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* Eat your goddamn yogurt!
Ali H., telling a story to friends sitting around
a table:
Before the Revolution, scouts from all over Iran gathered
a couple of weeks a year at Manzariyeh camp grounds in
Tehran. One year -- this was in the 1960s -- I won a state
prize in Khorrasan for my artwork and got a chance to go
to the camp.
One of the guys in my tent was the son of Mostajab-ol-Daveh,
the guy who presented the lottery show on TV. He was a
funny guy, just like his father.
One day he started a rumor that there was camphor in the
yogurt served at the cafeteria. Camphor was prescribed
to men who had erectile dysfunction. The rumor spread fast.
Day after day bowls of yogurt would go back to the kitchen
untouched.
News reached the camp commander, who ordered all of us
to line-up. His voice could be heard a long distance through
the loudspeakers. "What the hell is going on here?
Why isn't anyone eating yogurt? Kafoor kojaa bood!? Why would we put camphor
in yogurt? There's no camphor in the yogurt. Eat your goddamn
yogurt!"
There we were hundreds of young boy scouts standing in
military formation dying to burst out with laughter.
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* And the bottom?
dear sourena,
i found the picture (below) you sent in "ketab-e-koucheh"
(alef, volume 4) of the first printing. the picture has
a story,
try to find a copy.
the bottom one is esmatol-doale daughter of nasser-edin
shah. the top one is fakhrol-taaj daughter of doost mohammad-khan
moeer ol mamaalek. fakhr was considered one of the most
beautiful women of her time. she was also quite a promiscuous
lady and was first made pregnant by her dad who considered
her too pretty to be wasted on other men. we should be
proud of the qajars.
-- mazda
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Ali H., telling a story to friends sitting around
a table:
My father was a serious backgammon player. He'd start after
dinner and often wouldn't stop playing until 4 in the morning.
My sister's husband was a road engineer who worked in Sanandaj,
Kurdistan. One summer the family went for a visit.
There wasn't much to do. My father would go for long walks.
One day he came across the officers club. One of the rooms
was filled with men playing backgammon.
My father would stand and watch. There were
daily competitions, ending with the best two battling it out
in the final at the end of the day. There was one officer
who would beat everybody, every day. He had one leg and looked
kinda grim.
One day my father was invited to play as a guest. He beat
one guy, then another, and another. People noticed he was really
good. They would gather around to see him play.
My father reached the final and faced the veteran champion.
The rest of the
players were tired of the same guy beating them all the time
and were routing for my father. The grumpy
one-legged man had kicked their butt for too long.
My father did win, to everyone's delight. They cheered and
whistled for the new champion. After that, my father was treated
like celebrity. An army jeep would come to my sister's home
every morning to pick
him up
and take him to the club.
The former champion, on the other hand, felt humiliated. He
never came back.
I was at a store in Tehran buying underwear. Ahead of me was
a man who wanted to buy underwear for his wife. The guy
who owned the store asked what kind, "tooree yaa laambaadaaee?"
As it turns out, G-strings, thongs, are known as "Laambaadaaee"
-- Lambada style.
-- Taj ol Saltaneh
Troops march while a stray dog resting on the street
looks on during a military parade celebrating the 100th Anniversary
of the Panama's independence in Panama City. (AFP/Yuri Cortez)
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* Valuable thing
I would like to share with you that life is a valuable thing.
You may say, "No sweat ! Tell me something
more valuable!"
Well, as commonplace as it sounds,
in times, we may take things
for granted while being too pre-occupied for too-long for small,
tinny little bits. If you are in that
mode as you read this piece, snap out of it - right now!
Anyhow, I am sending this piece from Japan. I was born in Iran,
studied in Charming
Montreal/Canada, finished university in cozy little town in Ontario/Canada
called Waterloo, worked in peaceful Ottawa/Canada
for a while, lived in soothing
San Diego/US (oh, I love this
city), got a boost in living in amazing Bay Area/US,
and finally got a fork-lift to Tokyo.
God knows about my next move.
The picture is taken in "Steps of Rome" in North Beach,
San Francisco; the best place to have a
desert with high-energy Italian music in the background. Sorry
for the mess on the table, or the glow of
the bald guy in the background (although, it helped the camera
flash light camera a bit!).
Toast to happy times.
-- Behrouz Zahedivach
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* Face to face with death
A couple of weeks ago someone by the last name "Kazemi" asked
me to delete his email address from the iranian.com mailing list.
I did a search for his email address, but nothing came up. I
then did a search for Kazemi, hoping to find it. Instead, I
got an email address for Zahra Kazemi.
I didn't know whether
or not that was the email address for the Iranian-Canadian
photographer murdered
a few months ago in Tehran. But as soon as I saw it on the
screen, my heart skipped a beat.
-- Jahanshah Javid
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* Fatemeh, kheresho begeer!
Niki Tehranchi sent this from New York Daily News (October
23, 2003):
Roger Clinton (brother of ex-Pres Bill) is being sued by
a woman who claims she suffered "personal injuries and property
damage" after he allegedly drove his car into hers in L.A.
last January.
In papers filed in L.A. Superior Court, Fatemeh
Youssefi Nejad says the former First Brother "negligently" drove
his vehicle into hers and caused her "great mental and physical
pain and suffering."
Clinton's rep did not return calls
...
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