Contest!

That was the headline:
Iranian officials confirmed that the president of Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad, has written a letter to the president of the United States about some new solutions for the nuclear issue and the full contents of the letter will be disclosed as soon as the reception of this letter is announced by the White house officials.

I want to hold a contest here in my blog. What do you think the content of this letter would be?

Here are some suggestions.

1. Asking some serious incentives in order to keep the enrichment in the experimental level and transfer the real procedure to Russia. End of the story

2. Warning him about the consequences of a possible assault to Iran and explaining to him how the combination of “Imaan” and “Emdaad e Gheibi” could destroy the US army, like one that happened in “Tabas”

3. Explaining why Islam is the best religion in the world while Christianity, also not so bad but it’s no Islam! Furthermore inviting him to become a Muslim.


4. Lecturing him about the history of the US (like some predecessor did) and informing him about the Americans historical coolness.


5. A letter that begins with “Ajjall-al allah ta’aalaa va farajah o sharif”, continues with “Down to USA” and some “Down to Israel” for two full pages, back and front, and ends with “Nasr o men allah va fath on gharib”!

6. Asking him to send back the umbrella, he left behind in UN.

7. sending him a letter bomb.

But seriously, if you picked the first one, either you’ve been in comma for the past 10 months or you need to see a Doctor as soon as possible.

Ça Ira

Last night, I finally got my hand on the long-anticipated “Ça Ira”, Roger Waters first opera, an opera in English about the French revolution in three acts that had been occupied his mind for almost a decade.

Although I was excepting some kind of jubilation, almost the same ecstasy that I felt after listening to “Pros and Cons of hitch-hiking” or “Amused to Death” for the first time, what I felt was more a sense of disillusionment rather than anything close to a joyous one. Almost the same feeling that had when I was leaving the theatre, where I saw Woody Allen’s latest movie, “Match Point”, except then, I was accompanied by a lovely lady who lessened the pain dramatically!

While I still firmly believe that English is not a suitable language for the Opera, and this one strengthened my stand too, I’m not suggesting at all that “Ça Ira” is not a good piece of work. The same way that I absolutely do not think “Match Point” is a bad movie. Surly there are beautiful moments in this opera, “Marie Antoinette, the last night on earth” and “To the windward Isles” to name a few, and certainly “Match Point” has its brilliant scenes and of course traces of their styles can be found in both works (Ça Ira” is more Waters though than “Match Point” is Allen-ish!), but for God’s sake, there are hundreds, if not thousands, who are able to write a rather good opera or a well-constructed movie, but there are only two people on this planet who can make “Annie Hall” or “The Final Cut” and these two are better stop fooling around with this experimenting thing since unfortunately there are not in their twenties!

And if anytime we need a cheesy but relatively OK opera in English, we always have Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber to do so!

I recall somebody wrote in Leonard Bernstein’s remembrance that “There are so many people in the world who can conduct a Bruckner’s symphony as good as you did, but Music I heard with you (also one of his compositions) will not be repeated ever again!



P.S. I have to admit that I’ve only listened to 2 CD’s extract version and not the original 6 CD version but Since the extract versions usually comprise all the good arias, I doubt that the full version would change my mind, but if it did, I’d let you know and also, the CD cover is really cool!

An article about Omid Kordestani in Time