Arts and Literature

Killing Harriet

Fortunately, I had a brother in the U.S. who helped me get back on my feet again. He was living in the second floor of a house belonging to a lonely old lady by the name of Harriet Hass. She was in her eighties who had already begun to lose her mental faculty. Her house was in an affluent neighborhood and she was one of the oldest residences there. The house was on a half an acre lot that she had not maintained for many years due to her age. To keep my mind occupied; I get up very early every morning and worked all day cleaning up her property, repairing and maintaining whatever I could. Soon the garbage was all gone, trees were trimmed, and the grass began to grow again. >>>

Death

No, I don't want you to trot
with your polite confidence
back and forth
in my nightmare.
Saddle, gun and spur
and the tilted hat, black
as the blood you spilled,
through the dead calm >>>

Zinn in Jail

I first learned of Howard Zinn’s arrest by noticing his photo in Boston Globe’s front page, next to the headline: famed historian, activist jailed for punching a man -- and knowing Howard’s life-time credential as a non-violent civil rights leader, I was naturally curious, to say the least, actually down right skeptical, and then, when I read the news story and discovered that the “victim” was a "distinguished" member of right-wing Fox TV, I allowed my suspicion a couple of notches down yet sufficiently in gear to warrant a healthy doubt about the veracity of the story – that Zinn had “attacked” him after a heated, accidental, exchange over wars in the Middle East. >>>

ایرن

تا چشمم به او می افتد عقب عقب می روم و در جستجوی راه نجاتی هستم ولی فایده ای ندارد امروز با هم در یک طبقه و در یک محل هستیم و بایست کنار هم کار کنیم. یعنی خبر ندارد؟ خبر دارد؟ مگر می شود بی خبر باشد؟ ایرن مثل همیشه، مثل ملکه دانمارک پشت صندلی نشسته و مثل هر روز که روزنامه لوموند را از صفحه اول تا صفحه آخر می خواند، الان دارد کتابی را می خواند. یعنی او هنوز خبر ندارد که متعصبان مذهبی به خاطر چند تا کاریکاتور سفارت دانمارک در تهران را اشغال کرده اند؟ حالا من چکار کنم؟ بالاخره دل به دریا می زنم و بی خیال -انگار نه انگار - یک سلام می گویم و فوری پشت آن یکی میز می نشینم. همانطور که دارد کتاب می‌خواند با سر جوابم را می دهد. >>>

با زبان تو...

تا ظلم ِ رفته دیگر به یادم نیاید
به کشف زبانی نو
              در تو می­نگرم.
به جستجوی گرمایی ازلی
در شيارهای زمین
     بر تو دست می­سایم   
>>>

سهم شیرینی ما

تلفن را که برداشتم بی مقدمه گفت؛ تمامی امروز یاد شیرینی ها بودم. از یک سوپر ایرانی همین نزدیکی ها از هر نوعش که داشت، خریدم. اگر الان کسی وارد دفتر بشود، از دیدن انواع شیرینی و آجیل روی میزم، چار شاخ می ماند! میدانی! هیچ کدامشان آن مزه را ندارند! گفتم زنگی بزنم بپرسم هیچ وقت با آن لذت و دلهره شرینی خورده ای؟ گفتم؛ آره! اما شیرینی هایی از نوعی دیگر! لذت های بزرگ، اغلب با دلهره و تشویش همراه اند. شاید همین باعث شیرینی شان می شود! مهمانخانه ی ما هم مثل هر خانه های پر جمعیت آن سال ها، منطقه ای ممنوعه بود با دری بسته و قفلی قدیمی. مادر نه تنها درِ اتاق، که درِ کمد، یا به لهجه ی اصفهانی ها "دولاب" داخل اتاق را هم قفل می کرد. آن دولاب، قبله ی آرزوهای ما بچه ها بود. جایی که آجیل و انواع شیرینی و گز و سئون در قل و زنجیر، بسته و زندانی بودند. ما بچه ها تنها سالی چند بار به وصال این لعبتکان می رسیدیم. یک روز که مادر به حمام رفته بود،...>>>

Going down the tube

Chalmers Johnson writes: “Most Americans do not recognize-or do not want to recognize-that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, they are often ignorant of the fact that their government garrisons the globe. They do not realize that a vast network of American military bases on every continent constitutes a new form of empire... Our country deploys well over half a million soldiers, spies, technicians, teachers, … in other nations… . Whole sectors of the American economy have come to rely on the military for sales.” >>>

Messiah

A millinium has passed
and another and
another,
no Saoshyant has arrived.
Mahdi won’t arrive either.
By the Jewish account Jesus will come to save the Jews
Or
By the Christian account he will come to end the Judaism. >>>

در باب نشئه پرانی

در عالم هپروت بودم که شبکه خبری سی-ان-ان اعلام کرد و نشان داد که ایران مجدداً چند تا از آن موشکهای دونبش را هوا کرده و یک دسته خر به این گنده گی از زمین بلند میشه و مثل علی ورجه دور خودش میچرخه و چه بسا صد متر آنطرف ترتلپی میافته روی زمین و بادش در میره! اونا که بقیه ویدیورو نشون نمیدن که آخه این موشک آخرش کجا میافته و ما باید هی مجسم کنیم که این موشک حالا حالا ها داره میره، خوب همین هم خودش یک تفریحی است ودر افکارمان از روی لرستان پرواز میکنیم، سفری هم از بالا روی نجف اشرف میکنیم وزیارت اهل قبور و بطرف اسرائیل میرویم وسواحل مدیترانه را مفتی میبینیم، تا حدودی هم مسکن و خواب آورست و حالا اگر عَرَق نکنیم و تبمان نبرد، لااقل عِرق ملی مان بجریان میافتد و کم کم بخواب شیرینی فرو میرویم. >>>

