Friday, May 29, 2020

یک نقد بر کتاب "آن زن بی آنکه بخواهد گفت خداحافظ"

 یک نقد بر کتاب "آن زن بی آنکه بخواهد گفت خداحافظ" از  مهران بقایی
"عزت السادات گوشه گیر نویسنده و کنشگر اجتماعی همشهری ما مقیم آمریکاست . ایشان فرزند زنده یاد دکتر سیدموسی گوشه گیر نخستین پزشک تحصیل کرده ی دزفول در دهه ی سی خورشیدی و از فعالین سیاسی آن دهه است. خانم گوشه گیر در دهه ی شصت به آمریکا مهاجرت و سالهاست در زمینه ی حقوق زنان فعالیت اجتماعی و در حوزه ی ادبیات، داستان کوتاه و نمایشنامه می نویسند . مقالات متعددی از ایشان در نقد و تحلیل آثار مهم زنان نویسنده ی ایرانی در نشریات کشور و سایت های تخصصی متتشر شده است و نمایشنامه هایشان در صحنه های تاتر خوش درخشیده اند. به تازگی مجموعه ای از داستان های کوتاه ایشان از طرف انتشارات مِهری در لندن منتشر شده است با نام " آن زن بی آنکه بخواهد گفت خداحافظ و دختری به نام بی بی بوتول دزفولی" این مجموعه شامل بیست و پنج داستان است که چهارده تای آن زیر عنوان (آن زن بی آنکه ...) و یازده تای دیگر زیر عنوان دوم (دختری به نام بی بی بی بوتول دزفولی) گرد هم آمده اند . زن در همه ی این داستان ها محور ماجرا است در بخش اول زن در دوران معاصر و در بخش دوم زن در زمانی دورتر و در جغرافیای شهر دزفول روایت می شود . دغدغه های اجتماعی نویسنده درباره ی وضعیت زنان و دختران در جامعه ی ایرانی از گذشته تا امروز فضای کلی کتاب را در بر می گیرد . نگاه دقیق و کنجکاو نویسنده ، استفاده از تمام ظرفیت های زبانی و اقلیمی ، استفاده از تکنیک های روز داستان نویسی، بهره گیری از واژگان بومی ، استفاده از طنزی ملایم ،  نگاه روانشناسانه و توجه به رخداد های اجتماعی و تاثیر آنها بر تلقی و نگاه عمومی به زنان و دختران از جمله ویژگی های این مجموعه داستان است . انتشارات مهری با رضایت نویسندگان، این اثر و نیز کتابهای دیگری را از نویسندگان ایرانی و غیر ایرانی به دلیل شرایط کنونی جهان برای فارسی زبانان به رایگان روی وب سایت خود قرار داده است."
 مهران بقایی

نشانی سایت(با فیلتر شکن) :
WWW.mehripublication.com
با تشکر از ایشان

روزنگاری های دیاسپورا/ Memories in Diaspora # 305 & 306

پنجشنبه ۱۴ ماه جون ۱۹۹۰ آیواسیتی
تصمیم گرفتم یک قصه بنویسم. و امروز اولین پیش نویس را تمام کردم. قصه ای بنام “الیزابت”. که هنوز یک طرح است و باید روی آن کار کنم تا کامل شود… 
الیزابت

روزنگاری های دیاسپورا 
 Memories in Diaspora # 306
Last part of my short story: "Elizabeth"
شماره ۳۰۶
ادامه قصه “الیزابت”
پنجشنبه ۱۴ ماه جون ۱۹۹۰ – آیواسیتی
الیزابت گفت: البته…فقط برا یه لیوان آب…
فوٌاد با خنده گفت: هنوز نیومده داری بیرونم می کنی؟

Elizabeth

My short story written in 1990
Elizabeth

 "الیزابت"

"الیزابت" تنها آمده بود. بدون "تام".
آپارتمان "نسترن" بزرگ بود. به راحتی گنجایش بیست نفر جوان پر شور بیست و چند ساله را در خود داشت که می خواستند شبی را مست کنند و برقصند و ملال را یکجوری از توی دلشان بریزند بیرون. یک پارتی حسابی با کلی مشروب و پیتزا و غذاهای ایرانی و عربی و مکزیکی....

