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Talk Nation Radio: Robert Shetterly's Portraits of Americans Who Tell the Truth
Robert Shetterly is a painter who is producing a collection of portraits (currently 190 of them) of "Americans Who Tell the Truth." He discusses the selection of subjects, and the reception the collection has been receiving around the country, the educational and activism possibilities. For more see http://americanswhotellthetruth.org
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download or get embed code from Archive or AudioPort or LetsTryDemocracy.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
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Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://davidswanson.org/talknationradio
Email this Blog entryNew Book for Ages 6 to 10: Tube World
Tube World is the first children's book by David Swanson, author of several nonfiction adult books. The illustrations for Tube World are by Shane Burke.
Parents: Have your kids been tired in the morning? Have you found wet bathing suits in their beds? Do they know things about far-away places that you didn’t teach them and they didn’t learn in school? Do children visiting your town from halfway around the world always seem to be friends with your kids, and to only be around during certain hours of the day? You won’t believe the explanation, but your kids might grin and wink at each other if you read it to them.
Kids: Did you know the center of the Earth was hollow? Do you know the words that can take you there, if you’re under the covers in your swimming suit and prepared for the trip? Can you imagine traveling anywhere in the world where there’s a swimming pool — and being home again in time for breakfast? If you haven’t been to Tube World yet, this book will tell you the secrets you need to know. And it will tell you about some children who discovered Tube World and used it to make the whole world a better place.
Buy the PDF, EPUB (iPad, Nook, etc.), or MOBI (Kindle) from Ebookit.
The paperback has been published in two versions, one with slightly better color, slightly better paper, and a dramatically higher price.
Buy the standard paperback from Amazon,
(If you order from Amazon it will ship right away even if Amazon says it won't ship for weeks; it is print-on-demand.)
Buy the premium paperback from Amazon,
Your local independent bookstore can order the book through Ingram.
Anyone can order the book in bulk at the lowest possible price right here.
Buy any of these versions for $8 right here:
Kindle:
EPUB:
PDF:
Audio Book:
coming this week
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Advance Praise for Tube World:
“This book will make you laugh till water comes out your ears!”--Wesley
“This story is super flibba garibbidy schmibbadie libbidie awesome, mostly!”--Travis
“The best part is we saved 2,000 islands and pretty much the whole world in our swimming suits!”--Hallie
About Shane Burke:
Shane Burke lives in Denver Colorado and has been drawing and painting since he could hold a pencil. He took private art lessons when he was young and began winning awards and contests by the age of seven. His first big commission came at age nine when he created artwork for a billboard near his home town of Tracy California. His greatest influences came from his grandfather and elementary school teachers. He loved watching his grandfather paint landscapes and wanted to be just like him. Shane is a creative day dreamer and at complete peace when putting ink to paper. You can see more of Shane's work at www.beezink.com
Children's Book Illustrator Needed
I'm searching for a good children's book illustrator to illustrate my first children's book. If you are one or know one, please write to david at david swanson dot org
City on the Ledge
I just read a terrific novel set in contemporary Quito, Ecuador, with the main characters employees of the U.S. State Department and the CIA.
This is not an easy one to write about without spoiling the plot. Let me just say that it's politically and psychologically insightful. It doesn't simplify or glorify. It doesn't beautify or brutalize human behavior. And you will find yourself trusting that it's going somewhere good, but you will not be able to say exactly where.
If Bradley Manning didn't exist we would have to invent him. Kraske has invented a narrative that takes us inside the workings of our government in a way that no collection of State Department cables ever could. For better or worse, I suspect he's taken us to a place very closely resembling the real thing.
You Mean Muslims Make Art?
When Jesus used a good Samaritan to explain the need to appreciate foreigners, he can be forgiven for not having known that so many Samaritans would later convert to Islam. It's not as if he was omniscient or something! And think of how much he's forgiven us. Nonetheless, since we can't reasonably be expected to appreciate Muslims -- at least not while we're teaching young people that Muslims deserve genocide -- that whole parable falls apart.
I doubt one film can solve this problem, but I did just get a chance to preview a beautiful documentary that will be airing on PBS on July 6th, called "Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World." Susan Sarandon narrates, and the voices are all in English -- no dubbing or subtitles. They're the voices of professors, art scholars, and artists. The subtitle could be a reference to cultures of the distant past, as an early comment in the film suggests, or perhaps it carries some sort of religious meaning.
The art in the film is largely but not exclusively religious. It's all art and architecture of "the Muslim world," taken to mean geographic areas dominated by Muslim culture now or in the past. We learn about the heavy use of Arabic writing in Islamic art, in calligraphy, and in architectural inscriptions. We tour great works of architecture in Palestine, Syria, Spain, Turkey, Mali, and India. In the secular world, apart from the mosques, we see plates, bowls, pitchers, sculptures, and paintings depicting animals and people.
