How Paul Bowles’ recordings of traditional Moroccan music might have served an agenda of resistance.

Three Americans—a woman, her husband, and his friend—sit in a café in Morocco a few years after the end of World War II. The woman, bored, muses on their travels, “The people of each country get more like the people of every other country. They have no character, no beauty, no ideals, no culture, nothing.” Her husband replies condescendingly, “You’re right…Everything’s getting gray and it’ll be grayer. But some places’ll withstand the malady longer than you think.”

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