This was the lead-in for the 1975 Henry Barakat film "Melody in My Life" [nagm fi hayati] starring Farid Al Atrache, Mervat Amin and Hussein Fahmy. Al Atrache died before the film was completed.
Broadcast 24 September on Iranian state satellite TV (IRINN)
The term "ceramic," which is used today to mean "earthenware," is derived from the Greek term 'keramus," meaning "cooked material." Another definition which comes from a Sanscrit root refers to material made with fire.
After the fall of the Qajar dynasty the art of pottery was revived by its master artisans after a period of stagnation, especially in the nation's rural areas. It gradually became one of the most prominent hand-made products in Iran.
Since the Islamic Revolution support for handicrafts has brought about the spread of pottery factories and the production of earthenware in Iran. There has been striking development in the production of decorative earthenware. This is being supported by the Iran Handicrafts Organization.
Plaster molds are used to make earthenware vessels with outstanding decorative qualities or special designs, because they cannot be formed on a pottery wheel. Sometimes plaster molds are made in several pieces. In this method of construction clay tubes are pounded into the walls of the plaster mold so the clay takes the form of the mold. After a short time the plaster mold is opened and the surface irregularities of the formed shape are smoothed with a wet sponge. After drying, these products are placed in a kiln.
Today traditional industrial workers use round dome-top kilms made of fireclay. There is an opening at the top of the kiln that is closed when the kiln is fired. The floor of the kiln has two levels. The fire is lit on the lower level and the dried pots are on the upper level.
Unglazed materials and pots need to be fired at 950-1000 degrees centigrade for 8 hours. Glazed earthenware is fired in two stages. In the first stage the unglazed earthenware is fired at 900-950 degrees centigrade for eight hours.
Today ceramics is not seen as just a rural rural art. At art centers and in the nation's art schools ceramics has found a special place as a branch of the arts.
I went to a pottery shop yesterday
I saw 2000 mute but exoressive pots
Each one said to me silently
Where is the potter, the pot buyer and the pot seller?
Broadcast 24 September on Iranian State Satellite Tv (IRINN)
[Male Announcer]: Rail connections between the Caspian and Mediterranean seas will be established within the next 5 months. With the completion of the construction of the Iran-Iraq rail line by the end of the year rail connections will be established between the Mediterranean Sea and the Caspian Sea, the nations of Central Asia and the Caucasus. The project's second phase is the 35 kilometers between Shalamcheh and Basra, which will be completed within 5 months.
The second and most important phase of the construction of this line is the crossing of the Arvandrud, which will cost $110 million. Iranian companies are doing the work. The first phase of this project is the 50 kilometers from Khorramshahr to Shalamcheh, which is in its final stages. With the construction of this rail line, in addition to the establishment of rail connections between Iran, Iraq and Syria, the transport of goods will begin over this line between the Caspian and Mediterranean seas.
With the construction of the rail line Iraq will be able to export its goods to Central Asia and Pakistan.
[Female Announcer (second report)]: The second phase of construction has begun on the Iran-Iraq rail line, to be completed by the end of the year, rail connections will be established between the Mediterranean Sea and the nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia.
The second phase of this project, which began in Iraq, is the 35 kilometers between Shalamcheh and Basra. It will be completed within five months. This line crosses the Arvandrud and will cost $110 million. Iranian companies are doing the work.
The long-playing record Design DLP 71 was also issued in 1971, the same year the Merry Macs made this appearance on the Nat King Cole TV Show
The people in this version of the group are Ted McMichael, Merle Taber, Verne Rowe and Dick Baldwin. In 1957 Ted McMichael was the only surviving member from the original 1938 lineup.
I listen to music, write to friends on the Internet, tweak my web pages and run my business. I don't have a job and don't need one because I know how to take care of myself. Things are OK most of the time. Then I fall into a dark, depressing pit. Someone is screaming at me. I can't speak because the yelling doesn't stop long enough. I won't mention her name, but I know she won't read this. We begin a conversation the next day in stressful tones, then it slowly subsides to normal speaking tones as we realize that we still love each other. We're back to normal, waiting for the next explosion; we both know it will come sooner or later. We are two damaged people who can't stop hurting each other. I care for her and feel responsible for her. I don't know how this happened. She is not my girlfriend or my wife.
As an element of lifestyle design, the feelings I have for this woman are bad design. There is too much suffering. A skillful, chic lifestyle designer wouldn't use this design element. It doesn't fit the "dress for success" formula. Can I afford it? Yes, I can. I can afford it because I'm not "chic" and have nothing to lose.
Iran: IRINN Says American Movies Politically Motivated
Broadcast 15 September on Iranian state satellite TV (IRINN)
Elham Jalali Farhani, Journalist Club correspondent: In recent years, as in the past, the White House has created an organic relationship with Hollywood to use the power of the media to advance its political objectives.
One of the methods of encouraging youth to join the army is Pentagon cooperation with Hollywood. Among the most important examples of coooperation between the Pentagon and Hollywood was the making of the film Pearl Harbor. For the making of this film the aircraft carrier John C. [Stennis] was moved from San Diego Harbor to Pearl Harbor.
In general American policy is based on the principle of creating a crisis first, then deciding what to do. They made the film the framework for this exercise. In other words they present the situation in the film first then create an artificial crisis. Then they make a final decision based on the public response.
In recent years they have concentrated their efforts on Iran. This is actually the height of cooperation between the CIA, the Pentagon and Hollywood.
