Month: March 2014

  • Iranian New Wave Cinema – Fat Shaker

    The Fat Shaker, a movie written, produced and directed by Mohammad Shirvani, literally does what its title suggests: it shakes. Shirani’s intentional use of a digital handheld, and very shaky, camera, takes us on a roller coaster of highs and lows surrounding a morbidly obese father, Levon Haftvan, and his deaf, mute, son’s relationship. When…

  • Gibberish English Rock Song

    Gibberish English Rock Song

    This song, Prisecolinensinenciousol, a parody by Adriano Celentano is sung entirely in gibberish designed to sound like American English. Celentano’s intention with the song was to explore communications barriers. «Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did. So at a certain point, because I like American slang…

  • Photo Gallery – Four Generations of Iranian Females in One House

    Photo Gallery – Four Generations of Iranian Females in One House

     We are proud to present a new photo gallery with  almost similar ambiance and tone by freelance painter & illustrator Parastou Ahadi. She is very conscious to avoid any slogan or obvious message mainly because the subject of the project has tendency to move toward general themes  and issues that are usually expressed by feminism.  In…

  • Bitter Ending, an Iranian Short Story

    Nobody can even think of ignoring the three decades of social, political and psychological turbulence in Iranian society. The combination of  Iran’s social mobility and demographic behavior has resulted in nothing but uncertainty. To make it more interesting, add the short story “Bitter Ending”  jam-packed with skepticism by Vahid Sharifian, the acclaimed Iranian conceptual Artist.…

  • Roger Waters supports  Boycott on Israel

    Roger Waters supports Boycott on Israel

    After visiting Israel in 2005 and the West Bank the following year, I was deeply moved and concerned by what I saw, and determined to add my voice to those searching for an equitable and lawful solution to the problem – for both Palestinians and Jews. Given my upbringing, I really had no choice. In…

  • Saudi Arabia's King of YouTube

    Alaa Wardi’s wiggling eyebrows and bushy hair are as recognizable as the madcap backdrops to his YouTube videos: the Technicolor Post-it wall from his cover of Lorde’s “Royals,” the floor-to-ceiling cardboard boxes from his interpretation of Rihanna’s “Stay,” and the patterned mattresses from the makeshift sound room where he has paid tribute to Arab singers…

  • Immigrants' Cartoonist

    The Albanian painter, illustrator and cartoonist Agim Sulaj, first started working in the political and satirical magazine “Hosteni”, producing illustrations and caricatures. At the same time, he was developing the skill of hyperrealistic painting. Agim Sulaj presented his artworks at his first individual exhibition in the National Gallery in Tirana in 1986. In 1994 he…

  • َAlpha and Beta Men

    Arnold Schwarzenegger used to hold the record for having arms that measured the exact same size, and from an athlete to an actor.  Arnold’s body has been the subject of envy among many men. Is it his muscles those envious eyes are looking at, or simply the sex appeal his body had among women, that…

  • History of Drinking Wine in Iran

    History of Drinking Wine in Iran

      From archaeological excavations that suggest northwest Iran was one of the earliest places where wine was produced — more than 6,000 years ago — to the tale of medieval French knights bringing grapes from the city of Shiraz, where the great Persian poet Hafez lived and wrote about his love of drink, there are…

  • Reza Ghassemi, "The Spell Chanted by Lambs"

    Reza Ghassemi has written and stages many plays first of which was at the age of eighteen. Before the Islamic revolution his plays won prestigious awards in Iran, but after the revolution they were banned from the theater. This, among other reasons, encouraged him to immigrate to France where he pursued his career as a…

  • Man in the Mirror

    In his own words, Hossain Rad’s poetry is “the struggles of a bare man in the mirror, with his emotions and sensitivities, so raw, so untouched… “We borrow our souls from women,” He explains, “just like goddesses … We care, we evolve into them so deeply, letting them becoming a part of us, and we…

  • Why We Find Some Languages More Beautiful Than Others.

    Don’t judgments about a language’s beauty or ugliness generally depend on our personal experiences with people who speak it, and the associations it evokes? Brazilian Portuguese is considered especially soft and melodic – and it inspires thoughts of the bossa nova and Copacabana. Spanish calls up visions of flamenco, bullfights, and – maybe – especially…

  • Why Are Va… Important To You

    Here’s a video from the kids at Connecticut College who asked 100 of the men at their college to explain why they think that vaginas are important as a part of a campaign for V Day. The results are hilarious and heartwarming, with answers ranging from “vaginas are beautiful” to “I spent some time in…

  • DJ of Your Serendipity – Jun Miyake

    DJ of Your Serendipity – Jun Miyake

    To introduce you to a unique and different style of musical composition, I have chosen this special piece, Lilies in the Valley, a musical score by Jun Miyake. Miyake is a successful Japanese composer, trumpeter and a UC Berkley graduate, with thirteen solo albums and lots of movie scores and soundtracks to his name. Lilies…

  • Philip Roth: The novelist’s obsession is with language

    Philip Roth‘s 1979 classic, The Ghost Writer, will be spotlighted at Stanford at a February 25 “Another Look” book club event (see below here). Cynthia Haven interviewed the author in preparation for the event. His weapon-of-choice was the email interview, rather than a telephone conversation. Roth was precise, nuanced and to the point. He turned…

  • The love of stuff

    We’ve got used to the transitory nature of our possessions, the way things are routinely swept aside and replaced – whether it’s last season’s cut of jeans or computers that mysteriously slow down as if clogged by quick-drying cement. It’s one of the challenges facing the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, whose chief…

  • Do the Dead Live On In Facebook?

