Escape from Kabul (2022) – review

Cellphones are everywhere. We can see things as they happen, sometimes gut-wrenching portraits of human suffering fall into this category. I recently watched HBO’s documentary Escape from Kabul (2022). Before I get going I want to give you this…

DISCLAIMER: The following article may not be easy to read. There will be descriptions of violence against women and children. My aim is not to be gratuitous and dance while being covered with blood. I want to try and paint (i.e. review) this film as honestly as I can without skimping on some details. Oh…I should mention that there will be spoilers strewn everywhere.

Brief summary

Some of you may be aware that the Trump struck a peace deal with Afghanistan back in February 2020 (see my list of sources at the bottom of the article for more details). Since the Obama administration the U.S.A. had slowly been losing it’s control of the country. In another PBS documentary I saw there was an estimate that in 2019 the Taliban controlled 80% of the land.

Long story short…the U.S. had to get as many people out (of the airport) with as little bloodshed as possible. This documentary shows events, less than two years ago, that happened at the Kabul airport. Things didn’t go according to plan.

No one wins

If you’re watching this hoping for either the Taliban, or the Americans to be victorious…you’re gonna be disappointed. On August 15, 2021 the Taliban officially take over the country. On the same day many of the top government officials in Afghanistan were flown out of the country and given the VIP treatment isn’t that nice?

On the next day the floodgates open…
People are terrified of the Taliban and flock in droves to the airport. The Americans have a skeleton crew to begin with, so managing the sheer waves of desperate people is nearly impossible without some aggressive measures. What happens next comes from a result of desperation mixed with sheer terror.

There are so many people swarming the airport that the biggest concern of the military is that the airfield will be over run and planes will be unable to takeoff. They cope with this by flying a helicopter very low to the ground to push people back. Dunno about you…but I’m not in the business of taking a helicopter blade to the head before I jump on a plane.

This story blew up on the news media. In 2021 you probably saw that infamous C-17 cargo plane trying to take off while people were clinging to the outside of the plane. Yes, you heard me. Most of them did not let go once the wheels left the ground. In the film you see bodies falling off the plane while it’s in flight. Other people were run over on the airstrip because they didn’t get out of the way in time.

Here’s a direct quote from a Washington Post article about a young dentist on Aug 16. (The full article can be found at the bottom under my list of sources.)

Desperation drove some people to cling to the wings of airplanes as they took off. Fada Mohammad, a young dentist, fell to his death on Aug. 16. His remains were found on a rooftop four miles from the airport. A teenage soccer player also died after plummeting from a U.S. aircraft.

The scale of suffering

It’s hard to put into words because it’s so divorced from reality. Many people were crammed like sardines waiting to get into the gates. They waited 4-5 days in the sweltering heat, with no food and little water.

Here are some examples of the casualties:

• People were trampled to death (this includes children and infants)
• Many died of heat exhaustion.
• Near Abbey Gate people stood in a canal of sewage for days. (if you stood in it, it would go up to the middle of your chest).
• Afghans were shot with rubber bullets from shot guns and other riot gear.
• Afghan Special Forces shot and killed civilians to clear the airstrip.
• Hundreds were cut up by razor wire that was used to control the crowd. (I remember watching a kid – no more than 11 years old – grab onto it like the last tree branch at the edge of the cliff.)
• Mothers gave their children away to U.S. troops.

I would like to say that was all the suffering that happened. Nope. A few days later on Aug 26, a bomb goes off…

During the panic to try and get people organized and processed before the deadline (Aug 31), another group of militants had time to observe and disrupt things. A group called ISK (Islamic State-Khorasan) claimed responsibility for the attack. They were the Islamic State’s arm in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If that name draws a blank in your mind, they are fueled by similar ideologies as ISIS. Oh yeah…the former is also called ISIS-K. Should’ve mentioned that earlier but now it’s too late so you’re just gonna have to live with it…mmmkay?

The bomb killed more than 170 people at the airports perimeter along with 13 American troops.

