3.24: Lonely Hearts

Show Notes

This week, we review and analyze Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (機動戦士ガンダムΖΖ) episode 26 - "Masai's Heart” (マサイの心) discuss our first impressions, and provide commentary and research on the setting: rock formations, architecture, desert trees, inspiration for Masai's name, and just where exactly is the Gundam team, anyway?

Petsu-chan's Twitter thread about the Gundam team's route around Africa [SPOILER WARNING - covers episodes not yet covered by Mobile Suit Breakdown].

Papers about Mosque architecture:

Cleo Cantone, West African Mosque Architecture - A Brief Introduction, for MuslimHeritage.com. Available at https://muslimheritage.com/west-african-mosque-architecture-a-brief-introduction/.

Cleo Cantone, A Mosque in a Mosque: Some Observations on the Rue Blanchot Mosque in Dakar and its Relation to Other Mosques in the Colonial Period, Cahiers d’Études africaines, XLVI (2), 182, 2006. Available at https://journals.openedition.org/etudesafricaines/15253?lang=en (includes details about and pictures of the triangular pediment style of mosque)

The Great Mosque of Djenné / Mud Architecture, ArchEyes.com, available at https://archeyes.com/great-mud-architecture-mali-dogon-culture/

Architecture of the Sub-Saharan Civilizations, LumenLearning.com, available at https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/architecture-of-the-sub-saharan-civilizations/

Wikipedia page for the Great Mosque of Djenné.

About the Agadez Mosque in Niger, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Modern mosques designs in West Africa: Masalikul Jinaan and the Great Mosque of Touba.

Wikipedia pages for African architecture generally, and for Sungbo's Eredo and the Walls of Benin (plus the sack of Benin, 1897).

Description of architecture and urban planning in old caravan towns in Mauritania (with lots of pictures of dry-laid stone architecture).

List of deserts in Africa, with subsection on the deserts that make up the Sahara.

Photographs of sandstone pinnacles and other geological features near the Ennedi Mountains in Chad. Includes photographs that show the variety of different terrains in the are (sand dunes, gravel beds, small groups of palm trees, lava rock, etc.).

Wikipedia pages for the Hoggar Mountains, Tadrart Rouge, and Tassili n'Ajjer - all mountains in Algeria with their own beautiful rock formations.

Wikipedia page for the Aïr Mountains, which includes a photo of some rocky outcroppings near Agadez, and a photograph of some rock spires and cliffs near Bilma, Niger (found through Pinterest, and the link to the original is dead, so I can't say for sure it is what it says it is, BUT it looks right, based on other pictures from the region).

Article about the effort to use deep-learning AI to do a tree count of the Sahel Desert.

Several articles on plant life in the Sahara.

This episode's animal-friend: Uromastyx geyri, also known as the Geyr's dabb lizard, Geyr's spiny-tailed lizard, Sahara mastigure, Saharan spiny-tailed lizard, Yellow Niger Uromastyx, and Saharan yellow uromastyx.

Pages about the Maasai people from Wikipedia and the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, and a page about Masai as a given name and surname.

Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced within Lenapehoking, the ancestral and unceded homeland of the Lenape, or Delaware, people. Before European settlers forced them to move west, the Lenape lived in New York City, New Jersey, and portions of New York State, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Lenapehoking is still the homeland of the Lenape diaspora, which includes communities living in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario.

You can learn more about Lenapehoking, the Lenape people, and ongoing efforts to honor the relationship between the land and indigenous peoples by visiting the websites of the Delaware Tribe and the Manhattan-based Lenape Center. Listeners in the Americas and Oceania can learn more about the indigenous people of your area at https://native-land.ca/. We would like to thank The Lenape Center for guiding us in creating this living land acknowledgment.

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