And thus the Big End commences

“ The creator seeks companions and fellow-reapers: for everything is ripe for the harvest with him. But he lacks the hundred sickles: so he plucks the ears of corn and is vexed.

And you, my first companion, rest in peace! I have buried you well in your hollow tree; I have hidden you well from the wolves.

But I leave you; the time has arrived. Between rosy dawn and rosy dawn there came to me a new truth.

I am not to be a shepherd, I am not to be a grave-digger. No longer will I speak to the people; for the last time I have spoken to the dead.

I will join the creators, the reapers, and the rejoicers: I will show them the rainbow, and all the steps to the Superman.

I will sing my song to the lonesome and to the twosome; and to whoever who still has ears for the unheard, I will make his heart heavy with my happiness.

I make for my goal, I follow my course; over the loitering and tardy I will leap. Thus let my on-going be their down-going! ”

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra's Prologue, 9.

J_ust



H^ow A_re Y^ou U_sed T^o R_ead?

What

Would You Say If I Told You I Would Write Like This Thenafter?

Quotes

“Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionaries.” --Franklin D. Roosevelt, before the Daughters of the American Revolution.

“Extremism means borders beyond which life ends, and a passion for extremism, in art and in politics,is a veiled longing for death.” --Milan Kundera.

“Loyalty... is a realization that America was born of revolt, flourished in dissent, became great through experimentation.” --Henry Steele Commager, Freedom, Loyalty, and Dissent.

“Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together in new shapes of our own choosing.” --George Orwell, 1984.

Found online at Rich Geib's Thoughts worth Thinking Page.

Quiescence versus Frustration

The mental picture of a perfect life I have always had in mind since very early in my childhood is tied very closely with quiescnece and tranquility: walking by a playground in an autumn afternoon, to go to, say, the library to read a book in the warming gleam of the setting sun; or the filling tone of a reposing music, again in the shadow of a dying day.

My inner intellectual gratification, on the other hand, is intertwined with creation: creating new forms of any thing, in a free and most of the time careless fashion; literary or scientific. And most ironically, creation directly translates into a state of perpetual frustration. The creator is frustrated over what s/he is creating. S/he seeks an unattainable perfection. S/he worries about every single detail of her/his creation.

So, here I am, swinging between the frustrating reality of my life, as a would-be scientist and a half-done poet, and my surreal image of quiescence.

Degree in English

All the authors interviewed with in the notebook seem to have done a degree in English or something like that. Only one of them, Esta Spalding, has done a B.A. in biology (premed) and then an M.A. in English.

So, is that a must?

Rain

I have started to cope with Vancouver's style of weather, after all!

The first year it was kind of interesting to get so much more rain than what I was used to. You know, I have grown up on the crest of a mountain, on the side where it descends to two big deserts, though far away. So, rain was always considered a happy incident, especially in the last couple of years when a drought had made us literally pray for the rain and cross our fingers in fear of a disastrous shortage of potable water.

The second year, after the fascination was all soaked up in the frequent showers of the new city and then always wet even on sunny days, I started to get bored and depressed of the never-leaving full clouds.

But this year, I've grown out of both the juvenile fascination and the impatient depression. I see the world -the wet, foggy world around me- in a different light. One day I realised I have made a shift in my feelings about my environment. I've started to see the biological roots of our association of weather conditions to moods, truth and beauty: sunny associates to nice; clear, blue sky to deep truth; and sun to a measure of absolute beauty, etc. How does a fish do this? Does it go like: wet -and perhaps slimy- translates to nice and good; cloud-covered, dark sky to truth; and water -anything moit perhaps- to the beauty? And this has made it a little arbitrary for me to make such associations.

I guess I've developed a fish part of me in these two years, since I'm enjoying the rain so much, and quite naturally.

Canada's Poet!

A flowing poem by Canada's first parliamentary poet laureate, George Bowering:

Van, Can

Sometimes in mid-April we fill our hot-tubs
with Perrier water, we are so pacific, west
coasting through spring, casting not a thought
to our poor cousins in Toronto, slogging

through dirty snow to their cute restaurants
with nifty names. Casting not a thought
but delivering an image if we can, posing
wisely as the people who were foresighted enough

to create a city with warm winters. Would anyone,
they ask in gelid Ottawa, live on the edge out there
except for the weather? This will make
a good enough question for a gentle poem to pose.

(Even in something that sounds like prose.)
Sitting in my Perrier water, nibbling on sushi,
I will respond-in time, in time. But first,
pass the pale wine. Listen to the peaceful wind

in the glass chimes. Put war from your mind.
Note yon billboard-it was commissioned
by an eastern firm. It tells us to buy snow tires
for a Canadian winter. It is a pretty billboard,

I like it. I just have no time for the fancy man
who insists our season past was not
Canadian. Not Canadian, he says, hardly glancing
at the Japanese plum blossoms. Not really Canadian,

that pretty whale. Not interesting, your poems
with no snow, no stoic drone. Take off your pants,
I say, and step into this tub. Oh no you dont,
he says, I know every stereotype in your town.

Here's the story: there's no more truth in that story
than there is music in this poem. Why dont I
buckle down and fix it? Maybe I will, but
not right now-let's have a spinach salad

with avocado. Let's encourage those bristling
folk on Bloor Street, let them fancy we never think
but dance, never put on our pants, let chance
and the Japanese current whisper when our ship

comes in. Laden with little foreign cars. Light
as the touch of our soft flowing guilt.

Accidental Rhythms

-It's so cold here!
-I don't know about that.
-How come?
-Because I'm isolated from the world. I'm isolated since I don't know about the cold.

Childhood

Eversince I came to Canada, I have been wondering about the ways people from different parts of the world identify or differ with each other. It has occured many times when talking with friends and peers, that some people talked about a common childhood experience, such as a book or a cartoon series, and I had nothing to say, so stood just outside an invisible line, which grouped and separated them away from me. There have been moments of identification as well when I, too, have had a similar experience with a book or something nonlocal enough to connect us over the globe of Earth.

A few months ago I made a search in google on a book, with inaccurate keywords I managed to drag out of the abandoned corenrs of a fading memory and reached at a name: Erich Ohser; and today, I found, at Koala's father's, a set of books marked by a childhood passion: Vater und Sohn.

