Hi Ghazal, I know this feeling very well, that one is afraid of not fullfilling its own expectations.
Some people say we should learn to prioritize, refuse commitments which we dont see as important. Do the things, which you believe in, with all your energy, and skip the tasks which other people put on you. Of the few ideas which to me (as a complete a-religious person) appear of eternal value from the old testament are the words of Ecclesiast (or King Solomon):

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Thomas Wolfe regarded the old-testamentarian book of Ecclesiast as “… the noblest, the wisest, and the most powerful expression of man’s life upon this earth — and also the highest flower of poetry, eloquence, and truth. I am not given to dogmatic judgments in the matter of literary creation, but if I had to make one I could say that Ecclesiastes is the greatest single piece of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it the most lasting and profound.”

The lyrics of Ecclesiastes or King Solomon inspired many musicians to write songs, the most famous perhaps being Pete Seeger, the legendary US protest singer who on the occasion of his 94th birthday was accompanied by a grateful audienence.

best regards 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.

I would be curious to hear what you think. Buble is only a bit elder than you, so no excuse to say that his music is from another generation.

Dear Michael, you wrote some articles here at your blog and at Iranian.com about the modern Iranian cinematography. I’d like to add a movie by the young Iranian filmmaker Maryam Kesharvarz onto your list , called “Circumstances” (“Sharayet” in its persian original).

I saw it recently with friends who got it on DVD, since it is not yet shown in the movie-theaters in Sweden. The movie is about two girls who go to University and are like sisters in mind. The parents of Shirin, the more quiet of the two, were obviously killed by the regime for participating in political opposition. The family of Atafeh, however, is very well situated and rich, although not conformist. A brother of Atafeh, in the past supposed to start a career as musician, returns from a long absence and makes a completely brain-washed impression. Still loved by his mother and dad, he is depressed and drug addicted and finally only sees a way out his mental problems by devoting his life to Allah and becoming a servant of the regime.
The main person of the movie, however, are the two girls Shirin and Atafeh, who are both full of dreams of a career as singers, in a liberal and free society. This clashes with both the opressive political regime in Iran, with the dogmatic situation at the college, but brings them also in conflict with Atafehs well positioned family. In one scene of the movie, during a family celebration where usually everybody contributes a song on the piano, Atafehs brother insist that the girls should not perform any more, since he considers this as anti-islamic. Trying to avoid any conflict, her family declines to the brothers hypocrism and recommends their daughter to stay silent.
Atafeh and Shirin look for freedom of thoughts and more wild experiences by joining the Tehran party scene. When one of these illegal parties is raided by the regimes Basidj thugs, they both get arrested. Whereas Atafehs parents manage to bribe some of the police officers to get their daughter out, Shirin is kept for longer in custody and she is mentally tortured there. Atafehs depressive brother suddenly appears to work for the police. When he finds Shirin he offers her to work for her release, but only if she agrees to marry her.
Throughout the entire film, however, it is obvious that Shirin and Atafeh are more than just friends, they are connected by a deep, mutual love. This love between the two girls is the source of all their strength, of their endless confidence that a better and free life will come and they will start a great music career together somewhere abroad.
The film finishes undecided, without happy end. At one moment, Shirin declines to the possessory claims by her husband, Shirins brother. But it is clear that she is only suffering here.
The unconditional love between the two girls serves as the big contrast to a society which is driven by anxiety, lies and hate. When Shirin and Atafeh are together, their honesty and love is like a glance into a better future of the country.

And this is what I red in the UK newspaper Guardian about this marvellous movie:

“Circumstance’s strength is in the exuberance of Atafeh and Shireen, filled with adolescent fantasies of escape (and cringeworthy lad’s mag-style fantasies of each other: all matching underwear and high heels) and their rebellious rush to dance, drink and break rules. At times the sensuous hair-flicking and the way the camera lingers on their beauty feels overdone and their interest in liberalism seems to extend only to their right to party.
But the film frames their insistence on following their desires, whatever the consequences, as a powerful form of dissent; Atafeh tells a friend: “Here anything illegal becomes politically subversive.”
Set immediately before the protests of the Green movement swept through Iran, the film aims to show where the anger behind the demonstrations came from. “In Iran where the state controls your behaviour … they want you to dress a certain way, and not speak to people of the opposite sex in the street – of course the personal is political,” explains Keshavarz, “in a more explicit way than anywhere else.”“

On the occasion of the finissage of the “Servus and Salam – an insight to Iran” exhibition here in Munich, the great music singer Maryam Akhondy with her ensemble Barbad gave a concert in the Maximilian church. A strong voice, for which the term Diva would be approbiate, also she is anything else than diva-like. Her music and her very special kind of humor for me was the only valid interpretation of the Omar Khayyams poetry.
When I read his rubbayat (naturally in the famous english translation by Fitzgerald) I was always touched by the wisdom, fine lyrics and human feelings that emanate from them. A very free author, great scientist, amazing spirit and precise observer put down in words how he saw his life, the pressure from the society, his love for beauty and for human desires, and all this about one thousand years ago in a poetic language that seems very clear, not modern, but of an ever lasting diction.

