Don't forget - tomorrow is a White Rabbits day.

I promised a review of the Iranians ages ago, sorry, so here's a mini one...

I'm the kind of feminist peace activist who used to say - in my WILPF days - that men just didn't get it. They didn't understand our anger at injustice. Or our grief. We made children, and they sent them to war. But of course I was wrong.

In these three rough, raw plays I saw the devastations of war and exile expressed perfectly by the all-male cast. In each tragedy children are sacrificed - one the first night, and two each on the second and third nights. In a scene that had my heart pounding we see the children line up and begin fluttering their hands, straight along their sides. When they are lifted from the ground and their throats slit their hands flutter slower and slower still over their hearts until they are dead. How their fathers - and we in the audience - mourned.

Not every moment was excruciatingly sad. The horses were speedy, the sheep plump, and they sang along with the soloists. We all laughed, to the dismay of a few audience members hoping for a more serious response to an "authentic theater experience". And the camels .... well, geriatric is the kindest thing I can say about them.

I found the program notes shallow and craved a more detailed translation of the songs, but happily entertained myself with the performer biographies. Only one of the actors was a professional; and he, along with the rest, performs the Ta'ziyehs as an act of religious devotion. Our horse-riding, throat-slitting bad guy is a dentist in real-life, and among the others a merchant, factory worker, and the owner of a fleet of taxis.

I wish I'd understood more but I was glad I went. After all, when am I likely to be in Iran next and quite honestly, what will be left when Dubya is done in the region.

On Leslie's site I see a reference to the site www.clicktoaddtitle.com. I read this to be Click Toad Title, and wonder why someone would want to click on a toad. I'm happy to say these [mis]readings happen to me all day long.

[later] ... It's Friday Five time.

1. Where were you born? Woking, United Kingdom.
2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don't live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not? Nope. I have no memory of the place and have no family in Woking.
3. Where in the world do you feel the safest? I always feel safe. Moving to New York City didn't change that for me as I've always felt that if you were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time... well... that would be that. I recommend reading The Gift of Fear by John ????. If you trust your instincts and listen to them you will be fine. Everywhere.
4. Do you feel you are well-traveled? Nope. But I hope to change that in the coming years.
5.Where is the most interesting place you've been? Lapland (the reindeer); Vancouver Island (the moss); Harlem (the teenagers).

Must be hard to answer the Friday Five with all of these people living inside, no?

"I had a dream of tigers in a library. They prowled the stacks. I was alone in the library but for the tigers. They yawned and curled up in the children's section. I looked up tigers in the card catalog, thumbing the dented cards, finally finding the right typewritten card, with the call number crossed out and a new number written above in ink. The book was called Tigers Climb the Himalayas to the Sun." Paul Ford on librarians and tigers, at Ftrain.com.

Can anyone explain to me why the Toronto Public Library advertises these amazing jobs that turn out - on closer inspection - to be for 14 hours a week. How many 14 hour a week jobs can one librarian hold down? I worked in Toronto for one year after graduating with my MLS. I held down 4 part-time jobs and one volunteer position in an elementary school library. I was happy to trade them all for just one 35 hour a week job here in NYC.

Marlene Castaneda is raising funds and support for the first public library in El Roble, Mexico. Send this woman a donation, and send it today! Short on cash? Put aside your lunch money for the week, and send that.

Off tonight to see Rachid Taha at Lincoln Center. The ticket was bought in another one of my "never heard his stuff but might be cool" moments. Selling point: the mix of North African and punk melodies. "I wanted guitar on it," he's quoted as saying, "lots of guitar." I can't argue with that.

I need some feedback and perhaps a few suggestions from my dear readers. Here are the questions:
1. Do you look at my photos?
2. If you've looked at them once, do you return to look again?
3. Should I announce when there's a new picture up in a category? Or should I let them be?
4. Should I put a few tantalizing thumbnails up?

Anyone up for a marathon week of Iranian passion plays? The Lincoln Center Festival is bringing three of these ancient Islamic plays [Ta'ziyeh] to New York, beginning tonight. And I have tickets.

This is what convinced me to go [from the NY Times] -- "It's unlikely that audiences at Lincoln Center will respond as the audiences in Iran do. Mr. Ghaffari and his daughter, Rabeah Ghaffari, a 30-year-old filmmaker, recorded a performance in Iran a few months ago during the holy month of Muharram. Their documentary includes devastating scenes in which hundreds of women sob so violently that the dark chadors covering their bodies shiver communally, as if sadness had swept across the audience like a dark shadow."

..."It is a powerful statement," he says, "against war in all its forms."

Back from a whirlwind trip to Baltimore to see my dear friend Andrea married. Incriminating photos soon. I took a side trip to the American Visionary Art Museum where I saw Hmong war embroideries, Holocaust tapestries, and large Prussian soldiers, marching.

Youth Portraits: a series of short radio documentaries telling the stories of five young adults recently released from Rikers Island.

White Rabbits! And happy Canada Day! Why not send a postcard to your favourite Canadian?