I borrowed the books, and in the car, on the way back home, found out it was actually partially rewritten by the persian translator and so was not truely Ohser's creation. Still, Ohser's drawings are so piercely influential that the spirit of the great man he was transcends the disappointment of finding out the tamperings.

Then the question popped out, considering the fact that the book is somehow international, do other people here around me know the book? Have they known it as kids? Do they identify with me in the fascination I have for the book? And so on. That is something I eagerly want to know! It will be the first thing to talk about tomorrow morning with the officemates in the office, or at lunch with others.

Not Exactly vs. TV

Not exactly a prompt link to a friend's post, although never late for the content!

Heaven

Heaven is a very smooth continuation of the late Krzysztof Kieslowski's works. Originally written by him and Krzysztof Piesiewicz and directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), Heaven explores a most spontaneous and riveting of relationships in an emotionally overloaded situation. The story is attractive and suspending, yet slow-paced and contemplating, somewhat close to Kieslowski's tri-couleur. A must-see!

Bollywood/Hollywood

We finally saw Deepa Mehta's newest movie, Bollywood/Hollywood which we couldn't make to in the festival. An elegant and clever mix of a hollywood (western) story happening in Toronto, within an indian family, and Bollywood film features, such as exaggerated dance scenes, the movie manages to satisfy the audiance with every scene, even through the closing credits.

The Dog and the Owner

Sometimes when walking around the house, to go to the station or to do shopping or rarely to just walk, I see people who are walking their dogs. I look at the dog, the owner and most of the times I'm amazed to see how much more intereting the dog is. Sometimes we throw a half-uttered "hi" to each other and rarely a half-joking comment about the weather, usually with a polite smile. That wraps up our interest in each other. But when it comes to the dog, I'm just dragged with its way of walking/running, its smelling curiosity, the way it looks, etc. It rarely happens that I show some gestural reaction but I see other people do so. They sit, or squat by the dog, affectionately pet the dog, and often times also exchange a few words of praise or astonishment about the cute dog with the owner. The owners are defined thourgh his/her dog. The last time on a similar occasion, I was struck by the thought that I, we others, may also be defined through our belongings, our coat, the pair of trousers we have on, or the glasses we wear. And these belongings determine the interest of the people around us in us, many of them our potential future friends. This is a most natural situation, and yet the thought of it gave me a shiver.

Never Do!

• Never sit at the computer right after you get home with your friend!


• Never tell your friend not to sit in a chair because you want to sit in it later!

Aïda

Last night, Koala and I saw the Vancouver Opera's production of Giuseppe Verdi's Aïda. Performance was good, the lead Soprano singer fabulous, and staging adequately well-done for a piece of this sort which mingles the garndeur of a war time and the delicate passages of individual emotion.

Now, there is something about the “opera” in general that has always troubled me:

The story has little actual time to develope and unfold fully, so it goes by highlights. There are turns and twists, all right, but I always feel unsatisfied by the story. In fact, in order to enjoy any opera I have gone to so far, I invariable had to immerse myself in the music itself, including the human voice. I first thought I have never enjoyed programme music but after a little search I realizd I admire many pieces of music that are regarded as programme music. So. But the unease with the story part of the opera still remains.

Where Are We From?

-“Um, I'm from Iran.”
-“Oh, you mean the city. The capital, Tehran.”
-“Yes, I'm an international student.”
-“Of course, I've done my paperwork. I'm on a student permit.”

...

When written this way, isolated from the environment (a birthday party) and the manner in which the questions were being asked (pretty polite) and the person who was asking them (boyfriend of a persian friend who's been here since she was 7 or 8), it is just like I have been to a criminal interrogation session. “How strange! Of course I'm on a visa,” I was repeating to myself and to Koala, and she to me and herself I suppose, on the way back home. No, it doesn't happen often at all. But when it does happen, it's so stinging it won't be simply washed off one's mind and/or memory. Have people really become so paranoid? Or do I (we) look so frightenning?! Huh, how strange! Of course I've done my paperwork!

Well, I mustn't complain much. I'm really only an international student. But what about a canadian citizen who just does not white enough to be traced back to northern Europe in the past 50 years? When they answer they are canadian, many are asked again: “Um, I meant originally. Where are you originally from?” Aha! Does this answer that question: “I guess I'm originally from somewhere in Africa about a few thousand years ago, just as well as you”?

I understand curiosity, making conversation, this, that. But there is a pattern though. I almost never ask this question. At least not among the first ten questions I ask in the beginning of a new acquintance. Not out of curiosity, making converstaion, or whatever. But I'm almost always asked this question. Koala is aksed the same question.

Anyways, I'm so sick of this question. Why not asking about my hubbies, my favourite authors, peots, movies, pieces of music, etc., etc. I guess Saint-Exupéry has not yet been read by those who start with “Where are you from?” or already been forgotten.

Whatever Happened to the Schedule?

Oh yeah, schedule. The sleeping schedule. Well, this is what happened:

I managed to keet it up for 72 hours. The first day, I simply didn't sleep because I had too much to do, and I wasn't sure yet how I wanted to do it. Then at midnight I slept for three hours from 12am to 3am. I wrote about it then. I was supposed to sleep again at 9:30am and then at 5:30pm each time for 1.5 hours. I slept from 10am to 11:30am which wasn't bad at all. But in the afternoon I had to rush to the film festival screeings of the day, and didn't manage to get any sleep on the shaking bus, but only a few minutes of a very shallow nap. At midnight I did sleep for another 3 hours, but in the next morning I didn't sleep up until 11:30am and then forced myself to get up at 12:30pm since I had to be at school at 1:30pm. In the afternoon I tried to sleep my scheduled 1.5 hours in the lunch room, and indeed managed to get about 1 hour sleep I guess. But the defeat came through, crawling at night. I woke up only after a good 7.5 hours of sleep and the alarm couldn't help it either.

So, I was defeated. Right, I couldn't keep up with my schedule. I was too tired all the time, which I'd like to blame on it being the first days of a first attempt. But now after several days, I feel so much reluctance to go back to the experiment that I don't think will try it in the next few weeks. Maybe I should just cut down on my regular sleep chunk of the night. For now at least.

Festival Rolling X


Irreversible by Gaspar Noë.