    Think of how rich and deeply personal your online persona has become. Now think of what will happen to it when you die. Until very recently, this question used to feel unusual or irrelevant for all but a tiny, ultrawired slice of the population. In a New York Times Magazine feature about online death last…

  • Ukraine, Putin, and the West

    Perhaps the way to put it is that an intellectual mistake was turned into a political mistake. The intellectual mistake was to fixate on Putin as the bad man who came along and suddenly undid the good work of Boris Yeltsin. (Bill Clinton’s Russia hand Strobe Talbott the other day tweeted an inadvertent reductio ad…

  • At the End of 8th Street

    With her brother on the death row for murder, Niloofar, Taraneh Alidoosti, has only three days, to come up with blood money, Diya, to be paid to the victim’s next of kin, or her brother will be executed. This is the main story around which a series of events take place in the movie, the…

  • Elevating Celebrity Portraiture to an Art

    “I’m more interested in being good than being famous,” the photographer Annie Leibovitz has said. But by elevating celebrity portraiture to an art, she has become as renowned as many of her subjects. Her first Experience as a professional photographer was in her college years when the Rolling Stone, hired her to take a portrait…

  • What Color is Tuesday? Exploring Synesthesia

    How does one experience synesthesia? The neurological trait that combines two or more senses? Synesthetes may taste the number 9 or attach a color to each day of the week. Richard E. Cytowic explains the fascinating world of entangled senses and why we may all have just a touch of synesthesia. Lesson by Richard E.…

  • Dystopian Trilogy for Teens

    Veronica Roth (born August 19, 1988) is an American author known for her debut New York times best selling novels Divergent and Insurgent. Her third book titled Allegiant, completing the Divergent trilogy, was released last year. She is the recipient of the Goodreads Favorite Book of 2011 and the 2012 winner for Best Young Adult…

  • Disease are Culture Makers

    Disease are Culture Makers

      The threat of disease is not uniform around the world. In general, higher, colder, and drier regions have fewer infectious diseases than warmer, wetter climates. To survive, people in this latter sort of terrain must withstand a higher degree of “pathogen stress.” Thornhill and his colleagues theorize that, over time, the pathogen stress endemic…

  • Why Some people Are Always Miserable

    Why Some people Are Always Miserable

    In her article, The 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People, Family Therapist Cloe Madanes, gives us a road-map to misery, and successful self sabotage, even with complete exercises. I myself, mostly identified with number twelve in her list: Glorify or vilify the past. Glorifying the past is telling yourself how happy, fortunate life was before…

  • Endless fun

    Endless fun

    In the late 1700s, machinists started making music boxes: intricate little mechanisms that could play harmonies and melodies by themselves. Some incorporated bells, drums, organs, even violins, all coordinated by a rotating cylinder. The more ambitious examples were Lilliputian orchestras, such as the Panharmonicon, invented in Vienna in 1805, or the mass-produced Orchestrion that came…

  • Sex With Robots

    Sex With Robots

    Robots as companions and sex partners, have been the subject of much research and debate. The sex robot that knows your name, your likes and dislikes, your favorite sexual positions and is able to carry on a discussion & expresses her love to you & be your loving friend. Always turned on, and ready to…

  • DJ of Your Serendipity – 1

    DJ of Your Serendipity – 1

    I found the magazine very addictive then I thought that there will be many like minded people who love alternative music. So I sent my list of music and a bunch of short anecdotes that goes with it for the collaboration. There…I got the job. I will be the Dj of your very personal moments.…

  • Sogand, Iranian – German singer

    Sogand, Iranian – German singer

    Sogand was 5 years old when her Iranian parents moved to Germany. She is part of the ever extending diaspora communities all around the globe. In the world that in reality became a global village, the new generations of Diasporas grew up to love their motherland as much as being a proud citizen of host…

  • Mississippi John Hurt – Spike driver blues

    Mississippi John Hurt – Spike driver blues

    John Hurt sang of surprisingly violent and frank subjects in a disarmingly tender voice, coupled with an amazing technical mastery of guitar. This music will stay with you and is often quite moving and original, since it combines blues with elements and playing styles normally associated with “folk,” due to the fact that Hurt hardly…

  • The World Dances Without Iran

    The World Dances Without Iran

    A man from Seattle travels the globe to dance with people around the world. And every time I watch one of his dance videos, I get emotional, with tears in my eyes. I don’t know why, although I know it will never happen, every time, I wish and hope, the next country he visits will…