Big Money, Big Media, Big Trouble

Big Money, Bid Media, Bid Trouble

How big money and big media have coupled to create a ‘Disney World’ of democracy.
Watch at Bill Moyers & Company.

And read "Media Fast"!

...And Because I Love You...(Viva Norwegian people)

Oslo, in April 26 2012, 40,000 people started to sing the song Anders Behring Breivik told in court that he despises the most.

The song is the Norwegian version of Pete Seeger's "My Rainbow Race", rewritten in Norwegian and released in the early 1970s by singer/songwriter Lillebjørn Nilsen who is the lead in this recording from the Norwegian Broadcasting corporation (NRK).

This extremely well known and popular song was sung by the crowd at the Youngstorget square before they all walked to the court building, still singing, laying down roses outside while court was still in session.

Italian author Antonio Tabucchi

"Italian author Antonio Tabucchi died on Sunday, March 25, in Lisbon, his second home for many years.
Born in Pisa in 1943, Tabucchi, the son of a horse trader, was one of the finest voices in the European literature. He was the author of novels, short stories, essays, and plays, as well as the renowned translator of FernandoPessoa."
Read more...
On September 2008, in  Chicago International Film Festival, I saw Requiem directed by Alain Tanner. Mesmerized by the  film I was drawn  to the mysterious poetic world of Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet. A world I am enchanted by ever since...
Read a translation of his poem "Actor" from French into Persian by Mahasti Shahrokhi.

"My Name is Inanna" at Penghao Theater

Second Production of Chinese translation of my play "My Name is Inanna" is running at the Penghao Theater from April 18 to 29, 2012 in Beijing, China. director Hu Xiaoqing ,

Barren

Barren (Setarvan) is a collection of short stories in Persian by Iranian-American writer Shirindokht Nourmanesh, published in 2010 in Afra Publications in Canada. The collection contains nine short stories written in various forms and styles on the situation of different generations of women living in diaspora. As Shirindokht is also a painter, her stories are outstanding blends of striking colors, surrealistic images and various moods wrapped in original surroundings. In a narrative voice, with poetic internal dialogue, she describes women’s emotional pain, trauma, isolation and solitary, --those who are uprooted from their homeland and segregated from their proverbial environment.

A fiction writer, poet, and translator, Shirindokht Nourmanesh was born and raised in Tehran.
Her first collection of short stories and novellas, Domal, was published in the US, and her translations, stories, and memoirs have appeared in print and online publications such as Barresiyeh Ketab (Persian Book Review), Rozaneh Magazine, and Khavaran Independent.

کتاب "سترون" دومین مجموعه داستان نوشته شیرن دخت نورمنش است شامل نه داستان کوتاه که در نشر افرا در سال 2010 به چاپ رسیده است. دردهای عمیق زنان قصه ها که گویی لایه های متفاوت و متنوع یک شخصیت هستند بر خواننده بسیار اثر می گذارند.  شکل روایی و بیانی شخصیت های اصلی در قصه ها متنوع و گونه گون است. حس ها و فضاهای سوررئالیستی، شاعرانه بیان شده اند و تصویر سازی ها مثل تابلو های نقاشی رنگ آمیزی شده اند. نوع استفاده از رنگ به واژه ها  بیانی ویژه داده است وصمیمیت  زنان ساده دل چند قصه از جمله "دو استکان چای، هزاران هزار پروانه"  بدلیل نثر روان، سادگی های عاطفی کاراکتر ها و عشق در زمان سالمندی بسیار به دل می نشینند. .  قصه "سترون" سنگینی درد سترون بودن زن را به خوبی و با ریزه کاری بیان کرده است. در بسیاری موارد بعضی از نوشته ها بسیار با هستی نویسنده عجین هستندو بار تنهایی نفس گیر کاراکتر ها بازتابی است از تنهایی نسلی که مجبور بوده است یک تنه صلیب سرنوشتش را به دوش بکشد.

Lilac

 "In the language of flowers, purple Lilacs symbolize the first emotions of love, while white lilacs represent youthful innocence."
 
"The story of lilac, according to Greek mythology, begins with a beautiful nymph named Syringa (lilac’s botanical name). Captivated by her beauty, Pan, the god of the forests and fields, chased Syringa through the forest. Frightened by Pan’s affections, Syringa escaped him by turning herself into an aromatic bush – the flower we now refer to as lilac." 