A reverse chronological, graphic and shocking story of a girl's deadly rape and her boyfriend's persuit of revenge all in one dark night. When the director adds to this horrible story shaky, spinning camera shots and time-to-time dazzlingly direct light of whatever light sources he finds at the scenes, the movie easliy surpasses the border of the tolerance of the average audience and pushes the visual limits of the professional movie-goer, to say the least. BBC reported 250 people walked out of the film's screening at Cannes, quite a few of them needing medical attention, including 20 who fainted!

The range of the feelings evoked by the movie is so wide talking about one of them sounds just impossible. Anger. Violence. Revolt. Disgust. Giddiness. Astonishment. Laugh. Amusement. Helplessness. Violation. Affection. Comfort. Love. Ease. Expectation. Elevation. This is what I went through chronologically. From hell to paradise.

The synopsis given by the director:

“Irreversible. Because time destroys everything. Because some acts are irreparable. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished. Because the loss of a loved one destroys like lightning. Because love is the source of life. Because all history is written in sperm and blood. Because in a good world. Because premonitions do not alter the course of events. Because time reveals everything. The best and the worst.”

Festival Rolling IX


The Trials of Henry Kissinger by Eugene Jarecki.

The movie explores the question "Is Henry Kissinger a war criminal?" and in doing so studies three cases of mass killing of inncent civilians of which Henry Kissinger could more or less directly be accused: Cambodian war initiated, against the US constitution, in Nixon's presidency under Kissinger's direct advice which eventually led to the genocide carried out by the Red Khmers during the period between 1975 to 1979, who took over the choatic country left behind by the US war, killing about 1.7 million civilians; Indonesian invasian of East Timor in 1975 with the US green light given by Kissinger in a meeting with Suharto just few days before, again against the american law, with american weapon sold to Indonesia for the sole purpose of self-defence; and the political assassination of the Chile's army commander-in-chief, Rene Schneider, in 1970, and then the coup in Chile which resulted in the alleged murder of the democratically elected president, Salvadore Allende, and eventually loss of the lives of tens of thousands human beings. A well-done documentary definitely worth watching.


A Peck on the Cheek by Mani Ratnam.

A bollywood comedy-drama account of the current ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. The camera-work is brilliant. In the beginning, the movie also shows promising admixture of dramatic elemnts with the conventional bollywood song singing clips, which are taken to a new level in their set design as well. But in the second half of the movie, raw sensationalism takes over and the movie ends with a definitive stroke of an emotional parted-mom-and-daughter-revisit scene from whish it never recovers.

Breakthrough Sleeping Schedule!

Having the possibility of a new sleeping schedule in mind and then again being reminded of it by Trevor Hill I decided to make an experiment parallel to that of Trevor's: Sleeping 3-or-4 times a day, each time only 1.5 hours. I have read or so recollect that 1.5 hours is the natural time needed for a complete sleep cycle, hence the portions' length.

But to get used to such a gladiator like schedule one has to rehearse! I decided to reduce my sleeping time to 3 hours for now, and gradually make it into 1.5 hours. Last night I went to bed slightly before 12am, and got up at 3am. I was a little sleepy but since I had real work to do -last load of the notorious editting job- I managed to stay up with the help of a cup of coffee. My next sleep would be at about 9:30am till 11am, then 5:30pm till 6:30pm (I'm going to watch two movies tonight, starting 7:00pm) and then another 3-hour sleep at night.

Let's see what will come out of this!!

Festival Rolling VIII


Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity by Mina Shum.

I'll write about this soon! Okay, here it goes:

An optimistic movie about the relationships and the connected mesh of the human society. Mina Shum tells 3 parallel stories, with a touch of surrealism and symbolism of the kind found in Amélie. The direction and the story both have an air of grace which suits the kind of worldview the movie presents, the former due to the director's charm and the latter thanks to the 12-year-old Valerie Tian. A very good work for a young director, and the cast as well.

Festival Rolling VII


Kedma by Amos Gitaï.

A patient, slow-paced retrospect of the roots of the state of Israel in 1948, Amos Gitaï chooses the arrival of a group of immigrants on a ship named Kedma (meaning ‘toward the east’) , and their first few hours in the prmised land of Palestine to contemplate in vivid, honest images his country's history. The pace is deliberately slow so much that the whole movie hardly covers a day-long time period, but it is very well suited for a contemplation of this sort in a troubled time when the fast pace of events has become the norm. What Gitaï succeeds in showing most clearly is the deep roots of a conflict that has wrecked both Jews and Arabs today.


Ten by Abbas Kiarostami.

Ten is an intriguing movie. Kiarostami explores the abilities of digital camera by mounting it at two fixed angles on the dashboard of a car, showing us almost only the driver's and the passenger's faces. Such a stationary structure surprises by its moving content. The driver is a young iranian divorcée, recently remarried, whose conversations wit a son, sisters, a young and an old woman makes up the ten episodes of the movie. The performance taken from the kid is astonishingly natural, and other characters also appear to be just playing their everyday lives. Kiarostami opens an eye through the little gap of its two fixed digital cameras on the mundane facts of the Iran's capital life as experienced by a typical middle-class woman. The plots are so natural no one can find a better way of experiencing the knotted, contradictory complexity of such a woman's life in Iran from outside. The flow is of the scenes is smooth and the dialogues are, at least to the iranian audience, courageous and funny, though familiar at the same time.


Cry-Woman by Bingjian Liu.

A story of survival amidst an economic and social chaos, taped outside the official rules of China's film code. The movie reveals a richness of situations and traditions, and in beng so is also very spontanuous. This spontaneity is enhanced by the major role's character who, in order to survive in an uncaring crowd, has to decide quickly. This makes it a bit hard to keep track of the time in the consecutive scenes, and renders a few stages of the story superficial, but the movie is still a strong and successful depiction of the social and cultural context it pictures. The cast are all unprofessional first-time actors and the directors manages to take a reasonably good performances from all of them, especially a two-year-old girl who is abandoned by her family.

Minor Disappointment

It was there,
charming, calm, virtual.
It was rolling
in prosaic oblivion
unaware of my existance.
It was calling
for trying my chances,
for putting a step forward.

Words came out of my fingers,
bearing a statuesque desire.
They folded, molded, shrieked
into layers, wires, voices.
Connections were made
in their swirling
one after another.
An image was formed
shining my face
off its silver skin.