In Isfahan, in the middle of Iran, so easily bombed, we find the origin of the blue and white ceramics we associate with a nation they spread to: China -- as well as stunning images of a beautiful blue mosque. During the course of the movie we are told how various Muslim art forms were influenced by Christian or Hindu art. And of course, the opposite has been just as common. The interlocking histories of these cultures make it very difficult to speak of one as if it were separate from the others.
I have to assume that someone who identified with a religion other than Islam could have as easy a time appreciating Islamic art as I do, being an atheist who would prefer to see the world leave religion behind. Some of the experts heard in the film instruct us that various art objects refer to prayer or heaven, or that the art provides the viewer with a religious experience. And yet if I ignore the commentary what I see are incredible designs and colors developed around natural and mathematical beauty.
God said: to know me, know my creations, we're told, and yet the flower designs woven into wonderful tapestries in Western Asia inspire even if I'm not trying to know something else that I can know by knowing them, if you know what I mean.
Painted Torture
You walk into a large, bright gallery full of large colorful portraits, portraits of men. They are fairly ordinary looking men. They could be from Western Asia or the "Middle East."
You approach one and look at him for an instant. He looks normal, relaxed, almost expressionless, certainly expressing no very strong emotion.
Before you can look long, your eyes are drawn to the curving lines of words swirling around the canvas like leaves in water. You read words like these, twisting your head almost upside down to follow them:
"FROM THE TIME OF MORNING PRAYERS THEY WOULD DRAW A CIRCLE ON THE WALL, AND I HAD TO STAND ON MY TOES TWO HOURS WITH MY NOSE TOUCHING THE CIRCLE."
New York Events Free to LetsTryDemocracy Supporters
Until our supply of tickets runs out, anyone who donates $10 or more per ticket will get their name on a list to get into these amazing events in New York City. Just donate and we'll contact you to confirm:
Both events are at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater, John Jay College, 899 Tenth Ave., NYC.
The Guantanamo Lawyers’ Panel
Thursday, September 8 at 5pm in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater lobby
This panel of lawyers who represent Guantanamo and other detainees and work to defend civil liberties at home is bound to create an incredible dialogue about some of the most hotly debated and contested issues surrounding the ongoing detainment of terrorism “suspects” and the line between interrogation and torture. Panelists: Jonathan Hafetz, Seton Hall and Rutgers Universities; Martha Rayner, Fordham Law, currently representing a Guantanamo detainee; Gita Gutierrez, the Center for Constitutional Rights; Alex Abdo, ACLU’s National Security Project; chaired by Kathleen Chalfant, award-winning actress of stage and screen and advocate of social justice.
Another Life
Written and Directed by Karen Malpede (author/director of Prophecy, editor: Acts of War)
Starring George Bartenieff with Eunice Wong, Ariel Sharif, Omar Koury, Christen Clifford, Dorien Makhloghi
Co-Produced with Theater Three Collaborative
Invited Dress Rehearsal Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 7:30pm, following The Guantanamo Lawyers’ Panel
A surreal, real, and satiric story of a mogul and his daughter locked in a titanic struggle, Another Life offers a whirl-wind trip through the past ten years. Greed, torture, war-lust and sexual enslavement vie with a subtle but growing resistance that leads to brave acts of caring and whistle-blowing. Another Life employs inventive language and memorable characters to bring to light questions of complicity and conscience in civil society. For more information, visit www.theaterthreecollaborative.org
(Here's the Foreword I wrote for the forthcoming book. --David Swanson)
Contest: A Graphic Needed for "Let's Try Democracy"
I need a graphic to use for linking to this site, to put on T-shirts, stickers, etc.
Does "Let's Try Democracy" inspire any graphic artistry from generous contributors?
I'll give you full credit and link to your site!
david at davidswanson dot org
Poetry in the UK Antiwar and Social Justice Movements
Over here in London, I'm hanging out with some terrific activists, including Andrew Burgin and Celia Mitchell:
Celia Mitchell reading Cutting it up by Adrian... by Fourman-Films
This was Adrian Mitchell:
And this:
Another Life Focuses This One
Brilliant and humane playwright Karen Malpede has produced another play that grabs this country by the lapels, shakes it, caresses its cheek, and kicks its ass. The play is called "Another Life" and the life it leaves me thinking about is the life of our dreams.
The play is not so much a national nightmare or a national fantasy as a surreal reproduction of the mixture of horrors and hopes that most dreaming is: the most gruesome and graphic and taboo of our collective fears without exactly the fear itself, the deepest of longings and desires in immediate and mundane form but recognizable as revelations upon awakened reflection.
