reported a record number of covid-related deaths for the second straight day, following an unprecedented surge in new cases that officials have blamed on the delta variant.

“The Delta variant will continue to complicate timelines for reaching a less disruptive new normal in countries with high vaccination rates as well as those with low rates,” said Scott Rosenstein, special global health adviser at the New York-based political risk firm Eurasia Group.

For lower-income nations with sluggish inoculation campaigns, Rosenstein said in a briefing note, “the risks of overwhelmed healthcare systems are the highest they have been since the beginning of the pandemic.”

Katerina Ang in Singapore contributed to this report.

Sign up for our coronavirus newsletter | Mapping the spread of the coronavirus: Across the U.S. | Worldwide | Vaccine tracker

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/06/30/los-angeles-indoor-masks-vaccinated/

Los Angeles urges everyone to mask up because of delta variant — even the vaccinated

Masked and unmasked people make their way through Grand Central Market in Los Angeles on June 29. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)

Los Angeles County public health authorities are urging unvaccinated and vaccinated people alike to don masks again inside restaurants, stores and other public indoor spaces because of the growing threat posed by the more contagious delta variant of the novel coronavirus.

The high-profile move by the county of 10 million marks an abrupt shift in tone after states and localities have dropped most mask mandates and social distancing requirements in recent weeks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in mid-May rescinded almost all masking recommendations for fully vaccinated people.

But the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health cited a growing share of new cases linked to the delta variant, which was first detected during India’s catastrophic surge of infections and has upended reopening plans across the globe, in “strongly recommending” a return to masking. Los Angeles dropped its mask mandate for vaccinated people with the rest of California on June 15, with limited exceptions for public transportation, hospitals and schools.

County health officials said 123 people were infected with the delta variant from June 4 to 18. Ten were fully vaccinated, and none of those people needed hospital care. Three people infected with delta were partially vaccinated, and 110 were not vaccinated; two people were hospitalized.

“Fully vaccinated people are well protected against serious illness and disease caused by variants of concern including the Delta variant,” Barbara Ferrer, the county’s public health director, said in a statement.

Los Angeles officials are also concerned by reports of some fully vaccinated people contracting cases of the delta variant in Israel and want to learn more about the variant and how it spreads.

“We want to make sure we understand that people who are fully vaccinated aren’t getting infected in large portions or small portions in a way that allows them to unknowingly transmit to others,” Los Angeles County Health Officer Muntu Davis said in an interview.

Coronavirus delta variant: What we know

The World Health Organization on Friday urged fully vaccinated people to continue wearing masks in light of delta’s rapid spread. Israel on Sunday reinstated an indoor mask mandate, which had been lifted two weeks ago, in response to a spike in delta cases, but it declined to adopt more stringent restrictions because of its high vaccination rate.

The CDC does not plan to change its guidance that allows fully vaccinated people to take off their masks in most settings.

“We are fortunate to have highly effective vaccines in this country that are widely available for those aged 12 and up,” Kristen Nordlund, a CDC spokeswoman, said in a statement to The Washington Post. “People who are fully vaccinated are protected, including from the variants currently circulating in the country such as delta. That is not the case in every country where some of the vaccines they are using are not as effective as the ones we have here in the U.S.”

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky reiterated that message in an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday morning. But she noted that some areas have low vaccination rates and “local policymakers need to make policies for their local environments”

Los Angeles appears to be an outlier in its call to resume masking. Pennsylvania and King County, Wash., which includes Seattle, on Tuesday dropped their mask mandates for the vaccinated.

Tracking the coronavirus vaccine

Davis said Los Angeles County wanted to be especially careful because it has 4 million residents who are unvaccinated or too young to receive the shot. He stressed that officials are avoiding disruptions by not mandating masks or restoring restrictions on businesses.

“This is really, hopefully, a temporary recommendation as we learn more about what this virus is actually doing,” Davis said. “This is one of the easier things to do. It doesn’t disrupt your daily routine, it doesn’t disrupt business, and it doesn’t disrupt the economy. It’s just a mask, but it’s very helpful.”

Los Angeles bears the scars of being the epicenter of the nation’s devastating winter surge, eclipsing 200 deaths a day in January while ambulances and hospitals were forced to conserve oxygen.