I'm there,
content, silent, soothed.
I'm rolling
in proses and verses
on ripples of words upon words.
I'm calling
for dreams to queue,
for wishes to come true.

Shadows come out of my corpse,
holding deep breaths.
They swell, dwell, fade
into puffs, bubbles, indistinct ghosts.

I look back.
I'm wiped
off its face.

Festival Rolling VI


Blind Spot. Hitler's Secretary by André Heller, Othmar Schmiderer.

A unique 90-minute interview with the 81-year-old former secretary of Hitler (from 1943 to 1945) in her last living year, this documentary opens up an opportunity to view that horrible era from inside the locus of the infamous Führer itself. This is the only and last time Traudle Junge tells her stroy, after a life long silence. The little stories told by her don't sound new but show two things clearly: First, that even a person as notoriously pernicious as Hitler has a human face; Second, that his life was very much detached and isolated from the aweful reality he and his party were responsible for. So as Miss Junge points out herself, she was at the nerve knot of the events, the Blind Spot.


Women's Prison by Manijeh Hekmat.

A brave look by a women's rights activist, Manijeh Hekmat, into the feminine side of one of Iran's infamous prisons, spread over a 17-year-long time period. Choosing a very controversial theme such as women's perison in Iran's today's society naturally leads to a plathora of social and political issues that can be addressed. Of course not many of these issues could be addressed in the limited time span of a movie. But in Hekmat's movie almost all such issues are somehow swept to the background and the actual story is dedicated to the recurring rhetorics of authority and resistance between the head ward, Tahereh (Roya Taymourian), and one of the prisoners, Mitra (Roya Nonahali). This story is then devided up to three snap shots, each relying on one supporting role, all played by Hekmat's own daughter (Pegah Ahangarani), and consisting of a series of smaller stories much like the anecdotes many prisoners have to tell when asked about their prison time. The fluidness of this structure makes it a little hard for the movie to make a strong impression about its subject matter, although it certainly conveys the wretchedness of the situation.

Putting this and some other technical weaknesses (like the sound recording which sounds very artificial at times or some camera shots), the movie shows strong performances by Roya Nonahali and Pegah Ahangarni. It's also a very bold try, in spite of its final lenience toward the ward which seems a little out of obligation, in portraying the increasing population of prisoners (hence the crime rate), their decaying social attitudes, corruption, prostitution, addiction and also dysfunctions of the system 22 years after a revolution promising to erase exactly these very problems.

Festival Rolling V


Walking on Water by Tony Ayres.

A window into the grief of friends' and relatives' loss of a loved one to a crawling illness, one that successfully avoids the conventional look at the glorious pasts with the usual sensational gloss, remaining far from any sentimentalism. It's a straight and far-reaching investigation of human reactions and his/her defensive, unconscious responses to such serious situations, also taking a peek at the issue of euthanasia. There is a witty and very much needed use of sense of humour that decreases the gravity of the moments, without which the time spent to watch the movie would have been as unbearable as that of ‘Dead Man Walking’

Festival Rolling IV


Nothing More by Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti.

The movie evolves around a girl who stamps letters at a post office and her growing habbit, to get around the boring job, of fixing letters! She does not just fix the letters but she replaces them with some real literary pieces. The movie is abound with unusual tricks from silent-movie era to free animation handling of the pictures. The imagery of the movie, sometimes topped with the girl's readouts of the letters she writes, which near poetic verse, is enticing. Some shots would make for wonderful works of photography. The style of the camera and the set-up of the scenes are eyepleasing. The poetry of the images and words is soaked in an exaggerated comedy that seems unfit and bored at times, but is still able to make a few laughters. Some elements of the stroy are hovering loose in the air and the ending looks a little cliché but the delightful images save the movie.

Festival Rolling III


Autumn Spring by Vladimír Michálek.
Winner: Best Film, Director, Actor and Actress, Czech Lion 2001.

A light-hearted comedy that, along with its main character, a 70-some-year-old man who is continuously making practical jokes, escapes death by getting out the fun and silliness of life, set for the dreams never to come true. But if the dreams couldn't be reached at, does it mean we can't just pretend to already have reached them either? It's this question which the movie subtly answers in its full colors, putting forth a beautiful look at the lives of aged people. I enjoyed every single shot of the movie, and when walking out of the theatre was thinking how uniquely czech it was!


I'm Taraneh, 15 by Rassul Sadr-Ameli.
Winner: Best Actress & Special Jury Prize, 55th Locarno Film Festival.

The movie promises to follow the steps of a girl, a 15-year-old as the tilte says, when it starts behind her walking through a long corridor. Soon, though, the clichés of a meager, raw teenager stroy wobbling around the main character surface. Full of unnecessary dialogues and scenes that I suppose are meant to convey a half-developed series of feelings, but totally fail to do so, the movie and its story go nowhere but far away from the reality of the iranian society. As an insider, I found the movie unforgivably hiding, or at least carelessly ignoring numerous facts of the social structure just to finish an easy-to-forget story with an uncooked symbolism of the sort one makes up and soon throws away when passing through the few years enveloping the beginning of ones 20's.


Divine Intervention by Elia Suleiman.
Winner: Prix du Jury, Prix de la Critique, Cannes 2002.

A tasteful collage of little, everyday-life stories wrapped with a war-zone love-story and a fashionable computer-operated special feature. The artistry of Elia Suleiman is in telling a multi-layered story of a troubled land in less than a page of dialogues or two. The movie weaves a series of weird, laughable moments into a poetic surrealism I coudn't avoid fully immersing in. The political statement of the movie is somehow more emphasized than that of No Man's Land, but it still stands within the limits of the pacifist. I enjoyed the movie even as the last of my load of three, after an unberable 110-minute chattering (see I'm Taraneh, 15, above). Most Liked Scene: The hands of two parted lovers caressing in and around each other, as they sit still in the front seats of a car just across the isreali check point between Ram-allah and Jeruselam.

Festival Rolling II

Watching three movies in a row was a little breathtaking! One has to have a well-balanced plan of renewing one's breath in between movies.


19 Months by Randall Cole.

A fake documentry on the course of the lives of a couple who decide to break up gradually when they enter the 19th month of their relationship, it being the expiry date of the romantic love announced by a schientific study. The plan goes awry right away, etc. The movie is laughable, but lacks full developement of the ideas behind, so that it seems a little long for its content, even though it's only 77 minutes long.