A while ago, however, I started to worry, if my unconditioned excitement by Omar Khayyams poetry might be the result of a very naiv misinterpretation. A friend of mine, a persian book-seller and philologist recommended to read Paramahansa Yogananda “The wine of the mystic”, in which the author claim to provide the only valid interpretation (or better called decryption) of Omar Khayyams rubbayat. So for each 4-line rubbayat, Yogananda writes about 3 pages interpretation. Already in the introduction, the authors warns us that each time that Omar Khayyam mentions “Wine”, he refers to the “Divine Spirit”. Similarly, when Omar Khayyam writes about “Love to Girl”, Yogananda wants us to believe that this means nothing more than “Love to the divine spirit”. For me, this so-called spiritual interpretation of Omar Khayyams rubbayat is nothing more than a violent misinterpretation, a unsuccesful attempt to clear his most beautiful, human and real eternal poetry of all value and of all its real spirit.
Yoganandas book is a bad example of the attempt to misuse a former great piece of literature for religious hypocracy, be it christian, islamic or this yoga-guru style of Yogananda (he later founded an organisation of Self-Realization Fellowship, which in my view is a religious cult like a million others, with the ambition to be in possession of the final truth).
Eventhough I immediately developed a strong antipathy for this “modern” spiritual interpretation of Omar Khayyams lyrics, there was one strong argument. Yogananda was able to read Omar Khayyam as the original persian text, therefore claiming that his spiritual interpretaion is more authentic than the secular western ones (beginning by the english translation of Fitzgerald and later by the german version of Rosen). Yogananda complained that all western readers simply valued Omar Khayyam by the wrong idea that he praises love, wine and the beauty of the world in the way we used to do it in the west. Unfortunately, this was a strong argument, although for Yogananda Persian was a foreign language as well. It might even be that he did his “modern-spiritual” interpretation based on Fitzgeralds english translation as well, rather than reading the original text. Yogananda spoke hindi, and there are quite many similarities betwenn Hindi and Persian, two indo-european languages.

But to my greatest relieve, Maryam Akhondy, a true persian, a modern singer, a woman that does not need to attract followers like a guru, she obviously interpreted Omar Khayyam, one of the greatest representatives of classical persian poetry, in the same modern and human manner as I intuitively read his rubbayat. For me, Maryam Akhondys songs are the only valid interpretation of Omar Khayyam, but for the best and dedicated readers, his poetry is completely self-explained. Omar Khayyam does not need gurus (like Yogananda) who try to build an ideology around his beautiful and clear lyrics.

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 Michael, when I woke up this morning the view from the window brought a big surprise: suddenly the green around our house had turned white and the roofs and the trees all were covered with a thick layer of fluffy snow. This is the definite sign that a very long autumn is over now, and Yalda and Christmas days are waiting. Winter time in Stockholm is actually not the most pleasant time. It can be wet and chilly and a hopeless battle against the dirty mud that soon spreads all around the streets and buildings. Occasionally large blocks of snow fall down from roofs, and hence there are signs warning from these life-threatening roof-avalanches. My mom and Shava, who both grow up in Tehran associate snow with something different: for them going skiing to the nearby Elburs mountains in the 1970s was something extraordinary, a very rare and very special kind of entertainment. They told me that spending a day out at the skiing ressort of Dizin was like jumping for some hours into the world of the glossy swiss tóurist brochures. It was not simply the gorgeous nature with the snow-covered peak Sichal and wooden chalets and deep forests in the valley that made these trips so unique, but it was also a feeling of freedom and joy beyond the boundaries of an otherwise very traditional society. Shava said it was not impossible to meet on the ski-slopes members of the Shahs family. Have a look at the youtube video below: Farah Diba Pahlevi, the Shahbanoo, is there and making random aquaintance with two americans.

This was in 1978

take care
/ghazal

Ghazal my Dear,
This video reminds me of the few days we spend up at the Zugspitze peak in 2010. Isn”t it funny, that winter time in the snow-covered mountains looks so similar after more than 30 years and at places more than 3ooo km apart ? The alps, however, have not seen much snow this year yet. It is still very green up there. I guess they will need a lot of snow machines to prepare the slopes for this years season.

Take Care, Michael

but suddenly, at around 3:22 min a very short picture showed a neon-sign pointing to a “Hotel Evin”, that convinced me it is Iran. Would like to know, is there really a Hotel in Teheran that carries the same name as the prison notorious for all the violence ? Which hotel owner would call its business after a place of death and violence ? And who are the customers booking in a hotel with this name ?

I heard the most horrible reports about Evin and other prisons, people in particular political prisoners are tortured there with pure saddism using physical and psychic violence in the most inhuman manner. People are killed there systematically. I feel anger imagine somebodies calls a hotel after this place of horror. When we visited last year with Shava the concentration camp near Munich (think it was called Dachau), at least people respected the memory of all those who lost their lives there. Nobody would consider calling a Hotel after this place Dachau, don”t you think so ?

Hope everything is fine with you, Take Care
/ghazal