I don't know how else to say this. 

But.

bienvenu

Chapter III – Train to Paris

The words still echo in my head: “Ostokhoonhaat, sedaye pooki midan” [Your bones, sound hollow].

It’s a line from the lyrics I wrote to his song. The night before, I was front row at some East-London venue singing along to it with 400 other people pulsating behind me. It was feverish.

Surreal.

But now almost sober, I’m on a 9:00 a.m. train to Paris. 

"It’s fucking happening, life, as we celebrate or lament or wait around, or stand there thinking, one croissant or two? Almond or plain? Do you have a lighter? I missed my train. Where is my cellphone? Denied application? Deterred. Delayed. Deferred . . ."

Trees flash by unpretentiously, as if waiting for a pair of eyes. I close my eyes; I can still hear them. 

I recognize my love for him. I realize it because there is a mysterious part of my brain, of my body, that is absent and/or fleeting at all times. It must be his.

I write down “I love this city. I’ll move away if it kills me […] Comfort is the death of me.”

Bienvenu a Paris.  I open my eyes.  

things

Chapter II - London

And suddenly I’m in it again. In the middle of it all, at the British Museum.

The exhibition: Afghanistan, Crossroads of the Ancient World.

I stand against a gold crown that shines shamelessly at me. It belonged to a nomadic 19-year-old girl who lived in first century A.D., around Tillya Tepeh (in today’s Afghanistan). The precious heirloom was designed so that it would fold, piece by piece – how practical.

It keeps on shining amongst other pieces of jewelry, with such prosperity that it’s hard not to wonder, what happened. The geometrical pattern looks so “modern” that I laugh at how unique we think “modernity” is.

Post modernism, formalism, structuralism; all these ‘isms’ to make us feel like we’re constantly progressing and developing— Oh yes, we are evolving, no?

I see a pattern: birth, progress, reaction, regress, and death. There is nothing linear about it.

I look at maps of long-gone polities and gated cities. I notice the luxurious landscapes that people had the pleasure of looking at, and how much space they each had to roam around.

Every pillar, every public garden, every wall, was beautifully hand carved with ornate designs, and with such purpose and care that I had to search for some air when I imagined them getting violently seized, looted and destroyed.

The victorious Empire, whether it was the Persians, Greeks, or Mongols, would then seep in and settle. Or abandon what was left of the city for us to dismantle and show case in museums centuries later.

And then foolishly I think, I wish our cities had gates. Nostalgia for things we never had, is the foolish part.

2+2=4

Here's why I haven't blogged lately:

" . . .  make it clear that I need to write more, to enter spaces that are void of other human connections, and speak out to myself. No amount of 140 characters, witty-sentences, blog posts, or texts, or headlines, have such a cleansing, meditative impact on me. This sincere, solid excursion of thoughts, rationale, and expressions is necessary. It is vital for my sanity, creativity, and logic..."

Chapter I -  The Airport

I’m born again on an airplane / in the airport. I wonder if my mom ever traveled on air while pregnant with me.

Can I ever go back to Iran again? I long to smell the gasoline-filled air, find the rugged men on the street, all sweaty and sleazy, sexy and beautiful…I want to get a taxi, see old friends who have either changed too much or not at all…I miss the landscapes of Tehran and the mountains in the North. I miss it all.

But here’s the thing. They may arrest reformist clerics and former presidents, and opposition leaders…They can jail directors, actors, artists, writers, and professors…They may torture and vanish activists, journalists, and students. And I mean, what’s left in a country like that? Construction workers and government employees?

Whatever it is that they’re trying to build now, is it even worth it?

But even so, you may kill the painter, but not art. You can get rid of writers and journalists, but not literature or truth. Jail students and teachers, but what about knowledge.

2 + 2 = 4. You can’t take that away.

hang in there

Don't remember the artist. But at Saatchi Gallery.

and I could hear them all scream. 

hopeless as they were, hopeful as I was. 

how could I justify that visceral feeling,

I'd been there once before.

a decision was made: I will continue.

feet

The only thing that matters is imagination.
To be able to imagine yourself in other unseen locations, vocations, and sensibilities. This has to continue no matter how content you feel you are right now.
Content is dangerous.

the look

" You look so innocent."

I can never tell if that's a compliment or something else. Something terrible.

i figured it out

art is

Arshile Gorky - Diary of a Seducer 

Vik Muniz - Spaghetti Medusa

From a sketchbook of Louise Bourgeoise 

an interpretation. 

saving you saving me

  

Philip Guston - Bad Habits (1970)

Saving people is so redundant. It is so naive. And yet it is one of the most defining characteristics of mine.

