Six Pillars – Iran Children’s Charity

To mark Children in Need Week Dr Helen Nejad from the NGO Iran Children’s Charity visits the studio to discuss their drive to raise money for kids in Iran. Focusing mainly on orphans, those without national status or on the streets, the charity aims to supply two university hospitals in Iran that treat children specifically.

‘In Search of Simorgh‘ is Iran Children’s Charity’s first fund-raising event, a Persian Heritage music and contemporary and traditional dance theatrical performance. The performance is based on 12th Century Sufi classic Conference of the Birds by Farid Uddi Attar, and also loosely on the stage adaptation by Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carriere. Musicians from Europe play cello, kamanche, tar, santoor, daf and percussion and 7 dancers interpret the text so that there is no language barrier to enjoying the performance.

If you would like to help children in need by simply being entertained, then please complete and return the attached form, or book your ticket online through their event website www.insearchofsimorgh.com The event is hosted by Kids Company founder Camila Batmanghelidjh.

Logan Hall, 20 Bedford Way , London WC1H 0AL

Sunday 21st November

18:00 to 22:00 (programme starts at 19:00)

All funds raised from donations, ticket and raffle sales will be used to purchase Keyhole surgical and other operating theatre equipment for Mofid and Ali Asghar Children Hospitals. Their target over the years is a minimum of £30,000 per hospital for the equipment. Your contribution can really help to save lives of children who undergo operations, facilitate quicker recovery for many more, as well as bringing relief and a smile to their siblings and families.

Feel free to contact them by visiting www.iran-children-charity.org

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Panel Borders: Becky Cloonan – Demo Graphics

Panel Borders: Becky Cloonan – Demo Graphics

Continuing our month long look at unusual takes on superheroes, Alex Fitch talks to artist Becky Cloonan about her work, focusing on the series Demo, written by Brian Wood which is a more down to earth look at the problems teenagers with superpowers might face in the real world. Alex and Becky also talk about her horror collaboration project Pixu with Gabriel Ba, Fabio Moon and Vasilis Lolos and her foray into manga with East Coast Rising.

Panels from East Coast Rising vol. 1 and Demo vol. 2 #6

Panels from East Coast Rising vol. 1 and Demo vol. 2 #6

For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: Wikipedia page on Becky Cloonan
Becky’s website and blog
Articles on Becky at the Vertigo blog
Info about Becky’s next collaboration with Brian: Northlanders: The girl in the ice

Buy East Coast Rising Volume 1, Pixu: The Mark of Evil, American Virgin vol. 1, Demo: vol. 1 and Channel Zero: Jennie One from amazon.co.uk

Recommended events:

One dot zero festival, London Nov 10-14

Pioneering festival onedotzero_adventures in motion returns this year to London’s BFI Southbank from 10 – 14 November 2010, presenting the most exciting international moving image work, from the offbeat to the radical, aiming to push the boundaries of creativity, innovation and technological wonder.

Highlights include:

Superhero Me + Steve Sale Q and A
UK 2010. Dir Steve Sale. 84min

This entertaining and warm-hearted fly on the wall documentary follows film maker Steve Sale on his journey to becoming the real life superhero known as SOS. With unique cinematography shot on any available format, from a digital handheld to a mobile phone.
Thu 11 Nov | 20:30 | NFT3

Chico & Rita
Spain-UK 2010. 94 min. Courtesy of CinemaNX

Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey – in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero – brings heartache and torment. This animated ballad from Oscar-winning director Fernando Trueba and designer Javier Mariscal will play alongside a making of short film.
Sat 13 Nov | 15:50 | NFT3

Short film programme includes:

wow + flutter: Innovative and experimental shorts forecasting the future of moving image.
Thurs 11 Nov | 18:30 | NFT1 / Sat 13 Nov | 20:30 | NFT3 / Sun 14 Nov | 18:30 | NFT1

wavelength: Visually progressive, radical and offbeat new directions in music video.
Thu 11 Nov | 20:50 | Studio / Fri 12 Nov | 18:30 | NFT1 / Sun 14 Nov | 20:45 | NFT1

j-star: An audiovisual blast from japan’s finest moving image-makers.
Fri 12 Nov | 20:50 | Studio / Sat 13 Nov | 10:00 | NFT3

robotica: Diverse visions of a future dominated by robots and androids.
Fri 12 Nov | 20:30 | NFT3 / Sat 13 Nov | 18:30 | NFT1 / Sun 14 Nov | 18:40 | Studio
Continue reading →

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Wavelength – 2008 December 5th “Horselength”

Captain Maurice Seddon delivers a short address on the subject of “Horselength”.
Tracks from A Breeze of Time, The Auricle Archive: Volume XV, and Electric Junk, The Auricle Archive: Volume IX.