The Tree That Remembers by Masoud Raouf.

A collection of interviews with former political prisoners of the Islamic Republic in Iran who now live as refugees in Canada, inspired by the suicide of one such refugee. Masoud Raouf manages to put together a historically valuable account of what has gone with those politically active youngsters who were not and refused to be part of the flow that swept to the power after the 1979 revolution in Iran with a touch of the painter and the photograher.


Salam Iran: A Persain Letter by Jean-Daniel Lafond.

A much-anticipated outsider's look into the contradictions of the self-proclaimed Islamic Motherland, Lafond's documentary follows a very well-developed set of steps, triguerred by his iranian friend's return to Iran after 18 years of involuntary exile in Québec, Canada, to show different aspects of the social conservatism of Iran and its demographical self-conflict: a huge 70-percent youth poulation thirsty for unpractised individual freedoms.


The Man Without A Past by Aki Kaurismäki.
Winner: Grand Prix, Cannes 2002.

An enjoyable story set in a slightly surrealistic setting, makes The Man Without A Past a perfect delight for a Sunday afternoon.

Festival Rolling I


Our Times by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad.

A great documentary, picturing the atmosphere as well as the feeling of being a youngster in Iran, now, where 2/3 of the population are the youth under 20-some years of age. Starting with the 2nd presedential election as the main theme to be recurred throughout the film, the director goes around talking with some of the 48 female candidates who were eventually disqualified by the Gaurdian Council, since it is inconstitutional in iran to have a female president. The film gets especially invloved with one of them, Arezoo Bayat, a single mother raising a daughter and caring for her blind mother at the same time who is also in serious need to finding a new place to move into, one that is affordable with her meager monthly salary, even though she works two jobs, and not too inaccessible for her kid and blind mom. The account of this urgent 3-day search that ironically ends on the election day is the everyday life of many single mothers in Iran, including my own. The film gave me the feeling of frustration that has now become history to me after two years of a laid-back student life here in Canada, the frustration that a whole generation, a whole country is living moment by moment struggling for their basic civic rights.


Bowling For Columbine by Michael Moore.

A brilliant 132-minute masterpiece that unfolds the simple links of it all about guns in the USA. Setting off on just another normal day, Michael Moore's mastery of reasoning and style combined with his bold, yet straight forward and to-the-point appraoch to the subject and people, from the street guy to the celebrity, kept me -in fact, us, a theatre-full of people- amazed and totally unaware of time and space. No more words, as none can just grasp the dimensions of it. Must see for yourself. Do NOT miss it.

Film Festival

I'm going to see quite a few films of Vancouver International Film Festivals. About 18 in two weeks. The festival starts today with an opening Gala, eight women, which also opens in a theatre, Fifth Avenue, tomorrow. How absurd! Who is going to pay $25 for it then?

Huh! Hopefully I will have some new entries for the list of the movies I'v liked!

Edge

I couldn't contain
my lavishly pleased senses,
walking my usual path
at an unusual time,
succumbing my face to the gentle touch
of the afternoon breeze
of the falling season.

Fall it is called, but it's only
the rise of maturity
in the repeated cycle of years,
growing out of
the blossoming adolescence of springtime and
the fiery youth of summer.

Beneath the warm ashes of
the reluctantly gone summer
was, all of a sudden, lurking
the worry of my life -my mom-
pointing out to me
the edge of knife
I was strolling upon,
blissfully looking only at the bright side,
defensively ignoring
the undue asphalt and
the unwelcome noise and pollution of
the hurried high-way
on the other side.

There in the near horizon
appeared the inhibiting silhouette of
a spider sure of its daily prey;
my regular walking end point:
cement-cold, venous
skytrain station.

Differences

Yes, there are similarities but so many differences too. Freedom is only one, which I couldn't help mentioning even in the rush of unbearable feelings of similarities. I couldn't know about the US in fact, but here in the upper band of Northwest America, I see: tolerance, prudence, collective reason, hard-work and contructive look to the life to name just a few. Talk about destruction, you get a frown; talk about construction, you get a smile. Oh, sure there are cracks and defects, but where isn't there? What counts is how you deal with them.

And I had this question to ask myself, as I was thinking about the fuss the US has made all the past year, and many years before: what if there was an attack on this city that I love? would I be as (self-)critical as I am now? Maybe not. Feelings woud surge and fuzz the reason, but I wouldn't go blow my sword all over the world. Isn't it all about the peace?

You want peace? Don't make wars then!

Similarities

Ever since I saw, for the first time, G.W. Bush giving a speech on TV, this striking idea has been growing in me how similar he acts and speaks to the one very man who sits in the absolute opposite to whatever he could say in the political arena: Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of I.R. of Iran. The political enmities of these two personae aside, I cannot help seeing all their detailed similarities when talking, when arguing, and when making certain gestures, from body gestures to political, figurative gestures. The question that has bothered me for quite some time is whether this means any thing as to the political situation the US now finds itself in.

These days, this question has become a terrible pound in my head, as these similarities have gone far beyond the personal level of the top political figures, making their way into the media as well. Now, I turn on the TV set and see that almost all of some forty (and probably more in fact) channels show long programmes about September 11th in their whole 24-hour air times. They have made and are making documentries, showing again and again the horrifying collisions of those planes and their unfortunate passengers with the twin towers and then talk to the people who were around or the fire fighters who faced the tragic events, intercepted with the truly empty words of the president Walker Bush about the freedom and the way it was (and is) going to be defended. These are very touching programmes indeed, but not to me. I just see the similarities to those old programmes of my childhood and adolescence, a little deeper beneath the thin skin of sensationalism they wrap them with.

I remember those long TV programmes that had occupied the short air times (about six hours) of the limited TV channels (only two) there were in Iran during the war (with Iraq) and then way after it was over, about the war and its casualties, and the rock-strong faith of our fighters and sacred martyrs that was going to eventually open the way of Quds all over through the heart of criminal, unrightful Saddam, intercepted with golden exerpts of the Great Leader's speeches. And then all the anti-american, anti-Israeli, anti-whatever demontsrations and the fuss they would make about them for weeks and weeks on. Again sensationalism was a key ingredient.

