Tag Archives: Happiness

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

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… (more…)

Forough Farrokhzad: An Iranian poetry that fell silent too soon

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… (more…)

Finally: A great voice by a young male singer

Ghazal dear, Listen to this great song by Michael Buble, who is not afraid to show that a his amazing voice can be like a music instrument. 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. Bookmark on Delicious Digg… (more…)

An unconditional love becomes political in todays Iran (“Circumstance” by Maryam Kesharvarz)

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… (more…)

Maryam Akhondy — the voice of humanism interprets Omar Khayyam

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… (more…)

Island in the Stream

  Ghazal my Dear, do you recall this place ? It was dark at night two years ago, and we had a camp fire there, and the river had less water, so we could enter what now looks like an island. You tough me the arts of flipping flat pebbles over the water surface, and when we went home later… (more…)

Leaving home with unknown destination – Marina Keegans legacy

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,… (more…)

Skiing in Iran with Farah Diba Pahlevi

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… (more…)

Her name is Penelope – She is a crazy horse !

Hi Ghazal Dear, It was almost exactly a year ago that I wrote you this story about my nocturnal encounter with a young horse. It almost caused me crash with the car into the wall of the village cemetry. I always thought that the story that followed this accident somehow coined a special relationship between me and the horse. I… (more…)

EVIN: A hotel named after a concentration camp

Hi Michael, When somebody through facebook forwarded this sequence of nocturnal images from Teheran to me, I was almost prompted to ask if this is really the same place one knows from the news headlines of protests or from Ahadis movie “Green Wave”. Suddenly, it look more like a tourist promo for Beirut. Even during my last visit to Teheran… (more…)