Sunday, June 28, 2020

Bill Moyers: A Poet a Day

During these trying days of social distancing, self-isolating and quarantines, days rife with fear and anxiety, my colleagues and I thought you might like some company. So each day we will be introducing you to poets we have met over the years. The only contagion they will expose you to is a measure of joy, reflection and meditation brought on by “the best words in the best order.”
Enjoy.
Bill Moyers
In this video, poet and playwright Claudia Rankine reads César Vallejo’s poem, “Untitled.” Although Vallejo published only three books of poetry during his lifetime, he is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century. Rankine’s new play, “Help,” was in previews at New York City’s The Shed earlier in March when the pandemic forced all theaters to shut down.
“Untitled”
By César Vallejo
For several days, I have felt an exuberant, political need
to love, to kiss affection on its two cheeks,
and I have felt from afar a demonstrative
desire, another desire to love, willingly or by force,
whoever hates me, whoever rips up his paper, a little boy,
the woman who cries for the man who was crying,
the king of wine, the slave of water,
whoever hid in his wrath,
whoever sweats, whoever passes, whoever shakes his person in my soul.
And I want, therefore, to adjust
the braid of whoever talks to me; the hair of the soldier;
the light of the great one; the greatness of the little one.
I want to iron directly
a handkerchief for whoever is unable to cry
and, when I am sad or happiness hurts me,
to mend the children and the geniuses.
I want to help the good one become a little bit bad
and I badly need to be seated
on the right hand of the left-handed, and to respond to the mute,
trying to be useful to him
as I can, and also I want very much
to wash the lame man’s foot,
and to help the nearby one-eyed man sleep.
Ah love, this one my own, this one the world’s,
interhuman and parochial, maturely aged!
It comes perfectly timed,
from the foundation, from the public groin,
and, coming from afar, makes me wantto kiss
the singer’s muffler,
and whoever suffers to kiss him on his frying pan,
the deaf man on his cranial murmur;
whoever gives me what I forgot in my breast,
on his Dante, on his Chaplin, on his shoulders.
I want, finally,
when I’m at the celebrated edge of violence
or my heart full of chest, I would like
to help whoever smiles laugh,
to put a little bird right on the evil man’s cape,
to take care of the sick, annoying them,
to buy from the vendor
to help the killer kill, a terrible thing
and I would like to be kind to myself
in everything.
From "The Complete Posthumous Poetry of César Vallejo," Jose Rubia Barcia (Translator), Clayton Eshleman (Translator), 1978, University of California Press.
Learn more about Claudia Rankine at https://billmoyers.com/…/a-poet-a-day-claudia-rankine-cesar…
Find more pandemic poetry: BillMoyers.com/poetry

What Really Happens When You Donate Your Clothes and Why It’s Bad

 On consumerism....

“We don’t value our clothing anymore,” Jenkins declares. “Fast fashion has helped us build up a more intense addiction to buying clothing and, at the same time, it’s helped us really elevate the throwaway culture.”

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Romanian Philosopher Emil Cioran on the Courage to Disillusion Yourself

 Romanian Philosopher Emil Cioran on the Courage to Disillusion Yourself
Read more in BrainPicking

“The man who unmasks his fictions renounces his own resources and, in a sense, himself. Consequently, he will accept other fictions which will deny him, since they will not have cropped up from his own depths.”


“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster,” James Baldwin wrote in a staggeringly prescient piece from 1953.

Laughers

Laughers

Dream-singers,
Story-tellers,
Dancers,
Loud laughers in the hands of Fate—
My people.
Dish-washers,
Elevator-boys,
Ladies' maids,
Crap-shooters,
Cooks,
Waiters,
Jazzers,
Nurses of babies,
Loaders of ships,
Rounders,
Number writers,
Comedians in vaudeville
And band-men in circuses—
Dream-singers all,—
My people.
Story-tellers all,—
My people.
Dancers—
God! What dancers!
Singers—
God! What singers!
Singers and dancers
Dancers and laughers.
Laughers?
Yes, laughers . . . laughers . . . laughers—
Loud-mouthed laughers in the hands

My People

 My People
By James Langston Hughes

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

Friday, June 19, 2020

روزنگاری های دیاسپورا

روزنگاری های دیاسپورا شماره ۳۰۸

یک قصه دیگر نوشتم بنام “نسترن”
یکشنبه ۱۷ ماه جون ۱۹۹۰ – آیواسیتی

 “نسترن”
بخش نخست
اسمم نسترن است. بیست و شش ساله ام. تهران به دنیا آمده ام و تنها دختر پدر و مادرم هستم.

