Arts and Literature

توهم

"گل شبدر چه کم از لالهء قرمز دارد؟"
تو اینرا می خوانی
تو اینرا می دانی
و باز هم در دست
چاقوی تیز قضاوت داری!
تو اگر پیش آید
گل شبدر را به لالهء قرمز می فروشی روزی >>>

The Newlyweds (19)

Dear Maryam: I decided that the very first person that I will write to inaugurate my new email account is you, doosste aziz. Of course, no letter or email or telegram could put into mere words my gratitude to you, your husband and your team for helping me in my most trying time. I hope that you send my warmest and most heartfelt regards to all of them for now until I can somehow find a way to honor them properly for what they have done for me. Strange to think it has been more than a month since I have said good-bye to you. I know your first questions will be on my life in Iran and how my family has taken the news of the failure of my marriage and my return home. Well, as you can expect, Papa was not thrilled at all but I think it was less to do with the fact that I am back than ... >>>

«آه، ای روشنی...»

آه، ای روشنی

مگر چه می شد

اگر که می آمدی

تا بر سینه ریز سادگی،

معنای خورشید را

سریر سرودی سازی؟ >>>

Berkeley Rep Does Arabs

Shahrazad entered and she had the whitest porcelain skin and the lightest blond hair. Dark-haired and dark-skinned actresses surrounded her, playing her sister and slaves but this future queen, the rescuer of Moslem virgins looked eastern European not Middle Eastern! And gone was her self-assertion, the will to decide her own destiny. In Mary Zimmerman’s The Arabian Nights, King Shahryar explicitly asks the Wazir for her. When the father brings news of this fate, Shahrazad weeps and finally acquiesces, reminding herself and the audience that she might be able to save other lives. Her wedding night encounter with the king is screechy, almost whiny. The sexual act is barely implied; yet the gleaming dagger at Shahrazad’s throat is real. It dominates the first act as the unhinged king, ferocious in his desperate pain, keeps it there and presses it into her flesh in every bit of conversation between them >>>

آخرین روزها

روز یازدهم فروردین ماه سال 1361 (31 مارس 1982) با سبیل تراشیده و ریش نتراشیده، با چهره ای خسته و درهم "پای آبله و خسته، غریبه و دلمرده، با ترس كبود، راه گم كرده، متحیر و عاجز، خسته و ناتوان، آشنا به هویت خویش، ولی درمانده، اشكی به یك چشم و خونی به چشم دیگر، در حالی كه نمیداند به كجا خواهد رسید؟ به زمهریر هاویه؟ یا به كنار حوض كوثر؟" با كیف دستی كوچكی از فرودگاه "شارل دوگل" بیرون آمد. در اتوبوسی كه از فرودگاه به شهر میرفت، نگران و پریشان، در ردیف آخر نشسته بود. برای دوستانش از ایران تعریف میكند و از تیرباران بیرحمانه، دوست نزدیكش سعید سلطانپور حرف میزند و از اینكه پس از آن مجبور شده به زندگی مخفی پناه ببرد و بالاخره از آپارتمان كوچك و دخمه مانندی كه در تهران داشته است حرف میزند اما لبهایش میلرزند. >>>

The Newlyweds (18)

Dear Brother: I never thought that I could be so happy. Kati and I have made our decision. We are going to be together. Together forever like we were always meant to be. I can’t stop grinning these days and it is all I can do to stop myself from packing up this very minute and saying good-bye to my former life, if one can even call it a “life.” It was more like existing without purpose, breathing under water, forever suffocating, dying little by little. It didn’t come easily of course. At first, Kati refused to see me, to heed my calls. When I finally saw her face to face for the first time after the kiss we shared, she put up the resistance that I expected from her. She tried to deny it at first, saying it was a mistake, we got carried away, etc. But every time I touched her, she recoiled like she had been struck by lightning. She kept trying to turn from me, avoid my gaze>>>

