Epistemological violence in America

Have you ever thought about how really disturbingly weird Zamfir is?

The other day I heard that, while American staffers were typing away in a makeshift office space at the NATO summit, Zamfir came and played some mystical mountain music for them on the pan flute. Zamfir, made famous in the US by a string CNN commercials, is (apparently) one of Romania's national treasures. He has run a pan flute school there and published some instructional books on the topic.

I have to admit that, upon hearing about this event, my first thought was, "Why couldn't I have remembered this guy during college?" It would have been so hot to pull out a Zamfir CD during some house party. My well-honed irony would have overwhelmed nearly everyone. They may have even fainted from the heights of it all. But alas...

Now, the Balkans fall famously outside of American and Western European conceptions of what Europeanness is. We "orientalize" them, or whatever. An important book in Balkan studies is titled The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe, if that gives you any idea. Many wise and prestigious scholars have weighed in on this issue, why Romania and other Balkan states are so different. Well, I've got got my theory: it's called Zamfir!

Listen and watch carefully and experience the lusty divinity of the Danube and Romania's sacred mountain passes.