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- Issue 28 | January 2025
Issue 28 | January 2025
Owen Kelly
January 08, 2025
Welcome to the first edition edition of Miaaw Monthly for 2025, courtesy of our shiny new provider Beehiiv.com.
The way the holiday season scheduled itself put a spanner in our smooth running engine and its new schedule. This year Friday January 3 preceded the first Tuesday of the month, and so the conversation that Ken and I had about Colin Ward slipped out without any prepublicity.
And there is apparently nothing we can do about that, except hope that it doesn’t happen too often. However, thanks to the miracle of podcasting the conversation is still there, waiting for you to listen to it. And I think you should: Ken Worpole on Colin Ward is definitely worth hearing.
And, as usual, we continue to hope that you will send us something that you want to include in Miaaw Monthly, or something that you want to suggest for the podcasts, by emailing us at [email protected]. We will be happy to include your news and suggestions here and hunt down the topics you want to hear in the podcasts.
PODCASTS FOR JANUARY 2025
Friday January 3
Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | Episode 79
Owen Kelly talks to Ken Worpole about some of the many aspects of Colin Ward’s life and work. Ward led an adventurous and varied life, and was the author of the 1973 book Anarchy in Action, among many other things.
Friday January 10
Ways of Listening | Episode 14
Hannah Kemp-Welch talks to Angharad Davies about her long term work with communities at Rurban in Poplar, London.
Friday January 17
A Culture of Possibility | Episode 48
Owen Kelly joins Arlene Goldbard to discuss a report entitled “State of Culture” from Culture Action Europe.
Friday January 24
Social Making Special Edition | Episode 5
Sophie Hope and Hannah Kemp-Welch discuss the possibilities and strategies for reclaiming land from white colonial power structures with Nadia Shaikh and Mark Teh.
Friday January 31
Friday Number Five | Episode 16
This month sees the return of Radio Miaaw, as we search the internet for music made under a Creative Commons licence, and put together a programme for your enjoyment.
A THOUSAND WORDS
Last year’s out of copyright Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse
THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD
Public Domain Day
January 1 is Public Domain Day when the copyright on large number of works expires. Last year the copyright on the short film Steamboat Willie expired, which meant that Mickey Mouse finally entered the public domain. But not completely.
In Steamboat Willie the mouse does not wear white gloves, does not speak, and does not have the loveable characteristics he has today. This year The Karnival Kid and Haunted House both come into the public domain. Mickey Mouse speaks in both of them, and displays most of his modern characteristics. He has now almost completely come into the public domain!
Mike Pearl, in Mashable, has written a long and detailed article about this. It looks at TinTin arriving in the public domain (along with Snowy, but minus Captain Haddock and The Thompson Twins). It also examines some of the bizarre complexities that this all reveals about the state of copyright by examining the arrival of Popeye into the public domain, and the important question concerning whether or not Public Domain Popeye can eat spinach to get his extra strength.
Short answer: yes. Longer answer: it’s more complicated than you think, and relies on an odd accident.
Youth Landscapers Collective
Youth Landscapers Collective (YLC) is a youth arts organisation based in the National Forest area of England. They are a collective of young people, artists and technicians who collaborate with their local community to explore this landscape’s industrial past and forest future. Together we make ambitious, creative projects to share at a variety of festivals, events, and online.
They asked if they could create a short series of podcasts for the Miaaw network and we happily said yes. As a result, Miaaw will broadcast a three part series, created, edited and produced entirely by YLC, starting on Friday February 7th. They say:
In Episode 1 we introduce you to who we are and what we do via an online conversation between artist Jo Wheeler, who helped initiate YLC in 2016, and three of our Youth Council members, Alfie Ropson, Isaac Munslow and Kris Kirkwood. Alfie, Isaac and Kris have all been involved with YLC since the early days and now contribute as paid project assistants, artists, technicians and board members.
In Episode 2 we want to give you a sense of how we work together. YLC member Kris Kirkwood has built a sound narrative of our 2024 song-making project, using audio recordings from our sessions - from the seeds of our ideas through to performance.
THE MIAAW REVIEW
We announced on October that we planned to produce The Miaaw Review which will contain one or two full length essays, as well as a couple of short pieces. The first issue will appear on Wednesday January 15, 2025, and it will appear almost quarterly after that. Almost quarterly? you ask. Yes, because we have decided to produce 5 issues a year. So it will appear quarterly with one extra issue when you least expect it.
The first issue will contain an interesting essay from Arlene Goldbard and a shorter piece or two from François and Owen.
We promised when we started this monthly newsletter that we wouldn’t spam you, and so we now have a dilemma. The easiest way to get readers would be to send everyone a copy and then challenge you to unsubscribe if you get fed up with it. This, we decided, would be easy but wrong. So, rather than asking you to opt out, we are going to ask you to opt in. If you would like to see the first copy of The Miaaw Review in the middle of January then please subscribe by clicking this link.
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