A mass-casualty event every day

Cases have since plummeted, daily fatalities now number in the single digits and nearly 60 percent of eligible residents have been fully vaccinated. Officials worry the delta variant will rapidly spread through the unvaccinated, noting that it made up half of the variants sequenced in Los Angeles County in the week ending June 12.

“It’s just a small inconvenience for those who have been vaccinated to try to be good citizens by wearing masks indoors,” said Robert Kim-Farley, an epidemiologist and professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. “Hopefully this can be a wake-up call for those who are still on the fence about getting vaccinated to become vaccinated so that we can all stop wearing masks.”

But some experts say public health authorities who don’t differentiate between the vaccinated and unvaccinated may end up dissuading holdouts from getting shots.

“You just told the unvaccinated, ‘Yeah, get vaccinated, it’s so scary, but of course, you’ll still have to mask because it’s so scary,’ ” said Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. “If I were an unvaccinated person who was debating whether to get vaccinated, I would think, ‘Oh wow, there’s no point, looks like the delta variant would break through the vaccine anyway.’ ”

In the D.C. region, public health authorities struggle to persuade vaccine holdouts

Evidence shows the opposite: Nearly all serious British cases have been among the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated as the delta variant dominates new infections. The CDC says a growing body of evidence shows people who have been fully vaccinated with a Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccine are less likely to have asymptomatic cases or transmit them to others.

Moderna says vaccine works against delta variant, as WHO warns of global spread

The juxtaposition of these developments showing the vaccines’ effectiveness against the delta variant and the new mask guidance left some Los Angeles residents confused.

Ashley Pavone, 25, recently started to feel comfortable going out barefaced even though she was among the first in line to get vaccinated in February as a restaurant worker.

“I thought we were moving forward with this, and that’s why I’ve been vaccinated for so long, so it’s upsetting to think we’d have to now move backward. I wonder if there’s any facts behind this or if it’s just another rule,” Pavone said after a maskless trip to a Vons supermarket in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. “If masks are being used again, then people may not go out as much, and then we’d see our tips decrease.”

Steve Morales said he still wears a mask while working his shifts as a Vons clerk, even though he’s vaccinated and his workplace doesn’t require it, because he’s uneasy about what customers have been exposed to. Still, he has no interest in tangling with customers about masks.

“I don’t give people my opinion about it; it’s up to them,” said Morales, 64.

Rhea Boyd, a pediatrician who has advocated for improved vaccine access for communities of color, said Los Angeles should be commended for working to prevent its residents from letting their guard down and laying the groundwork to restore restrictions if necessary to quell an explosion in delta cases.

“Los Angeles County didn’t reinstate a mask mandate, they put out a recommendation. It’s to prepare people to see something is different about the delta variant,” Boyd said. “It may be hard to hear this because we all want to believe that what was such a traumatic year is all behind us, but the truth is, we are still very much confronting a pandemic.”

Lena H. Sun in Washington and Miranda C. Green in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Updated June 23, 2021

Coronavirus: What you need to read

Coronavirus maps: Cases and deaths in the U.S. | Cases and deaths worldwide

Vaccines: Tracker by state | Guidance for vaccinated people | Kids | How long does immunity last? | County-level vaccine data

What you need to know: Variants | Symptoms guide | Masks FAQ | Personal finance guide | Follow all of our coverage and sign up for our free newsletter

The Virus

Sydney and other Australian cities have enacted strict lockdowns in response to outbreaks tied to the Delta variant. Los Angeles County has urged vaccinated people to wear masks indoors. The C.D.C. says the vaccinated are protected from serious illness and don’t need masks in most situations. The Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 vote, kept a federal moratorium on evictions in place. The U.S.-Canada border is still closed. Here’s why. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said the country’s virus response created a “great crisis,” according to state media. It’s unclear if he was talking about an outbreak.

