Mullets Illegal in Iran

Ponytails are out but side-partings and Elvis quiffs are in. Not the latest fashion advice from a celebrity magazine, but a list of acceptable male hairstyles issued by the Iranian government.

Iran government issues style guide for men's hair: An official describes appropriate hairstyles for men at an official hairstyle show in Tehran.

In an attempt to rid the country of "decadent Western cuts", Iran's culture ministry has produced a catalogue of haircuts that meet government approval.

The list of banned styles includes ponytails, mullets and elaborate spikes. However,quiffs appear to be acceptable, as are fashioning one's hair in the style of Simon Cowell or cultivating a 1980s-style floppy fringe.

Most of the models are clean-shaven although one picture features a man with a goatee beard, previously frowned upon by Iran's conservative clerics. Using hair gel is also within the law, albeit in modest quantities.

The "journal of Iranian hairstyles approved by the ministry of [culture and Islamic] guidance" was previewed at a government-approved hairdressing show in Tehran.

The pictures were reminiscent of those gracing barber shop windows across Britain.

"The proposed styles are inspired by Iranians' complexion, culture and religion, and Islamic law," said Jaleh Khodayar, who is in charge of a Modesty and Veil Festival later this month at which the guide will be promoted.

"We are happy that the Islamic republic of Iran's government has backed us in designing these hairstyles."

Several barber shops have reportedly been shut down and penalised in recent years for offering Western-style haircuts.

Iranian police carry out regular morality checks, arresting women in short coats and flimsy headscarves as well as men sporting spiky hair and tight, low-slung jeans. Ties are also viewed with suspicion as a symbol of Western decadence.

Conservative clerics have called for firmer action against un-Islamic dressers and criticised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month for expressing opposition to a tough police crackdown on immodest attire.

Earlier this year, an Iranian cleric claimed women who wear revealing clothes cause natural disasters. Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, a prayer leader in Tehran, said: "Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes."

From The Telegraph

Laundering Literature

Bowdlerization – A form of censorship named after Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), a prison reformer trained as a physician and avid chess player who published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare in 1807. Words, themes and even characters which Bowdler deemed inappropriate were removed entirely, however he claimed proudly not to have added anything! After the relative success of “The Family Shakespeare” Bowdler set about a similar task, this time with Edward Gibbon’s monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which his sister published posthumously. Though perhaps not as preposterous as an alteration of Shakespeare, the attempt to make Gibbon less “racy” was met with much less success and even well deserved ridicule. To the idea of liberal learning perhaps only outright censorship could be more antithetical than this regurgitated version of primary sources. The desire to sanitize literature is the bright side of the more evil rewriting of history.

C'était un Rendezvous

"Yes, I was scared. I was scared of running out of film."

Speaking of car chases in beautiful European cities, I first came across this short film by Claude Lelouch a couple of years ago. The story goes that Lelouch had just finished directing Si C'était à Refaire, and at the end of the shoot still had some extra  film and a car-mounted camera. After Paris officials denied him a permit to close the required streets for the shoot he decided to take his chances at 5:30 in the morning. Limited by the short capacity of the  reel, Lelouch only had 9 minutes of film to take the whole shot. Driving his 6.9 liter Mercedes-Benz 450SEL he traversed Paris from the Porte Dauphine exit off the Boulevarde Périphérique to the Sacré Cœur going the wrong way down one-way streets in Montmartre, ignoring red lights, and jumping curbs to avoid garbage trucks. According to Lelouch the most dangerous point of the trip was a blind corner at the Louvre issuing into the Rou de Rivoli where he positioned an assistant with a walkietalkie (afterwords discovered to be disfunctional). Lelouch was arrested following the showing of the film and the footage passed the next few decades almost unknown. It was re-released on DVD in 2003.

A map of the film's route:

Bd Périphérique (exits at Porte Dauphine) - Av Foch - Pl Charles-de-Gaulle - Av des Champs-Elysées - Pl de la Concorde - Quai des Tuileries - Pl du Carrousel - R de Rohan - Av de l'Opera - Pl de l'Opéra - Fromental Halévy - R de la Chausée d'Antin - Pl d'Estienne d'Orves - R Blanche - R Pigalle - Pl Pigalle - Bd de Clichy - (aborted turn at R Lepic) - R Caulaincourt - Av Junot - Pl Marcel Aymé - R Norvins - Pl du Tertre - R Ste-Eleuthère - R Azais - Pl du Parvis du Sacré Cœur.

...Ethically questionable, but with far more panache than these retards with too much money.

It's Been A Hard... Day's... Night...

First, Laurence Olivier as Richard III:



And, Peter Sellers as Laurence Olivier as John Lennon...

Cyber Criminals Ride Magnums...

Seriously.

Your Connecticut canary is dead, it is no more, it is an ex-canary

Peter Stothard for The Times Literary Supplement July 28th, 2009

The vicious Saffron Finch in the wild...

Forget pit-bulls and fighting cocks. Don't even think about bating bears or badgers.

In Connecticut they have a new sport, setting cage-bird on cage-bird, saffron finches and canaries for preference.

I learn this from the Cape Cod Day, a newspaper given away free in the Provincetown pharmacy, a paper which is supremely positive about anything going on around here (Children explore marsh at Wellfleet Wildlife Sanctuary) but happy to report hotter news from less favoured parts of Obama's America.

It seems that a certain Waldiney Almeida was among 19 people charged in Connecticut with keeping cage birds for the purpose of fighting each other to the status of an ex-cagebird. How you can tell if a canary is being so trained, I am not sure and the story does not say.

There would seem many potential routes for the defence - as well as Monty Python parrot jokes for the jury. But the purpose was gambling - and gamblers are famously not choosey about the form of life that fights for their money.

Would the Saffron Songster from Acapulco un-perch Old Yeller Feller from the Adirondacks? Who could say - except the man with the $8000 stash and the super-charged birdfeed who is now helping the police with their enquiries? It doesn't sound much of a sport but, heck, it's at least a sign that America is moving forward in the post George W.Bush era.

No room for bear-baiting and cock-pits now.

Pit bulls are just too expensive - and so fashionable an accessory this year on the Cape.

And yet?

There must be something of a pause here.

Kinder, gentler, fine.

Smaller, leaner, cheaper, post-crashier, absolutely fine.

But a country where the canaries do the fighting?

Surely a comfort to America's enemies everywhere.

More on the story here.

Thanks to D. B. for this lead.

Litmocracy

An interesting nonfiction story wins first place...

Scary stuff....