The good, the bad and the convenient

There is a silver lining to this tragedy. The end result was over 122,000 people were airlifted abroad. The whole event left me with a bag of worms of feelings. So much suffering to rescue a fraction of those people. That’s about all the good I can get out of it. Wait a second, there’s one other thing…

This documentary uses a wide range of interviews. I’ve gotta tip my hat to the filmmakers that chose to interview the U.S. military, several members of the Taliban, civilians who endured those conditions and escaped and others who did not. I’ve spoken about a lot of the bad. So much so that I’m craving a cigarette way more than I should. So I’m gonna start to wrap up this article but talking about the convenient. By that I mean a few facts that the film either left out or got wrong.

I’d like to preface this next part and say that I do recommend the film for whose who are able to endure it. I suffer from curiosity and I went and did more late night googling on the topic. They’re in a numbered order because I like numbers. They make me look official.

1. The Americans were not the only troops at the airport
   • Only the film doesn’t directly say there were only Americans present. Through the interviews of various military one can be fooled into thinking that the Americans were the heroes. There were actually 37 other countries assisting during this process. (See the wikipedia article link in my list of sources.)
2. The Taliban sprayed bullets in the crowd to control them.
   • This I read on an IMDB review. I can’t verify it 100%, but on the other hand I can’t dispute it either.
3. The airport ran more efficiently after the U.S. withdrawal.
   • This comes from another IMDB reviewer who says they live in Afghanistan. Once again I cannot verify it’s authenticity.
4. There were still Americans in Afghanistan after August 31, 2021
   • There are a number of news articles that confirm this. You will have to do your own digging if you don’t believe me.
5. Aug 29, a US drone strike kills 10 civilians.
   • Did I hear you cringe when you read this one? It’s pretty hard to paint Americans as heroes when they screw up an operation. Their intel said this was a car of explosives sent by their ISK buddies. Nope. Wrong again. 10 civilians including small children kinda wrong.

Final thoughts

• Don’t watch this late at night before bed. Trust me.
• If you’re anything like me this film will live inside you for several hours afterwards.
• Is the film flawed? At times. Just don’t shoot the messenger before you have time to appreciate the message.
• Religious extremism isn’t going away anytime soon.
• I still need that goddam cigarette once I’ve finished writing this.
• Feedback and comments are welcome.
• I hope I’ve made enough sense to interest you in this film.

PhilosopherPoet

Sources

• Trump peace deal
• Epoch Times review
• Kabul airport timeline
• Kabul airlift – wikipedia
• 18 essential docs on Afghanistan and the Taliban
• Escape from Kabul review
• AP news article
• Politico news article
• Al Jazeera – In pictures

Image credits

The following are in order of appearance:

• Film poster
• Business Insider
• Canada’s CBC article
• Politico article
• Al Jazeera – In pictures

A brief analysis of Celestial Music (by Louise Glück)

Celestial Music
Louise Glück

I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she’s unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.

We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I’m always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
According to nature. For my sake she intervened
Brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down
Across the road.

My friend says I shut my eyes to God, that nothing else explains
My aversion to reality. She says I’m like the child who
Buries her head in the pillow
So as not to see, the child who tells herself
That light causes sadness–
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
To wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person–

In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We’re walking
On the same road, except it’s winter now;
She’s telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
Look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
Like brides leaping to a great height–
Then I’m afraid for her; I see her
Caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth–

In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
From time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It’s this moment we’re trying to explain, the fact
That we’re at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn’t move.
She’s always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
Capable of life apart from her.
We’re very quiet. It’s peaceful sitting here, not speaking, The composition
Fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
Going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering–
It’s this stillness we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.

*       *       *

The poem opens by talking about a friend who believes in heaven and “literally talks to God”. This is a conversational journey between two friends who discover a caterpillar being eaten alive by ants. On a superficial level the poem pivots between discussion of God and nature. If you read deeper into the poem you will notice Glück is struck by her friend in her own dreams. In reality the friend criticizes her for being oblivious to God. In the dream world that same friend takes on a more maternal role. The title of the poem is born out of the dream world when the friend explains, “when you love the world you hear celestial music”.

