A Voice of Two Cities

Two names, one briliance. The two of them are genuine emerging artists with a real eye on the fashion industry's big markets.

Behnaz Sarafpour and My Favorite From Her Collection of Spring 2006

Michael Soheil

An article, written in Salam also writes about some collections and artists that are not as popular in the mainstream media, like Katayon.

Dated December 14, 2005 from ZANEIRANI.BLOGSPOT.COM:

Iran the Forbidden zone Iran, my country of birth... is where good manners
are the strict diet of the society. Farting, burping and picking the nose are
three main public concerns for us where as execution, stoning, murdering,
canibalism and torture are just part of the fun and joy of being Iranian!Welcome
to Iran, the Farting Forbidden Zone!

I wouldn't call it a "Farting Free Zone" and apply the Zone to picking noses as well. Remembering the squallid and dirty environment of Tehran, I cannot imagine it being social fallacy to fart or pick your nose; the logic behind the idea that Iranians as a whole are clean-freaks or socially-uppity obsessives rather than progressive libertines seems a little over the edge. Most of the Iranians that I met were from the higher class in Iran, and I very rarely if ever saw one such person fart or burp in a social setting such as a dinner party but that is a SMALL MINORITY compared to the millions that are lower on the wealthy ladder of financial stability and have no luxury of setting social standards at dinner parties; they pick noses, fart, burp, empty their bladders, and spew all of that into an already polluted and dirty city of Tehran (I won't even go into the rural cities and areas) all in the eye of the public.

I think one shouldn't blame the people of Iran, wealthy or not, but rather blame the law. Without a law banning public littering and vagrancy, people will spit and hawk up their salivated bacteria as long as it keeps coming. The problem is to apply laws to keep the public from committing these crimes; spitting and cannibalism can be controlled, but it isn't up to the people to do that, it's up to the law.

The gifts and the special ghelyoon, which is my favorite right now.

Or rather, torturing it.

Remember that when you're pinned between the past and the future, or simply, the holiday break between highschool and college you get to spend time doing things like family dinners (remember grape-filled turkey)putting vise-gripping eyelash curlers on your body hair or testing out lipstick-smooches on your belongings. Other than that, fooling around with materials and then software like Photoshop, which is very yummy and fun, especially with self-portraits.

Everyone should be able to use their time wisely...like me.

--------------------------------->>>

The wall-carpet of Katouzian's "Old Man"

I am going to find an online home for these pictures (and more) so that they won't feel neglected.

One time more than the time allowed us should be spent studying the words of an old character in our world.

His name, Omar Khayyam, is from a time of "Persia" and his letters translated from the never ending scrolls of Arabic/Farsi form, and it can be a sensual adventure when one has only time to spare like coins.

Some are familiar with the helping hands of Hafez, Sa'adi, but this one man is poorly greeted by the Iranian.

These are literal translations from the Farsi into English.

"O friend, for the morrow let us not worry

This moment we have now, let us not hurry

When our time comes, we shall not tarry

With seven thousand-year-olds, our burden
carry. "

It seems, if I'm not mistaken, that I'm back home and that everything is just like I would have remembered it, but for the fact that after having lived a very non-fantasy third world life in my recent years the thing I missed the most while there was organization.

Many Muslim women, including many in western cultures, state that they prefer to follow hijab as a sign of their faith and submission to Allah (not to men), and so that all Muslim women are respected equally rather than for their appearance, and as a matter of social responsibility. Hijab, say its supporters, provides women higher levels of sexual security and protection. Consequently, it encourages men to respect women for their chastity, modesty and obedience to God.

Who came up with such a silly notion that women are respected equally when wearing hijab but not equally if they have their hair out and the inside of their elbows or knees showing; where is the standard of equality and who can measure it?

As a matter of social responsibility as applied to Arabic societies that used the hijab as a cover from harsh environmental conditions and then transferred it into a religious symbol of purity and chastity and obedience to their Islamic faith; but, I do not think it should apply to societies that do not have such a historical and traditional relationship with the covering from head-to-toe doctrination of the hijab.

I'm not sure how they measure higher levels of sexual security and protection and the assumption that it entails the male population to look at women as chaste and meek;
The two thoughts are based on the Arabic traditions of polygamous sex; multiple wives, multiple slaves/concubines, and women as the inferior in the male-female relationship....however, it tries to solve this by decreeing that men should now see women as "chaste, modest, and obedient", and as a result, their actions should have positive repercussions on the women they have around them. From what I've experienced, women are not respected(neither legistlatively or socially) in this male-dominated society, and I cannot imagine them being respected in Arabic nations, except perhaps parts of the fanciest cities in the latter nations. One could argue that because people do not listen to the doctrine, they do not adhere to it, then, they do not represent the Islamic way. But, I think that's too easy an answer, and it thwarts the main causes of the disrespect and inferiority that women face, daily.

