Ghazal Dear, I still regret that you have been so much occupied with shopping here in Munich, but we never used any of the fine occasions to go out to one of the music clubs in town (except for the Bayerischer Hof Nightclub).  This year many of the Munich clubs announced their parties, and I think they might attract at least some of the tourists that come here every summer from Arab countries and – very much like you – usually associate Munich only with shopping.

Shopping and Raving in Munich – Burkas wellcome

Take Care, my Dear

Michael

Recently I was invited by a friend in Munich to a reading of poetry by an Iranian writer, who died much too young in 1967, only reaching 32 years of age. Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967) was exceptional among woman in modern Persian literature, since only an extremely small number of Iranian women in general have achieved anything outside of the home without dependence upon a relationship with a man or male patronage.

From the poems of Forough Farrokhzad, which Kianoosh presented this evening I remember the verses from “Another Birth”

… Life may be that cloistered moment
When my gaze comes to ruin in your pupils
Wherein there lies a feeling
Which I shall blend …

During her short life, Forough not only wrote some of the most influential, beautiful and ever-lasting poetries of modern Persian literature, but she also became a proponent of childrens right, in particular for those from the poor families. Her engagement for the children being isolated and hospitalized for leprosis laid in her honest sympathy with those who are suffering. Unlike modern celebrities, who too often present themself in public with an alibi “social” project, Foroughs activites to help the children with leprosis came from her very personal desire to make the world a little bit better.

From the movie “Moon, Sun, Flower, Play” by the German director Claus Strigel one can listen to Foroughs voice, hear how colleagues and friends remember this extraordinary woman and watch scenes from the street-battle preceding the Shahs dismissal and from the childrens leprosis hospital.

Ghazal my dear,

What is age, and what is aging, if everyone uses a different measure for this. This came to my mind when I did another picture of the moon tonight. Tonight it was once again the night of the Persides meteor shower. But since nothing could top the spectacular meteor that we saw together with you at the same night in 2010, I put more attention to the moon again (1). A year ago at the same night, we have been at the Bulgarian blacksea coast, and then the Persides night fell together with the full moon. This year, however, the same day in the year (11th to 12th of August), the moon looked completely different.

Is there a final take-home message from this post for you, Ghazal ? Maybe you will find one.

Take Care my Dear

Michael

Footnotes:

(1) Surely you know that the Moon symbolizes the pure, innocent beauty in Persian classicla poetry. This is independent of the exclusive role of the Sun in ancient, pre-islamic Persian culture, philosophy and science. But because poetry is very much influenced by arabic traditions, their spiritual preference for the moon as symbol in religion and arts got access into the poetry of Hafez, Rumi, Atta and Omar Khayyun.

(2) The Persides Meteor shower lives up to its name: same as the Persian people do, it follows precisely the sun’s calender. I guess that it follows in a precise and constant time after Persian Nouruz.

(3) Initially I could not figure out, if the name of the company GLOBAL-SHINING was referring to the moon or the sun. But now that I know that it is a Hongkong based company, I guess they even mean the Shining Stars.

(4) I guess Mr. Ho wont mind having his business address published here on my blog. But it might further promoted his excellent business. Just that Tsuen Wan does not have a postcode might discourage Hongkong tourists to drop into his store and buy camera displays.

Marina Keegan, still a Yale student in her last term, 22 years old, on track to become a writer for “The New Yorker”, wrote this essay “The Opposite of Loneliness“, that became her emotional legacy. Shortly after publishing her text in Yale Universities “Cross Campus”, Marina Keegan died in a car accident.

Throughout her essay she expresses a very clear, rational view on the conflict between our destiny as members of a complex, more and more annonymous society and our archaic desire to find a safe place in a community. She knows about the impossibility to harmonize these two forces, but she does not end in despair.

Hi Ghazal, you told me recently that none of the people of your generation would be impressed by Jimmy Hendrix guitar music. I would say it is just a matter of tasting it. How can you judge something, if you have never tried it ? o.k., the few songs you were listening to from my car stereo might have been hampered by the poor sound quality. But have a look how a girl who is now 19 plays Hendrix style guitar herself. Desiree Bassett learned her first guitar rifs at the age of five from her father. Now she frequently rocks the Boston area with cover versions of Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton and van Halen songs.

She was born 25 years after Jimmy Hendrix’ death, but look how she can revitalize his guitar spirit.

I hope it is no big deal for her to learn how to play it with a slightly slower pace, she seems to be in a rush at least at this concert. What I find amazing is to see that you don’t have to play left-handed like Mr. Hendrix to get the “All along the Watchtower” right.