Mossadegh

"Wait," the young man said. He was Iranian and he had told the girl, who was American, that he was Iranian and not Persian. They had kissed once and then he'd stopped.
"I have to tell you about Mossadegh."
"What?"
"Not what, who. Mossadegh was a man. He was the prime minister of Iran in 1953. He was overthrown by an American coup. I have to tell you about him because I shouldn't be the only one thinking about him when we kiss." >>>

Little Lambs

The blinding lights of the bullet from the soldier’s bayoneted rifle knocked me out of consciousness and, my face dropping on the wet asphalt thinly covered by falling snow, I could instantly taste the blood dripping from my head to my mouth and then my ears registered the second blast that hit Majid in the eye killing him instantly. A moment earlier we were writing a silly graffiti on the school’s wall, long live live Pars Team, zendeh bad Pars, taking the risk of getting caught by the soldiers enforcing the curfew, or not thinking about it at all, this after Majid questioned my bravery while we were playing cards and I made a bet on his playboy magazine that I could do it>>>

ای بخارا، شادزی!

حضرت امیر نصربن سامانی در "زایشگاه" نشسته و دارد زور می زند تا "تولید مثل" کند. در همین لحظه چشمش به آفتابه ی طلای پیش رویش می افتد. متوجه شعری حک شده روی آفتابه می شود. ناگهان خم می شود تا نوشته را بخواند، همین خم شدن باعث فشار روی عضلات شکم امیر می شود و حضرت در لحظه، "فارغ" می شود. همین امر باعث مسرت خاطر امیر می شود. دنبال اسم شاعر می گردد، اما این بی ذوقان "دستمالچی"، نام شاعر را روی آفتابه ننوشته اند. امیر از همانجا یکی از خدمه را صدا می زند و امر می کند تا برود و نام شاعر را بپرسد. آن بنده ی خدا هم سراسیمه به خدمت وزیر و وکیل می رود تا بالاخره نام شاعر "شعر آفتابه ی طلا" را پیدا می کند و فوری به خدمت امیر می رسد و نام را به سمع مبارک می رساند.>>>

From Empire With Love

James Bond is arguably the mother of all ‎on-screen celebrations of white, European ‎masculinity. More than two billion people – ‎two fifths of the world's population – have ‎watched a 007 film. Only Tarzan or Indiana ‎Jones might rival his stature. For Your ‎Eyes Only: Ian Fleming And James Bond – the ‎exhibition currently running at London's ‎Imperial War Museum – sets out to outline ‎the relationship between the fictional ‎secret agent and the man who created him, ‎Ian Fleming.‎ Fleming (pictured) was born to a wealthy Scottish ‎banking family. He went to the elite school Eton and then the military training academy ‎Sandhurst. His father Valentine Fleming, an ‎aristocratic MP, was killed in 1917, ‎serving in the same unit as Winston ‎Churchill in World War I. Peter, Ian's ‎older brother, was handed the mantle of ‎family patriarch>>>

Epiphany

Uprooted
from Persian gardens
of my dawning bed,
I was a cypress tree replanted
in eternal ice of Montreal, muttering
Gilles Vigneault’s "Les gens de mon pays"
for the saffron sun, sidewalk café sitting
in summer’s shade, reading my mother’s
letter from Tehran >>>

Making music, not war

On Saturday, June 28, when the fear of looming war against Iran was on the rise, here, in Prague, Iranian and Israeli musicians came together to perform in a warm and memorable concert in a prestigious and the oldest Czech world music festival, Respect, in a Woodstockesque flavor and atmosphere. Saeed Shanbehzadeh, a maestro of Ney-Anban (or as we call it in southern Iran: Ney-Anbooneh), after an hour of playing Bushehri ethnic music together with his 15 year old son Nagheeb, a very skilled drummer and percussionist, invited two Israeli percussionists participating in the festival to join them and let the people listen to an improvisation>>>

Yeh toop daram Khal-khali-yeh

Iranians in general are strong believers of the Conspiracy Theory. We thrive on political skepticism and for many years I had blamed that on the intellectuals, who pondered over taboo issues, read forbidden books and stirred suspicion. Much like the main character in My Uncle Napoleon, most of us blamed the British for our country’s problems and believed any misfortune befalling us was caused by outside powers. As I reflect on some old Persian nursery rhymes, hidden messages begins to surface, voices that have been there all along, except no one ever bothered to listen hard enough to hear them. Unlike the spider in Reverent Fulghum’s book, our rhymes fail to teach perseverance and one in particular seems to be aimed at taking away what little autonomy was left us>>>

The Man in the Moon

I had begun my military service as a draftee, and like the other greenhorns out of college, was looking at a two-year tour of duty. A few days before reporting to the base, I went to the barber and asked for a sefr-chahar. He obliged by shaving off the curly afro I had spent years cultivating and I left feeling several kilos lighter. As time progressed, there were further signs of the government’s decay and loss of control. After every weekend, the number of soldiers in our unit dwindled as more and more heeded the call to desert the infidel army>>>