Monday's mp3: Offside in Iran

I was all set to bathe you in certain wonderful sounds today. But then I went to the movies. Thanks to my buddy RadioActive Gavin, I finally had a chance to see the Iranian movie Offside. Following the story of several young soccer fans trying to attend a World Cup qualifying match against Bahrain, it shows them being detained because they are female. And females don't attend such events, not if the duty-bound Army soldiers have anything to do with it.

I know there are some good arguments to be made for differences between genders, but we'll leave that for later. The point is, you should see the movie. It's thought provoking. It's human. And seeing it inspired me to change today's musical selection. You'll get the other one later; today we're going with an uppity Persian woman, 'cause that's the kind of person on my mind right now.

Sussan Deyhim was born in Tehran, and celebrates her heritage on an album collecting classic Persian melodies composed around the poetry of Rumi, Saadi, Djami and other Sufi writers. (The album has been remixed by Bill Laswell, by the way, and you can sample that here)

[mp3] Sussan Deyhim: Negara
from the album Madmen of God


Finally, it should be noted that intolerance toward women persists. Iranian journalist Banafsheh Samgis was sentenced to jail in 2005 for writing that the prophet Mohammed enjoyed music played by women. You can read more about this at freemuse.org