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Albert Camus’s Beautiful Letter of Gratitude to His Childhood Teacher

Albert Camus’s Beautiful Letter of Gratitude to His Childhood Teacher After Winning the Nobel Prize:

When Camus was less than a year old, his father was killed on the battlefield of WWI. He and his older brother were raised by their illiterate, nearly deaf mother and a despotic grandmother, with hardly any prospects for a bright future. In a testament to what happens when education lives up to its highest potential to ennoble the human spirit, a teacher named Louis Germaine saw in young Albert something special and undertook the task of conjuring cohesion and purpose out of the boy — the task of any great mentor. Under his teacher’s wing, Camus came to transcend the dismal cards he had been dealt and began blossoming into his future genius.

19 November 1957
Dear Monsieur Germain,
I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart. I have just been given far too great an honor, one I neither sought nor solicited. But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened. I don’t make too much of this sort of honor. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.
Albert Camus

Saturday, May 23, 2020

A 15 YEAR OLD BOY'S perspective on global pandemic

My interview with a 15 year old, Kian, demonstrating his perspective on global pandemic. It’s Published in Shahrgon, a weekly magazine in Vancouver, Canada.
نوجوانی، قرنطینه و انزوا در دوران چیرگی ویروس کرونا گفت و گویی با کیان، نو جوان پانزده ساله
بیست و چند سال پیش مارتین اسلین منقد و شناساگر تئاترابزورد را در دانشگاه آیوا ملاقات کردم. وی در ورک شاپی گمگشتگی و گسستگی روحی نوجوانان غربی را مورد واکاوی قرار داد و تأثیر گذاری این پدیده نو را در عصر دیجیتال، در نمایشنامه های جدیدی که به این موضوعات پیرامونی می پرداخت، تشریح کرد. موضوعاتی همچون انزوا، از خودبیگانگی، سرگشتگی، بی هویتی، بی برنامگی، پناه بری به سکس، مواد مخدر و خشونت، خودآزاری و دیگر آزاری…

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Jean's Masks

“جین و ماسک هایش”

قصه های آفرینندگان گمنام در زمانه ویروس کرونا

شکوفایی چگونه پدیدار می شود؟
در تنگناست که آدم قصه گو می شود. که می بافد و می تند. در تنهایی و انزواست که آدم رویا می آفریند. که آوازه خوان می شود. که عاشق می شود. و رویای عشق است که آدم را شکوفا می کند.

Monday, May 18, 2020

Teenagers in the Time of Coronavirus

Teenagers in the Time of Coronavirus


Being physically and socially isolated through the coronavirus crisis is not easy for anyone. The bitterness of isolation has affected teen lives and young adults more than any other age groups. Communication with friends and family, connection with peers, and physical activities are essential for children, teens, and young adults. It is through social activities that they will develop healthy body, emotional intelligence and strong personality.
While starting and keeping close friendships is critical in the process of growing up, it is also important to develop social and emotional growth. These skills provide them the abilities to be prepared for more challenges in their future tasks.  
It is crucial to young adults to learn through social life the skills to cooperate, solve conflicts, and understand each other’s needs. It is also important to learn about themselves; their uniqueness, their ability to give and be given, to have fun and make others laugh. 

Most of the teens now are spending a considerable amount of time on TikTok, Instagram, FaceTime, video Games, watching films, YouTube with memes for hours with enormous fascination and obsession. A new phenomenon called youth Culture has brought a concept in which teenagers design a subculture with certain norms, interests, behaviors, vocabularies, clothes, fashions and beliefs that differ from the culture of older generations. The new teenage culture in digital age is someway foreign to those born before the millennium.  Film series such as Normal People, Sex Education, Everything's Gonna Be Okay and many more, are recently bringing the phenomenon to light, by analyzing and studying this particular culture through their eyes. 

Having this in mind, focusing on how different age groups deal with isolation in the time of Coronavirus quarantine, I interviewed a brilliant fifteen-year-old “Kian”. A teenage boy of so many different talents. “Kian” is indeed an extraordinary individual, reflective and profound since his childhood. I have always admired his imagination, creativity, poetic perspective and intelligence.  I must admit that I have been in awe of his achievements all these years as a writer, photographer, actor, dancer and music lover. But this current two months during the quarantine is an exception. He wrote two graphic novels, three screenplays and took large number of photos since March 15.