Here are some significant developments:

• The British government was heavily criticized on Tuesday for allowing some senior business leaders in England to temporarily leave quarantine for work. The exemption applies to executives who can demonstrate that their work “has a greater than 50% chance of creating or preserving at least 500 UK-based jobs.”
• Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike has been discharged from a hospital, Japanese media reported. She had been off work for about a week to recuperate from fatigue. Infections are rising in the capital, and officials are considering extending strict distancing curbs through at least part of the Tokyo 2020 Games.
• North Korea’s Kim Jong Un warned of a “grave incident” that caused a “huge crisis” in Pyongyang’s battle against covid, state media reported, without providing further detail.
• Thailand reported a record 53 covid-linked deaths on Wednesday amid a recent pandemic wave and plans to reopen its Phuket resort island, without quarantine, to fully inoculated travelers on July 1.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin took to national television Wednesday to encourage citizens to get the jab, even revealing details about his own secretive vaccination.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2106.30 - 10:10

- Days ago = 2189 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2324 - Pro-Gun Nuts Tricked into being in anti-guns advertisement

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/24/former-nra-president-tricked-into-grad-speech-gun-violence-video/5334564001/

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2324 - Pro-Gun Nuts Tricked into being in anti-guns advertisement

This is priceless.

This trickery of putting NRA leaders in anti-gun ads ranks right up there with Rudy Giuliani's unplanned and unapproved appearance in Borat's last movie.

That's all today because this article from WONKETTE is juicy enough. Thank you DOKTOR ZOOM.

Activists Trick Gun Humpers Into Anti-Gun Ad, Just Like NRA Tricked USA Into Endless Gun Deaths

Doktor Zoom

June 25, 2021 10:13 AM

 

Photo via Change The Ref

Two prominent advocates for Americans' unlimited access to guns were tricked by gun violence prevention activists into appearing in anti-gun ads. It was pretty effective trolling, resulting in each of the Gun Guys giving high school commencement speeches to over 3,000 empty chairs that stood in for kids who'd been killed by guns before they could have graduated as part of the class of 2021.

As Rachel Maddow reported the other night, they were told it was a dress rehearsal. Then they told them they had to cancel the real graduation, because of threats of violence. Yeah. That's how they did that. And then they turned the graduation speeches into ads.

The resulting two-minute ads and a third why-we-did-this spot were released Wednesday by Change the Ref, an advocacy group founded by Patricia and Manuel Oliver. Their son Joaquin was one of the 17 people murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018.

NBC News explains the two Gun Guys, former NRA president David Keene and pro-gun author John Lott Jr., were told they would be addressing the graduating class of "James Madison Academy," which doesn't exist. Instead, they spoke to 3,044 empty chairs set up in a vacant Las Vegas lot, with video recorded on the ground by camera operators, and by drones that pulled back to capture all that emptiness. The aerial view calls some other orderly rows of silent markers to mind as well.

We're not sure the Olivers intended it as a metaphor for how the NRA operates, but the chairs are set up on a field of astroturf.

As each "graduation" speaker addresses the nothingness, the ads dub in audio of 911 calls from terrified students and parents during actual school shootings, closing with a clip of audible gunshots coming over a student's phone.

Keene, who was NRA president from 2011 to 2013 and is still on the group's board, talked about how special it is to speak at a school named for James Madison, who wrote the Holy Second Amendment. He notes that there are many who want to "gut the Second Amendment," but says he's certain that some of the grads he's speaking to will "stand up to prevent them from succeeding." Again, he had no idea he was being tricked into addressing what the Olivers now call "the Lost Class," who can never stand again. And yeah, trigger warning; there are actual gunshot sounds in the background of a 911 call near the end.

The second spot features John Lott Jr., formerly of the American Enterprise Institute and author of truly garbage "research" claiming that right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime. Lott's claims have been the subject of intense criticism, to say the least. Virtually all the research on the matter finds that more guns do not reduce crime. So of course Lott's dubious assertion that hundred of thousands of crimes are prevented by law-abiding gun owners every year has become gospel to gun fondlers.

As Vox sums up, Lott's 1998 book, More Guns, Less Crime, is weak sad poop:

The central finding in that book — that rates of gun ownership and the existence of "right to carry" laws reduce violent crime — have been the subject of numerous subsequent studies, the most sophisticated of which conclude Lott's results are specious. (A National Research Council report found that the data did not support the theory.)