Enjoy, Take Care
Michael

Thanks to his permanent supply of records from west-Germany, I used to visit him to listen to some rare pieces of music. Once he brought from his shopping trips to West-Berlin Strawinskys “Le Sacre du Printemps”, played by the Berlin Philharmonics. When I heard the first tunes by the oboe, with the sudden entry of the rhythm strings, I got completely struck. Maybe this day I had already a glass of wine, but together with the music I felt more and more in one of the fairy tales of 1001 nights. Inspired by the idea of the “Sacre” I asked Ismail if he knew something about this new student, which must be from another muslim country, because she sits the whole afternoon in the state library wearing a head scarf. But I told him that even though she wears the scarf, one could see how beautiful she was and that she had the most amazing blue eyes. So I asked Ismail if he could find out her name, what he did, but only after telling me that any further intentions to meet her were very likely a waste of effort. Anyway, a few days later Ismail came to me and said “The girl you saw at the library is Samira. She is from Syria, and daughter of a high ranking Baths party leader. They are all instructed not to make any personal contacts to ordinary germans. And by the way, all of us foreign students coming to your country had to sign an agreement at the east-german embassy, promissing that we will avoid any privat relationship to german student-mates or people on the street. So you see, even our occasional get-together to listen to music, talk about quantum-mechanics and Einsteins philosophy and to argue about middle-east politics, all this might be already illegal. What you think they will call it if you start here to court a student girl from Syria ?”. In my naive understanding of friendship (and in these times friendship in the official speach of politics meant “friendship between all peace-loving nations”) I just rejected his very rational arguments and the next day went to the library again and asked the girl “You are Samira, right ?”. Under her scarf I almost could see how she wrinkled her brows, since it appeared that except of her name “Samira” she did not understood a single word. What I did not knew, that except of Ismail, who spoke fluently several languages and quickly made the brilliant jokes in german, most of the foreign students from rich countries had their privat translator, who sat next to them during all lectures and seminars and therefore making any attempt to learn the language of their host country superfluous. Therefore, our first conversation was very limited. Today I have to laugh about my silly idea to seduce a girl with the only arabic phrase I knew: “Salam Alejkum”. But at least I could invite her to “coffee”, which I was pretty sure must sound similar in arabic. She shook her head and said “Chaj”, which fortunately I knew from russian, where it also means “Tea”. So we went to the library buffet, which was located in the basement and had the chic of a station toilet. I could imagine that for her drinking a tea or coffee had another cultural implication, and this filthy buffet with its fuggy smelling air would hamper the last bit of delight, even of this third-class tea. Therefore I made signs to her to leave this filthy room with our cups and sit outside on the concrete stairways of the old library building.

Our conversation resembled very much the one between Robinson Crusoe and Friday: pointing to various things around us we would give them the names in our two languages. This way I learned that chestnut was “chestanub”, honey is “Al Asal” and eyes are “orjoun”. We probably met several times in and outside the library, and I was following Ismails warning that inviting a girl that wears a head scarf anywere else could cause a serious problem for both sides. But even the occasional encounter between the two of us on the stairway outside the library must have attracted the attention of some watchdogs from either her or my country. Somebody must have been concerned that we might find our own very individual interpretation of friendship between the nations. And they might have also kept a record of the progress we made in our conversation, which became more and more intense, but absolutely ununderstandable for any outsider, who would have tried to sneak into our talks. For our own use we had created a sort of german-english-arabic Esperanto, that to anybody else must have sounded as a completely cryptic code. But I never considered, and neither did Samira, that Ismails advise not to meet each other somewhere else than at the library for moral reasons was indeed the most foolish thing to do. Because we were sitting there like on an open display: visible for everybody who wanted to keep a record of the frequency and intensity of our short, but regular meetings. And this was perhaps seen as an open demonstration of disobedience, for two totalitarian countries a heresy much worse than would have a secret get-together been.

The security forces acted fast, silently and efficient: without any warning Samira was send home to Syria with a couple of hours notice. And since we did not had telephone, let alone e-mail or mobile in the mid 80es, she could not even say good bye. I also had forgotten to give her my address, since for us the stairway of the library was always the natural place to meet. After a couple of days not seeing her I asked Ismail if he could find out what happened to her. His legendary talent in physics has made him an admired student not only for us, but in particular for most other foreign students from middle-east countries as well. So it took him only a short talk with a guy from the syrian students group to find out that Samira was back home. The explanation was that she came to Germany only for a short summer school in aerodynamics, and this course had finished now. Funny enough, the books she always read at the library were all about high-energy nuclear physics.

Ismail with some degree of satisfaction said: “You see, I told you never try to court a girl with a head-scarf. You have to wait until somebody of her family lifts her scarf for you”. When I told him, that Samira ones already shifted her scarf backward, showing with or without intention some of her chestnut-coloured, curly hair and that she might not fit into his conventional idea of a modern girl, he band backward, started laughing and said “Oh Boy”. Ismails “Oh Boy” was a sort of final sentence of this short but inspiring relation to a girl with a head scarf that she was just about to lift without any help. It was like the two words “The End” on the final credits of a nice, long movie.Until recently, and still entangled in the belief that a german-english-arabic Esperanto is an easy way to bridge language-boarders I was convinced that “Oh Boy” means just “Oh Boy”, a very common vocative in english with a connotation that lays somewhere between compassion and admonition.