“Kian” wakes up every morning, fixes his breakfast, helps his parents, participates in zoom classes, faceTime’s with his friends and then works on his scripts as he acts out each character he creates. Great in writing dialogue, significant in sci-fi genre, he forms a theme with conflict in situation and characters, with interesting humorous atmosphere and colorful language.  

Title: From the collection of: Worm's Eye

Here is my interview with him:

Q- How would you like to introduce yourself to those who do not know you?
Kian: I hope I can be one of those people that can help find someone a new place in this world.

Q- How old are you? What are your interests in life?
Kian:  I am 15 years old. I would someday like to become a filmmaker or a photographer.

Q- How do you describe yourself  living in the time of corona quarantine as a teenage boy? How do you describe the situation?
Kian:  I have mixed feelings during the quarantine. I feel lonely since I cannot have physical contact with my friends. Most of the time, they are not available to FaceTime. I also feel like I get a lot of stuff done considering there is a lot of time to spend in quarantine.

Q- How was your first reaction about the deadly virus and the global lockdown?
Kian: At first, I thought that was the time when the world would finally end. But when I heard the doctors were doing everything they can, I found that there was hope that things can get better one step at a time.

Q- How do you see the effect of the pandemic on human’s life? Any predictions about the future effects?
Kian:  I think people will be more cautious around the environment by washing our hands more often and limiting physical contact.

Q- Describe how your life has changed through the experience of isolation?
Kian:  It’s been more quiet now that it’s just me and my family. I have to take care of myself and my family more often by doing chores such as washing the dishes, taking out the trash, doing me and my family’s laundry, etc.

Q- What do you do with your time?
Kian:  I like to play video games, but I’m dedicated to writing stories.

Q- Describe the positive and negative sides of this situation.
Kian:  The good thing is that I can spend all the time you’d like. But the con is I can’t spend time with people other than your family physically.

Q- Did the lockdown/isolation change your perspective of life, of yourself and of those you know?
Kian:  Yes. It has made me more aware of people and everything surrounding us that has a purpose to be in this world.

Q- what are your dreams about tomorrow?
Kian:  I dream that tomorrow, my daily goal(s) can be achieved.

Q- Do you remember your dreams at night? Any interesting dreams you have had recently?
Kian:  I remember most of my dreams and get inspiration from that dream and apply it to my stories.

Q- You write screenplays and you do photography. Talk about your experiences. How do you make a distinction between the two artistic genres/mediums? I would like you to elaborate on the form of writing for film/tv ( Sci- fi) and creating poetic moments in photography ?
Kian: Photography helps me deal with stress. I like to take different angles or filters to get my mind off of other things. Writing helps me feel active and creative.


Sunday, May 17, 2020

روزنگاری های دیاسپورا شماره ۳۰۴- ۳۰۳

  روزنگاری های دیاسپورا شماره ۳۰۳

Memories in Diaspora # 303
"
آره… قدرت و آزادگی و غرور من ورای پول و بازی های احمقانه آدم هاست. همتای من، باید مثل من یکتا باشد. یکتا در احترام گذاری… در شناخت ارزش ها…اینطور از همه شان یک انتقام سازنده می گیرم و می گویم: خداحافظ… و می گویم سلام بر آزادی! آنگونه که ژان کریستف به زبان رومن رولان عمل کرده بود. مهم نیست اگر پرنسیپ های من مثل ژان کریستف هرگز شناخته نشوند، و بعدها کسی آنها را در میانه یک رمان یا نمایشنامه جا دهد!"