Oh, yes, and then there was that online fan of everything Lott ever did who turned out to be Lott himself. (Really. Read that. He made up his own biggest fan.)

It shouldn't be surprising that, despite plenty of research showing immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born American Americans, Lott published — from his very own homegrown "research center" — a bullshit study in 2018 claiming that undocumented immigrants are actually far more likely to do crime. The libertarian Cato Institute slapped that one down, noting he'd utterly misread the data, confusing legal immigrants set to be deported for visa violations with "undocumented immigrants." In mere reality, the data set, from Arizona prisons, didn't actually sort out whether non-citizen prisoners were in the US legally or not. Predictably, the utterly bogus research was a big hit with the right, and near the end of the Trump administration, Lott even scored a job in the Justice Department.

TL;DR version: Lott's research is bad and he should feel bad. Unfortunately, the ad doesn't introduce Lott, as Yr Wonkette has, as a "fecal-brained fuckwit." So here's his speech to the kids who'll never graduate. In it, he claims, slightly insanely, that people whose instant background checks prevented them from buying firearms were simply "three-and-a-half million law-abiding citizens who wanted to get a gun."

Not surprisingly, Lott, he of the almost always disputed research, had a hissy over the ad, insisting he'd been victimized by unscrupulous liars. Yes, tricksy prank videos do involve deception, although he wrote his speech all by himself. But yeah, Lott was well and truly Boratfucked (must credit Wonkette and Marty Kelley for the coinage).

In a statement, Lott said his remarks in the video were taken "out of context" and called the clips "deceptive and selectively edited," adding that he spoke for about 15 minutes — much longer than the one minute included in the video.

Lott called on Change the Ref to release his full speech.

In follow-up remarks over the phone, Lott said he drove 1,000 miles from Montana to deliver the remarks: "I thought I was trying to help out a school there," he told NBC News.

"It's just outrageous that somebody would do that," he added.

Pretty good for a guy who resides in Questionable Data Acres.

Manuel Oliver stands by the video, and told NBC he had definitely not deceptively edited the video.

We have backup to the quote: "universal background checks would not have stopped a single mass shooting this century." Sometimes there's no need for editing and this is one of those cases. Actual words, real space, absolute arrogance, and 3044 empty chairs.

Hey, go ahead and release the full video anyway. Can't think of much context that would make Lott suddenly seem credible.

In conclusion, we suppose we should note that this sort of trolling should probably only be done very, very carefully, without deceptive edits that leave out important context, lest we spawn more James O'Keefes. That said, everything in these videos appears to accurately portray the views of the speakers, albeit contrasted with the horrific outcomes that result from this country having more goddamn guns than people.

If I were using these videos in a media class, I might even show them in combination with Mark Twain's "The War Prayer," in which the heaven-sent Messenger of God Almighty tells a congregation praying for victory in war that their pastor has only spoken half of the prayer.

I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it—that part which the pastor—and also you in your hearts—fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so!

If Keene and Lott want an America where people can freely buy and carry weapons of war, then it seems only fair for folks like the Olivers to present the unspoken side of what the pro-gun folks wish for: Panicked voices and gunshots in a school, recorded by 911 dispatchers.

What is our emergency?

[NBC News / Vox / Scientific American / Mother Jones / The War Prayer]

Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please give $5 or $10 a month to help us keep bringing you the real facts, even if they're dressed up with fart jokes.

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The Lost Class 3/3

Jun 23, 2021

This year, 3,044 students won’t get the chance to graduate because they were killed by a gun. It’s time we pass universal background checks, so we can protect our students and make sure more of them make it to their graduation day. 

 

By donating to Change the Ref, you’re helping in the fight against the gun violence epidemic. Change the Ref uses the funds raised to keep applying pressure to our politicians and policymakers through creativity, creating more campaigns like The Lost Class. Together, we can change the perception of guns in America and inspire change that will keep the futures of our students safe from guns.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2106.29 -10:10

- Days ago = 2188 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2323 - Lisa Gerrard's Favorite Music: Musical Monday for 2106.28

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2323 - Lisa Gerrard's Favorite Music: Musical Monday for 2106.28

Don't tell me you have never heard of Lisa Gerrard of DEAD CAN DANCE??

For shame.

One of the best ways to learn about more music and amazing music is with recommendations from some of your favorite musical artists.

I have obtained some of my favorite music on the recommendations of others, of those whom I respect and admire. Who better than a great musical artist like Lisa Gerrard?

This list of inspiring albums from Gerrard is very instructive. I inserted as much of the music as I could find.

The introduction of Enta Omry alone is worth the price of admission to this list by Gerrard. I know of many others: Bach, ELO, Arvo Part, and Edith Piaf, obviously. A few others I did not know like GODZ or MUSIC FOR TROUBADOURS. I had heard of 13th Floor Elevators but not sure I had heard them. I had recently learned of the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir because Gerrard sang with them.

I am so amazed by Gerrard and this great music!

I hope you like it, too. Thanks for stopping by today.

https://thequietus.com/articles/30130-lisa-gerrard-bakers-dozen-favourite-albums

Baker's Dozen

A Drone And A Drum: Lisa Gerrard's Favourite Music
Lottie Brazier , June 23rd, 2021 08:57

From falling into the ‘massive abyss’ of Alfred Schnittke, to the ‘silly and lovely’ Electric Light Orchestra, Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance delivers Lottie Brazier a guide to her thirteen favourite pieces of music

You’ve probably heard Lisa Gerrard’s voice without realising it; as a sample, it introduces the first hazy bars of The Future Sound Of London’s one-of-a-kind rave anthem ‘Papua New Guinea’. Signed to 4AD alongside Cocteau Twins, Gerrard’s own group Dead Can Dance sound more earthy than their labelmates; listening to Cocteau Twins, for her, is more like flying or floating instead. Gerrard herself is a fan of the Cocteau Twins, but stresses that they were in no way trying to emulate them. Dead Can Dance’s self-titled debut was most evocative of their namesake, a palette cemented in a murky guitar sound, distant-sounding drum machines and grainy samples.

Although this most certainly earned them a place on the 4AD roster, their sound became more spacious and dramatic over time, growing as if perceiving their setup more like an orchestra than a band. Gerrard describes how Dead Can Dance toured all over Europe, listening to cassettes, absorbing folk and classical traditions. Their song structures eventually become unrecognisable compared to their early work; The Serpent’s Egg has a kind of regal melancholy and a choral focus, and Aion a medieval-sounding range.

Aside from smattering of impressive performances with Dead Can Dance in recent years, Gerrard has become increasingly more focused on her own solo output. In 2020 she released an album with The Genesis Orchestra, conducted by Yordan Kamdzhalov; a challenge for her to sing in Polish. This May, she released the album Burn, composed with Jules Maxwell, and produced by James Chapman of Maps. It is also to be released as a NFT on the eco-friendly platform Hic Et Nunc.

Listening to Lisa Gerrard talk about her Baker’s Dozen choices, and her musical roots in piano accordion, it’s easy to see how the Dead Can Dance sound is so engulfed in the traditions that inspired them. However, among these are a few surprises, showing a much lighter, humorous side to a singer who just commands so much seriousness in her voice.

Lisa Gerrard's new album 'Burn' with Jules Maxwell is out now. To begin reading her Baker’s Dozen, click the picture of her below

Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir - Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares

I’ve always loved them, because they’re so full of light. I wanted to sing like them, so I wrote the ‘Host of the Seraphim’, and really with that song I was trying to copy them. Brendan [Perry] helped me of course, but it was really inspired by the Bulgarian singers.

When I first saw them sing live, they came on stage like red triangles, with these flowers, and these triangular gowns. It was at the time when we were in London, and would have been during the mid-80s, maybe early 80s. It was very dark, music was very sad, people wanted to talk about things that were affecting them that they weren’t happy about. Then you had this Bulgarian music that was 1000 years old, this music that just elevated you right out of the darkness; you realised that the way out of the darkness was in this context.

