[Editor's note: While your editors take the day off, Flavorwire will be counting down some of our most popular features of 2011 so far. This post originally ran on March 25th. Enjoy your Memorial Day!] By now, hopefully, we all know something about the Iranian Revolution (and America’s lamentable role in it), whether we learned about it at school or in the pages of Persepolis. Still, it’s difficult to grasp the extent of the Ayatollah Khomeini regime’s impact on secular society without having a sense of what Iran was like in the years immediately preceding the revolution. That is precisely why the images from R&R Gallery‘s Before the Chador, a show curated by LA-based rapper Malkovich Music and comprised of 30 photos of an Iranian family before the conflict, feel so rare, valuable, and ultimately bittersweet. In one shot set at the beach, a bathing beauty leans against a classic ’60s car; in another, the entire clan clusters around the hookah at an evening gathering. One question lingers: What happened to this family after the revolution?
Angelenos can visit the show in person tomorrow night (March 26th), from 7pm-midnight. For a preview of Before the Chador, click through the gallery after the jump.
Loosely based on Shahrnush Parsipur’s magic-realist novel, Shirin Neshat’s debut feature uses Iran’s 1953 CIA-backed coup d’etat as a backdrop for examining the anatomy of the country’s patriarchal society.
Over the course of several days, Women Without Men follows four women of varying social class and age as their lives converge in a haunting metaphorical orchard. All are at points of transition: Munis, the political activist; Zarin, the young prostitute; Fakhri, the unhappily married middle-aged upper cruster; and Faezeh, the innocent. Together, they struggle to find themselves amid the political and social turmoil of the time.
Bahman Ghobadi’s heartfelt new film charts the adventures of Iranian youths struggling to put on an indie-rock show within a repressive regime that has outlawed Western music.
The strict Islamic law of Tehran starkly contrasts with the boundless energy of these twentysomething rebel musicians. Gathering in clandestine underground spaces, they share new songs and dreams of escaping to London, where they’ve managed to book a gig. However, obtaining passports and visas proves more difficult and expensive than expected, and their wills are continuously tested. Despite the intense subject matter, the film pulses with dynamic DIY music and a biting, punk-infused sense of humor.
The wildest part of Jon Stewart’s interview with Maziar Bahari, the Newsweek reporter jailed by the Iranian government after appearing in a Daily Show segment where Jason Jones was pretending to be a spy? Aside from his incredible sense of humor about the whole thing (he was blindfolded and tortured), the fact that Bahari’s interrogator was obsessed with New Jersey. “For him New Jersey sounded like the most American place that you can be. He thought that New Jersey is paradise on earth — that New Jersey is a place where people drink all the time, they have sex all the time, and there are no Jews.”
Watch Bahari discuss his 118 days in captivity after the jump.
Pooneh Maghazehe's Underground Trinity, Walk With Me
Tampons soaked in colorful paints, supermarket steaks wrapped in plastic, and Amish dresses procured off of eBay — these are just some of the materials employed by Brooklyn-based artist Pooneh Maghazehe’s sculpture and performance art. This summer, Maghazehe is one of 56 artists whose work is on display in the Chelsea Museum’s seminal Iran Inside Out exhibition, a comprehensive and — given ongoing events in Iran — extremely timely expo of contemporary art from Iran and the Iranian diaspora. Read More »
Opening today, the Chelsea Museum presents what has to be one of the timeliest exhibitions in its history: Iran Inside Out. Hit the museum’s roof deck tomorrow night for Iranian indie rock by Tehran-based Hypernova. Special programming continues throughout the summer, including collabs with Rooftop Films, ArteEast, and the Cedar Lake Ballet. Flavorpill is a proud media partner of this event; click here for more details.
Image credit: Pooneh Maghazehe, Hell’s Puerto Rico Performance Still, Digital C-print 2008 copyright artist and courtesy Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery
While we’re sure this has been happening across the board, the BBC reports that Habitat (the European furnishings franchise founded by Terence Conran in the ’60s, now part of the IKANO Group) added fake hashtags to tweets — like “Iran” and “Tehran” — so that more people would see information about their spring collection sales.
An example tweet: “HabitatUK: #MOUSAVI Join the database for free to win a £1,000 gift card.”
The retailer is playing dumb; per their official statement: “This was absolutely not authorised by Habitat – we were shocked when we discovered what happened.”
PS: If you haven’t yet, show your support for the people who fight for democracy in Iran via a greened Twitter icon.
Lunch is long gone; it’s 4 p.m., Ed McMahon is entertaining in the great beyond, the DC metro is obsolete, Perez Hilton is still around, Iran is still insane, and work just won’t end. There’s only one way to make it out of this day alive: THE CAT POWER HAPPY HOUR, a daily pick-me-up from your friends at Flavorpill. After the jump, a picture so cute it’ll turn your cubicle into a den of pure cuddle. (Check back tomorrow, same time, same place for more unhinged adorability.)
Lunch is long gone; it’s 4 p.m., SC’s governor is MIA, Madoff isn’t the only one going down, Russian leaders are also worried about attacks, Iran is still insane, and work just won’t end. There’s only one way to make it out of this day alive: THE CAT POWER HAPPY HOUR, a daily pick-me-up from your friends at Flavorpill. After the jump, a picture so cute it’ll turn your cubicle into a den of pure cuddle. (Check back tomorrow, same time, same place for more unhinged adorability.)
As more and more stirring protest images emerge in the wake of Iran’s highly contested election, one can’t help but wonder: why exactly have we constantly, unrepentantly characterized its citiziens (by way of its leaders) as “evil?” Clearly there are A LOT of people in the country who believe the government isn’t serving their interests. Instead of lumping them all together under Bush’s Axis of Evil – a move which undoubtedly drove many moderates into Ahmadinejad’s arms – wouldn’t it have been better if we had tried to embolden these people all along? Ok, enough intelligence: now back to Lindsay’s boobs. [Photo Via Twitter].
