On its concert tour through Israel a German chanson singer introduced one of his songs (about the mutual dependence of men and woman) as following: “A woman needs a man mainly for two things: First, to open the champaign bottles, and second, to explaine things.” One of his fellow musicians, a violinist girl replied after a few seconds “Hold on,… (more…)
We were out to watch the new Iranian movie “Paziraie sadeh” (MODEST RECEPTION). Movie director Mani Haghighi lets his two main characters (Laila played by Taraneh Alidoosti and Kaveh by Mani Haghighi) drive through the mountains on a random search for people, whom they can hand over buckets of bank-notes they carrie with them. The actors act very statically, I… (more…)
Ghazal Dear, I wish you, your family and friends, your neighbours and colleagues, the people you meet on the street and in the Tehran underground line, your doctors, your basar shop owner, your bus driver and your post-man, and the lady that sold you the marvellous flowers, I wish all those a happy, prosperous, healthy and liberal new year. Michael… (more…)
Haft Sheen: The 7 S…, a set of objects all starting with the persian letter Sheen People in and from Iran, Kurdistan and Afghanistan celebrate the beginning of their new year today. By precise astronomical calculation it started already yesterday at 11:02 GMT, since astronomers calculated that at this very minute the duration of day and night… (more…)
Ghazal, my Dear, We recently discussed the issue of translating poetry from one language to another. You told me ones that in Persian language there are no gender specific prepositions, as there are HE and SHE in English or IT for all un-animated items. In German, in contrast, also un-animated objects usually are assigned a male or female gender, which… (more…)
Yesterday night, after opera “Aneas and Dido” was over, I was still in the mood to hear some more music. Went to the nightclub at “Bayerischer Hof“, in the basement of the hotel where every year in February the notorious annual “Munich Conference for International Security” takes place. How nice, that deep below the spot were little sympathic characters such… (more…)
Dear Michael, I recently observed the rediculous attempt by one guy in our University to change his traditional role. We all knew him as the deans “Lap Poodle”, a guy who had the official function as a speaker for the research departments, but in fact never showed any ambition to help the scientists. Quite in contrast to his duties, he… (more…)
On a train ride from Munich to the Alp mountains, between places that carry such pedestrian names as Miesbach (transl.: Ugly Creek) or Schliersee (transl.: Slimy Lake), the train radio announces the next stop will be “Agatharied”. The sound of this name resembles a magical spell, maybe of Sumerian or Egyptian origin. But apart from the enchanting melody of… (more…)