Disturbing images!!

 In Sweden, firestorm over cake art installation...
For those who haven't seen Venus Noire, a film by A. Kechiche, based on Saartjie Baartman, it's recommended! This "cake" revives the deep pain. once again!

What Must Be Said

Gunter Grass's Controversial Poem About Israel, Iran, and War, Translated.

 What Must Be Said

Why do I stay silent, conceal for too long
What clearly is and has been
Practiced in war games, at the end of which we as survivors
Are at best footnotes.

It is the alleged right to first strike
That could annihilate the Iranian people--
Enslaved by a loud-mouth
And guided to organized jubilation--
Because in their territory,
It is suspected, a bomb is being built.

Read more...

The French Lieutenant's Woman

The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1981 fascinating film directed by Karel Reisz and adapted by playwright Harold Pinter. It is based on the eponymous novel by John Fowles who was also influenced by Ourika a novel written by  Claire de Duras. The music score is by Carl Davis and the cinematography by Freddie Francis. The film stars Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons .
Scenes on Melancholia are beautiful in this movie...

Flamenco Flashmob

Flamenco Flashmob...inside a bank in Sevilla Spain to protest against the finacial system

Le Meteque

Le Meteque a song by  Georges Moustaki
Read the translation of the song...

The Art of István Sándorfi

The Art of István Sándorfi
Read about his life....

The Swan

Nathan Chan, 11 years old cellist plays The Swan by Camille Saint Saens.
Now listen to Nathan's intelligent and thoughtful words on classical music at the age of 17...
And he played Bach at the age of 16!

To the memory of my mother

To the memory of my mother...

A view from my window

"A view from my window in Spring" photo by Sergio Dow.

Last night with RAVEL and Shostakovich

Last night I had a transcendental experience at Civic Orchestra of Chicago, listening to Rapsodie Espagnole by Maurice Ravel and Symphony No.5 in D Minor, Op.47 by Dmitri Shostakovich. Under the principal conductor Cliff Colnot and young musicians. The concert hall was filled with middle aged women and fewer men! Where were young men and women?

Rapsodie Espagnole is Ravel's earliest piece he wrote in 1895 after he left Paris conservatory. This piece is his best known evocations of the Spain he so seldom visited, yet seemed to know so well. I was enormously  mesmerized by the poetry of the environment, the passionate soul of music and sensual experience which made our night uniquely memorable.
 

Shostakovich’s piece gave me a different feeling. Phillip Huscher writes: “Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is perhaps the best known work of art born from the marriage of politics and music.” He later explains: “Shostakovich claimed he wrote the Largo at White heat in three days-information that is hard to digest once one hears this calm and controlled music, moving slowly over vast, wide-open space. The lucid, thin textures occasionally turn Spartans-a solo oboe melody against a single sustained violin note, a flute duet accompanied by a quiet harp-but every phrase carries meaning, every note is indispensable.”

After the classical concert I was light as a butterfly, dancing by the movements of the violins, harps, flutes and cellos. Thinking of a young cellist whose vibrant emotions made a deep connection between us….  

Listen to Feria from Rapsodie Espagnole a rich performance from Herbert von Karajan conducting L'Orchestre de Paris.
Listen to Allegro Non Troppo from  Symphony No.5, WDR Philharmonic Orchestra, Cologne 1995
conducted by Rudolf Barshai

Bewitching Russian Opera

Inna Naroditskaya's book "Bewitching Russian Opera" published by Oxford University Press.
" Delving into the densely intertextual world of Russian literature and opera saturated with veiled codes and allusions, Naroditskaya’s “masterpiece of intertextual hermeneutics” (Timothy Rice, ethnomusicologist, UCLA) illuminates uncharted links between eighteenth-century Russian tsarinas and their fairytale counterparts in nineteenth-century nationalist operas, between politics of cultural memory and generational anxiety, between theater in imperial court and court as a theater."

13 Bedar....

titled: "Sizdah Bedar for Barbed Wire" by Kaveh Adel

Adrienne Rich, Poetry and Modern life

Acclaimed poet and activist Adrienne Rich — who died on March 27, 2012 — talks with Bill Moyers  about poetry and modern life, and also reads from her work as part of “The Heart of Things,” a segment from Bill Moyers’ 1995 series, The Language of Life.