Iran So Far Away

What’s going on over there? We’ve seen so many Iranians, angrily marching in the streets, getting pelted and baton-whipped and killed and arrested — yet they mostly remain peaceful, united, and dignified. Obviously, something is really wrong in Iran, but the situation also has its poetic moments; unsurprising for the place that gave us Rumi. (We’re thinking of the rooftop chanting that developed immediately as an alternative to the censored cellphones — practical, yes, but also manifestly beautiful.) At “Raising Our Voices for Iran,” Reese Erlich, a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has spent a lot of time in the Persian Gulf, gives an election report, and a slate of other authors read their literary work. We hope local Iranian-Americans weigh in with reports from their families in Iran, too. We heard recently from friends, for example, that most of those protesters don’t really care about Mousavi; they just want a better life. Music in the form of jazz fusion band Aleph Null features Hossein Massoudi singing in Farsi and Kurdish, with a backing band that includes trumpet and oud.
Sun., July 26, 2 p.m., 2009