Birthday boy

Ardeshir Mohassess, The king is always above the people, 1977

Mohassess, The men bent in prayer to God and the government airplanes arrived, 1977

Mohassess, The convict’s execution coincided with the king’s birthday ceremonies, 1978

Mansoureh Alikhani 1966 - 2025

 

Edmund White 1940-2025

 

[Verlaine] moved more and more in an artistic milieu. Every week he attended a salon frequented by the composers Berlioz and Wagner and the painters Édouard Manet and Henri Fantin-Latour and all the Parnassan band, who grew accustomed to Verlaine's habits; when he started drinking absinthe, they made sure to hide the knives. They knew that in a matter of moments he could go from the meekest mildness to the most murderous and ungovernable of rages. One night when he was blind with drink and wanted money from his mother so that he could continue his rout into the dawn hours, he became so angry with her for holding out on him that he attacked with his cane the jars containing Madame Verlaine's miscarriages, smashing the glass and dismembering the tiny rubbery fetuses and scattering them across the floor - and remarking soddenly that they, like him, had been macerating in alcohol long enough. The next morning, Verlaine crawled to his mother's side, begging her forgiveness in a prolonged, tearful scene of penitence. As she would do each time for the rest of her days, she forgave him.

                                                               

                                                                         (Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel, 2008) 

 

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o 1938 - 2025

"It is all due to a parable that came to me as I waited in a lobby of a New York hotel, trying to figure out the meaning of the wonders I had seen in a flight I had made around Africa and all the lands where dwell black folk, in the form of a bird.

"[The Wizard of the Crow] told the story of his travels in time and space in search of the sources of black power and a rather long parable of how humans surrendered control of their own lives to a blind deity with a double barreled name of M&M, or money and market, and how Africa's independence mutated to dependence.

 "Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa's souls from the continent to the four corners of the world?  How could Europe lord it over a continent ten times its size?  Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go?  How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one who knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool?  Where is the future of Africa?  I cried.

"I saw this: Around the seventeenth century, Europe impregnated some in Africa with its evil.  These pregnancies gave birth to the slave driver of the slave plantation, who mutated into the colonial driver of the colonial plantation, who years later mutated into the neocolonial pilots of the postcolonial plantation.  Is he now mutating into a modern driver and pilot of a global plantation?  But Africa impregnated its own breed, which made our people sing.  Even if you kill our heroes, we women are pregnant with hope of a new lot.  Therefore, don't cry despair at those who sold the heritage; smile also with pride at the achievement of those that struggle to rescue our heritage.

"So I said to myself: Just as today is born of the womb of yesterday, today is pregnant with tomorrow." 

                                                                                     (from Wizard of the Crow, 2006)

Sebastião Salgado 1944 - 2025

At daybreak, Waurá Indians travel by canoe to collect the “waiting net,” Xingu Indigenous Territory, state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, 2005, gelatin silver print, 20 x 24 inches/50.8 x 61 cm, courtesy Sundaram Tagore Gallery

 

Alice Notley 1945 - 2025

“In this moment” “before” “anyone, ever” “died” “before we were born?”
“in this moment forever before” “before we went to a war”
“Before we died” “In this moment, now” “In this moment before, it is
not before” “In this very moment” “where is it” “where we
haven’t died” “or died inside” “In this moment we haven’t” “in this
moment, no one” “in this moment, no one has ever, died” (“But I have
been born”) “in this moment” “where, where is it” “in moment” “who’s here”
 

                                                          from White Phosphorus, 1988

Elham Al Badi 1993-2025

 

"Operation Rough Rider"

  

"Nineteen months into the conflict, the Gaza Strip is still confronted with a critical risk of Famine. Over 60 days have passed since all humanitarian aid and commercial supplies were blocked from entering the territory. Goods indispensable for people’s survival are either depleted or expected to run out in the coming weeks. The entire population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with half a million people (one in five) facing starvation. 

"From 11 May to the end of September 2025, the whole territory is classified in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), with the entire population expected to face Crisis or worse acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above). This includes 470,000 people (22 percent of the population) in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5), over a million people (54 percent) in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and the remaining half million (24 percent) in Crisis (IPC Phase 3). This marks a significant deterioration compared to the previous IPC analysis (released in October 2024) and the already dire conditions detected between 1 April - 10 May 2025. During this time, 1.95 million people (93 percent) were classified in Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or above), including 244,000 people (12 percent) in IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe) and 925,000 (44 percent) in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency). 

"With the announced expansion of military operations throughout the Gaza Strip, the persistent inability of humanitarian agencies to access populations in dire need, an anticipated escalation in hostilities, and the continued mass displacement of people, the risk of Famine in the Gaza Strip is not just possible- It is increasingly likely."

(Integrated Food Security Phase Classification)