Arts and Literature

Good acting, good filming, awful story

We are apparently condemned to films that express reality and then we are forced to sit in the dark and watch as our reality once again tears off the barely damp scabs, to open the wound anew. A wound that doesn't even bleed anymore. It just stings. A lot. This is honestly how I felt watching "A Separation". A film that is reaping award after award as it soars across Europe on it's way to Hollywood, where the Oscar buzz is most certainly buzzing>>>

مثنوی رب النوع ها

تا دل منظومه ما خون شود
سایه جنگ آید و افزون شود

کبکبه و دبدبه کائنات
واینهمه غوغا و خروش حیات
>>>

Onward, Behind the Seas

Unlike most gifted musicians, Fared does not try to intimidate or impress the listener. Instead, Fared’s music has the genius of simplicity and goes direct to the heart – it speaks to all: students, housewives, engineers, poets, musicians, etc. Fared is a voice for us – us Iranians, Iranian-Americans, Americans with Persian souls, Americans with American souls, earthlings singing their uniform soulfulness. And he will help you sing your soul – perhaps by teaching you how to shake your voice like he does>>>

سرباز

به نام خدا
حراست از ميهن
تحت نام آزادى
دفاع از نژاد پاک
و گاه ترکيبى از شعارهاى بالا
>>>

جشن سال نو

به هنگام رسیدن سال نو
همیشه به این اندیشیده ام
که چرا باید
جشن گرفته شود
یک سال نزدیک تر شدن
به نیستی و مرگ؟>>>

Alternate Universe

Being Iranian with OCD, PTSD, and as of yesterday, now suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome" too, I wondered what the paradigm shift and cosmic variation of Iran would look like: In a different cosmic 1944, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi went to visit Ayatollah Seyed Hossein Borujerdi who had been taken ill and was in the hospital>>>

اجماع قانونی

پدر روشنفکر و بزرگ من
دو دست داشت.
با یک دست بارها
بعد که شاه رفت
اول انقلاب
روسری مرا از سرم می کشید >>>

ایرانیانِ مدرن ولی سنتی

مردی در یک میهمانی دوستانه تعریف می‌کرد که چندسال پیش با خانمی هم‌سن و سال خودش آشنا می‌شود و رابطه آن‌ها خیلی سریع‌ و با استقبال و اشتیاق دوجانبه، به هم‌بستری کشیده می‌شود. به گفته وی همه‌ چیز نیز تا آن زمان طبیعی و بدون دروغ پیش رفته بود بد نیست خاطره او را از نخستین شبی که با زن در زیر یک سقف گذرانده‌ بود، برایتان بازگو کنم:>>>

That Summer Night in Tehran

I open my window, unable to resist the bustling life of the city. Though it is night, the day’s residual heat is amplified by the black asphalt and smoggy belches of the surrounding vehicles. My eyes dart here and there, searching for a new oddity, a new marvel. Immediately, my pupils latch onto a movement I see between the honking cars. It is a girl, about my age, going from window to window, selling a stack of small Qurans>>>

Hanged at Dawn

Tethered to a yellow crane’s hook,
she is no longer swaying,
from the hood, across the sleeves,
down to the hemline >>>

ترانه های فراق

در عشق تو دست از دل و دین بردارم
با عشق تو من بهشت خود را دارم
در دوزخ اگر وصل تو را وعده دهند
فردوس برین بر دگران بگذارم >>>

Light in the Longest Night

Yalda was adopted from the Babylonians and incorporated into Zoroastrianism by Persians. The ancient Roman festivals of Saturnalia (God of Agriculture, Saturn) and Sol Invicta (Sun God) are amongst the best known observances of winter solstice in the West, and as commemorated by European pagans. The Romans, especially the aristocracy celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the Persian Goddess of the unconquerable sun, on December 25>>>

Is Love a Glass of Hormones?

Was love a glass full of wine
That we downed without delay
Whenever we saw each other?
But now that a sharp blade
Has severed its vine from the roots
>>>

آسیه در میان دو دنیا

آسیه، چهارده ساله، صدمترى دورتر از آخرین خانه ى روستا، نزدیك گورستان روى سنگى نشسته بود كه نامش را بالش رستم گذاشته بودند. داشت به نام خودش مى اندیشید. فكر كرد كاش اسمش صدیقه بود. نخستین بارى كه این نام را شنیده بود دچار این حس شده بود كه در اصل یك صدیقه نامى بوده است. و به خودش گفت دیگر باید فرار كنم. از سه روز پیش كه ماه جبین كتكش زده بود داشت به فرار فكر مى كرد، و مرد كه از دور پیدا شد آسیه فكر كرد به همین شوهر مى كنم>>>

The first day

For some reason
there was a vast desert
in the heart of Tehran.
I happened to look up,
suddenly not occupied
with mischief and fun.
>>>

Fresh ground free-range cynical intellectualism

With every new Kiosk album, I tear off the cellophane with a certain sense of excited trepidation. On the one hand, I can't wait to taste all the new cool ear-candy Arash Sobhani has picked out for me, from the candy shop of treats in his head. Arash Ali Wonka. On the other, there is a pragmatic fatalistic Iranian innate fear in me that always hovers just far enough out to like here- that at some point Sobhani is going to fizzle>>>