But only recently, 24 years later, I heard again this phrase, and now it sounded more like “Ey Vay !”. It was during an interview with one of the students who took part in the 2009 demonstrations in Teheran, shown in Ali Samadi Ahadis wonderful movie “The Green Wave”. And here, the interview was subtitled, and I had to learn that Ismail was using the same “Ey Vay !”, meaning “Oh God” when he commented my reckless idea of courting Samira. In these years in the late 80es the islamic “revolution” in Iran was just 10 years ago, and occasional reports about police forces in Teheran that would fix womans head-scarfs with pins on their head were taken as US propaganda. Still caught in the memories of Samira and her rather lavish usage of her scarf I did not had enough fantasy to imagine that a few strains of hair leaking under it could provoke a violent and inhuman reaction by the police. And I could not imagine that 24 years later an iranian student would talk about much worse violence on the streets of Teheran, using the phrase “Ey Vay !” to express complete frustration and disgust.

source: http://naafass.blogspot.com

Otherwise, Take Care my Dear,

Good Night , Enjoy your dreams

Michael

Tonight I have something very unusual to tell you. It is so unusual, because it is something commercial, about shopping and beeing happy to have found something very useful.

I know you got excited now, don”t you ?
You can”t stop reading any more, right ?
You wan”t to know what it is, don”t you ?

(You are really sweet !!)

But be aware: it again has something to do with you and me !! (just a little material and technical aspekt in addition to all the happiness that you brought to me by your shear presence).

It is about the little Smartphone-Adapter-Plug that somehow broke
(Could be that it broke because you poked and bended and cut it, since you thought it is a piece of your fingernail ?) It is not so important, how it broke and why, it is just the adapter, its wasn”t the Smartphone”s heart that broke, I know you wouldn”t be able to do this, you are too much an angel to break hearts.

Well, I searched this special Hewlett Packard Smartphone shop today and guess what:
I found the adapter (same colour: black, as you prefer for men. No pink. If there would be a pink one, I would have bought both of them: one for me and a pink one for you in case you need the GPS again).

And what is so amazing (and for this I have to be grateful to you, since I would have never found this):
This little adapter thing comes together with a SOLAR ENERGY RECHARGER !!!!
This means, I can not only mount the Smartphone to the car again, but now I can recharge it in the sun !!!

It will always remind me of this summer 2010, which in my memories will always remain as the most sunniest summer ever.
Although the nights in the moon-light and under the meteor showers and the stars were amazing as well. Who knows, maybe the light of the stars and of the moon is sufficient to recharge the phone with this little crazy adaptor.

Ghazal, my dear, tell me what you need to recharge your life battery !
You are always so calm, sometimes I”d like to make you explode, to beat me in the face, to shout on me, to see you holding a gun on me (of course only with bullets that hurt, but don”t kill), only to see that you are full of energy.

But this probably would change everything, you would not be you anymore, and for me the illusion, that you are the grown up daughter of the persian family that I met 20 years ago in Berlin would fall down in pieces.

Are you o.k., happy (I know, its hard to tell. One always could imagine beeing a little bit happier).
I permanently feel guilty, sometimes feel as if I have taken you as hostage here in Munich, keeping you in this single room in the guesthouse like a nun in an eremitage.
I only feed you with words, but they can not get rid of your loneliness.
At least I should have given you a cat, such one as Holli Golightly had in “Breakfast at Tiffany”s”. It could lean on you in the evening, and purr if you crawl its fur. It would jump on you lap, when you watch a movie or listen to some music.

Wish you a pleasant night, funny dreams, sleep well

Michael
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michael,

im glad you found a better adapter for your phone! didnt know that such thing exsist, an adapter that charges the phone with sun. interesting.

haha i dont want to hold a gun against you and shoot, i will stay calm.think it is better. dont think my mum thinks im calm at home.

dont worry about me. i enjoy unterschleissheim. the guesthouse. i feel so relaxed and calm when i am here. and i am so happy with everything.
cats are cute, but only when they are babies.

see you tomorrow

/ghazal

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See you tomorrow, my Dear.
Thanks to confirm that you enjoy and relax. Even if you would have told me this already a million times: I”d like to hear it once again !

Sleep well, dream something happy.

Michael

PS: Ghazal, my Dear, Can you imagine the head-lines in the newspaper:
“MSc student shoots down its supervisor”. This would make us sooooo famous.

Anyway, have a sweet night, but this time I think I have to take care :-}