Simply put, the friend is obsessed by God and heaven. Glück’s mind daydreams in nature and this is where she finds her spirituality. Even though the two friends have contrasting views of the cosmos, this doesn’t deter them from their friendship. One could argue that nature is the medium which keeps them together. Apart from the death of the caterpillar the pair are also struck by the sight of clouds, the sunset, the silence interrupted by the sound of a bird and the implied effect of nighttime on their surroundings.

The poem ends with many layers of self reflection. While Glück is able to sit quietly and (on some level) embrace the caterpillar’s death; her friend acknowledges it by drawing “a circle in the dirt”. We are told that the friend wants to make the ugly death beautiful. Because poem is written in the first person…we never get to fully understand what made her draw that circle. Maybe Glück has the poet’s curse of seeing an image (or semblance of meaning) in almost every emotion and ripple in nature. What if I told you that the friend drew the circle because that was her way of giving the poor creature a “funeral”. It was her way of saying goodbye, wasn’t it?

If you are left with more questions than answers by the end of the poem…you are not alone. The themes of God, friendship, motherhood and forces of nature are all woven along the same path. It is an ambiguous one. I tend to learn more as I walk.

A note on the text

I wrote this with a few things in mind. It serves as a short and simple explanation on the poem. I found it difficult to stay succinct. Poetry analysis tends to make me stabby. I fell in love with poetry through reading and scribbling on scraps of paper and many journals. I think poetry gets dissected in primary school and butchered in high school. I think very few people find meaning by staring at the entrails. If that’s your thing…you’d be better off listening to some Cannibal Corpse.

a few things worth mentioning

My original idea was to help a few plebeians decipher what this poem is all about. I also suffer palpitations of curiosity. Trust me…there is no cure for that. With that said I’ve decided to end off this post with some additional reading for those who find a few internet articles exciting at midnight. Before I get to that I’m gonna include a little more background on the poet.

You see she uses what I like to call the “unspoken voice”. I like to think of it as the gaps in silences rather than the words themselves.

In her essay from Proofs and Theories, titled “Disruption, Hesitation, Silence,” Louise Glück says:

“I do not think that more information always makes a richer poem. I am attracted to ellipsis, to the unsaid, to suggestion, to eloquent, deliberate silence. The unsaid, for me, exerts great power: often I wish an entire poem could be made in this vocabulary. It is analogous to the unseen for example, to the power of ruins, to works of art either damaged or incomplete. Such works inevitably allude to larger contexts; they haunt because they are not whole, though wholeness is implied: another time, a world in which they were whole, or were to have been whole, is implied. There is no moment in which their first home is felt to be the museum. … It seems to me that what is wanted, in art, is to harness the power of the unfinished. All earthly experience is partial. Not simply because it is subjective, but because that which we do not know, of the universe, of mortality, is so much more vast than that which we do know. What is unfinished or has been destroyed participates in these mysteries. The problem is to make a whole that does not forfeit this power.”

PhilosopherPoet

Further Reading

• The Unsaid (http://transactionswithbeauty.com/home/theunsaid)
• The Essay Project: Stripping Down (https://www.bigbangpoetry.com/2021/03/the-essay-project-stripping-down.html)
• Disruption, Hesitation, Silence (https://www.thefreelibrary.com/_/print/PrintArticle.aspx?id=14375024)
• Poetry Wednesdays: Louise Glück, “Celestial Music” (https://lakwatserang-guro.com/2012/05/02/poetry-louise-gluck-celestial-music/)
• AMG’s Guide to Cannibal Corpse (https://www.angrymetalguy.com/amgs-guide-to-cannibal-corpse/)

words for my father

Father Ballam hooking a big one.

My father is a warrior on many levels. He has risen up through the blizzard of a divorce. He soldiered through his own dyslexia and the currents of a busy family to conquer his Masters in Philosophy. (I better have another drink here this is starting to sound like a damn eulogy…and the bugger is still alive!) Allow me to reel this story in, the way one would clasp the steel nub of a coffee grinder’s arm. I can sum up my father in three words…

Fishing. Philosophy. Ideas.
These are the forces that drive him. They propel him onto the cold mud of a riverbank or into the furnace of concepts jostling in an academic paper. I know when he starts his 5 o’clock mornings ( a ritual the family has grown accustomed to), he first rustles around the kitchen like a wise old badger. To make his coffee he doesn’t turn on the kettle. Instead, he puts a pot of water on the stove and waits for it to boil.