شماره 309 روزنگاری های دیاسپورا بخش دوم

ادامه قصه “نسترن”

  بخش آخر روزنگاری های دیاسپورا شماره ۳۱۰ Memories in Diaspora # 310 آخرین بخش قصه

The ‘Untranslatable’ Emotions ...

Interesting article:

"Have you ever felt a little mbuki-mvuki – the irresistible urge to “shuck off your clothes as you dance”? Perhaps a little kilig – the jittery fluttering feeling as you talk to someone you fancy? How about uitwaaien – which encapsulates the revitalising effects of taking a walk in the wind? 

These words – taken from Bantu, Tagalog, and Dutch – have no direct English equivalent, but they represent very precise emotional experiences that are neglected in our language. And if Tim Lomas at the University of East London has his way, they might soon become much more familiar."

Monday, June 15, 2020

13th, a great Documentary

Watch this great Documentary!


"13th is a 2016 American documentary by director Ava DuVernay. The film explores the "intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States;"[3] it is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude except as a punishment for conviction of a crime.
DuVernay contends that slavery has been perpetuated since the end of the American Civil War through criminalizing behavior and enabling police to arrest poor freedmen and force them to work for the state under convict leasing; suppression of African Americans by disenfranchisement, lynchings and Jim Crow; politicians declaring a war on drugs that weighs more heavily on minority communities and, by the late 20th century, mass incarceration of people of color in the United States. She examines the prison-industrial complex and the emerging detention-industrial complex, discussing how much money is being made by corporations from such incarcerations."

Saturday, June 13, 2020

ترس، ابهام، بی باکی و همزاد پنداری در دوران کرونا

ترس، ابهام، بی باکی و همزاد پنداری در دوران کرونا


نگاهی به یک فیلم کوتاه که ناگهان ناپدید شده است!

Why African-Americans Loathe 'Uncle Tom'

 Why African-Americans Loathe 'Uncle Tom'

Folklorist Patricia Turner discusses "Uncle Tom" — the lead character in the anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe — as part of NPR's In Character series. The series examines the fictional characters who have defined American life.

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

روزنگاری های دیاسپورا Memories in Diaspora # 307

    # 307  روزنگاری های دیاسپورا
 Memories in Diaspora # 307
عزت گوشه گیر

یک تصویر – یک شعر کوتاه

وقتی که کفش هایم دهان باز می کنند
می دانم که واژه های دلم
دلتنگند
و استخوان هایم
از درون دارند می ترکند
 

Sunday, June 7, 2020

A Review of My Name is Inanna in Affect: Acuity

َA Review of My Name is Inanna in Affect: Acuity



November 29, 2008 

She was arrested, pushed to the ground, humiliated and taken into custody for attending an anti-war rally? Did she do anything wrong? Nothing. Was she given a phone call? No.
Sitting in silence, Goushegir’s audience listened intently as she read from her one-act play, “My Name is Inanna,”  a story not uncommon to middle-eastern people living in the United States. This is one of many stories, Iranian exile, playright, Ezzat Goushegir was born to tell.
Captive, her audience sits on stools, at the bar, even cross-legged on the floor of the KGB Bar in Noho last night, silently watching Goushegir reveal how a courageous Iranian woman’s sense of self is challenged by American social standards and rules, in a prison and  in a beauty store. The mask that her character Inanna wears in the beauty store and in the questioning room is the same, doing what she is told and trying not to cause trouble. These scenes bring to mind the questions: how has Inanna’s life changed in America?  Does she truly have more freedom here? The irony of a woman exiled from post-revolutionary Iran only to be arrested at an anti-war demonstration is felt heavily in a room full of 1960’s activists, intellectuals and fellow Iranian exiles. Goushegir goes on to account for the fears that might infect someone’s mind as the clock ticks by and she waits and waits for the police officer to return.
When asked during the question and answer session, Goushegir admitted that the play was based on a compilation of stories from many Iranian people and their experiences and perceptions as a foreigner living in the United States. She said that most Iranians living in America fear being imprisoned at one point in their lives.
Censorship is also a point of concern for both authors. Rachlin, author of Persian Girls and the opening reader, discussed the difficulty of getting her work read in Iran. She says that censorship of anything immoral is strong right now. Both writers agreed that during the Shah’s rule, there was also censorship but it was more about not discussing anything negative about the government or how the country was run. Rachlin said that made it impossible to share even the most basic realistic details of life in Iran such as the cockroaches scurrying down the alley. Due to censorship and other inequities in Iran, both authors touch on protests in America during the 1960s. One man commented that the Iranian students he knew in NYC opened his eyes to the situation in Iran and difficulties people were facing there.
If you happen to be in Chicago and Goushegir is reading “My Name is Inanna”, be sure to see her performance. It will leave you speechless. There are no upcoming readings scheduled yet. Rachlin