۳۰۴ روزنگاری های دیاسپورا شماره 

 Memories in Diaspora # 304

 پایان جنگ ایران و عراق چقدر روحیه ها را بهتر کرده و حسی از امید را در دل آدم ها زنده کرده است. احمقانه بودن جنگ و اینهمه مرگ و میر، چه آسیب هایی بر جا گذاشته… این همه صدمات جسمی و روحی، این همه ویرانی، و از دست دادن های جبران ناپذیر…

Life Advice From Adrienne Rich

Life Advice From Adrienne Rich
By Emily Temple

On the obligations of the poet:

I don’t know that poetry itself has any universal or unique obligations. It’s a great ongoing human activity of making, over different times, under different circumstances. For a poet, in this time we call “ours,” in this whirlpool of disinformation and manufactured distraction? Not to fake it, not to practice a false innocence, not pull the shades down on what’s happening next door or across town. Not to settle for shallow formulas or lazy nihilism or stifling self-reference.
Nothing “obliges” us to behave as honorable human beings except each others’ possible examples of honesty and generosity and courage and lucidity, suggesting a greater social compact.
(From a 2011 interview with The Paris Review)

كلاريس ليسپكتور: يك وجه ديگر من

كلاريس ليسپكتور: يك وجه ديگر من

شايد هنوز به درستي معلوم نيست كه چرا براي عده اي دنياي درون بسيار حقيقي تر از دنياي قابل رويت برون است؟
در زندگي روزمره، ما چقدر به خود فرصت ميدهيم تا به عمق چشمهاي كساني كه هر روز از كنارشان بي اعتنا ميگذريم، عميقا نگاه كنيم و در لايه لايه هاي فكرشان رخنه كنيم، و در مقابل هر كنش يا واكنشي، هر واژه يا جمله اي يك علامت سئوال بگذاريم؟

"A Mirror With No Reflection"

"A Mirror With No Reflection"
a short story published in Asre nou

 آيينه بي تصوير

آفتاب رنگ پريده ظهري دلمرده روي ديوار خانه رو به رو پهن است، که از خوابي کهنه و بي رويا از جا برميخيزم. خوابي که بوي کپک ميدهد. به آيينه قدي اطاقم که نصف ديوار را پر کرده نگاه ميکنم و ميبينم که در آيينه هيچ تصويري نيست جز غبار.

روزنگاری های دیاسپورا شماره 302

 روزنگاری های دیاسپورا 302

دوباره آسمان ابری است. انعکاس ابرهای باردار در آب، میان گودال های کوچک کم عمق، به شدت آدم را برای ثبت یک لحظه ناب و گذرا دعوت می کند. در وجه شعر، عکاسی و فیلمبرداری… آدمها چه سرد و بیروح از کنار این لحظه های پر از زیبایی می گذرند. سوار ماشین هایشان می شوند و در خیابانها گم می شوند.

Saturday, May 16, 2020

A Great Loss: The passing of Dr. Riad Ismat

Riad Ismat.jpg

Dr. RIAD ISMAT 11 July 1947 – 13 May 2020

Novelist, playwright, and former Syrian minister of culture and Ambassador, Dr. Riad Ismat passed away in Evanston Hospital Wednesday May13, 2020 of complications due to Covid 19. As Nick Patricca from Chicago Network for Justice and Peace pointed out,  Riad was 72 year old, still in the prime of his most distinguished and productive life.

 It's indeed a great loss! My deep condolences to his family and friends.


Friday, May 15, 2020

“Implicit Bias”

How to Think about “Implicit Bias”
"When is the last time a stereotype popped into your mind? If you are like most people, the authors included, it happens all the time. That doesn’t make you a racist, sexist, or whatever-ist. It just means your brain is working properly, noticing patterns, and making generalizations. But the same thought processes that make people smart can also make them biased. This tendency for stereotype-confirming thoughts to pass spontaneously through our minds is what psychologists call implicit bias. It sets people up to overgeneralize, sometimes leading to discrimination even when people feel they are being fair"

What is “Implicit Bias”

"Implicit biases, however , are associations learned through past experiences. Implicit biases can be activated by the environment and operate outside of a person's intentional, conscious cognition. For example, a person can unconsciously form a bias towards all pitbulls as being dangerous animals. This bias may be associated with a single unpleasant experience the past, but the source of association may be misidentified, or even unknown. In the example, this implicit bias may manifest itself as a person declining an invitation to touch someone's pitbull (dog) on the street, without this person understanding the reason behind. Implicit bias can persist even when an individual rejects the bias explicitly."

