The Iranian Features
January 31-February 4, 2000 / Bahman 11-15, 1378
Today
* Drama:
The Blacks
Recent
* Iran: Taking a
bow
* Love: Vinegar
to wine
* Art:
Paper dreams
* Poetry:
Calm once more
* Diaspora:
For getting without forgetting
* Cover
story: Serving His Majesty
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday
| Thursday | Friday
email us
Friday
February 4, 2000
Drama
The Blacks
Sensory feat of a supreme kind
By Soma
February 4, 2000
The Iranian
The House of Khorshid is not where the sun is trapped. If it weren't
for the design, looked at from above, streaked with concrete slabs that
shoot off a concrete semi-circle, it would have been the ultimate misnomer.
In fact, the sun has no way of finding its way into the opaque, black-bean-shaped
stage. It opened in Tehran last month to house a play, appropriately called
SIAHA.
But the choice of location is hardly accidental. Should we say, rather,
that the chance occurrence which brought the director of the play, Hamed
Mohammad-Taheri, face to face with the basement of the City Theater, was
part of the reason which gave birth to the staging of Genet's THE BLACKS
>>>
GO TO FEATURE
Go to top
Thursday
February 3, 2000
Iran
Taking a bow
... to the splendor of Isfahan
February 3, 2000
The Iranian
Before I begin, I shall say that I am not an Isfahani. I introduce myself
as Shirazi, my allegiances are to Shiraz, my fondest memories of childhood
are from Shiraz and its abundant gardens and groves, that I will go back
to Shiraz again and again, whether asleep or awake, as I have all my life.
All that said, the Shirazis of today -- the current inhabitants of the
city and not those abroad -- feel a conspicuous sense of inferiority towards
Isfahan. The two cities have always been in something of a competition;
as Iran's capital during various dynasties, as the source of the two sweetest
and most recognizable accents in Iran, as centers of culture, as tourist
destinations, as wombs of beauty and grace, and as places of rest and respite
on the spice and silk routes >>>
GO TO FEATURE
Love
Vinegar into wine
The power of love
By Ali A. Parsa
February 3, 2000
The Iranian
Whatever it is, love seems to be the stuff or the mysterious force that,
as they say "makes the world go around". We also know that if
nurtured by awareness through effective education, ethics and role model,
love can brighten our lives and enable us to do what we normally can't.
Those who have experienced that surge in power of love, know that love
contributes to our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health in
the most effective way than any method ever devised by man. That kind of
love was the mysterious force that energized our greatest philosophers,
poets, writers and mentors to produce the greatest works, mostly under
the conditions abject poverty and yet they were able to discover and describe
the beauties of our world far better than the people with unsurpassed material
wealth >>>
GO TO FEATURE
Go to top
Wednesday
February 2, 2000
Art
Paper dreams
Bookcovers
By Roshanak Keyghobadi
February 2, 2000
The Iranian
I am an art director and I work and live in New York. I also teach papermaking
and bookmaking.
I studied graphic design at Tehran University. I also studied graphic
design under the tutorship of Morteza Momayez, calligraphy and typography
with Mohamad Ehsaie, and drawing and painting with Aydin Aghdashloo. >>>
GO TO FEATURE
Poetry
Calm once more
Two poems
By Shadi Assar
February 2, 2000
The Iranian
The Tear
Stick my finger in
Slowly bring out
Feel the drop
Pulled from tip
Back to mass
Slightly tense
But calm once more
Attempting another
Till boredom strikes >>>
GO TO FEATURE
Go to top
Tuesday
February 1, 2000
Diaspora
For getting without forgetting
Letting go, leaving behind, but retaining the memory
By Niloofar Kalaam
February 1, 2000
The Iranian
Loss and Possibility are both intrinsic to every uprooting. I also believe
that as individuals and collectively, we can gain much more by admitting
their co- existence, by working the tension of their co-existence, than
we do by declaring ourselves on the side of one or the other.
But let me speak by personal example. And let me, for a moment at least,
step outside of the notion of displacement and uprooting as exclusively
geographic.
It is 1979 and the world as I knew it has ended. It's after the end
of the world (as I knew it) - an afterworld. Almost all my friends and
classmates have left the country. My father no longer has a job. My mother
still has her job, but has sold her fancy clothes, and no longer buys antiques.
My parents' circle of friends, with whom we spent all our weekends and
holidays, has split apart, due largely to religious and political disagreements
>>>
GO TO FEATURE
Go to top
Monday
January 31, 2000
Cover story
Serving His Majesty
A former prime minister speaks of the Pahlavi era
By Habib Ladjevardi
January 31, 2000
The Iranian
From the preface to Memoirs of Jafar Sharif-Emami, Prime Minister
of Iran (1960-1961 & 1978), the seventh volume from the Harvard
Iranian Oral History Project Series edited by Habib Ladjevardi (Ibex Publishers
, 1999).
As cabinet minister, president of the Senate, president of the Pahlavi
Foundation, president of the Iran Chamber of Industries and Mines and twice
prime minister during the reign of Mohammad-Reza Shah, Jafar Sharif-Emami
was a key player in major events and decisions of the time. For some years,
he was also the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Iran, giving him additional
informal influence among Iran's political elite >>>
GO TO FEATURE
Go to tops
Copyright © Abadan Publishing Co. All Rights Reserved.
May not be duplicated or distributed in any form
