Archive - May 30, 2008 - Article

Best kind of love

Maestro Loris Tjeknavorian was a guest of Berkeley Persian Center in the San Francisco Bay Area in March. A suite from his opera, Rostam and Sohrab, was to be performed by East Bay Symphony Orchestra on March 14th at the Paramount Theatre. The weekend before the performance I had the great fortune of meeting the Maestro at Darvag Group’s play in Berkeley, where I tagged along with him and some other good friends to a restaurant in Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto area. We had time for a brief chat, so I asked him what he would like to talk about, and he chose the subject of “love”! He also gave me the CD of his “Love Songs”, telling me stories about how he became inspired to write those melodies>>>

Don't be scared

Iran will not be attacked because Iran’s retaliation would trigger an out of control escalation which would require nuclear weapons to put an end to. Also, the rapid cycle of retaliations would most likely force Russia’s hand. Only recently Putin said, “An attack on Iran would be an attack on Russia.” The central reason Iran would be attacked would be to gain control of its oil and gas and attempting to achieve this through military means is close to impossible and would be too disruptive to the oil dependent world economy.>>>

Oh no, not another Persian rug shop

Some years ago, well before I began traveling regularly to Iran, I started to understand the disconnect between the way Iran was portrayed in the American news media and what I suspected the reality would be like. When I first went to Iran in 2001 it didn't take long to realize I was right, but it has taken all the years since to understand what was wrong and lacking from so much of that coverage, and still holes remain. Now the coverage always strikes me as simply one-dimensional representations; caricatures of a perceived reality>>>

Sir; are you Iranian too?

It was more than 35 years ago when I entered the United States for the first time, a non-stop flight from Tehran to New York City by Iran Air. I carried a big orange suitcase in my right hand full of stuff including half a dozen hand-made shorts packed into the suitcase by my mother, as if I was going to a shortless country, an English-Persian dictionary in my left hand, $2100 in my pocket, and a burning desire to succeed in my heart. Tehran and a couple of other Iranian cities were the only places I had traveled to before coming to the United States. I was acting like a nincompoop, bewildered and baffled. Any observer can surmise from my behavior that I was not a regular tourist. I felt like a functionary who was dispatched to an unknown territory for a really important mission>>>

لیز! لیز!

باز یک همکار جدید! دختر جوانی است با چشمانی زیبا و شاد و قامتی رعنا. لباس پوشیدنش در عین کلاسیک بودن شیک است! بالاخره سر صحبت را باز می کنیم، خوش صحبت است و خندان، و برعکس من که چشمان غمگین و تیره ای دارم او چشمانی شاد و روشن دارد. موقع حرف زدن "ر" ها را بدجوری کش می دهد، هیچ نمی توانم لهجه اش را حدس بزنم، آخر سر ازش می پرسم: "کجایی هستی؟" با همان چشمان شوخ و شنگ پاسخم می دهد: "آمریکایی! ایالات متحده!" با حیرت نگاهش می کنم و آخرش به حرف می آیم و از او می پرسم: "ناراحت نمی شوی اگر به تو بگویم من ایرانی هستم! ... از پارس باستان!">>>