Films such as the War of the Worlds, 300, Persepolis, Alexandria, Not without My Daughter, Independence Day and many others try to tell the viewer that Iran is a threat to the world.
In the film Independence Day a space ship above the highest American building is seen as the Islamic Republic of Iran, casting the shadow of Islam everywhere. [chuckling] The interesting thing here is that the Americans, after a succession of political defeats, are making an imaginary film this time about the occupation of the spy nest.
George Clooney, based on cooperation between the CIA, Hollywood and the American government, will make a film about the escape of 6 American citizens from Tehran called Escape from Tehran based on the 1979 takeover of the American Embassy. The film is about Tony Mendez, a former American CIA agent and a master of disguise who acquired a mission during the hostage crisis. He was to get six Americans out of the country who were hidden in a Tehran safe house. This is being treated as a great Hollywood film. They have published six advertisements about the film, effectively deceiving Hollywood's prominent publications, and these publications have also published articles about this project.
Without a doubt political objectives have been and will be the most important motivations for the making of such fictitious films against the Iranian nation.
Since 11 September the United States has irreversibly changed its essence from republic to empire. America's leaders want to compare themselves to the Roman Empire, even though they do not know that much about the history of Rome!
Desolation Row by Bob Dylan (1965, from the Album "Highway 61 Revisited")
This song took Dylan about 11 minutes to perform. It is a slow song sung in a very leisurely, precise way. The band is s sparse ensemble with only Dylan on acoustic guitar and harmonica, Michael Bloomfield on acoustic lead guitar and Harvey Goldstein on bass. Bloomfield's simple and very lovely guitar obbligato is almost like a human backup chorus. Another song with a related theme, "Like a Rolling Stone", was the big hit from this album.
Desolation Row never got on any of the hit charts because of its length. It is too long and dense for most people to understand. I don't think it is really hard to understand, but I think it takes a little more effort to understand it than most people are willing to invest in a piece of popular music. I also think the title "Desolation Row" gives people the wrong idea about the kind of place it is supposed to be. However, this is clearly an enduring piece of American poetry. All you have to do is see how many times people have transcribed the lyrics on the Internet, almost 40 years after it was written, to realize that. Several YouTube viewers of this video said it is one of their favorite Dylan song.
This song has great meaning for me because it describes in an elegant and powerful way a perspective on life that I have had myself since I left my home town in Oklahoma and went to live in Seattle when I was 20. Another title might be "The Ballad of a Dropout". In this song Bob Dylan's narrator sees the world as a place divided into the conventional life and the unconventional life, which he calls Desolation Row. He calls the unconventional life Desolation Row because whoever chooses that life usually gives up the comforts and resources that the people living the conventional life enjoy; he has to live in desolation. In addition, that "dropout" is often punished in one way or another for dropping out.
At the same time, Dylan's narrator seems to think the choice of the unconventional life (which might have been called the "hippie" life then or the "beat" life in the previous decade) is worth the suffering. Some people, like his Einstein, once lived in Desolation Row and then tried to move back to the conventional life. They paid a price for that too: insanity. Once you're in Desolation Row, the narrator seems to say, you must remain there because that's where you really belong if you’re to be true to yourself.
I'm touched by this "Einstein" image. Einstein is a person who once innocently lived as "himself" on Desolation Row, then tasted the Biblical "fruit" of knowledge (became Einstein) and lost his Paradise. Cinderella is someone who is still living in Desolation Row and has not lost her innocence, despite the fact that Dylan compares her to the most cynical actress of all, Bette Davis; Cinderella can see through Dylan's "Romeo" character, so she is street-wise (not innocent), but at the same time she hasn't "sold out", and "selling out" (or selling one's soul) is the kind of loss of innocence that Einstein experienced when he left Desolation Row and gave up the electric violin. That's why he's reduced to sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet.
It is fun to think about the kinds of people the narrator has in mind when he mentions these characters, and I think most of us can recognize them in ourselves and the people we know. In his last verse, he says they are all "quite lame" and makes the famous comment about rearranging their faces and giving them all another name.
He also says in the last verse that it is impossible for him to communicate with anyone who is not living in Desolation Row. Communication from other places is trivial, like the letter "about the time the doorknob broke".
Dylan's narrator is someone who lives in desolation row by choice. Others may live there because they do not have a way to "sell out" that will move them into the more prosperous but fallen realm beyond desolation row. The mere fact that one lives on desolation row is no protection against a corrupted soul, but living there by choice is one of the many steps one might take towards purification.
This narrator is a man of great insight and eloquence. One is tempted to say he is Dylan himself, and I'm sure this is at least partly true. I'm another inhabitant of Desolation Row. My circumstances are precarious, simple and located outside the mainstream. My circumstances are not desperate now, but could easily become so in the wink of an eye. This is the plight of most people; most of us are living on the edge, even if we don't quite realize it.
I am not on Desolation Row entirely by choice. I've tried to sell out and then found myself unable to do it. Sometimes this was because my conscience would not permit, but more often it was simply because the goods I offered to the evil powers were deemed inadequate. I hope I will grow in character and spirit and that in time I will be secure enough not to debase myself by making such offers.
*****************
Lyrics to Desolation Row
They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row.
Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend
This is the second version of the group--best video I've seen of them: Johnny Albino, Chucho Navarro, Alfredo Gil--after Alfredo Gil replaced Hernando Aviles in 1958