Having a pint with the old man.

I remember being an angst-fuelled 23 year old telling him, “But that takes so much longer!”
He looked at me, a warm smile filling his eyes.
“You do not live with a woman and small children.”
His sensitivity, back then, baffled my own immature mantras. His modest income meant the houses he occupied where no mansions. In a nutshell, he would rarely give up his morning routine and at the same time…restrain himself so the family got enough sleep. Allow me to get back to the badger and his early morning.

My father in his element…or The Element perhaps?

Coffee in hand, he trundles to his favourite chair in the lounge. (If you read as much as this intellectual mammoth, you earn the right. Or perhaps, the chair finds you?) He sits down with a big red book of Rumi (a Sufi poet). It’s the perfect blend for him, mysticism and metaphor.

A gentleman always tells the truth. He allowed me to reel this fatty in so I could experience “the rush”. I compromised and said I’d take the photo as his hands were still full of fish!

Over the years poetry and books kept the two of us together. Much like a weekend for him, alone, pours cool consciousness back into his bones. He may not believe in a god, although he will make an effort to crawl back into nature to get in touch with something close to a Divine. Whether it’s internal or buried in the ripples of a rise…well, that remains to be seen.

Having another pint!

I love you Dad. Happy Birthday!

 

PhilosopherPoet

The PowerBook – Jeanette Winterson (review)

The Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A modern day collage of memories, love, philosophy, history and the grit that lies underneath all of us.

That’s my attempt to sum up the novel in a single sentence. What’s it about? Well, the chapters are laid out with headings you will see on a Apple computer (e.g, SEARCH, NEW DOCUMENT, EMPTY TRASH). Even the title is “The PowerBook”, which has the same layout as a MacBook does (i.e. an Apple Mac laptop for the layman). The story line flickers between an entity online called Ali (or Alix) who writes stories for other people for a living, and a love triangle in Paris. A guy who falls in love with two different women on separate occasions.

I read this in spurts over 3 days. Most of the chapters are around 3-5 pages. If you’re prepared for a postmodern story line that hops back and forth leaving some questions unanswered, this may be for you. Perhaps I was too caught up in the swirling metaphors and visceral imagery which, in turn, propelled me to keep reading.

The PowerBook may not answer all your questions on love, and the inner cogs of lovers. However, it’s a beautiful and moving read. I reckon you should give it a go.

If you’re in-love with someone else while you’re reading it…even better!

 

PhilosopherPoet

View all my reviews

fences

Inspired by the 2016 film Fences (click here)

*                                  *                                  *

 

spin the ball with me…hold that leather skull in your hand it’s just baseball

it could be rocket science ingredients leaping from tube to tube with the fear of fire and the desire to turn into something cold and remembered

in baseball folks are running from plate to plate sometimes you miss the ball like it’s a force you can’t see…an idea you can’t free…a divorce in your head maybe

an old man is out building a fence…he buys sturdy wood…he wears a smile and a stare that crawls into your bones

he churns up the naked loam with an old spade…his hands cling to the wooden neck the same way a jaded man fondles a bottle of something strong enough to wash emotions away

“one day I’ll finish this damn thing” he tells himself…earth, sweat and spray rinse dense memories he cannot leave behind unless he presses his lips to the gentle kiss of a gin bottle

old, polished, strong to the taste just like a boy he remembers and the man he forgets

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

Eating Dirt – Charlotte Gill (book review)

Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It’s rare that I finish a book of non-fiction. This is a gritty and visceral read. The prose is sharp, vivid and riddled with shards of experiences.

At times I could feel myself crammed in rusty pick up, hurtling along the dirty road with other soil-plastered planters. Reading this can be frightening, and sometimes funny as hell. It’s written from the heart of someone who isn’t afraid to take you to being in the middle of nowhere.

I learned a great deal about planters, forests, creatures, foibles, and speckles of ecology that intersperse Gill’s memories.

