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The Lady of Qalat

Thirty miles or so south of Shiraz, lies the little village of Qalat, situated among rich orchards of pomegranates and figs. It is a narrow, cramped Sassanian village, constructed on the side of a steep mountain streaked with horizontal lines, as if mauled by a gigantic lion. It was a place, I had been told, where nothing remarkable had ever taken place, where poetry has been written and roses had fallen from their stems in silence, a place whose inhabitants had disguised their missions of love and hate behind the privacy of high walls and closed lips for centuries. There was really nothing to interest anyone there>>>

رستوران آقا ارمنی و روشنک جان

اولین بار در مغازه ی آقا ارمنی بود که روشنک را دیدم و هفته ی بعدش با هم حسابی دوست شدیم و با فرهاد به درکه رفتیم و وقت برگشتن به خانه ی فرهاد در کوچه ساری رفتیم و سری به خمره زدیم .چقدر عرق خوری سه نفری حال داد. عاشق لهجه دارآبادی روشنک شده بودم. نسل در نسل در نیاوران و دارآباد بزرگ شده بودند. دختر ماه و خوش سر و زبانی بود که دل من و فرهاد را حسابی برده بود. یک دوست خوب و با حال که اصلن فکر نمی کردی دختر باشد مثل پسر بچه ها تخس و بازیگوش بود. باور می کنی یک بار دست و پاهای من و فرهاد را به تخت بسته بود و از خانه جیم شده بود. از خنده روده بر شده بودیم از دستش. پدر سوخته جوری بسته بود که دو ساعتی طول کشیده بود که دست وپایمان را باز کنیم>>>

"آدم معمولی" در یک "باغ وحش جهانی"

گروه کیوسک نیز که یکی از گروه های تاثیرگذار در موج دوٌم این جریان است با مهاجرت آرش سبحانی به خارج از ایران به تنظیم آهنگ های اجتماعی-انتقادی فارسی که جای خالی اش در موسیقی پاپ-راک ایران محسوس می شد، به فعالیت خود ادامه داد. این گروه در سال 2007 دومین آلبوم خود را بنام «عشق سرعت» انتشار داد و در اواخر سال 2008 سومین آلبوم کیوسک نیز تحت عنوان «باغ وحش جهانی» در بازار اینترنتی وارد شد. آلبوم «باغ وحش جهانی» سبک هایی مانند؛ تانگو، موسیقی کولی ها (جیپسی)، جاز، دیسکو و بلوز/راک را در بر می گیرد. سبک های ذکر شده عمدتاً در موسیقی آلبوم های قبلی گروه کیوسک همیشه موجود بوده اند، اما در این آلبوم نقش منسجم تر و مشخص تری را بخود گرفته اند. همچنین در این مجموعه بیشتر از سازهای آکوستیک استفاده شده و فضای اجرای زندۀ قطعات به روشنی حس می شود>>>

Music to our ears

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Namâd

Namâd Ensemble is once again touring, delivering commendable performances at each venue. If you are already familiar with them, you understand what makes them worthy of praise. If, these musicians are unknown to you, however, you may wonder what genre their music falls under and what exactly sets them apart. Mentioning that these five men collectively play Tombak, Frame Drums, Daf, Udu, Kamanche, Queychak, Setar and Shourangiz, may automatically invoke images of a traditional Iranian group; but Namâd is more than that. Before we jump to labels, perhaps we should pause to consider that while a performance is a transitory experience for the audience, for the musicians it is the culmination of months and years of struggle to render the extract of their essence into the language of composition>>>

Way to Beg, lady

There is this lady who begs almost everyday near my workplace. I first noticed her more than couple years ago. What made her stand out from all the other beggars is how she went about asking for money. She said something to the effect that whether people wanted to help her with her goal of making some amount of dollars. I forgot the number of dollars she mentioned but what was interesting to me was how she talked about her goal and somehow made her begging a little bit higher class than all the others. She had a goal and was working towards it and here was passersby’ chance to help her achieve her goal>>>

Bitter Joy

The question which always consumes the soul of the great Persian poet, Omar Khayyam (1048-1122), is death and the afterlife. In his Ruba'iyat, he cannot accept the usual religious responses of resurrection and reincarnation. To release his mind from the insurmountablility of death, he takes refuge in wine (and sometimes love), and tries to forget himself in "let's be happy" or hedonism. As a result, in spite of his rejection of resurrection and ridicule of religious observances, Khayyam is not able to appreciate the immortal self-creativity of earthly life and cannot distance himself from the religious point of departure; that is, the dominance of death over life. In Khayyam's hedonism, earthly wine replaces heavenly opium and drinking ceremonies substitute for religious rituals>>>

بهاریه

۱- رفتیم عید دیدنی خانه یکی از اقوام .تلویزیون روشن است و برنامه نوروزی پخش میکند. هایده پیش درآمد سه گاه میخواند: نوروزززز آمددد . هرم دلپذیر بخاری نفتی ارج به صورتم میزند. یک ظرف پر شکلات کام جلویم است٬از این شکلاتهای چهارگوش با عکس فنجان و نعلبکی و کاغذ طلایی. یواشکی مشتم را پر شکلات میکنم و در جیبم میریزم! صاحبخانه میبیند و لبخندی میزند. خجالت میکشم. موقع بیرون آمدن دوتا ده تومانی عیدی میگیرم از آنهایی که عکس پدر وپسر رویشان است که دارند به دور دستها نگاه میکنند. >>>

Etoile

Paris – not a word, but a sentence, a statement – nay, a novel, a trilogy – an anthology, an intricate and detailed mélange of stories, short and long, events unraveling along winding roads and narrow sidewalks – lives, moments, glimpses of miracles – definite and infinite, eternal and ephemeral. Paris more than words – much more. The plane approaches Charles De Gaulle airport. Captain’s voice comes on to announce the descent of the Air France flight from Washington to the City of Lights. It is close to 6 a.m. local time as I peek out of the window to watch the Femme Fatale wink and welcome me into her arms once more>>>

Shatranj

First of all, it’s not chess it’s shatranj. And yes the rules are different. In chess, the queen is the terror of the board. In shatranj nothing is more powerful than the rook. The humble piece that sits next to the king is the farzin, a wretched civil servant that can move only one square diagonally. There are more differences, but this isn’t about modern chess versus authentic shatranj, it’s a confession. We Iranians cheated in the very first game of shatranj ever played. In our defense, we didn’t start the whole affair, the Indians did>>>

We are not spies

Dear Number One, As ordered, I went to see the play We Are Not Spies in Berkeley this past weekend for the purpose of discovering the true identity and purpose of its Bahai author, Mansour Taeed. Disguised as a drama critic, I gained admission to this show despite the fact that the theater was sold out and people were being turned away at the gate. This report omits details regarding the beautiful agent I seduced in the line duty to get my ticket. First, my assessment of Bahai spy technology: it sucks. At the beginning of this one-man show, Taeed said the play would self-destruct soon after the performance ends. He even played the Mission Impossible theme. The play hasn’t self-destructed!>>>