  Are you ready? Here goes. I woke up today to the sight of this Monet reproduction framed on my table: It's Claude Monet's Fisherman's Cottage on the Cliffs at Varengeville . I chanced upon it once at a Barnes & Noble store, the painting being the design on a set of blank cards. Which I promptly bought. Three boxes of them. Among the cards I ever sent out in my life, I think the ones bearing this Monet piece are the most circulated. (So if you got one from me, holler out so I know whom I gave it to and how many I sent out. LOL. Anyway. ) This particular Monet piece evokes a longing to travel, to visit new places, to see what's beyond the blue horizon.
Through the years, I got to associate this Monet painting with a CD one friend gave me some years back: National Public Radio's urlLink All Songs Considered . All Songs Considered is a collection of compositions played as musical interludes and segues between stories and news clips at National Public Radio (89.3 urlLink KPCC in Pasadena).
It is music from around the world. It's got some very wonderful instruments and sounds that I've never heard before: a thumb piano, a cymbalom, a trikitrixa, a glass harmonica, even a Finnish vocal technique called a "yoik. " It's a gorgeous compilation of world music without the pretensions common to such albums. I love every piece, but among them, one stands out: urlLink Kepa Junkera's Santimamiñeko Fandangoa & Ioaeoe . Santimamiñeko Fandangoa & Ioaeoe sounds a lot like a rondilla piece. It comes from Junkera's hit album urlLink Bilbao 00:00h . It's a 2-CD compilation of songs having an unmistakable "world" flavor but fused with a very distinct Basque polyphony. I bought Bilbao 00:00h solely because I was impressed with Junkera's piece in All Songs Considered , and a friend from Bilbao was quite surprised to find out I have a Junkera album.
Apparently, Kepa Junkera is a big artist in that part of Spain. From Bilbao 00:00h , one other number stands out; a song that, unlike the others, is sung in Castilian: Del Hierro a Madagascar . Una lengua común, un idioma mestizo. Un sonido de arena y de fondo de mar. Una sola canción para dar a los hijos. A aquellos que han partido, que vienen y van. Una lengua común, una casa de todos. Una mezcla de lluvia y mañanas del sol. Una sola canción por que nadie esté solo. El verbo compartido en racimos de voz. Del campo y de la sierra, de Itoiz hasta Portugal; Del baile y de la siembra, del Hierro a Madagascar. One common language, one mixed tongue. A sound in the sand and the sea bottom. One song to give to your children.
To those who are gone, to those who come and go. One common language, one house for all. A mixture of rain and sunshine mornings. One song so nobody is alone, sharing the word in clusters of voices. From the contry and the mountains, from Itoiz to Portugal; From the dancing and the sowing, from El Hierro to Madagascar. I always thought it was a perfect song for the United Nations, if ever the United Nations adopted a song.
Or maybe Miss Universe. It would be nice to see this song performed in a Miss Universe competition instead of those cheesy Joey McIntyre or Enrique Iglesias songs. Del Hierro a Madagascar evokes some things that are very fundamental and very profound: unity, harmony and endless possibilities which are as numerous as the sands on the shore. Which brought me back to Monet's painting. But anyways. It was getting late, and I thought I had best get up. 