I was walking home just now, sneezing and compressing my limbs into their smallest proportions, when I saw a tiny old lady with hands full of groceries steadily walking toward me. I was compelled to go up to her and offer to carry her bags home. I made eye contact but she wouldn't have it. I stopped, but she didn't notice. So I kept walking, feeling a little bit colder than before.

This happens every week, and in different scenarios.

I have often broken up fights; from street fights to best friends fighting to parents to cats. I've saved ants from drowning and I have taken numerous birds to the vet (none of them made it out). When I was six years old I jumped in the deep end to rescue an older girl from drowning -- I didn't know how to swim.

Less than a year ago I found a girl passed out in the washroom of some bar and carried her to a stranger's house and left my card for her. She probably thought my card says "Super(wo)man" or something.

What's funny is that I'm beginning to understand that this is not heroism, but being stupid. Yet I can't help it. I especially find it stupid when my help is not needed ("Tara, we don't need you to mediate the situation").

People don't need to be saved, especially the ones that are waiting to be saved.  I'm also against the idea of martyrdom and I guess that's the point of departure between aid and imposition: to be a martyr you are expecting a heavenly return and you are usually sacrificing something precious. I don't ever want any one to do that for me, and I won't do it either. Especially for the people I love, because I will only resent them in the long term.

Anyways. . . I guess I'm trying to say that I like making people happy. Sometimes too much.

Unless if you deserve to be sad, of course.

mooooch

the most unattractive quality in a person is mooching. it makes me uncomfortable and unsafe.

which is sad because i love the word mooch.

it's cute.

and smooch is also a favorite. like here:

so is much, which in Persian means kiss.

addictions

From the pages of my journal – January 26 2011

“Strangers are meant to divide

And tensions to rise like steam from the waterfalls

Tapping consciousness into the outline of an airport

Delayed.”

[There has been a coup d’état in my brain.]

I’m sitting at Newark airport for what feels like an entire childhood. My flight has been delayed, and let’s just say that I need to be in my own bed right now.

I have overtipped and overdrank incessantly for a week now in New York City. It’s grown on me but has yet to dazzle me to the point of Nirvana. I leave that to Buenos Aires, or an Eastern European city I haven’t discovered yet.

Despite the uncomfortable seats that insist on keeping my body vertical, airports calm me down. I usually scribble down something in my notebook right before my departure, desperate to find out what I’d be writing on the plane back…

I think about all the new feelings, all the new colours I’ll notice and all the stories I’ll spot hiding on the street corners and behind frozen windows, waiting to be told. Which is why traveling is so addictive. And I’m an addict, burning my money on wine and caffeine.

The galleries were as always most exciting. A good exhibition inspires me as much as a good novel does. But I’ll write about art later.

And of course, the company: Two of my best, two of my oldest, two of my funniest friends were with me for the most part. A trip isn’t worth it without tears, and we had that too…we had alone time and dance time and beers in bed and Halva on the road and disagreements about where to go. We answered a dozen questionnaires, the kind of questions that reveal your most naked thoughts without you even noticing it.

And then I was alone again. And loved. And I always wonder what is it about love that I love and hate so much.

Finally, we’re boarding. My mascara’s all over my face, but I’ll be nice.

the art

There is nothing worst than an artist with nothing to say. With nothing to show you other than a desperate unrealized observation. Sometimes if they're lucky, those observations are semi-refreshing but passive.

I mean, art has to have an anxiety within it - not necessarily a misery (you don't need to be starving, but it helps), and not essentially a rant. It has to be a certain spirit of life; sometimes critical, sometimes amusing, and at times purely aesthetic. It must be so that it could only be created by you and you only. And it mustn't be easy.

I have no idea what I'm talking about. I will probably change my mind when I see a breathtaking piece by someone who had no idea what they were doing. And I will be as equally revolted by a grandiose artist's statement that's worth wrapping glasses with when I move next.

#I break a lot of wine glasses.

Robert Jessup - Falling Couple

a little invention that really matters:

folding

utensils

Any poem I write that I'm remotely proud of, is first inscribed on paper with black inkpen or a pencil. After a number of scratches and arrows, I type the final draft for public exposure.
I outline my story ideas on A4 papers.
My planner is not digital.
I can only finish reading a newspaper from cover to cover if I'm holding it in my hands. (My major was newspaper reporting -- don't laugh). 

Not that you should care, but I've come across this a lot: many writers (not to call myself one just yet, but you know, for the purpose of this rant) tend to like it hard...I mean, in hard copy.
I'm just wondering if the next generation will/is getting used to the screen copy, and if that's a good thing.

Are words more lively if they can linger under your pen? Are they more sacred if there's the possibility of them getting stained rather than deleted and vanished?

