Marjan Farsad is an Iranian artist, musician and animator.
Marjan Farsad is an Iranian artist, musician and animator.
“Erica Lombard performs “Ca’ the Yowes” with Arlyn in Grahamstown. Huge thanks to Gabi Zietsman for capturing this show. Arlyn is a musical venture exploring ways of making a whole out of the fragments available in contemporary culture. Mythical representations of innocence in old folk songs, shards of realism still lodged in philosophical discourse (despite 400 years of nominalistic scouring), and scraps of temporary community at shows form the substance of a hunch that reality is fundamentally relational. It is this that might best ground us, feed us and yield some semblance of home.”
Rest in peace. 🖤
Kate Bush cover 🖤
A song by Robert Burns, translated by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). Arranged and performed by the trio Swagatam (Prakriti Dutta, Barnaby Brown & Hardeep Singh) live at the University of Glasgow, 27 January 2011.
‘UFOF’ by Big Thief, from the new album ‘U.F.O.F.’, released May 3rd on 4AD. Available to pre-order and pre-save here.
To my UFO friend
Goodbye, goodbye
Like a seed in the wind
She’s taking up root in the sky
See her flickering
Her system won’t even try
To defend and ripen
In the radio action
She’ll never return again
Polarize, polarize
The seasons will bend
There will soon be proof
That there is no alien
Just a system of truth and lies
The reason, the language
And the law of attraction
Just like a bad dream
You’ll disappear
Another map turns blue
Mirror on mirror
And I imagine you
Taking me outta here
To deepen our love
It isn’t even a fraction
Switch to another lens
The last sunlight
I don’t need any other friends
The best kiss I ever had
Is the flickering
Of the water so clear and bright
To leap in, my skin
And I could feel the reaction
Just like a bad dream
You’ll disappear
Another map turns blue
Mirror on mirror
And I imagine you
Taking me outta here
To deepen our love
It isn’t even a fraction
Sung by Madelaine Cave.
music: Nate Maingard, Zim Ngqawana
vocals: Nate Maingard, Aryan Kaganof
appropriation: Aryan Kaganof
Psalm 126. Countertenor Andreas Scholl and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra with Paul Dyer.
One thing I don’t need
is any more apologies
I got sorry greetin me at my front door
you can keep yours.
I don’t know what to do wit em
they don’t open doors
or bring the sun back.
They dont make me happy
or get a mornin paper
didn’t nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars.
Cuz a sorry
I am simply tired
of collectin
I didn’t know
I was so important to you
I’m gonna haveta throw some away
I can’t get to the clothes in my closet
for alla the sorries.
I’m gonna tack a sign to my door
leave a message by the phone
‘if you called
to say your sorry
call somebody
else!
I don’t use em anymore’
I let sorry/ didn’t meanta/ & how could I know about that?
Take a walk down a dark & musty street in brooklyn!
I’m gonna do exactly what I want to
& I won’t be sorry for none of it!
Letta sorry soothe your soul/ I’m gonna soothe mine!
You were always inconsistent
doin somethin & then bein sorry
beatin my heart to death!
Talkin bout you sorry well,
I will not call,
I’m not goin to be nice,
I will raise my voice,
& scream & holler
& break things & race the engine
& tell all your secrets bout yourself to your face
& I will list in detail everyone of my wonderful lovers
& their ways I will play oliver lake loud!
& I wont be sorry for none of it
I LOVED YOU ON PURPOSE, I WAS OPEN ON PURPOSE!
I still crave vulnerability & close talk
& I’m not even sorry bout you bein sorry!
you can carry all the guilt & grime ya wanna
just dont give it to me!
I cant use another sorry
next time
you should admit
you’re mean/ low-down/ triflin/ & no count straight out
steada bein sorry alla the time
enjoy bein YOURSELF
The mining industry has always been the backbone of the South African economy, and it still is. A healthy and sustainable mining sector should accordingly form part of the focus of our efforts to heal this country and its people. Nevertheless, the history of mining in South Africa has been and continues to be characterised by the oppression and exploitation of workers under the policy of the migratory system. The new dispensation of 1994, rule under the African National Congress, did not assist much in changing the conditions at the mines. It continues to turn a blind eye to the unjust wages and living and working conditions of miners.
Six years after the Marikana massacre we have still seen minimal change for mineworkers and mining communities. Although much has been written about the days leading up to 16 August 2012 and how little has been done, few have analysed the policies and system that make such a tragedy possible. Lonmin Platinum Mine and the events of 16 August are a microcosm of the mining sector and how things can go wrong when society leaves everything to government and “big business”.
Business as Usual after Marikana is a comprehensive analysis of mining in South Africa. Written by respected academics and practitioners in the field, it looks into the history, policies and business practices that brought us to this point. It also examines how bigger global companies like BASF were directly or indirectly responsible, and yet nothing is done to keep them accountable.
“This publication, which starts by examining the long-term business relations between BASF and Lonmin, goes on to drill deeper into the hard rock of the persistent structures of inequality. By doing so we will understand that Marikana is not the tragic failure of an otherwise improving economic system but rather a calculated form of collateral damage.” – Bishop Jo Seoka, former president of the South African Council of Churches
#WeWillNeverForget
I have an essay in this book – if you’re interested, you can get hold of a copy via Jacana. The book also appears in German as Zum Beispiel BASF. Über Konzernmacht und Menschenrechte, published by Mandelbaum.
In a forest pitch dark
Glowed the tiniest spark
It burst into flame
Like me
Like me
My name Isobel
Married to myself
My love Isobel
Living by herself
In a heart full of dust
Lives a creature called lust
It surprises and scares
Like me
Like me
My name Isobel
Married to myself
My love Isobel
Living by herself
When she does it she means to
Moth delivers her message
Unexplained on your collar
Crawling in silence
A simple excuse
Nana na na na, Nana na na na
Nana na na na, Nana na na na
In a tower of steel
Nature forges a deal
To raise wonderful hell
Like me
Like me
My name Isobel
Married to myself
My love…
https://youtu.be/-UuPI3InO8 het wel goed 8met
Source: Instagram, @stellathought
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I know that time is always time
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
II
Lady of silences
Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
III
At the second turning of the second stair
Damp, jagged, like an old man’s mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
At the first turning of the third stair
Lord, I am not worthy
IV
Who walked between the violet and the violet
Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
Here are the years that walk between, bearing
White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The silent sister veiled in white and blue
But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew
And after this our exile
V
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Will the veiled sister pray for
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
O my people.
VI
Although I do not hope to turn again
Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
__
‘Ash-Wednesday’, from Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T S Eliot, © T S Eliot 1963, Faber & Faber Limited
A darkly surreal short film in which a red ball bounces past a cafe and a couple folks’ houses and then goes to the beach (v. NSFW).
It is better to be
Together. Tossed together
In a white wave, than to see
The ocean like an eagle.
It is better to lie
In the stormy seething
Than to judge the weather
In an eagle’s eye.
Cold is the bird
Who flies too far
In the clear vision
Which saints and eagles share:
Their faraway eyes are bitter
With darkened prayer.
O, it is better to try
WIth the white wave, together
To overturn the sky.
It is better to be together.
__
From Floating Island, 1965.
Ruth Miller was a South African poet, born in 1919 in Uitenhage. She grew up in the northern Transvaal and spent her adult life in Johannesburg, working as a school secretary and later an English teacher. The accidental home death by electrocution of her son, aged 14, clouded the last six months of her life; she produced nothing for some time, and subsequently wrote some of her finest work. She died of cancer in 1969. More HERE.