View all my reviews

 

PhilosopherPoet

Waiting to be Heard: A Memoir by Amanda Knox (review)

How it all began

You’re a young, adventurous, quirky, bouncy and free-spirited girl in your twenties. You develop a fascination with Italy, save up as much money as you can – and after a while – decide to go work/live/study there. You arrive in Italy and after some confusion with the new language find a great group of like minded students to share a house with. It feels like paradise…in fact at the time it really is. You work at night and study during the day. You meet a shy and intelligent computer science student. You fall helplessly in love for a week. The morning after a night at your boyfriend’s place you go back to your room to fetch a few things. One or two things might’ve been out of place, but you rationalize it away.

The worry starts to gnaw at you. You convince your boyfriend that checking the flat for a second time is a good idea. After returning with your boyfriend and a few others, you discover the flat mate you once loved is murdered (brutally, you later find out). This is when your whole experience of Italy changes… The police never trust you. You are interrogated for days in Italian. When the police can’t get the answers they need they slap you and shout louder. Your brain is tangled in your own words, and you give a confession that made sense to you (at the time) in your frazzled state. You’re denied access to a lawyer. You are stripped naked in front of a room of people to be poked, prodded, measured and checked. Once the ‘experts’ are satisfied, you are thrown in a van, driven to a prison, and locked up as you await your trial.

Italy is never the same for you again.

The book itself

Above is a brief summary of Waiting to be Heard by Amanda Knox. It is a memoir, and the first time she makes a public stand and tells her side of the story. I found it an accessible and really speedy read. It’s difficult to put down – and more importantly – extremely honest. The book deals briefly with Amanda’s arrival in Italy and the friends she met. That’s all over after 160 odd pages. The remainder of the book deals with her time in prison, and of course the trials in which she was first convicted, and then later acquitted for the murder of Meredith Kercher (along with other charges).

An online friend mentioned this person to me, and before reading the book I actually paid little attention to the media. Why? Well there was so much out there, and it felt overwhelming. So part of me said, “Let me listen to what she has to say.” I went and dug up interviews on YouTube of Amanda Knox. I listened to the way she came across and it felt sincere. I did subsequently glance over a few news articles on the internet, but avoided the tabloids like the plague.

When you listen to someone else’s side of the story, you learn something.
What I took away with me is that Amanda loves people. I felt touched reading her stories of the people she meant in prison, the songs she sung, and the meaning she put back into others. In my opinion, the media was so wrapped up in the final verdict and the courtroom drama it forgot about the people. There was little said about the prison in the media, whatever was said was tough to find.

Perhaps this is also a comment on public opinion. Why do we care about the end result so much? Why is it a big deal if a student smokes a joint, and has sex with one or two people? We leap onto our soapboxes and bring down the judgement without examining ourselves first. Everyone goes through a period of invincibility and throwing caution to the wind. Sometimes that’s the only way we learn.

Why I care?

Perhaps the only time we truly become human, is once we’ve learnt what empathy means. I could identify with this book because I put myself directly in Amanda Knox’s shoes. I am a similar age to her, and also Cancerian. The way I heard her talk about family and the weight it carried, I must’ve given her a few invisible high fives. She put her heart right out there and showed the events according to her, and I thought there was tremendous strength in that.

You can read online about the ordeal she went through, but she essentially lost 3 years of her life in prison for a crime she did not commit. Many people may have wanted to let the past be the past, not Amanda. I’m reminded of a DIO song titled Stand up and shout. That’s exactly what Knox eventually did. When something doesn’t sit well with you, there is no alternative. You have to have your final say. Being a writer as well, I more than identify with this notion. She had the sheer courage to stare at her old wounds and slowly describe and clarify each one.

Perhaps writing this novel brought her a sense of catharsis and closure. It would have done so for me.

Why read it?

Most of the time, it didn’t feel like I was reading anything. I was listening. Listening to the stories of people sculpted by Knox’s pen, and hearing the fears she overcame made all the difference. While reading it I couldn’t shake off the feeling that all this really happened. After being smeared and bad-mouthed by a variety of media, its refreshing to see someone speak with very little judgement in her voice.