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Six Pillars to Persia – A Mystic’s War on Terror….

At the Omar Khayyam Society’s event A Mystic’s War on Terror, Autumn 2010, we caught up with the main Sufi speaker Ammat Un Nur.

Read her speech from the night on the above link, a speech that contained the quote by Jimi Hendrix who said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”.

Her Sufi website.

Here is some of the event write-up:

Ammat un Nur belongs to a lineage named Chishti-Inayati. (We are supposed to know automatically what that lineage is, I guessed it had something to do with renowned Sufi school rather than an individual). She has also been influenced by the Mevlevi tradition originating from Mevlana Rumi (you’re supposed to know that is the same Rumi, the Sufi poet). Her work involves researching, writing on the Inayatian legacy of the Sufi Orders. (I had no idea what that was).

The debate took the form of a panel, mostly of women, who put forward a speech or an intro and then took questions. One aspect of the write-up that really caught my eye was the promise of a look at the neglect of the feminine in Islam. there is a feminist branch or movement in Islam. I wanted to know what a woman’s role was considered to be in Sufism, as in Iran, in the mountains, some all female Sufi orders do exist….

If the title of the podcast has aroused your curiosity and you are interested in this kind of study, here a SOAS course that could be for you.

You will have to pay a lot mind, to study. If you go to stay with Ammat, your studies will be free. There’s food for thought.

This  podcast was made for the ResonanceFM series Six Pillars to Persia by Fari Bradley – the show is a weekly look at the Iranian diaspora, the culture of Iran, Persian heritage and related topics.

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Deep Fried Planet – Preserving Biodiversity

Hot on the heels of the global biodiversity conference in Nagoya, Japan we will be talking about biodiversity and how to stem the global tide of species loss. My guests are Dr Andrew Mitchell from the Global Canopy Programme whose new publication the Little Biodiversity Finance Book suggests that we need to understand the value of nature in pounds and pence before we can understand how best to preserve it. Also with me will be Juliette Jowit, environment editor at the Observer to talk about the paper’s Piece by Piece project which brings together a diversity of local campaigns throughout the UK aimed at preserving local habitats

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Hooting Yard: Bobnit Tivol: The Lost Interview.

The peasant tramped about looking for his shears. He found them leaning against the side of the barn, rusty, rusty. “These will never do for clipping,” he muttered, and spat, but his goblin goaded him on. It whispered rustic lore into his ear.
“The sun is boiling in the sky, clip your hedge while it is dry. If your shears are caked in rust, fool you are but clip you must!”

This episode was recorded on the 20th May 2010. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the four publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars and Befuddled By Cormorants are available for purchase.

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Voice on Record: Episode 26 (Gold and Guinness)

Lost and Found Treasure The second half of “The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre” and a sparkling collection of poems and verse chosen and read by Alec Guinness with a special appearance by Richard Burton.

Voice On Record is produced and presented by Sean Williams. Each episode features a selection of recordings of the human voice which have been preserved on vinyl. Historic events stand alongside esoteric guides to better bowling. Arid studio recordings are juxtaposed with location recordings rich with fascinating incidental sounds. http://sbkw.net/voiceonrecord.php

Originally broadcast on 9th March 2010

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Panel Borders: Team Batman, Robin and Catman

Panel Borders: Team Batman, Robin and Catman

Starting a month of shows looking at unique renderings of superheroes, this episode is about depictions of masculinity in superhero comics via a pair of interviews recorded at the British International Comics Show in Birmingham last month. Alex Fitch talks to Nicola Scott, an Australian artist who has previously drawn half a dozen issues of Wonder Woman but who also draws male characters such as anti-hero Catman in the Secret Six and the Teen Titans which has drawn new female readers to those titles; also: Dickon Harris talks to Canadian artist Yanick Paquette who is also associated with drawing iconic male comic book characters such as Wolverine and Batman and is continuing his burgeoning association with Grant Morrison on the new title Batman Incorporated which launches this month.

