Justice for Iran

andrewgreene:

mohandasgandhi:

golehyas:

Faegheh Atashin (born 1950, Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian singer and actress who was one of Iran’s most popular and enduring entertainers despite being banned from performing for some 20 years following the Iranian Revolution (1978–79).

Called “Googoosh” from birth, she began singing and acting at a young age, performing with her father, an entertainer, when she was a toddler and making her first film at age seven. She later appeared in such movies as Partgahe makhouf (1963; Cliff of Fear), Sheitune bala (1965; The Naughty One), and Panjereh (1970; “The Window”). In the 1970s Googoosh was at the height of her film and music career and was widely emulated by Iranian women; in addition to listening to her music, they copied her clothing (miniskirts) and her short haircut (known as the “Googooshy”). In 1979, however, Iran was declared an Islamic republic, and a number of cultural restrictions were introduced; women were no longer allowed to sing in public, and pop music was banned. Although most Iranian performers chose to leave the country, Googoosh, who was visiting the United States at the time of the revolution, returned home. She was jailed briefly and thereafter led a reclusive life.

Googoosh!!!

Do Panjereh by her is one of the best songs ever

I’m personally a big fan of Talagh. Tumblr needs more Googoosh.

I wonder what she is doing right now. Some Iranian artists manage to circumnavigate the censors and produce incredible work. Abbas Kiarostami is a notable example. Limits during creation can improve the end-result, and Kiarostami’s films show a delicate balance between restriction and freedom. On the other hand, it is extremely sad to see that other artists, like Googoosh, quit their artistic practice. 

She lives in Los Angeles and has been performing in the US and abroad every year for a decade. She has also put out five studio albums after her “comeback” in 2000. I’ve seen her three times and recommend the experience highly. She is a national treasure. 

Amin Gholami, right, dances in Azeri-style as Aydin Kanani plays a Gaval, a large-sized tambourine, in the Gharadagh mountainous area, in northwestern Iran. In the 1980s, Iran’s music almost vanished. Music schools went into full recession, police or militias stopped cars to check what passengers were listening to and broke tapes playing pre-revolutionary singers, and clerical institutions even banned music as un-Islamic. But Iran’s social life has dramatically changed a decade later, with a landslide victory of former President Mohammad Khatami and with the relaxing of some rigid restrictions on cultural and social activities, including bans on music bands, but Iran has tightened censorship of books, films, and music since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power.

gq:

The Brooklyn artist Mac Premo is in the middle of an art project we love. He’s moving out of the studio he shared with two other artists and into a new (and much smaller) one. Mac collects stuff—among other things, he’s a collagist—and now he needs to throw out a ton of objects. Voila: The Dumpster Project. He’s going to make all of the discard objects into a collage in a 20-yard dumpster, and along the way, he’s going to photograph each one,  tell its story, and post it all on this beautiful blog. Here is the story of that cassette tape up there:

My oldest friend is a Persian guy named Kacy. He and I lived together for a while around 2001. One day he was throwing stuff out and I saw this tape and felt compelled to keep it. I think the writing is Farsi, since Kacy is from Iran, but it might be Arabic.  My favorite part is what it says on the reverse side: in san-serif gothic mixed case, as kind of an illustration of the poor English one would be expecting, ‘SUPER Recording.’

The writing is in Farsi. Translation: Album: Booyeh Gol (flower’s fragrance), Music: Shahbazian, Singer: Mokhtabad

You can see the album cover and hear a few selections here, but I really recommend listening to this song, whose lyrics are by Iranian philosopher, mathematician and architect, Sheikh Bahaii (1547 - 1621). The video is set to the beautiful paintings of my favorite Persian artist, Mahmud Faršciyân.