To call an attractive girl a slut is a simple and ‘easy’ opinion. Rather take the longer road, listen for a while because maybe…she really does have a point.

 

PhilosopherPoet

 

 

Additional Reading

• Huffington Post Blog (http://t.co/LAJfb8xT8J)
• Tom Kington book review (http://tinyurl.com/o326agl
• Andrew Gumbel book review (http://tinyurl.com/nlcpw8j)
• DIO – Stand up and shout (http://tinyurl.com/qjr5jxz)

Is content important? (Steve Jobs interview)

This evening I was watching Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview. Essentially it’s the longest piece of interview material that the public has really seen. I sat down, and watched it, and certain things began to trigger in my brain. (Remember this interview was done in 1995). Services that have been ingrained in us such as Facebook, Blogging, iPods, MacBook Pros, Wi-Fi, Smartphones, Cloud computing, weren’t even on the radar. To give you an idea – if you aren’t much of a technophile – this was around the time that the internet started becoming a well-known concept and tool to the public. Before I digress too much let me turn the focus back to Jobs.

Steve Jobs The Lost Interview (2012). This show was recorded in 1995, or there about.

“People get very confused [and assume] the process is the content.”

What Jobs was talking about here, was eventually he had recruited a few hundred people (in the early days of Apple) people lost sight of what great content (or a great product) was. One example Steve gave indicated that Xerox went under because of this. What happened? Well, they had a monopoly in the copier market. In his words “So you make a better copier or a better computer, so what?” The people that can make the company more successful were in two spheres…Sales and Marketing. Therefore, the Sales and Marketing people end up running the companies. This means the product people get pushed away from the decision-making forums, and in time the company forgets what it is to make great products.

In a similar way this illustrates the difference between content and process. If you’re stuck in the same company for five years, as an example, you’ve become part of the process. Some of that is good – it gets things done – it helps the business continue making its money. However, when one gets absorbed by the process, you can easily lose sight of the content. “Am I producing good quality work? Does this work I’m producing mean something to me?” If you’re stuck in the process then questions like that may not even be apparent to you. Maybe it’s just a case of “Oh well, it’s a job it pays the bills. I’m not ecstatic about dragging my ass to work, but at least it’s something.” That’s a very bad rationalization for me.

The details matter. Of course they do! If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be in the career we are in the first place. What I think Jobs was getting at is if you care about the content, you care a great deal more about yourself…and ultimately where you are going.

What are your thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment or two! 🙂

Links:

• IMDB
• YouTube

 

PhilosopherPoet

If There Be a Chance

Here’s a great poem from an interesting poet I stumbled across on WritersCafe . I was so moved I thought I had to share it with the outside world. Sarah also has a collection titled “The Other Side of Up”

by Sarah S. Williams

iExplorer – An iTunes Alternative

I’ve been with Apple a while now, and there is one piece I software I continually hear people complain about…iTunes. One of the major gripes I’m heard is that it tells you “My way or the highway”. It doesn’t allow the honest bloke on the street to recover music from an iPod (whose computer has died). Another thing, what if you just needed a couple of PDFs or pictures from one App and you didn’t want to use the clumsy iTunes root? Well this software is the answer to that problem.

Another cool thing? Backing up your notes. Sometimes you want an offline copy of your notes from the Notes App on the iPad. This app will go and save all your notes as RTF (Rich Text Format) files. Once you have those you can always upload them, or back them up wherever you wish.

It gets into the nooks and crannies. Every now and again you will download an eReader, note taker, download manager, organiser, photo organiser…in other words something that will collect bits and pieces for you. If you were to use iTunes for the first time, it doesn’t give you a simple way of retrieving that info. Here, this app displays everything in a tree-structure and Shazam you can crawl into each and every app and extract your crucial information.

 

Here’s an exmaple of all the different services this App provides.

Behold the Tree Structure! Here’s an example of ripping photos off an iPad. Pretty nifty!

This a good example of saving your music collection. One client of mine had their largest collection of music stored on their iPad, and they needed it rescued.

 

PhilosopherPoet