time well spent on a Saturday afternoon

[gfish]

I love how at the end of Lynch's Dune you have Fedaykin playing on tenor drum duos. It raises the delightfully unlikely image of a fremen marching band.

...I must assume that willfully playing in time like that would have a deep psychological impact for them, an added frisson of taboo and danger. Hell, sex would generally have that connotation, unless they practice some kind of non-rhythmic Bene Gesserit tantric sex. They all must have weird rhythm related fetishes. I used to think that 'you dance like a fremen' was a great insult, but now I'm not so sure. With all this emotional baggage, I bet sietch parties get pretty crazy.

I probably think about Dune too much.

Comments

[k-crow.livejournal.com]

*grin* Probably, but the directions you think in are highly enjoyable.

[ionan.livejournal.com]

Never thought about it that way, but that could lead to really interesting musical styles. Generations spent developing listenable arrhythmic music....

[danceswithlife]

There are certainly worse things to think about...and your mentioning it reminded me that I haven't read it in many, many, years and probably should re-read it.

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

Fascinating...

I can see some sort of cultural notion of a rhythm as defining a being, taking hold. Individuals have their own rhythms of walking, heartbeats, and so forth. Sex involves people creating a single rhythm together, and so could be seen as a form of temporarily joining people together into a single entity. The tau orgy would probably be similar, binding the sietch together. Walking in the desert could be seen as blending in with the greater ecosystem (and I think I recall it being phrased in that way), or perhaps also avoiding blending with the worms.

One of the bits I recall of the funeral service mentioned "the heartbeats jan-jan-jan of our friend Jamis" (roughly), which seems to imply that rhythm awareness might be worked deeply into their language as well.

Not to mention the subject of rhythm in combat, which I can't say much about personally, but it's a big theme in eastern and western texts; establishing a rhythm and then breaking it is a primary tactic. And if the Fremen are used to moving without any rhythm at all, it could make their movements fiendishly hard to predict...

[creeves78.livejournal.com]

Your timing is incredibly weird. I just started rereading Dune yesterday afternoon. You have provoked my thoughts! Now I'll be pondering this all night...

[gement.livejournal.com]

That's really sexy. I'm just sayin'. But I like thinking about people's fetishes.