The newspapers and radio stations said that nearly 700 people, old and very young, died from the pollutant particles in the air that have fallen over Tehran like a deathsheet.

Please make your relevant contributions to this research project run by Jordan Halevi, a Middle Eastern Studies student based in Canada.

On one of the State Seda-O-Sima Channels of the IRI they played a cut-up version of “Hajji Washington” with the brilliance of the actor, Entezami.

I have to see the uncensored version someday, but tonight, it was a sophisticated dream sequence that played out in the movie; everything from the style of acting, the looks, the direction of the cameras, and the characters left me in complete awe of it and wonder at the values of the dialogue that goes on between Entezami (acting as the first Ambassador to the U.S during Nasr-ol-Din’s reign) and the other characters.

I never knew this sort of movie existed for Iranians, that the fantasies of sophisticated artists were so enrapturing and significant during their time and so eternal in their circumstances and plots. I think, in terms of “Hajji Washington” I was taken aback by the sheer beauty of the film and scene captures, which led me to think that there were more of these beauties, like “Gav”, and that too many young Iranians are missing an opportunity to experience these art/literary achievements. Of course, they have to buy the uncensored version to experience its genius, because there is frequent censorship of any movie that’s accessible by the public; oh, and they make you really laugh, which is new for the hard-to-swallow, barely-there satire that plagues the movies inside this country.

Relating to the movie “Hajji Washington” simple facial expressions, pantomimes, situations, and even the erratic sense of duty with which the Ambassador places Pistacchios on the U.S President’s desk and anyone else who cares to accept; not being able to understand or translate American culture and society from his own one ocean and one sea and one long stretch of desert away he is confronted little by little with the falling of his humanity in waves of lunacy and sadness and the perpetual rise and take-off of the American way; his whole world spins slower and slower with no one to grant mercy on him while a new age dawns around him with the first steps of Irano-USA relations.

It’s not exactly an epic tragedy of Iran-USA relations…nothing really goes on about anyone else except Entezami’s character and characters who interact with him, so this is not a tribute to what happens afterwards or what happened before, it’s about the view from the moments in-between.

I don't know when this happened, but I drank too much last night.
I smoked too much, and I couldn't stop thinking of the nasty jokes and senseless things that only I do.

Oh, and then I woke up and prayed to the creative conscience that I'd be forgiven.

---

Blogspot seems to have either gone haywire on me, or someone else has. My comments section is deleted(not that it's important right now), my links are gone, my browser is malfunctioning in an unequivocal way, sending linear and ugly patches of text/pictures all over the screen.

I might as well say goodbye now, ne?

THe events of Tuesday afternoon, Tehran time, where a plane exploded because of technical problems, and landed in a civilian district in Tehran continues although the story is being quaffled and mixed and confused by its continious messages.

Here is a link to news, please reload your page to get the newest information on the events.

If only airports were mandated to have cameras recording the airport's surrounding are fields, it would have been much easier to clarify whether the plane exploded BEFORE it hit the immediate surroundings of the nine-story building, or whether it exploded on the ground.

A c-130 carrying thousands of gallons of gas, when exploded, should have cremated the cars and the building, just as it did in 9-11. I believe the circumstances are very much the same, and yet, an Iranian complex stands while those two modern giants fell?

THE FOLLOWING account, and quote from the Iranian journalist tells the people on the ground one important factor about the state of the Airline's ethical business matters.

THE FACT that the pilot is where the BUCK STOPS seems to have alluded this "cargo" plane (I put "cargo" in quotation marks, because the passengers were paying the military as if it were a commercial airliner, and ignoring the simple fact that it should be military personnel only) and the military/airport traffic control.

A pilot's judgment is an obsolete basis for decision on any airline jet, but I believe there were some conditions forced on him and the crew to take the flight as it was a military controlled flight and it would not be under his command to desist from flying.

"
Iranian journalists at the scene wept and consoled one another over their colleagues' deaths.

"I was supposed to be on the plane as well so I don't know whether to be happy or sad," said a journalist from the ISNA students news agency who declined to be identified.