There is one big difference though, which I hope prevents all this crap from taking over the whole atmosphere of the so-called free world, and that is the freedom itself. I saw many people in the blogosphere and elsewhere who voiced their different opinions about the truth that lies buried below these endeavours of the mainstream media. And I hope this freedom of speech, as being practised frequently, undoes the ruining effects of the misleading and inverted picture of the world the media are promoting in favour of some political and economic benfits of their own. And I hope these similarities do not mean, in the longer run, anything close to what they meant for us in Iran during that horrible period of bloodshed (and still do now) in the name of officially sacred beliefs, and as a result of an imposed sensational look to the world.

Back to Normal

After a self-destructive struggle with the blogging rush which resulted in the Duck's blogging principles, I'm getting back to normal. Now I feel quite at ease with the concept and feel it has found its right place in my life. So, I'm going to go one step closer to the norm: I'll resume the commenting option below the posts as a regular hereafter.

The trigger for the blogging principles was the horrifying feeling of publicity which I felt I was being drawned upon. I absolutely hated it and still do. Although the strict measures I took freed me from the gnawing worries of losing my individuality to the devouring sociality of the www, but also made this weblog a little disfunctional. After all, this is about telling things in the public and hearing back, isn't it? So, now that I feel normal, there is no more reason to hold back.

Free

Finally, the last of the modules I was editting is done. And it will be the last one ever. I can't take it any more, sitting at my desk, totallly uninterested in all the pages that rest in front of me, counting the remaining ones, instead of reviewing the ones I have already editted for a less erronous completed job. All that ends here. Now, I'm free to shape my days at my own will. Well, sort of!

Blue Velvet

We saw, Blue Velvet, a movie by David Lynch. A strong, photographic and funny account of the unforeseen capabilities of human being in pushing the limits of his/her experience, through a detective story. The cast is brilliant, and the scenes are strong. The style is neat. The cut is witty and clever. And the content? The content is controversial, at the least. Many liked the movie, and many did not (read Roger Ebert's first reaction to the movie and his follow-up among those who didn't). I liked the movie. Oh, yes, that's why I'm writing about it here!

Learning English by Negation

Today I found a collection of words -of accidental wits and wisdom- which could be very helpful for learning English, at some advanced level. The collection is called “The Complete Bushism” and to improve one's English through it, one must apply a negation method: whatever word or expression seems suspicious or is not familiar, exactly that, one should not use in English. Here are my three favourite quotes:

• “I'm a patient man. And when I say I'm a patient man, I mean I'm a patient man.”


• “There's no bigger task than protecting the homeland of our country.”


• “The public education system in America is one of the most important foundations of our democracy. After all, it is where children from all over America learn to be responsible citizens, and learn to have the skills necessary to take advantage of our fantastic opportunistic society.”—Santa Clara, Calif., May 1, 2002

Dream

I dreamt of an absolutely fantastic dream last night. I was on a kind of spaceship. It was like a miniature planet, and we were a bunch of people rushing into the unknown space, as it seemed, in a quest for new lands or an inhabitable planet. There was a pecular reason why we could navigate the space at such an incredibly high speed, and it was that they had cut out an ablong piece of the Earth, spinned it around so that it had twisted over itself, assumed a spherical shape and also acquired this fantastic speed. After some time we were informed, as if through a devine voice, that we were not going to make it and would soon reach our end. I and a girl, towards whom I felt a sort of intimacy I could not express for the fear of other people's jelousy -was it Koala?- planned an escape from the doomed fate. There was an underground place, very much like a museum, that everyone believed was the source of some universe-governing power. We went down there pretending to be benign visitors and stole some very worthless objects: a few pebbles, a little soil, pieces of paper, etc. Then we went up and saw the control cabin was surrounded by roaring flows of water. There was a suspension bridge built close to the wall and with a few sparse logs which would lead to the cabin's door. The girl boldly went on the bridge and, hardly keeping her balance, reached the door and went in. Then, inspit of the fact that I couldn't see her, I saw her decide, after some struggle with herslef, not to finish the job, as if she was forced by some supernatural voice to see a higher-level picture we could not see before. She came back and this time I went into the cabin. And to my own surprise I also decided not to perform the task. But, in my case, it was a very simple decision, like succumbing to a relaxing passiveness. I came back too, and suddenly, the Sun came out from behind the clouds, reminding us of the forgootten fact that we had not seen the shining of the Sun for an eternity. Everywhere was dazzlingly bright and everything was still. I was feeling I was alive and healthy but not able to make a single move of a tiny muscle any longer.

Poverty

Poverty strikes back! I stopped using one of my credit cards, for the fearful prospect of not being able to pay it off soon. I had heard all this stories about evil credit cards that leash human souls and suck up their last drops of financial freedom but wouldn't believe that could just happen without the prior negligence of the poor soul who ended up there. That is true, in fact, I still don't think differently. What I had not thought of was the naturalness of this negligence! I did keep track of my shoppings and had even devised some biult-in reluctance towards using my credit card. But, it was enough to close my eyes and shut down that buit-in device for as short as 3 weeks, to become poor and in debt just like in those stories I had heard! And the bad thing is it came about so gradually and out of my control (or it seems so) I can't even say when it happened. But the worst thing is I don't like shopping at all! I wonder what would have happened if I had.

Anyway, this is it, it has happened and I can't help the past, can I? So, I'm going into a financial hibernation for a while, now!

Last One?

Yet another editting job, and time, like always, is running out. Would this be my last desperate and unwilling undertaking? I wish it would!

Stream of Thoughts along a Downtown Sidewalk

Predecessor: I'm sitting at a Starbucks café -no, I'm not a regular!- sipping a cheap light coffee and biting on a banana loaf. A forlorn, homeless woman is trying to persuade people to read a piece of paper and do her a favour -why did she have so many? She does not talk, maybe dumb? She makes some intense gestures at a passer-by, after being prevented from entering the café by someone -I wonder who he was!- and just then I realize it's the same woman whome I was looking at from behind at the lights a few minutes back. After being rejected by one more customer outside, she decides to go try some place else and crosses the street hurriedly on the red light, not from the crosswalk, nearly about to be hit by a car.

Facts: I have not been homeless. I have been feeling frustrated about accomodation for a couple years, some years ago, going from one place to another -one year we moved 4, no 5 times- always wondering if we could afford the new one. I have been feeling poor, once frustrated to the verge of hysteria. I have never really been in very poor conditions. I'm not rich now, but cannot say I'm poor any more, as evident from being able to blog almost regularly!