Covers of Batman Inc. #2 by Yanick Paquette and Grant Morrison, Teen Titans #89 by Nicola Scott and J.T. Krul

Covers of Batman Inc. #2 by Yanick Paquette and Grant Morrison, Teen Titans #89 by Nicola Scott and J.T. Krul

Yanick Paquette and Nicola Scott at BICS, photo by Alex Fitch

Yanick Paquette and Nicola Scott at BICS

For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Recommended events:

Panel Borders at Comica:

Nov 6th: Charlie Adlard and The Walking Dead

Alex Fitch hosts an hour long talk with British artist Charlie Adlard about drawing various strips for 2000AD including Savage, Nikolai Dante and Judge Dredd plus his ongoing commitment to the monthly American survival horror comic The Walking Dead which he has been drawing since 2004 and has just been turned into a new TV series produced by Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption). Followed by a signing with the artist.

Saturday, November 6th, 4.30pm
London Print Studio, 425 Harrow Rd, London W10 4RE
(nearest tube: Warwick Avenue / Westbourne Park)

Nov 10th: Comic Cuts – controversial comic books and banned periodicals

Alex Fitch discusses examples of banned and censored comic books in the last quarter of the 20th Century with publisher Tony Bennett and (via speaker phone) writer / artist Rick Veitch.

Tony’s publishing company Knockabout has seen its titles seized by British Customs, has been taken to court for publishing “drug related titles”, and for promoting the work of Robert Crumb. Knockabout have also commissioned comic book adaptations of previously banned novels such as Lady Chatterly’s Lover.
Rick is best known for his collaborations with writer Alan Moore, including the drawing of an issue of Moore’s Miracleman comic in the 1980s which was withdrawn from many shops due to its “graphic depictions of childbirth” and then when he took over as writer on another Moore comic – Swamp Thing – left the periodical when the publisher refused to print a certain issue.

Wednesday, November 10, 6pm
Whitechapel Idea Store, 321 Whitechapel Road, London, E1 1BU
(nearest tube: Whitechapel / Bethnal Green)
Continue reading →

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Wavelength – 2008 November 28th

“Houle Hulule” (26 December 1973) 26’48” by Jean Dubuffet from the CD accompanying the book: Jean
Dubuffet, Experiences Musicales (Les Cahiers de la Fondation Dubuffet No.1 Paris 2006).

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Electric Sheep podcast: Dangerous Women and Foxy Heroes

Electric Sheep podcast: Dangerous Women and Foxy Heroes

To compliment this month’s online theme of dangerous and desperate women in the online print magazine, we’re happy to present in the podcast a pair of Q&As recorded at Electric Sheep film club screenings. Alex Fitch talks to Zoe Baxter, the presenter of Resonance FM’s radio show about Asian culture in the UK and discuss the epic ‘wuxia’ film Hero which featured memorable roles for female action heroes Maggie Cheung and Ziyi Zhang, and in the main interview, Electric Sheep magazine editor Virginie Selavy talks to Brixton based film maker Rebecca Johnson about the classic ‘blaxploitation’ film Foxy Brown starring Pam Grier and the various themes and depictions of race and gender that are present in the film.

Pam Grier in Foxy Brown, Ziyi Zhang in Hero

Pam Grier in Foxy Brown, Ziyi Zhang in Hero

More for more information and a variety of formats you can stream / download, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org

In association with

Links: IMDb pages on Foxy Brown and Hero

Wikipedia pages on ‘wuxia’ and ‘blaxploitation’

Zoe’s website: http://luckykitty.blogspot.com
More info about Rebecca Johnson’s film Top Girl

Recommended events:

Panel Borders at Comica:

Nov 6th: Charlie Adlard and The Walking Dead

Alex Fitch hosts an hour long talk with British artist Charlie Adlard about drawing various strips for 2000AD including Savage, Nikolai Dante and Judge Dredd plus his ongoing commitment to the monthly American survival horror comic The Walking Dead which he has been drawing since 2004 and has just been turned into a new TV series produced by Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption). Followed by a signing with the artist.

Saturday, November 6th, 4.30pm
London Print Studio, 425 Harrow Rd, London W10 4RE
(nearest tube: Warwick Avenue / Westbourne Park)

Nov 10th: Comic Cuts – controversial comic books and banned periodicals

Alex Fitch discusses examples of banned and censored comic books in the last quarter of the 20th Century with publisher Tony Bennett and (via speaker phone) writer / artist Rick Veitch.
Continue reading →

Electric Sheep podcast: Dangerous Women and Foxy Heroes [ 46:18 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download