He said a colleague had called him from inside the plane before take off. "He said that the pilot didn't want to fly because there was a technical problem with the plane."

An Interior Ministry spokesman said some of those killed on the ground had been in their cars, whose burned-out shells littered the crash site.

The front of the plane was destroyed on impact. A propeller and ripped wing smouldered in front of the blackened flats. Flames licked out of the windows of the apartments and thick black smoke billowed into the sky.

"

Please Read This For Another Reportage

I wrote this as a comment on Shahram Kholdi's page discussing the environment in which this C-130 plane was invariably being forced to operate in and the damning history in which it flew.

The C-130 CARGO PLANE crashes into "Shahrake Tohid" a military-personnel residential area very near to Mehrabad AIrport.

The plane was carrying about 40 or so journalists, ranging from ISNA, IRIB, and other newspapers/journals of the country.

The destination was Bandar Abbas, and the journalists were supposedly going there for the oversee of the Islamic Republic's Navy fleets in the Persian Gulf.

THey crashed around 1:20 PM, and the news reported it on all National IRI channels almost a few minutes later, by phone. The first images were broadcast at least an hour or more after the crash; because of the strenuous event and the busy and confusing situation, most journalists were either subdued or their equipment was destroyed in the waking moments of the crash and its aftermath.

By now, the rescue effort, in IRI News broadcasting words, has finished, and there are forensic specialists who worked on the bodies and are still working to find identities for the badly charred remains.

Excluding the plane, they still aren't exactly sure as the correct number of outside casualties; people in the residence of the nine-story apartment building, people on the streets, etc...

We all continue to follow this story, as it unfolds, and the purported explanation for the crash, from eyewitness reports and the Military was that the Pilot reported engine problems, and was requesting emergency landing, and was spotted by eyewitnesses just before its plunge into the civilian area as having flames coming off of one wing.

The flight was nearly 24 minutes long in its entirety.

Praying for a much needed committee of investigation/resolution on this issue(as you talked about it in your post) and for the healing of scars left by such vicious blows to the people here.

I'm putting the link up as a probably option for a research base where Iranian blogging and bloggers, writers, etc...can try to create a quantitative and qualitative assesment of the Iranian influence in journalism, free lance, activism, and diary contributions of the world.

I've actually posted the introduction, and if you have any doubts, read more;

Iranian Weblogs: Promoting a Research Project

In his most recent posting, Hoder informs us there are about 700,000 Iranian weblogs. He is concerned thatt the number of weblogs inside and outside of Iran are not reported properly. In fact, he questions the correctness of using what he calls the two-year old stats that say there are about 75,000 weblogs. But as far as I can tell, it is not the quantity but quality that one should be concerned with. Whether there are a hundred thousand or a million weblogs by Iranians out there, it is imperative that we grasp how they are functioning. What are their social, cultural, scientfic and political impact on the Iranian youth?

It seems the Iranian Weblogs Research Project is almost the one that concerns itself with the types of questions that I am raising.

Continue reading "Iranian Weblogs: Promoting a Research Project" »

Posted by Shahram Kholdi on December 04, 2005 at 07:44 PM in Human Concerns, Human Rights, IRANICS, Iran, Iranian Civil Society Activism, Iranian Politics, Islamic Republic Politics, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

I was not at all impressed by the comments of one viewer (out of many other bizarre comments) claiming to live in Iran as well as presumedly "knowing enough about it"

There are millions of ways I could vent some hostility towards the views expressed in this mini diatribe of "Sue" in Iran.

Points that made my eyebrows raise a meter over my head;

**She claims the womens' protests in front of Tehran University has only a few girls who could be mistaken for "going on a shopping spree". Oh, how nice, the words pretty much slandered all the girls who did protest, immediately associating them with the rich upper class(spending sprees are rampant in rich classes) and as "girly girls" because "girly girls" go on shopping sprees...I think that's exactly what she meant by it, too.

**There is a point made that "millions of Iranians love their country"; wow, did you know that? Of course people have nationalistic feelings towards their country, of course they have strong pride, but that has nothing to do with social and political change, not in this context. Out of 70 million Iranians, you'd need a survey to prove that

a) they love their country
b) they love their government

**Women, she claims, work as MPs. True. But work is an understatement in terms of what they represent, goals they've achieved, and rights they've gained for women. Does anyone know who they are? The majority say, NO. No name, no game.

Plus, just because we have tables doesn't mean that we actually eat on them...Iranians have tables, oh yes! They have everything from Renaissance to Modern, but they sure as hell do not eat on them.