Thoughts:

1. The mass phenomenon of not respecting the law in third-world countries, like Iran, is the result of a serious and helpless feeling of detachment from and anger towards the society by individuals. There seems to be many people in Canada who would be very happy to take advantage of the opportunities while getting around the laws for personal benefits, but they'd still never cross a quiet street on the red light or if they do they'd have no moral justification for it when remarked on. But once left alone, helpless and frustrated by the society, who would care about the neat and stylish waiting for a green light to cross an even busy street? It is very naturally morally justified as well. I would not cross a quiet street on a red light, even in Iran, now that I think, not because I was too excited about respecting the law, but because I was feeling distinguished from the mass. The people who genuinely respect the law are not aggressive -not being aggressive does not mean being passive- about it; I was. Now I feel it's the most natural thing to wiat for the green light, and at the same time I feel integrated with the society I'm living in too; to some good extent, that is. I feel a very direct connection.


2. How far have I been from getting into the group of helplessly lonley and frustrated people? What would have happened if my mom had felt unable to continue on some hot summer Tuesday at noon, when I was six? I do not believe in deterministic philosophy in its simple-minded form, since I believe we are not simple particles of classical physics, and rather have a complex internal degrees of freedom, resulting in a complex flexibility and adaptablity -intelligence in short. But when I was a fragile kid, what would have happened if my mom had given in to the brutality of life at those unbearable moments?

Successor: I enjoyed a wonderful concert of amazing blends of different tunes from around the world played by the band, Jou-Tou (this is the best I could find about them). Am I just one more passive intellectual after all? I'd rather say observer, but whatever!

Noise to Signal Ratio

Each time I turn on the TV or tune to some random radio station (not the few ones whose contents I have already assessed and approved of!) I hear a blue streak of baloney about everything from sexual relationships to terrorism. I'm not a cynic normally, but can't bear loud, pretentious, narrow-minded accounts of the matters either.

Sometimes I wonder how could one ever hear a true voice, a single, timid, right-to-the-point voice in this stormy sea of loud noise, if not by sheer chance or from the high top of some academically honoured position.

Hm, now I am really a cynic. Now I'm not normal. I have to think of all the achievements of a free society, and believe there are ways that it hears its true, single, timid voices and honours them with high, overlooking positions, though not known to me - at least consciously.

Passion

Mix all the things you find yourself passionate about with the one thing you have chosen (or will choose) to be with for a time of order of a lifetime -it could be your profession or your partner for that matter. If you find yourslef unable to fulfill this simple prerequisite of feeling content, you have to change your mind about that thing being 'the' one, or will have no right to complain about the life and/or your fate! Don't doubt it: that's how that great contentment naturally comes about each time after making love.

Speech Errors

An interesting problem in linguistics is the structure of the word library or the lexicon of a speaker. It's especially difficult to figure out this structure since there is not much data about it. A possibly relevant data is the errors (native) speakers make while speaking, like switching two words in a sentence or linking together two lexically related words into another word. I'm not a native English speaker but as I use it extensively during the day, the same thing happens to me frequently too. There are reportedly many collections of these errors. Being so, my collection may not be of any pioneering interest but still is a fun thing I have been planning to do for quite some time. Here is my first entry:

Speech Error #1

Phrased:	We are interested in while watching!
Notes:	a in watching was going to be pronounced as in waking.
Spoken:	We are interetsed in while -um, ... whale watching.
Notes:	No particular precursor to the error was present. The whole senctence was clearly phrased the wrong way, but when speaking out, I picked up the error and corrected it, after a pause and a hint (`whale ...') from Koala.

Happy Birthday Duck!

Bending Trees

On sunny days, if a gentle breeze passes by, I get a wonderful view through our window: tall poplar trees, bending -almost dancing, with their leaves trembling in the breeze. Sometimes I put on a music, say a Bach piano piece (now: Goldberg Variations), and look through the window at the amazing random synchronizations of the trees, branches and leaves, with my inner-house music! This, if happened more frequently, could be a very good reason for me not to want to move away from the noise and disquiet of the nearby highway.

The extreme tallness of these trees, among the surrounding concrete high-rises, makes a wonderful composition, which gives me an impression of a competetion between the preset stillness of things and the adopting dynamism of living beings.

Voice of Voices

After some struggle among different options, now I feel I know what kind of voice and tone I am going to use here in my weblog. Hm, sounds like I'm trying to creat a literary work! Why should I have these struggles otherwise?!

Second Thought

On a second thought about my ducky statement of Blogging Principles, I feel it all derived from a negative reaction to blogging becoming just a generalized form of e-mail. In fact, I had seen many weblogs that were nothing but a web form of mass e-mails, and the fear of my own being or becoming like them, made me think of some preventing measures. There are many counter-examples though, basically showing that blogging, just like any other creative activity, reflects personalities. So, if there is anything to fear, it's the metamorphosis of personality into a shalow and typical imitation of the world around. Ah, how I admire originality!

It is, in fact, none of the written principles that I am reconsidering, but one that was never written, and yet I can see its presence all over that statement: "I won't talk to my readers (if any)!" You may even not guess at it by reading the statement. (I think I just relaxed this unsaid defensive tactic! Hurray!) But it's going to be a different feeling without it sitting behind the whole 5 principles and the corollary: I like it much better now!

Contemplations on a Cloud

It's so beautiful,
yet so sad,
the hues of gray blue,
on the rash-swollen skin
      of a ready-to-water cloud.

Is the cloud unhappy
-I always wonder-
about its transitional existence, or
about its limited extension,
      which helplessly leaves the horizon open and bright,
or perhaps
with the people's attitude to its kind?

I am, but, always grateful
for the textured paintings
      that kindly await my eyes
      behind the curtains of our room.

Duck's 5 Principles of Blogging And a Corollary

Blogging, if shapeless and without principles, could be troublesome in various ways. I won't go into naming those troubles, conforming to the Duck's Blogging Principle No. 2.

Noting thus, I will write down, for my own recollection, Duck's Blogging Principles as follows:

1. Duck's Blog is defined as a set of personal notes, which, for various reasons, most notably author's personal desire, are open for the world to read.

