sitar, Ravi Shankar, George Harrison, smack dab, smegma, sommelier, soprano, spaghetti, spangled

sitar: [Hindu, sih three,  tar strings]

   In 1965, George Harrison of the Beatles released the first record to incorporate the sitar…”Norwegian Wood”.  He also played the sitar on the hauntingly beautiful songs “Within You Without You” and “Across the Universe”  for Sgt. Peppers  Lonely Hearts Club Band.

    Ravi Shankar was a musical role model for me, akin to the spiritually based music of Maurice White and Earth, Wind and Fire.  This was evidenced by the very spiritual approach he took to his music.   Here is an excerpt from his obituary from the NYT’s:

Ravi Shankar, Sitarist Who Introduced Indian Music to the West, Dies at 92

‘I Surrendered Myself’ 

       “He was the first person frank enough to tell me that I had talent but that I was wasting it — that I was going nowhere, doing nothing,” Mr. Shankar said. “Everyone else was full of praise, but he killed my ego and made me humble.”   When Mr. Shankar asked Mr. Khan to teach him, he was told that he could learn to play the sitar only after he decided to give up the worldly life he was leading and devote himself fully to his studies. In 1937 Mr. Shankar gave up dancing, sold his Western clothes and returned to India to become a musician.   “I surrendered myself to the old way,” he said, “and let me tell you, it was difficult for me to go from places like New York and Chicago to a remote village full of mosquitoes, bedbugs, lizards and snakes, with frogs croaking all night. I was just like a Western young man. But I overcame all that.” 

       After studying with Mr. Khan and marrying his daughter, Annapurna, also a sitarist, Mr. Shankar began his performing career in India. In the 1940s he started bringing Eastern and Western currents together in ballet scores and incidental music for films, including Satyajit Ray’s “Apu” trilogy, in the late 1950s. 

       Coltrane named his son Ravi Coltrane, also a saxophonist, after Mr. Shankar. 

       Mr. Shankar was the subject of a documentary, “Raga: A Film Journey Into the Soul of India,” in 1971

smack dab  exactly (origin?)

smegma: [soap]

sommelier: (French, sommier, a person in charge of transportation;)    somme, a burden)  \suhm uh l yey’\  a waiter in a restaurant or club in charge of wines

         In reference to sommelier, see the entries under "zyme"... which I will repeat below:

zymology, zymurgy: the branch of chemistry that deals with fermentation, i.e. the study of wine

    Speaking of wine…other words that come to mind are:

     oenophile: (Greek oinos, wine) \ee’ noh file\  a connoisseur of wine

          oenophilist: same meaning

          oenophilic, adj.

          oenophilia, the love of wines

Of course, there is Homer’s Odyssey, with it’s many references throughout to “the wine dark sea.”   A book of great poetic description.  I recently read the Odyssey again and counted all the references to this phrase scattered throughout the work .

soprano:  [supra]  the highest pitched voice or part

spaghetti: [Italian: diminutive of spago thread, string]  

It is the plural of spaghetto.

spangled:  [diminutive of "spang" = a shiny ornament] glittering