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Everything and Nothing

Everything and Nothing: What is Nothing? (Jim Al-Khalili) | Science Documentary | Science

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

خواب های یک پناهجوی قدیمی

خواب های یک پناهجوی قدیمی

عزت گوشه گیر

(بخشی از یک شعر بلند ناتمام. از تاریخ ۴ سپتامبر ۲۰۱۵)

وقتی که پسرم را در آغوش گرفتم
دیدم که مرده است!
این آغاز خواب من بود.

(۱)

رفته بودم که آب بیابم وقطعه ای نان
اما
پسرم را گم کردم
.........

Monday, May 11, 2020

History of Masks - Ancient Use of Masks

History of Masks

"Masks have served an important role as a means of discipline and have been used to admonish. Common in China, Africa, Oceania, and North America, admonitory masks usually completely cover the features of the wearer. Some African peoples hold that the first mask to be used was an admonitory one. In one version of the mask origin, a child, repeatedly told not to, persisted in following its mother to fetch water. To frighten and discipline the child, the mother painted a hideous face on the bottom of her water gourd. Another version is that the mask was invented by a secret society to escape recognition while punishing marauders. In New Britain, an island of Papua New Guinea, members of a secret terrorist society called the Dukduk appear in monstrous five-foot masks to police, to judge, and to execute offenders. Aggressive supernatural spirits of an almost demonic nature are represented by these masks, which are constructed from a variety of materials, usually including tapa, or bark cloth, and the pith of certain reeds. These materials are painted in brilliant colours, with brick red and acid green predominating."
secret society mask

Saturday, May 9, 2020

Decameron: Boccaccio and Pasolini

Pasolini's View of the Decameron

"Pasolini's intention was not to recreate the medieval world of Boccaccio's characters but instead to comment on contemporary Italian society through the metaphorical use of the original novellas of the Decameron."

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

من یک فیلیپینی هستم

 من یک فیلیپینی هستم

نوشته: الینیا مابانگلو

من یک فیلیپینی هستم
که با نفسی سرشار از رایحه اقیانوس
با موهایی به رنگ جنگل
با پوستی سوخته از آفتاب سوزان
با چشمانی خیس از ذخایر باران
شیفته ستاره های دوردست
به آنسوی آب ها سفر کردم.

بقیه شعر را در اینجا بخوانید.

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

A relevant piece of history

“The First One That Died Sure Unnerved Me”

What a mordantly funny letter from the 1918 pandemic says about 2020.


"As many as 90 people die every day here with the “Flu”. Soldiers too, are dying by the dozens. So far, Felicity, C. Zane, and I are the only ones of the Indian girls who have not had it. We certainly consider ourselves lucky too, believe me. We were there at the Camp ten days among some of the very worse cases and yet we did not contract it. We had intended staying much longer than we did, but the work was entirely too hard for us, and anyway the soldiers were all getting better so we came home to rest up a bit."

White Plague

White Plague



 “I Knew Right Away It Was My Dad”


Why Haters Hate: Kierkegaard Explains the Psychology of Bullying

Why Haters Hate: Kierkegaard Explains the Psychology of Bullying 

"There is a form of envy of which I frequently have seen examples, in which an individual tries to obtain something by bullying. If, for instance, I enter a place where many are gathered, it often happens that one or another right away takes up arms against me by beginning to laugh; presumably he feels that he is being a tool of public opinion. But lo and behold, if I then make a casual remark to him, that same person becomes infinitely pliable and obliging. Essentially it shows that he regards me as something great, maybe even greater than I am: but if he can’t be admitted as a participant in my greatness, at least he will laugh at me. But as soon as he becomes a participant, as it were, he brags about my greatness.
That is what comes of living in a petty community."

Read the article here.

Monday, May 4, 2020

Octavia. Trepanation

"Octavia. Trepanation, an opera by Dmitri Kourliandski, was created in the year of the centenary of the Russian revolution as a response to the need to reflect upon the nature of power. Commissioned by the Holland Festival (premiered in Amsterdam in June 2017 on the stage of the Muziekgebouw), Octavia. Trepanation explores the theme of tyranny. The director and the composer define the work’s genre as an «opera-operation.» The essence of this operation is the trepanation of revolution: by means of their artistic gesture this production’s creators dismiss the source of bloody tyranny and forever invalidate the notion of war."