When you are in the presence of these women, when you hear them sing, you don’t have to know anything about their history, which by the way is phenomenal. They had to avoid the Ottomans. On the back of that, there’s a huge history with them of secret languages, embroidery and gowns. It’s stunning stuff, you know. Their singing was developed because of calling animals in the mountains. I have also been told by the Bulgarians that the Ottomans couldn’t actually convert the Bulgarians, because there was a body of water that they couldn’t cross on horseback. So there were places where they could actually hide in the mountains. They dressed their sons up at 12 years old as women, so that they wouldn’t be captured or killed. There are all these kinds of amazing stories.

The Godz - The Godz 2

The reason that I loved The Godz was because first of all I fell in love with the name. And in some way, they had this very 60s sound. It was a little bit like a psychedelic Joy Division. They were sort of deep and dark and depressing but sort of psychedelic at the same time. ‘Radar Eyes’ was my favourite song. There’s a kind of gargling drone in the background. It’s really brilliant.

Nico - The Marble Index

Marble Index was the album by Nico that really turned my head. I probably acquired it when I was about 16. I used to buy my records from the Oxfam shops, the ‘opportunity shops’. Someone who went there obviously liked The Velvet Underground because there were lots of their records, as well as Nico and Lou Reed’s solo albums. I didn’t like a lot of their music, but I did love Nico. Marble Index was among that batch of albums. It was way back, pre-cassette. I was just very curious; I used to buy records because I liked the cover. I didn’t have a clue who they were. I loved it when someone had a cigarette or something, I would think, ‘Oh, that looks interesting.’ I would never buy anything if it had a bunch of guys in suits and bow ties on the cover!

Nico played harmonium, she played a little piano. I loved her, because my career started with playing the accordion when I was 12. I did identify with the fact that there was an orchestra inside every note of the harmonium, and the piano accordion. So when I heard her, it gave me permission to play the piano accordion in an abstract way. You didn’t have to do ‘jigs and reels’, you could just play and sing to it. What you realise is that the accordion is inside this huge wooden lung, and it’s got woodwind, and strings and organs, it has all of these sounds inside when you touch these chords. They’re all in there. That’s what struck me about the instrument, that it’s so tactile. It didn’t matter if you played one note or 10. Just feeling the vibration of it against your chest when you’re playing it, it almost activates this automatic response which is to sing. I love that about Nico with the harmonium; even though she didn’t have that presence of this wooden lung against the outside of her chest, she had something that was in some way similar [to the accordion] in that it sounds like an orchestra trapped inside a music box.

Electric Light Orchestra

I love Electric Light Orchestra, because they’re so silly and lovely. Their lyrics tap into the everyday; just the sort of things you have as your thoughts, but you would never admit, because you want to come across as more intelligent. They’re really honest: ‘Hello, how are you, have you been alright? it’s a lonely, lonely night.’ They’re the kinds of lyrics they use. I love their backing vocals, ‘I’m taken! I’m taken!’ I mean, why would they be there? I mean it’s just beautiful. There’s something great fun about ELO, you always smile as soon as they come on, as soon as you hear those robot voices and things.

There’s no ELO in Dead Can Dance, though. I think that Brendan [Perry] would absolutely have me thrown out, if he thought that I suggested that there was any ELO in Dead Can Dance. He’s not a fan, let’s put it that way! But I love them, because sometimes you don’t want to have a heavy trip. Imagine it’s 2am, the party’s almost over, but ELO just gets everyone up and dancing. They have such a lovely vibe.

Alfred Schnittke - Concerto for Viola and Orchestra

The reason I love Schnittke’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, is that it makes you feel like you’re falling into this massive abyss. It’s the end of the world, but it never quite ends. If you put that on in the dark, and you’re lying on your bed; I can’t even explain. You have to do it, you know what I’m talking about? You have these bells, death in every note, but in the most apocalyptic way. Everything’s twirling and spinning and falling. It’s unbelievable, it’s such an extraordinary piece of work.

It’s classical; all use of an orchestra, and Yuri Bashmet is the most remarkable viola player. I believe that Schnittke wrote this piece for him specifically, on his deathbed. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened.