سمپاشی هدفمند

در این فیلم ساختگی، مشخصاً نگاهی یکطرفه و منفی به موسیقی رپ و راک ایران و حتی نوع لباس پوشیدن و مدل موی جوانان شده است. نگاهی هدفمند با چیدمان تصاویر و گفتگوهای یکسو با روانشناسان و کارشناسان انتخابی و نظر پرسی های بی پایه واساس از جوانانی که ناآگاه از گزینه های خود هستند. در فیلم «شوک» بی آنکه از دیدگاه های سازندگان این نوع موسیقی ها و آگاهان از این نوع گرایش های اجتماعی پرس و جو شود نتیجه گیری نامنصفانه ای از نوع زندگی و سلیقه های متجددانۀ جوانان گرفته شده است. از اینرو بد نیست به گونه ای حتی با نوشتاری کوتاه این موج موسیقی متفاوت نسل معاصرمان را مستند کرده و به سازندگان و مخاطبین فیلم «شوک» دیدگاههای دیگری را نیز نشان دهیم. از آنجائی که در این فیلم تلاش بر انحراف افکار عمومی و ارتباط این جوانان و موسیقی مورد علاقه آنان به شیطانپرستی و مواد مخدر بوده و همچنین بیشترین حمله بطرف موسیقی و موسیقی پردازان رپ فارسی شده، بد نیست ما نیز بیشتر بر روی این نوع موسیقی تمرکز کنیم و بطور خیلی خلاصه به آن بپردازیم. به امید آنکه آموزنده و روشنگرانه باشد. >>>

Letters to Majid

The alarm went off as the feeble late autumn sun was breaking through the window, illuminating the room, telling her it was time to get up to go to work. She couldn’t. She had woken up from a dream at 4:00 a.m., unable to fall asleep again until 6:00 a.m. She forced herself out of her bed, but couldn’t get very far. She made herself a cup of tea and inched her way over to her computer, where she sent a note to her boss, telling him she wouldn’t be in today. The dreams had become a part of her life over the past few weeks. Each time they visited her, she was useless the next day for she would have spent most of the night recovering from them. Sipping her tea at her computer, she had an idea. What if she wrote him a letter and explained the dreams and her feelings to him? All of a sudden she felt a little burst of energy, desperately needing to write down that which haunted her and ached inside of her >>>

Gregory Peck Was Iranian

Gregory Peck was Iranian. That was the only explanation for it. He was speaking in English and his characters had American names like Atticus Finch and even particularly American accents sometimes, but if he was going to be as principled as he was, if he was going to be so attuned to the story of the search for justice, and so sure about how much of that story to tell and how much to hold inside him, then the only explanation that made any sense to me as a boy was that he was more or less Iranian, and languages and names and accents didn't have that much to do with it. He looked it too. Not just the black hair and brown eyes that looked even darker in black-and-white. It was the way he kept something of who he was for himself and something for the world>>>

Everyday realities

This book of 20 unusual short stories by Iranian women edited and translated by the 48-year old journalist, Kaveh Basmenji and spanning several decades, is deeply melancholic with its spartan prose. A profound sadness with no respect for the etiquette of pretense, hovers like a funeral wake in calling out for each story's theme, no matter the fictitious woman's joys or sorrows. A poetic atmosphere, designed to haunt and trigger brooding reflections to its sharp introspection is what lends the reader, its lavish beauty. No doubt, the English-Language collection has been translated as closely as possible from the Persian and so there is no boastful writerly approach or superficial sophisticated style one way or the other>>>

آمريكا

آمريكا،
اى گسترده پهندشت قدرت و مكنت جهان
وى بيشه سبز سبزينه دلار،
اى كه جنگل شيشه و پولاد افراشته اى
وز اوج بلند آن
سينه سپهر خراشيده اى.
اى كه  آبى آسمان و سپيدى ستاره را
با رنگ سرخ خون آميخته اى، >>>

The Newlyweds (17)

Dear Brother: I left you last with hope and happiness that I could go on with my life both making my wife and family happy and at the same time fulfilling the emotional emptiness that has plagued me through my friendship with Kati. Well, I have now woken up from that dream. It didn’t take much. Just some good old-fashioned jealousy. The gut-wrenching, night sweaty kind. We were out one night to some cheesy little nightclub in Richmond Hill with Nassim, her ubiquitous pal Mitra, Sam and his girlfriend Lissa, and Mitra’s date, none other than DOCTOR KEYVAN. You remember what a joke that guy is? Well, Mitra was hanging on to him like he was the most precious treasure. That girl is so desperate to get married, to someone, anyone, it is hilarious. I was getting ready for another night of boredom when to my shock, Kati showed up>>>

The Newlyweds (16)

Dear Mrs. M., You may have heard about me from your niece Firoozeh. I am her dear old friend Maryam and I am faxing this letter to you after several attempts to contact you via telephone. I think perhaps you are out of town for a few days. Anyways, when you get this letter, I beg you, on behalf of Firoozeh, not to contact her father and share the following news with him, at least not yet. Firoozeh is afraid for his ill health and the shock that this turn of events may have on him. You, who have been her confidant for many months now, will perhaps take this news with more aplomb, as horrible as it may be. Firoozeh is currently in jail. She was arrested a few days ago and charged with domestic assault and battery. Of course, we both know she is innocent and it is her bastard of a husband, if you would please forgive my rudeness, who has set her up.>>>