Hey Brosky,
Another version of Arti is the Islamic 'call to prayer', also often heard over crackly speakers.
My wife and I were in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco a few years back, on a dirt floor terrace with our guide Mohammed (to whom I'd just told a goat joke after passing through herds of goats all day, and I'd tell it now but might be accused of racism, or at least specism, and I wouldn't have the out of actually being a goat, but given the Tennessee branch of my family, that linkage may not be that far-fetched, anyway I digress).
So around 9 o'clock the last melodic call to prayer of the day comes through the speakers in one of the villages down the valley, then another joined in, then another, producing a 'round'. It was mesmerizing, exquisitely beautiful to listen to. On the other hand, had I grown up a Berber girl in the Atlas, there's a solid chance I'd be married off at 13 years-old to one of my uncles, bear a few kids, and spend the balance of my subservient days with little chance for exploration. There is much I do not like about that harsh culture, and the way Islam can get used as a cudgel on the human skull.
Ah, the siren call of 'devotional music', and it's use to sanitize dirty things.
M