Umm Kulthum – ‘Enta Omry’

She’s an Arabic singer, but she’s the only woman who was ever allowed to sing the Quran. She’s extraordinary, and has an ability to sound somehow so grounded, that it’s actually devastating. When she sings a couple of phrases, and the music just rises up out of it; she’s like a sleeping giant. And then the audience goes completely insane, and then it goes back, and then she’ll do another phrase. Oh my God! It’s just so beautiful, so special, so poetic. The thing I love about her is that you don’t need to know the language, what she’s singing for it to make you feel like you’ve been in some way privy to this very private, very sacred message.

I haven’t seen her live; gosh, that would have been amazing. I think she died in the ‘80s, but I do chase her around on YouTube sometimes. There’s footage of her with these dark sunglasses on, and this huge beehive onstage; she looks magnificent. She has this fantastic voice and it’s almost like without that, you really can’t define who you are, as a poet, for a country.

Edith Piaf – ‘La Vie En Rose’

I like Edith Piaf for similar reasons [to Umm Kulthum], the directness of her Frenchness. She always bears her soul in this rough and very interesting way, and I love that about her. She doesn’t try to be sophisticated, and there’s something special in that voice; she’s like a little urchin. That has always influenced me heavily, that rising sort of little urchin vibe. I have nothing, but what I give you is my soul, this absolutely deliberate move.

Arvo Pärt - Symphony No. 3

I love Arvo Pärt because it’s like someone who has taken a nursery rhyme, and turned it into the most exquisite thing you’ll ever hear. You have composers like Mahler, and I do love Mahler, I love his third movement - he’s just divine - but there’s something about Arvo Pärt that he can just take this simple motif, and repeat it over about five bars. He’ll sweep along, and you’re completely and utterly enchanted by the simplicity of this mantric, kind of cyclical music. It’s almost like a kind of illusion. The thing that amazes me about most composers, is that they think they have to do something terribly complicated, when in fact he shows us very clearly that they don’t. He shows us that the simple things are the things that touch us deeply.

Zbigniew Preisner – ‘Song for the Unification of Europe’

I work with Preisner sometimes. You can’t even understand how his music is written, I don’t think. There’s something so bewitching about the way that he constructs these Eastern Bloc tunes, but in some way, they have melancholia without being sentimental. They make you think of your childhood, they take you back to a place you preferred to be. When you didn’t realise how terrible the world was. It’s both melancholic and nostalgic; these two things aren’t in conflict.

Various Artists – Music of the Troubadours

The Music Of The Troubadours influenced Brendan [Perry] and I very much, on the Aion album. Because we were living in Spain at the time, working on a movie, doing the score for it. Years, and years, ago. We were in this place in Catalonia, where they burned the witches, it’s such a dark, weird place. I never want to go back there! But anyway, the thing is we were working there, and Brendan was playing me all of these Troubadour pieces, which were really not intimidating from the context that you felt like you were entitled to create music, because the pieces were so simple. I remember someone saying, ‘Lisa Gerrard’s music? Oh that’s just a drone and a drum.’ But with just a drone and a drum, everyone can make music, you know. Not that I would describe my music like that! I love that though, because if it’s a drone and a drum, then it means that everyone suddenly realises that they can write music, because all you really have to do is play a drone with a couple of drum hits and a bell, and then you’re in. You can grow from there, which is fabulous.

Johann Sebastian Bach - St Matthew’s Passion / St John’s Passion

These two works make me feel like we almost aren’t allowed to die, when we are faced with them. They’re so inspired, and you feel like in some way developing some relationship with the heavenly or with God. I don’t want to say the word religious, but they create a kind of soulful elevation.

The 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators

I love them because they were very innovative. They mic'd up kettles, and that sort of thing. They had kettles boiling etc, and they were also very dire, deeply psychedelic. They mic'd up things around the kitchen. They are amazing. The music’s very beautiful.

Hans Zimmer - The Thin Red Line: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

I think that this is his best work, I absolutely adore this album. It was written for a war film, and to me that is such an internal journey of questions like: “What of all the meanings of why do we exist? Why do we go to war? What is it that we actually dream about when we are at war, out there on those battlefields?” It’s got all that in there, it’s got a divide between reality and living on the absolute edge of your dreams. I feel that so much in all of that music; it’s so fatalistic, which I love.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2106.28 - 10:10

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- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.