Corollary: These notes do not have a specific addressee, nonetheless they like to be read.

2. Wordy notes are strongly discouraged.

3. Visitors' counter won't be used.

4. Commenting for posts is eliminated and will only be used for a post, if seen necessary by the author.

5. When there is nothing to be posted, there is nothing to be posted.

Seeing Thirteen Conversations About One Thing was a great pleasure: I like the movies that seem to go slow but never bore one, that seem to be talking most of the time but keep one focused till the end and even after, that intertwine conversations and music in such a way that one feels the music is part of the conversations as well, and not just a topping to give a glossy look to the scene. When the movie ended Koala asked for the rest. Though we knew there could be no true end to what we were seeing, but it was so absorbing we couldn't accept we had to continue it ourselves. I had two feelings along the movie: First, I felt I was reading a book in fact, with the same absorption and concentration and silence; and second, I was feeling the music, by Alex Wurman, was just like the one you would like to listen to while reading a book, except that it was being played at exactly the right times to be itself part of the book.

It's a long time I haven't written my weblog: Bored with the infamous editting, with all my energy squizzed out and my time management screwed up, I could do no such thing as writing meaningful weblogs. I got to the finish line yesterday, crawling on my elbows. Now, I'm in an agitated state of mind; I can't concentrate on what I want to do and that means the very backbone of my time management efforts, i.e. an efficient decision making, is broken! I have to eat!!

Last night, when giving a ride to a friend on our way back home, the car beside us, occupied with 4 frightening skin-heads, one of whom was looking investigatively at us at the last lights, hit a poor raccoon and sped off. Koala had seen the poor animal from far away, and we stopped right in front of the injured animal. Another car also stopped in the other lane. Poor raccoon perished in front of our unbelieving eyes. Koala was so desparate. She got out of the car and was trying to detour the coming cars, not to run over the poor animal, while repeating "What can I do?" It was a terrible, terrible scene. There was nothing we could do. We tried to call some animal emergency center but the city had opted out, and when I got off the car to bring Koala back, I saw probably the last breath of the poor ex-living being who had fallen a victim to the ignorance of a group of human-beings in their cold, fast, metal wheels. Koala wept all the way to home, and Duck was wondering how fragile the life is.

Here it goes: Google! DayPop! This is my blogchalk: Persian/English, Canada, Vancouver, Duck, Male, 21-25!

Je viens de voir Code Inconnu, un film du directeur autrichien, Michael Haneke, qui a créé La Pianiste l'anée dernière.
Je n'aimais pas La Pianiste. Je l'ai trouvé trop beaucoup inquiétant, trop masochist pour être supporté, malgré le bon style cinématographique et les jeus forts de l'actrice et l'acteur.
Mais Code Inconnu, un mélange extraodinaire des images immobiles, les coups longs pas interrompus et les histoires paralléles de quatre groups de gens, est bien aimable! Après la séance, on a parlé de différents parts de film, esseyant de ressembler les morceux dispersès du puzzle visuel que nous avions vu.
Alors, j'encourage à voir Code Inconnu, mais pas La Pianiste à moins qu'on veut voir un examen vraiment inquiétant des coins noirs d'être humain.

Editting?! It sucks! Especially for a duck like me. Unless the duck's motivated by an ambitious prospect which at the same time satisfies some deep level of selfishness! But clearly I can't resolve such a prospect for this editing job, although it seemed to have the potential in the beginning. So, now I'm just making some money ....

Today, I discovered I could quack into the microphone and my computer would write it down, just like a typist. This is one of the features included in the new MS Office XP. It was such an exitement for a duck, that I spent the rest of the day in front of the computer quacking into the mic, and getting the feeling that computers are getting really close to the limits (or maybe already past) of a real intelligence.

In fact, this is very sentence is written by my computer as I dictated it . It is unbelievable . There is only one mistake in here . All the punctuation are also dictated (even this one!) without using hands .

Why should one put an old stroy, an old novel, a piece, into modern settings?

I just saw The Great Expectations by Alfonso Curaón. I am hesitant to accept the idea of remaking a classic work using modern-day settings. It seems to have some advantages, I have to admit, such as a better potential to connect to the audiance, but it has its drawbacks as well: I feel kind of cheated by the scenes I see, because at each moment I hear a voice (maybe the original classic artist's!) say: "they took it away! They took all I had away from me!" I didn't enjoy the new Romeo and Julliette for instance. It sounded too fake for what I was used to from the old theatrical settings of the original piece.
But, there is one thing that I did greatly enjoy in the film of Curaón, and that was the great paintings the boy was supposedly creating. They are fabulous and the work of Fracesco Clemente. So, all in all, I did like this modern-day remake of Charles Dickens' The Great Expectations, but I still wonder why one should ...

Here: Don't forget to look at his paintings in Curaón's Great Expectations.

And I got to get my lazy ass on the chair and finish this editing job. Why should one ever ...? -Money!

Aujourd'hui j'ai perdu complétement le temps. Peut-être pas complétement: j'ai soumis nôtre article (enfin) certainement et j'ai regardé beaucoup, très beaucoup de mes videos français. Ça, c'est très utile bien sûre, mais, malgré tout, je me sens trop inutile. Je n'ai pas fait ce que je devais faire alors: faire de la physique. Je me sens très dérangé, sans ordre, sans un plan régulier et stable d'études et du travail. C'est une chose qui peut imposer des problèmes serieux à moi et ma carrière. C'etais toujours une question extrêmement importante comment d'éviter ceux moments-ci, les moments quand je ne trouve absolutement pas de seule goutte d'énergie pour commencer la journée ou la continuer. Est-qu'il y a une certaine méthode clinique pour les éviter, un moyen inteligent pour surmonter le puits immense émotif qui est là et mèmpêche de faire n'import quoi? Il faut y avoir quelque chose!

Huh! It's finally submitted: spin densities win! Now what? I have to get on with another one ...

A ragged week! It's shaking and shivering at the last moments, hesitating to finally give way to a much-wanted weekend. Shapes, so complicatedly nested and intertwined, it would be impossible to follow their lines even if they were seen in reality, hover around in my confused, tired mind ...

Oquack! I saw myself, not in the mirror. It looks nicer now!

I want to see myself! Not in the mirror ...

It's phenomenal! I mean, being published. Has any other duck done that before? I have to look at the ducky archives.