I don't know. I'm not a romantic in this sense but as Zoozoo says, nostalgia is one of our biggest weaknesses.
(Or strengths?)

N@ЯC!$$US

You were seen on our hidden camera! Click here to watch it: 

The gamut of spam/virus like e-mails have evolved though out the life of the Internet, in accordance with our measure of de-sensitivity toward them. First, they were almost consistently about porn and penis-enhancement products. They gradually became more attractive by giving away amazing, unheard-of deals with astronomical "chances to win" trips, products, cars, and in-your-pocket cash. Then they became more specific: "Lose the Holiday Pounds NOW!!!" "Buy the New iPod Before Everyone El$e!!!!!!!"

To avoid the delete button, many of them start with your name and a few personal words and lead-ups to the sp[c]am. Curiously, they offer you (dream) jobs – think of 2008-2009, at the height of recession, how many viruses wanted to hire you. And of course, you have the humanitarian ones, asking for money to cure a little golden-lock girl's cancer because she can't afford it. (Those scare me the most. What if they're real! [!!!!!!!])

It would be interesting to know which actually do get clicked on the most. I delete about 100 spams from my junk-box every few days. My brother has a word-filtering options that systematically gets rid of most of the rubbish.
Rubbish is by definition unwanted material that is thrown out. Spam is unwanted because really, porn is almost everywhere at hand, there are enough diets and books and Jenny Craigs and gyms and magical-potions to handle, and there are more effective/trustworthy ways to get travel deals or win the lottery.

But there is still something we need that is not as easily acquired: ourself. Fame. Image. Narcissism. And the market evolves...

You were seen on our hidden camera! Click here to watch it:

Go ahead. 

course of relations

I was speaking to my father yesterday, standing outside a vintage store in the cold to avoid the noisy interiors.

We were, as we usually do, catching up on a bunch of technicalities (do you have enough money? he asks. How is your health? I ask), as well as confessing our love and respect for each other. He was also telling me about his new iguana pet (Zoozoo), and how they were watching The Godfather II together the night before.

(1965) Iran

He then talked about his dear friend, Bijan Elahi, who recently passed away; A prolific poet, painter, essayist, translator, and one of the pioneers of the Iranian New Wave in literature. An article in BBC Persian described him as the “poet of silence,” alluding to his quiet last years in a tacit retaliation toward the suffocating atmosphere that was crippling artist and intellectual life in Iran.

My dad told me how when I was five-years-old and had a blazing fever, Bijan who was hanging out at our place and was curiously into mysticism and Sufism, prayed for me above my sickbed. I was touched by this story, until my dad laughed and said, “Well of course that didn’t help. It was a common fever and took its course.”

“At least I didn’t die!” I said. Maybe I would. Who knows?

(1964) From right: Bijan Elahi, Ahmadreza Ahmadi, Noory Ala

But I couldn’t help but feel sad. Even though I don’t remember this unique individual (he handed in a blank exam paper in his last year of highschool, protesting against the conservative and patriarchal education system), I felt like he had something to do with me. He had translated Nabokov, Lorca, Joyce, and Kafka, which I read and drenched in. He studied Picasso and taught a generation of writers and poets to disregard the form, the platform, the rules.

He wrote: “Poetry is chasing the truth through back alleys – such is the creed of relations. But it is only through the course of relations, that you can recognize the back alleys.”

I thought of all the great poets, painters, artists, writers, thinkers, directors, actors, singers, and teachers that were left imprisoned, dead, killed, or muted in a country that is known for its poetry.

And then I thought the best gift, the only thing I can offer to overcome this sudden, onerous nostalgia and longing for novelty and appreciation, is to work. Work, learn my past, and create. Create, and support those who do, and do.

When I hung up with my dad I thought, I should rent Godfather II tonight. And watch it with my own Zoozoo. 

temporary spots

my friend, my enemy:

actions have consequences. actions do (do) have consequences. and one day when you show up at my door and i pretend like i'm not home, or i never get your messages, and you say i love you and i say i love you too and it sounds like any other word we enunciated that day (like pass me the salt please, or i'm going to be late), you wonder when exactly you lost your spot.

survival kit: opening day

when a headache will not let go of your brain,
but the morning seems inviting and familiar, like every other Monday that you need to victoriously overcome,
you leave the house as fast as you can,
and wear your favorite colours.

PR

Public Relations

Pathetic Ramblings

Punctual Resonation

Pubic Reoccurrence

Punitive Regurgitation

Passive Rage

Proud Rant

Peculiar Resemblance

Press Release

Panting Roach

Preverbal Rivets

Pedagogical Reek

Prime Rationale

Profit Rack

chatter box

"You know her right?"

"Mmmm . . . not exactly."

"What do you mean?"

"I know a different version of her than you do."