**If anyone else wants to pick out points, please do..No more time. I would like to say that this comment is in its entirety, and can be found on the "Linked" link.

I have to say that I am a bit astonished to see how a bunch of seemingly intelligent people argue about stuff they simply don’t know enough about. Some of the extraordinary cases you mention bother even the most cold-hearted people. But what you forget to mention is that these are just rare occurrences. When you write about women demonstrating in front of Tehran University for their rights, do you even bother to mention that they were so few that you could have mistaken the whole demonstration for a few young women going on a shopping spree? I am living in Iran right now and all I can tell you is that your portrayal of Iran could not be more wrong. Do you even bother to mention the millions of people who love their country? Do you even refer to the fact that Iran is one of the few countries where women are currently working as MPs? Do you talk about the fact that over fifty percent of medical students are young Iranian girls? Do you even know that Iranian women were the first Moslem women to climb the Everest? Or …. Ohhhh There is so much that you don’t say about Iran. If your point is that the Iranian government is not good, I’ll say you are not so wrong. But then again what country can you name that supposedly has an ideal government? We know that we have many problems in Iran. We know that many things have to change before we can have the kind of life we desire. But believe me, we don’t want anybody (especially not the US) to come and save us from our misery!!! We will tackle our problems as we go along and instead of ignorant hostility from people who think they know the truth, we would appreciate constructive criticism. Be honest with yourself! If somebody wanted to find faults with your country do you think they would stop any time soon!!!

Posted by sue on June 23, 2005 06:29 PM.
Offensive? Unsuitable? Report this comment.

LINKED

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2005/06/14/sean_penn_in_iran.html

From

http://secularcaniranik.blogs.com/scaniranic/2005/12/iranian_weblogs.html#more

I watched the clips from the video provided by a news agency, and it was a drastic view of Iraq as just what many people claim it is; hell.

The video that is being aired on some news broadcasting stations and online purportedly shows armed passengeers(contracted non-official guards) shooting at civilian vehicles in the broad daylight of Baghdad. Non-official is also another word for a mercenary, or international defense corporation, like AEGIS, which seems to have hired the people who were shooting at the civiliar cars.

In one such video, there is loud music blaring, and the camera sits in a car driving very slowly and calmly through a boulevard, and suddenly, you hear the tat-tat of a rifle going off and you see cars a hundred meters away or so slow down and stop, or veer out of the road...the cars veering and stopping were being shot at by the car with the camera.

AEGIS officials, though, quickly swept the case under US authority, claiming that the US hired them in Iraq, and the complaints can be issued there. How nice of them...and how nice now that we "know" they will be brought to justice by our government...They can always go back to selling their arms to terrorist groups in Africa...

I wonder if the health plan they give to their employees includes antipsychotics?


Please read this slightly different view.

The Wind Blew Words
by Thomas Hardy

The wind blew words along the skies,
And these it blew to me
Through the wide dusk: "Lift up your eyes,
Behold this troubled tree,
Complaining as it sways and plies;
It is a limb of thee.

"Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round -
Dumb figures, wild and tame,
Yea, too, thy fellows who abound -
Either of speech the same
Or far and strange--black, dwarfed, and browned,
They are stuff of thy own frame."

I moved on in a surging awe
Of inarticulateness
At the pathetic Me I saw
In all his huge distress,
Making self-slaughter of the law
To kill, break, or suppress.

Someone has conjured up a terrific plan for the compounding and the reclaiming of kidnapping victims in Iraq; the most recent kidnapped victims being of German, American, Canadian, and Iraqis.

Shoot them on site. Before you do that, try to pay a ransom that will encourage them to continue their tactics and give them a simple message that, yes, our "coalition" forces are incapable of shutting you down.
By shooting them on site, the suggestion is to kill the agent who negotiated the hostage retrieval and wound the victim, thus, leaving no doubt in the kidnappers' minds that not only do we pay money for their hard work as kidnappers, but we also take care of any doubts they may have had as to our abilities as "coalition" forces; we remove the doubt.

Praying for the soldiers, the civilians, and the defense lawyers of Saddam Hussein, because we need them all for a democratic society.

When you look at the IRI, you do not see a country, it is hard to call it one...you could call it an "empire" because the term relates to the fact that it is a multi-ethnically/religiously diverse country governed by its convenient corral of a border.

Perhaps, the problem behind the doors of the system is the fact that their are two many disparate factions to make it all work together...a chink in every part of its existence, a simple result of speaking different languages and praying to different gods.