Goushir is a playwright, short story writer, theatre critic and poet. Her published work includes: The Woman, the ROOM, and Love and … And suddenly the panther cried: WOMAN, collections of short stories in Farsi; “The Sulking Sunflower”, Stylus, Medea was born in Fallujah, Exile in America, Now Smile, Crawdad, English translations of short stories for literary journals, Migration in the Sun, a book of poetry, and  Metamorphosis and Maryam’s Pregnancy, Two plays, a book of plays. She has won a Richard Maibaum award and a Norman Felton award for her plays. Goushegir is currently a Creative Writing and Iranian Studies professor at DePaul University in Chicago. She recently read “My Name is Inanna” at Women and Theatre Program (WTP) Conference, Confronting the Silence: Building Bridges of Engagement, in July 30, 2008 at El Centro Su Teatro in Denver-Colorado. She also actively contributes to literary journals. 

Rachlin, a novelist and short story writer, is well-known for her memoir, Persian Girls and four novels, Jumping Over the Fire, Foreigner, Married to a Stranger and The Heart’s Desire. Rachlin is a winner of the Bennet Cerf Award, PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Her work has been published in Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Farsi, Arabic. Rachlin currently teaches at the New School University and Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y. She also is an Associate Fellow at Yale.

Aside: As I’m so close to the center of a major metropolitan hub for writers and intellectuals, my plan is to try to attend a reading or lecture a week so I can share news on great new authors and people to watch in politics, business, art, etc. to my friends and former colleagues throughout the world.

 Comment from Joel Simpson: Thank you for this sensitive review of Ezzat Goushegir and Rachid Nachlin’s readings last month. It’s very gratifying to know that their respective messages were received and deeply appreciated.

Posted in Books, Cross-Cultural Relations, War/Conflict, World Politics | Comments Off on Award-Winning Iranian Authors Read in Noho, NYC

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

نگاهی به فیلم رادیو اکتیو "A Review on "Radio Active

نگاهی به فیلم رادیو اکتیو
 عزت گوشه گیر
 A Review on Radio Active by Marjane Satrapi

دل هر ذره که بشکافی/آفتابیش در میان بینی

مرجانه ساتراپی به خاطر کتابهای درخشان تصویری اش همچون پرسپولیس، گلدوزی ها و خورش آلو با مرغ  در دنیا شهرت بسیار دارد. وی همچنین از سال  2007 با ساختن  فیلم کارتونی پرسپولیس بر اساس اولین نوول گرافیکی اش با بازی صدایی کاترین دونو و کیارا ماسترویانی به فیلمسازی روی آورده است. و در ژانر های گوناگون، فیلم هایی را کارگردانی کرده است همچون گنگسترهای هوتا  Gang of the Jotas ، صداها The Voices ، خورش آلو با مرغ،  و رادیو اکتیو Radioactive.

Read more

Monday, June 1, 2020

Robert Sapolsky: We’re uniquely violent and compassionate

Robert Sapolsky: We’re uniquely violent and compassionate 
Humans are on the one hand capable of mass genocide, and on the other hand, great self-sacrifice. Why are we capable of such extremes?

Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter