(Originally was supposed to be published last week!)

I’m going to write more. How do I know that? Well, for one reason, I have a very comfortable chair now, hundred times better than the old pain in the neck one, which was ironically giving me pain in the neck, quite frequently!

I bought it from Sousou and William who are leaving Montreal for California next month and I suppose that’s the only good which could possibly come from two good friends as well as Colleagues, leaving the city. I know I’ll miss them so bad!

Anyway, this weekend I watched three movies on DVD. First one was Spike Lee’s Inside man. An interesting action movie that although very well made, but I’m afraid to say, totally predictable and without any new idea whatsoever. One of those movies to enjoy for two hours but to be forgotten, right before the after-movie-bathroom ritual!

The second one was Terry Zwigoff’s Art School Confidential. A pretty powerful comedy, criticizing the dysfunctional, annoying environment of art schools, where pretentious debates, ridiculous manifestations of knowledge and the amalgam of biases, destroy talents and originality, in a very destructive ambience.

The movie itself, though not a masterpiece, a very satisfying movie to watch and enjoy.

Third one was a French movie by Stephane Brize called Je ne suis pas la pour etre aime or I’m not there to be loved. A simple but deeply emotional film about a middle age man, falls in love with her young Tango partner who’s soon going to get married with her fiancé. A minimalist, romantic, realistic, touching, adorable and by far, unpretentious movie which is a true pleasure to watch. In my case, it reminded me that how my obsession to learn Tango is about to pass the stage of passion and become a disorder!

By the way, for the second time, I have my camera replaced, because of a LCD’s burnt pixel. I’m so happy with the Futureshop for doing the exchange, cause after more than two months, they were not legally obliged to do so and also, apparently the number of burnt pixels should exceed a certain limit so it can be called a defect! Anyway, the Future Shop located in AMC has the nicest, most helpful managers so I strongly recommend it for your future electronic purchases!

P.S. I was humiliatingly defeated in my third comprehensive campaign to clean my room, due to the feisty resistance of my unorganized bills and papers. Although I was promised by my chief of staff that the fourth attempt would be definitively successful!

HILARIOUS!

Miserere

From the album Two Shoes by The Cat Empire...

Do you ever look around
turn your ear to the ground
show your face to the sky
on a night when the skies echoe sounds
from inside of your mind
on the stage that you shone
where the sun did become you
and move with your thoughts
through the sighs and the scenes
of the worlds you have seen
and the sights that have been
your reflection in shadows and dreams?
- your reflection in shadows and dreams

Did you ever see a man
who did walk down the street
white robe with no shoes on his feet
and on top of his head place a box with two slits
and the sign from his neck said
‘I do not exist’
or a woman who could not remember her name
did stutter and stutter
again and again
and saw you and called you her son
her eyes said
‘my being is gone
but still I’m not dead’?

Miserere

Have you ever seen a sound
have you listened to an image
have you ever touched a thought
have you ever tasted nothing
have you ever told a lie
that was true more than truth
because truth it had lied
all its life when it spoke to you?
And what did it say
it is that it is this
this goes here here is there
it is not yes it is
it was dulling your senses
your eyes they were bound
have you ever my friends
been looking around?

And the other replies
with a wave of a hand
I am already here
in this promised land
but not by a god and not by a king
and not by a spirit
deep from within
I am here
because a miracle’s a whim
it’s a flash of glory
it’s an empty tin
and maybe might lets you in
not to save you
but to keep on looking-

Miserere…

Have you ever
been so happy that you’re sad?
that the lights turn to stars
and the stars become eyes
and hello’s are goodbye’s
and the laughs are the sigh’s
and the show disappears with the note
‘until next time’

Long live living
if living can be this

Long live living
if living can be this

Long live living
if living can be this

Long live living
if living can be this

Do you ever look around
turn your ear to the ground
show your face to the sky
on a night when the skies echoe sounds
from inside of your mind
on the stage that you shone
where the sun did become you
and move with your thoughts
through the sighs and the scenes
of the worlds you have seen
and the sights that have been
your reflection in shadows and dreams
Do you ever look around
and find what is yet to be found?

How do you feel about women's rights ? I like either side of them. (Groucho Maarx)

Sin City

I saw her again. It took me a month to get over her and there she was, right in front of me.

“Hey, it’s been a long time, where are you going?” she asked.

“Hey. I’m going to catch a movie, care to join?”, I replied as I was trying to play as calm as possible while my heart was coming out of my ears and my face was getting so hot, the thin layer of frost on my glasses was melting away!

“I love to. Which one are you going to watch?”

“Sin city…it’s the recent work of Robert Rodriguez. It made a lot of fuss in Cannes this year. I saw the trailer and it looked pretty amazing”

“I saw the trailer too. It seems to be so violent and I’m not in the mood for that. Would you mind if we just sit down and have a coffee or something? I really missed talking to you.”

“Why on earth I loved her so much?! why on earth my fucking heart is still pumping so hard?! She’s the most average girl I’ve ever been with in every possible way…why I can’t get over her?!”

My heart disagreed. Apparently, the argument was not convincing enough for my stupid brain to stop pouring the deadly hormones of excitements into my veins, once again.

I couldn’t refuse the offer. I knew it was the most stupid decision that I could possibly make in that moment but I just couldn’t do otherwise!

Two years later, finally I watched the movie. She was right…the movie was sadistically violent, so graphically brutal. But I was right too. It was a masterpiece as I was expecting. One of the most stunning movies I’ve ever seen. Unbelievably brilliant!

I still couldn’t realize why I loved her once, but this time, I’m glad that my heart does agree with me, finally!

Somedays aren't yours at all,
They come and go
As if they're someone else's days
They come and leave you behind someone else's face
And it's harsher than yours
And colder than yours

They come in all quiet
Sweep up and then they leave
And you don't hear a single floor board creak
They're so much stronger
Than the friends you try to keep
By your side....


Regina Spektor
Somedays (from Soveit Kitsch)

Perfect mother

Lady

Lady sing the blues so well
As if she mean it
As if it's hell down here
In the smoke-filled world
Where the jokes are cold
They don't laugh at jokes
They laugh at tragedies

Regina Spektor
Begin to hope

Have you ever been that tired?

Wish you were here...

What is he now, 63? You couldn’t guess. His age has been well hidden behind his nice, seemingly young posture and his thick cluster of grey hairs. He hasn’t changed that much nor the world he has been tastefully criticizing for more than three decades.



They still keep getting us to trade our heroes for ridiculous mediocre ghosts. "Hot ashes" are still the only deal we have for our rain forest trees, well maybe in addition to Limber and Soya!. Apparently we have no other choice than to exchange our "cool breeze" with the warmer-by-the-day globally hot air in the decades to come and finally, have we experienced such an annoying "cold comfort" ever before through out the history?!



Does it make any difference if Maggie should bring the child back home form Falkland or Tony from southern Iraq?

Pictures of Sadam, Bin Laden and Bush in Fletcher memorial was "a mute reminder" of the fact that although there are no Brezhnev or Begin anymore, or non of the group of Latin American meat packing glitterati are still in power, the world has never been in shortage of senseless, megalomaniac madman’s to be added to the Ghost of Mc Carhty!

And it seems, as much as we run over the same old ground, all that we find is the same old fears.



Anyway, Roger Water’s live in Montreal was much more than a usual rock concert for me as well as thousands of fans who had been gathered in Bell center, from curious sixteen years old teenagers to nostalgic men and women in their sixties. It was more a quasi-religious ceremony to admire a legend among the thick smoke from the scene, mixed with the thicker smoke from the audience’s weeds! where none of those elaborate details, like the fancy special effects, the humongous flying pig with the name of "Bush" on his ass, or none of those great performers like the impeccable black female back vocals or the lead guitarist who was also carrying the burden of an old man who couldn’t scream as loud as he did when he was young, were able to deviate the attention, even for a second, from the maestro himself, who was walking around in his black t-shirt with his base guitar and taking pleasure of the his numerous fan’s genuinely sincere and unstoppable applause, possibly for the last times!



At the end and before leaving the scene, he looked at the crowd and shouted, Montreal, I’ll be back…Roger, we both know that you most probably wouldn’t, but thanks anyway, for the music I heard with you and for fulfilling one of my life-long dreams, to see you, live in concert.

An animated film inspired by the Persian architecture

it's really amazing...

I want this car so bad!

Funny Comercial

"In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of
triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the
pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size,
they died shortly after birth.

The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started
to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The
veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a
depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate
another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.

After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing
news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to
the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that
had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one
species will take on the care of a different species. The only orphans"
that could be found quickly, were a litter of weaner pigs. The zoo
keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the
babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops??
Take a look........ you won't believe your eyes!!"

The great journalist, writer and controversial interviewer and surly one of my favorite women of all time, Oriana Fallaci, died yesterday, in a hospital in Florence.
I personally, will never forget some of her unbelievably courageous interviews specially those with Shah, Khomeini and Kissinger. She was one of those phenomenons that can hardly be replaced any time soon.

The magic of Beshkan!

We Iranian claim a plethora of the world’s civilization’s advancements and heritages which to me, where sometimes is not far from the reality, almost always is much too exaggerated indeed.

However, I have to admit we’ve offered the humanity something uniquely exquisite which is our good old “Beshkan”! and to my big surprise, although we’ve never tried to keep the technique as secret, like Chinese people and their whole silk production procedure, it has been remained so far mostly in our hands to the point, you can almost recognize an Iranian by his or her “Beshkaning” skills!

Apart from its intended purpose, which is to accompany the notorious “Shish o Hasht!” beat, and the fact that it suits “Baba Karam” so well, it has an unbelievable use in daily life of an immigrant in Canada.

Whenever you’re stuck in an unpleasant discussion, you’ve made a politically incorrect comment that has been created an awkward silence or you’re involved in a debate where there’s absolutely no way out, just do the “Beshkan” out of the blue and watch how this little Persian heritage draws the attention stronger than Scarlet Johnson’s ass and changes the subject quicker than “Bin Laden is going to attack soon!”

I also want to propose to Iran’s delegation to UN, to use “Beshkan” to diverge other delegation’s attention from the nuclear issue to this seemingly simple but elaborate noise-making machine! Just imagine the look on John Bolton’s frustrated face, combined with his “Sha’boon-Type” mustache, asking Mr. Larijani “How was that?! Am I doing it right? Why mine isn’t making any sound?!” while he’s trying to imitate the hand posture!

I’m sure if Bush knew how to do it, he would use it in every white house press conferences, singing “Injaa beshkanam yaar geleh daare! Oonjaa behkanam yaar gele daareh (Public would bitch about me, no matter what I do!)” “pas nemishkanam (So to hell with the opinion poles!)”

And all the reporters would reply “Beshkan (Come on!!!)”

And the fox news correspondent would say “chegade balaaii delbar…namiri elaahi delbar! (We’re going to suck up no matter what you do or say!”

Strike of corssed legs!

Finally women realized how to use the most powerful weapon of all!

The very real tragedy of poverty here in the United States...

Islam Vs Christianity

Pablo

Pablo is sitting down on the pavement in front of a chessboard. Everything has been set up. A timer, a Jamaican flag for his side and a flag of Quebec for the opponent’s.

His father needs treatment and he needs money for that. He doesn’t ask you for money, he challenges you to beat him in a chess game. Fare and square!

You have 3 minutes to win, but if you look at his sharp, determined face, you’ll realize that it won’t be easy.

Photo 1 - Photo 2 - Photo 3

What the F...!

Why we live?

You have no idea how much I envy religious people. If you’re religious, the answer is simple. In fact, all the answers are simple. God wants us to do this, God wants this to be that way and so on…it’s very much like spelling French. Those 11 letters at the end of that word are mute and don’t ask why. That’s the way it is!

All you have to do is to read your holy book, or as I’d like to call them, “everything you need to know about everything!” and if you still haven’t read it (which ironically is quite common among religious people!) and you don’t feel like reading it either, you can ask the next clergy you see, next time you go to your mosque, synagogue, church or temple.

Seriously, if you’re lucky enough to be able to believe in “The great book of fairy tales for grown ups”, It is that simple. No excavation, no theory, no experimentation, no logic, no thinking of any kind and most importantly, no conscience, whatsoever. After all, you’re doing what God's told you to do, so why bother!

Anyway, I’d come back from the hospital. Tiered and depressed. I thought, “there is only two things in the world that can possibly make me happy right now, a cute furry kitty or a Woody Allen’s movie!”. Since obviously I didn’t have any choice, I took my glass of port, and started watching one of the Woody’s Masterpieces, Manhattan.

Five minutes to the end, there was this amazing scene which I absolutely adore, in which, Woody (here Isaac) is so depressed and in a self-therapeutically action, he lies down on a couch, recording his voice as if he’s talking to a shrink. He’s asking himself….

"Why is life worth living? It's a very good question. Um... Well, There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. uh... Like what... okay... um... For me, uh... ooh... I would say... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing... uh... um... and Wilie Mays... and um... the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony... and um... Louis Armstrong, recording of Potato Head Blues... um... Swedish movies, naturally... Sentimental Education by Flaubert... uh... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra... um... those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne... uh... the crabs at Sam Wo's... uh... Tracy's face... "

And then, I closed my eyes I though about all the beautiful things for which, life worth living for. And the list went on and on and on and on….

it’s so good to be alive…even as an agnostic!

Parking lot in Munich

An absolutely amazing commercial!

Hezb-o-llah! insurance company!

Elephant in the room!

In the South East Asia, where elephants are widely used as a mean of transport as well as to carry heavy stuff, an intriguing technique is implemented to tame them which simply is tying the baby elephant’s foot, with a strong rope to a massive tree, on a regular basis so the efforts of the baby elephant to rescue itself remain fruitless.
As the elephant grows up, the poor creature, gradually accepts that the tree is always stronger and eventually stops even trying to get rid of the rope.
As soon as the illusion established, they can tie a huge elephant to a relatively weak trunk of tree with a tiny rope and the animal will stand still like a little puppy, tied up to a Parcometer!

As I was reading the article, I tried to remember, what was the last time I made a serious effort to examine the seemingly unbreakable ropes and the invincible trees, tying me to the ground, to see maybe I’ve become strong enough to break them apart! Can you remember your last effort?

They keep on burying our dead
They keep on planting their bones in the ground
But they won't grow
The sun doesn't help
The rain doesn't help
And all we've got is a giant crop of names
And dates...

Regina Spektor - Lacrimosa

By the way, She’s coming to Montréal this October. Anybody wants to come?

the Cutest ever!

That' s so fuuny and beautiful

I found the meaning of life, the height of the creation!

Check out Melissa Theuriau, this inexpressibly desirable French Anchor.

We really do need more of the anchors like her to at least, make the constant flow of catastrophically painful news, a touch more bearable!

Scream of the ants

“Shahr e Zobaale haa (Scream of the ants)”, Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s latest movie, is a story about a couple, a mildly spiritual/religious woman and an seemingly atheist/ex-communist, spending their honey moon, traveling through India to meet “the complete man”. A philosophical journey through which, Makhmalbaf tries to portray human suffering; and I have to admit that he has been quite successful since at least I, experienced an excruciating pain watching two extremely untalented actors, uttering the most stupid, cheesy, retarded ideas for the whole 91 insufferable minutes!

The whole film can be summarized as a sequence of some truly magnificent scenery and exquisite cinematography that has been completely ruined by the idiocy of a man who knows how to use his camera but not his brain!

Inject the content of a gravely depressed, high school teenager’s diary, edited by his housewife mother, into a very well made documentary about India and voila, you’d have “Scream of the Ants”!

Couldn’t anybody around Makhmalbaf reminded him that since 15^th century, the question “Why God has created poor people?” has not been considered a philosophical question for God’s sake, but the one a six years old might ask the parents over the dinner table!?

And you know what can make those “100 philosophical questions for mentally challenged Soccer mom’s” even more intolerable?! Asking two actors, whose acts are unacceptable even by the standards of a kindergarten’s play about talking pumpkins, recite them out loud, in a way that can easily be outdone even by a well-trained parrot!

Apart from two monologues; one by the guru-type who allegedly stops the train by his eyes, and the other by the German monk, who for some reasons, speaks English with a funny Indian accent; one can find the most idiotic, unreasonable, childish ideas, expressed in the most banal, unnatural and corny way possible in a movie which is so shattered that nothing, even all those mind-blowing scenes and even the exquisite beauty of the actress, “Mahnour Shadzi” (VOA’s dazzling gorgeous anchor, also known as “Luna shad”), can make it a dash less painful to watch.

Put this movie next to M. Night Shyamalan’s recent disaster, Lady in the water, and you’ll have every possible reason to burn down a movie theatre and feel happy about it!

For heaven's sake, can somebody tell me how a woman, so preoccupied by spirituality doesn’t know who Dalai Lama is?!!

Dear Makhmalbaf, that Scream was not from the ants, but from those wretched audience in the theatre, who couldn’t fool their badly-insulted intellects, even with all those eye-catching, artistically-done images. When a skillful pianist has a horrendous, crow-like voice, maybe he should just shut up and not overshadow his brilliance in playing the instrument, by his unforgivable voice! Please keep your philosophical point of views to yourself and do not scream them in our ears.

Just by doing that, you can make the world, slightly a better place!

An apology!

I'm sorry. It's been a while I haven't written anything serious.

There're myriad of reasons for that. I have not been quite in the mood recently. I'm spending a lot of my time working and the rest in the hospital, visiting my friend and as you may well know, none of those places are fun or inspiring whatsoever. I'm not even in love, to write some romantic stuff or poetic crap for God's sake!

Although I have to admit that a super cute intern; a beautiful, tall, dark-haired, Persian MD, makes the hospital's environment much more pleasing, but it takes far more than that for a hospital's atmosphere, one the most depressing places in the world for me, to be able to be considered tolerable.

In the past two weeks, I thought a lot about making some drastic changes in my life, like taking my camera and travel to Tibet, but then I realized that I need money for that so I need to work and consequently I was remembered why we work in he first place!

So for now, I'm going to keep on working but meanwhile injecting some entertainment to my life, like starting to learn a new dance probably, doing extensive photography, exploring new restaurants and café in town and enjoying my new camera, all in addition to my regular reading-and-watching-movie-ritual! I'm also thinking about taking some courses at school. Besides, Woody Allen's short stories, a buried treasure that was uncovered for me by my brilliant intellectual yet fun and crazy friend, Naz, are on the way (from Amazon!) and also, the Canadian fall, short but breathtaking, is coming soon for us to squeeze every second of it.

I expect each one of those; give me tons of new materials and motivation as well, to write. We'll see.

I also look forward to my upcoming trip to Toronto in two weeks. Although TO is not my favorite town but I've always heavily enjoyed my short but fruitful stays there and it was full of great surprises most of the times. Not to forget that some of my dearest friends live there, and I add to this wonderful collection some new pieces every time. Speaking of good friends, thanks Maryam and Naz for your great moral support during this period. You have no idea how much I appreciated it.

By the way, I’m thinking about moving to Europe and start studying something completely different, like studying architecture in Barcelona or Prague for example. I just want to experience studying something exciting in an old European town, before it’s too late. Well, I’m not going to do that soon, but soon enough and certainly before I become a money-addict, mortgage-owed, workaholic gear in the capitalism’s elaborate machine (and this has nothing to do with my recent Castro story :)). Any interesting idea about what to do and where to go, would be immensely welcomed.

P.S. Long weekend, I love you so much.

Some sexy yet witty T-shirts

He would have been so funny if he hadn’t had so much power over our life and our future!

Forget about David Copperfied…this is the coolest magician, ever!

No Comment!

Like an entrepreneur virgin!

An amazing news for Madonna Lovers

First of all, I’m not one of you! I never was a fan but I have to admit, I’ve always hugely admired the brilliant talent of this Pop-Goddess to stay on top for such a surprisingly lengthy period, in such an immensely competitive business.

And now, one of the well-known business schools of Europe, European school of management and technology in Berlin, is offering a course called “Madonna Case Study” in which her unique strategies to re-invent herself so frequently and so successfully, are being taught as effective tools for managers in similar competitive, rapidly-changing industries, such as cell phone or computer industry.

Now, why Madonna? The fact is, despite of her limited resources, considering that she’s not the best singer, dancer or even the most charming lady in this business, she has always managed to retain her position as the queen of pop, throughout the remarkably long period of more than two decades.

Her deep understanding of the nature of the business she’s working in, her courage and ingenuity to re-invent herself according to the markets needs and developments, her ability to change her business partners to form the right crew for the right target, and last but not least, her progressive attitude to shape the new trends instead of just following them, has made Madonna, not just a pop icon, but a business Guru from whom, managers and leaders can learn a lot.

So, next time you go to her concert, think of it as an entrepreneurial seminar and have less fun! :)

This is certainly stretching the boundary of being CUTE!

People please…

Leave Lebanese and Israelis alone! It doesn’t matter who won…they didn’t fight to win…they were just doing it for the good of the game! To burn some testosterone….a manly thing! Cave-manly, but still manly!

The fact that both sides consider themselves winner of this little war, makes it so cute…like it was a win-win situation from the beginning…

Sure some people died, some lost their everything, billions of dollars went down the drain, the environment got screwed and nobody really understood what was that all about, but at least I’m happy that everybody seems to get what they were looking for….everybody won…everybody’s happy…no hard feelings….

Just like a fun game in a kid’s birthday party…only this time, with an awful a lot of dead children involved!

Little Miss Sunshine

By far on of the smartest comedy I’ve seen in years, next to Sideways

A brilliantly sharp and ingenious satire in all its glory that will make you laugh and will make you cry but it sure won’t let you down, any time during the whole 101 minutes.

This seemingly usual road movie, is everything but usual. To be honest, I can’t think of anything that can be altered or improved, to make it even a notch better than what it is.

A magnificent plot, well-tailored characters, simple but stunning cinematography, brilliant acting, witty conversations and my favorite part, dark, sarcastic, biting yet still funny humor, which truly is a full-size caricature, mocking the American dreams and the stupidity that surrounds it.

And the most interesting advantage of this masterpiece is the perfect balance between all the elements, comic and emotional moments or physical and verbal comedy. It criticizes everything but gets nowhere near preaching or being a lecture in anytime whatsoever.

If you watch that movie and don’t like it, please don’t talk to me ever again!

It's not a poem!

If I knew,
I would live for a year…
And only a year

Would I spend so much time,
In front of the computer
Every day?

Would I pay mortgage,
Or save money?
For the house I’d never own
for the plans, I’d never catch?

Would I be afraid
Of jumping from a cliff?
Or from a plane?
With a parachute!
Or with nothing at all?

Or I would,
Pack my backpack
And walk around the world,
take my camera
And freeze every second,
Of the remaining of my life?

Would I care that the girl I like,
Is six years older than me?
Or the water pipe is
Bad for my health?

Or I would tell,
Every beautiful girl in the street
How voluptuous they are,
Under the August's sun,

How many places I haven’t seen,
How many wines I haven’t tasted,
How many lips I haven’t kissed

If I knew I’d
live for a year,
and only for a year,

I would ask myself,
How locust would taste like,
How sleeping in a desert,
Would feel like

I would be drunk,
High,
Every moment,
Every day

Now,

Who’s given me the guaranty
That I’ll have even a year...
That I’m living like
I’m going to live
For ever

I’m really tired…not just tried…Sick and tired and I will beat the crap out of the next person who gives me a terrible news!

For God’s sake, somebody pick up the damn phone and give me a good news….I don’t know what and I don’t care about the subject! Just something pleasant….seriously…anything will do….

P.S. Thanks Martina…at least you’re winning and it always makes me happy…

Trunk Monkey!

Very Funny Commercial

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Elephant Shoes

A modern look at love. 12 hours, 12 lifetimes... A half day relationship.

I rent the DVD as a Saturday afternoon entertainment, you know, a romantic comedy, not too cheesy not to heavy, to put you in the mood, but it was too damn good! Seriously, I’m impressed, big time!

If you haven’t seen this low budget, remarkably genuine, surprisingly surreal yet realistic, super creative movie, just take my word and do it. Believe me, you won’t regret. It’s just amazing!

How Golf was created, by Robin Williams

this is how it works
you're young until you're not
you love until you don't
you try until you can't
you laugh until you cry
you cry until you laugh
and everyone must breathe
until their dying breath

this is how it works
you peer inside yourself
you take the things you like
and try to love the things you took
and then you take that love you made
and stick it into some--
someone else's heart
pumping someone else's blood
and walking arm in arm
you hope it don't get harmed
but even if it does
you'll just do it all again

on the radio
you hear november rain
that solo's awful long
but it's a good refrain
you listen to it twice
cause the dj is asleep

on the radio...

Regina Spektor
On the radio (Begin to Hope)

Begin to hope

Although I’d seen her before in Conan O’Brien’s show, I have no idea if she’s already that famous or not. I’ve discovered the music of Regina Spektor about a week ago. in fact, her music and her lyrics are so original and strange, and to some extent weird, that it takes time to get used to her.

She reminds me of Bjork but a more liberated, more childish version of her (it’s hard to imagine anyone more liberated than Bjork, ha?!). The music, with simple piano tunes and cold peculiar chords is more strange than delightful. The lyrics are movingly eccentric and to me, quite charming. Her style of singing is genuinely unique and deliciously free and her occasional breathing in the middle of the sentences, like little children, is incredibly cute.

I’m not suggesting that you’d like her, but her music and her style of singing is so different from everything you’ve ever heard that you have to give it a try, at least for the sake of the experience!

Start with her older albums, try Daniel Cowman, Bon idée or prisoners from the album Songs and Whisper and My Honor from the album Soviet Kitch. From her new album, begin to hope, which is less experimental hence more enjoyable, fidelity, Apres moi and On the radio are my picks.

Enjoy her...

A must-see documentary about the Middle East conflict. Don’t miss it. It’s a bit long but worth every second.

The always-angry guy, George Galloway, in an interview with sky network, speaks out about the war in Lebanon!
Although I don’t quite agree with his position, it’s nice to hear something different and amazingly brave from a politician. The neutral and politically-correct stand of almost all of them makes me vomit these days!

Ode to an ass!

This Saturday morning, as I was walking in downtown, I noticed the overcrowded Crescent Street as if there was an event going on. (Cause there’s always something cheesy going on there!). As I got closer, I found out there was a motorcycle show, accompanied by the two remaining of the stereotype stupid American male’s trinity, bikini blondes and beer!

To be honest, I really find elegant women who ride motorcycles to work, quite sexy and also I would buy a scooter for myself if I was living in a city with a more humane climate, but that’s the extent of my interest to the subject of motorcycle and I’m not ashamed of that, even as a mechanical engineer!

As I was passing by, I noticed a big stand, loud music and some kinky-dressed models that were not just cat walking but performing a mélange of Modern Ballet and Latin dance on the runway. The mixture of the soft and expressive dance with the tough, red neck-ish! style of Harley Davidson’s models and clothing, had made such an ironically amusing situation that it was hard to be overlooked, specially by a photographer, carrying his camera!

So I stopped and took some photos which didn’t come out quite well due to my camera’s annoying shutter lag!

During the shooting ritual, a tattoo, which seemed to be a phrase or a quote, on one of the models upper thigh, somewhere close to her generously-proportioned butt, caught my eyes! So I took a picture from that tattooed phrase and its voluptuous canvas and put it in my flickr!

To my big surprise and only in 2 hours, 400 people viewed this photo which is almost 15 times more than average viewers that I have for a non-butt-included picture in a week! but before I let this little experiment annoy me, I remembered the wise advice of the butt-writing that “Don’t worry about the things you can’t control”

People of the world, you need to get laid….big time!

http://www.truemajorityaction.org/oreos/
Solving world’s problems for absolutely dummies.

Give peace a chance

Give peace a chance
Originally uploaded by Mar-yam.

It’s a poster Maryam has made, putting some kid’s pictures together.

For everyone else, it’s just a bunch of kids, but for me, since I know lots of those former kids, veterans of the childhood now, Maryam herself, Kiavesh, Rana and myself (two times!), it’s quite fun to look at.

Even if you don’t know anyone here, I suppose it’s still nice enough to be enjoyed.

My Saturday!

Yesterday, I was introduced to this lazy chubby furry creature. She was sooooo adorable. A bit timid, but beautiful and funny. A cat to die for!

The sad part was my stupid allergy that I’ve developed to cats in Canada! I've tried my best to deny it but I’m afraid I have to admit and live with it.

Only two more allergies, to women and to wine, and I would welcome death!

Anyway, we went to a movie afterwards. It was Night Shyamalan’s recent film, Lady in the Water, in which he also acts too, and I want to say to him "Way to go Mr. Shyamalan! It needs a tremendous amount of talent to make such a load of CRAP!"

It was by far, one of the worst movie that I’ve seen in years. Words cannot begin to describe how much it sucked.

The first 5 minutes was promising, but later on, it got worse and worse and it finished with an appalling, shameful finale, a suitable ending for this horrendous, dreadful bullshit! In fact, someone has to tell this young director that instead of saving the world by inspiring leaders through your writing, what his character is supposed to do in the movie, try to read and watch some good books movies instead!

Now that I’m thinking, even the Sixth Sense wasn’t that good. It was only good enough for someone’s first movie, but in any case, Lady in the water was a eulogy for the promising director of Sixth sense, Period!

Anyway, don’t waste your precious time on this movie. It’s horrible by any standard and it’s not even scary or entertaining. it can be placed in a dictionary, right in front of the word, Disastrous!

Monster House

Monster House, a new animation directed by Gil Kenan , is a profound, different, multi-layered, well-executed and quite entertaining animation which has been specially made for 3D screening.

A very well-written scenario about a monstrous house who eats everyone who's messing with it and three kids who are trying to stop the house from eating children of the neighborhood, right before the Halloween, where a lot of them are expected to go there for Trick or Treat!

Apart from the astonishing animation and the fact that watching anything in 3D is way more fun, the design of the characters in the movie is incredible. The vicious house and the way it transforms itself from an old, wooden residence to a hideous monster, is truly noticeable, particularly the harmonious cooperation of the house's trees and lawns, to fulfill the vicious plots. The old man who lives in there, is scary even for someone at my age, let alone children and the three kids, not only are adorable but pretty believable too. The two boy’s restless efforts to impress the girl and their subtle competition over her, is genuinely funny.

Even the less important characters are equally interesting and well-portrayed. The cool, sexy, slightly bitchy babysitter, Elizabeth, is very alive and quite entertaining to watch. The super nerdy, video game geek is just hilarious and the two police officers, particularly the young, inexperienced black one, are seriously amusing.

To me, it was by far the best animation of the year (or any year) and although I still haven’t seen Cars, I doubt that anything can top the breath taking 3D experience of the Monster House, anytime soon.

5. My favorite 101

My only problem with the Alternative Rock is the mood it creates for me. Surely it’s not how it works for everyone but in my case, it illustrates a cold and gloomy image of the modern world, full of machines, wires, metals and insecurities. Unlike the colorful, vibrant and always joyous ambience of jazz (even in its saddest songs) or amazingly calming nature-like mood of baroque or delightful, nostalgic homey feeling of middle eastern tunes, the alternative rocks usually portraits a dark, depressing environment that I adore to experience briefly but I certainly don’t want to stay in it for too long to be frank!

Expectedly, you’d seldom see me in a concert where this genre is being played but you’d find fairly decent amount of alternative rock in my ipod’s Top-rated playlist.

Today’s pick is one of those favorites, from a stunningly good album called love is here from the band Starsailor. This is one of the rare examples of this genre that I surprisingly don’t mind listening to it for hours and although all the songs in this album are quite remarkable, my big-time favorite is Tie up my hands.

Our old friend, TinTin

A friend and a classmate of my sister, Nicolas, who’s a serious fan of B.D, pointed out a very intricate issue with regard to my, and a good portion of my generation’s favorite B.D of all time, the adventures of TinTin.

That interesting point is the surprising absence of female characters and feminity in general, in the whole series of TinTin comics.

Since I haven’t brought any of my vast B.D collection with myself to Canada, I had no choice but to refer to my memory which in this case, due to my childhood’s excessive reading of every book of Tintin, is credible enough I suppose! So if my memory serves me right, I can’t think of any female character whatsoever but the fat, annoying, pain in the ass, Bianca Castafiore! The rest are all men, both good and evil. Tintin, Haddock, Tournesol, Doupont et Dupond, Nestor, Seraphin Lampion, General Alcazar, Rastapopoulos and the list goes on. Even the dog, Milou, is obviously a male dog.

And that’s not all. There is no romance, no fling, no recollection of any relationship in the past, neither for Tintin, nor for any of the major characters in the story.

I’m wondering, how Hergé have managed to eliminate the whole concept of feminity and everything around it like love, romance, sex, relationship or even a simple flirting, from such a diverse and popular B.D, without anybody even noticing it or feels the absence of it.. Well at least, none of my friends, most of which are die-hard fan of Tintin, had ever mentioned it before!

As I’ve already talked about , I don’t have my Tintin collection with me and I’m not going to Chapters for it, so if anybody remembers anything that contradicts this theory, please let me know.

Final word is, up to now, I was thinking that those college year’s poker nights were the only time that I had so much fun without the presence of any female character. Turns out that I should add to it, the whole experience of Tintin reading!


P.S. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a geek, I’m just interested in this issue as a social phenomenon. :)

Sunday afternoon, the guy is lying down on the grass, enjoying his B.D. In this world where we can order movies via pay-per-view, our books online and our pizza on the phone, it’s nice to go out to read, to sit in a café to write and to walk, outside this stupid metallic cages we call “our convenient cars”!

A Scanner Darkly

I do not recall the last time I’d seen so many geeks together in one place! Was it in the screening of the last Harry potter or the third episode of Lord of the rings?! Anyway, the theatre was more like an international Geek convention! It reminded me of Sharif University’s faculty of software engineering, except here, girls were slightly prettier!

The latest work of Richard Linklater, A Scanner Darkly, which is an animation based on Philip K. Dick’s novel with the same title, is the story of an undercover detective, played by Keanu Reeves, living in Orange County in the near future, fighting against the traffic of a brain-destructive drug called “substance D”. This hallucinogen, is an organic substance, derived from a blue flower, and unlike the novel, this fact is disclosed so early in the movie.

The rest of the story is the interaction between this undercover detective with himself and also with his girlfriend (Winona Ryder) and his two roommates, all of whom severely addicted to the Substance D.

A scanner Darkly is an irritatingly dark movie with a seriously gloomy and depressing atmosphere that perfectly suits the style of the animation being used. The story is surly, and to me deliberately, hard to follow and to be honest, boring at some points due to the excessive use of dialogues, but has its own hilarious moments and also moments to ponder about.

Robert Downey Jr. who plays a mentally damaged, always high, comically wise-guy addict, shows a spectacular performance. I don’t know whether playing in an animation qualifies someone for an academy award, but this magnificent performance certainly deserves to be considered.

And I don’t want to begin talking about my lovely adorable Winona Ryder. I enjoyed every second of her presence, even as an animation character. In fact, when she’s high, she’s even sexier!

Finally, the idea of the scrambled suit, a dress worn by detectives that covers their identity was a marvelous idea in the novel which has been executed stunningly brilliant in the movie!

It should be noted that A Scanner Darkly is the first movie that has been worked entirely by the technique called Rotoscope, in which a motion picture, made by real actors, is sketched on later and turned into animation. The technique has been used quite frequently before, even by the same director in the movie “Walking life”, but never so comprehensively to generate an entire motion picture.

Altogether, an unforgettable experience, a masterpiece which will give an ultimate pleasure to anyone with a bit sense of fantasy, interested in comics or animation, or anyone tasteful enough to appricaite so much talent that has been used in making this breathtaking piece of work.

And a word about this director. What amazes me is how someone could be able to make some of the sweetest, most romantic movies of all time (before sunrise and sunset) , the way one feels he’s been deeply in love his entire life and yet have the ability to enter such gloomy, geeky, dark science fictional realms ( Scanner Darkly and Walking life) like he has been a nerd, or more, a nerd with severe addiction to narcotics all along the way! Add to this, some fantastic comedy like School of Rock and Voila, you have a genuine genius indeed.

I can’t wait to see his latest, “fast food nation”, which is a loosly based on Eric Schlosser's great work.

If you think money can’t buy happiness, you don’t know how to spend!

From a gorgeous brunette’s T-shirt, in the bus

Life is short, Play more

A commercial for Lingerie

This one is a piece of art. Magnificent!

Another one!

Blow job

Scoop

Tonight was the premier of Woody Allen’s latest work, Scoop and what a delightful experience.!I’ve had missed Woody on the screen, his nervous tedious nagging and his stupid monotonous remarks. I’ve had missed a genuine Woody Allen movie with all those glorious sophistications for so long, and tonight, like someone who’s seen his beloved after a while, I could have danced all night!

It was brilliant two hours that erased the fatigue of a week of hard work. I wish he could make a movie, every week. Wouldn’t life be great then?!

I don’t mind if he wants to work in London instead of Manhattan or get involved with British aristocracy instead of New York’s upper class. I don’t care if he’s got so intrigued by rich people getting involved in murders and I certainly understand if he’s in love with Scarlet Johansson and her chubby but extremely sexy body, but containing all these elements, he still can make a Woody Allen movie and not that Match point crap! I was screaming this all these months and tonight, he proved that I was right all along!

Final word, there is something about New Yorkers, which seems interesting to me. No matter how proud they are of Manhattan, no matter how much they adore this island, no matter how confidently they believe (and I absolutely agree with them) that they are living in the center of the world, deep inside, there’s always something they profoundly envy and it is British aristocracy with all its sophistications. From their posh accent to their elegantly decorated mansions, from their mysterious private clubs to all those meticulously kept traditions, they want to be a British aristocrat, even for a day, or in a movie.
Well, honestly, who could blame them?!

When the grass is not green enough!

The angel is standing on top of a building in Berlin, watching people on earth. Everything is in black and white. That‘s how “The wings of desire” commences. Later on, he falls in love. He blinks, and as he opens his eyes, the world is colorful.

I lived a good portion of my life in a beautiful dream, dominated by this visual poetic perception, Wenders has created.

Now, after years and years, I still refuse to believe that the notion is too unrealistic, too dreamy or even too poetic to be true, but what life forced me to believe is, the colors won’t last very long. It’s not too poetic but it certainly is much too momentarily. In a quite unpleasantly non-poetic example, I may say it’s like an old color TV. Sometimes it does what it should do, but all of a sudden, right in the middle of an important football match, it loses the colors and turns into a stupid black and white TV. You can smash it on the head occasionally and you might even get some colors back for couple of minutes, but you’ll lose them again soon, guaranteed!

There’s a technique, used to bring old black and white movies to color, and it simply is to colorize every frame, one by one! Maybe it works in big Hollywood studios, but in real life, manually colorizing every frame is not an option. It’s much too time consuming and the final result always looks disgustingly fake!

A good alternative would be to enjoy life in black and white. The reality is, most of the masterpieces in photography, and to some extend in cinema, are in black and white, where there is no color to distract your eyes from the beauty of the shades, shapes and the compositions. In fact, sometimes you have to manually get rid of the colors and that’s when the colors are weak, unappealing and simply don’t worth to be kept.

You select your poorly-colored picture and then select, Image-mode-Grayscale from the menu! Photoshop will ask “you’re going to lose the color information, are you sure you want to continue?” you pause. You think. You look again. You see that pale blue sky and those unflattering colors, covering your potentially nice image. You remember how unsuccessfully you tried your best to edit the colors. You exhale and click “YES”!

You blink and as you open your eyes…Voila…it’s Black and white.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOPHjNL9BCk&search=mylove%20blair%20bush

I watched this almost 2 years ago for the first time. But due to this new scandal in the recent G8 summit, it’s still hilarious to watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlYkwgIcd_0&search=nomad

This is amazing...don't miss it

Understanding Engineers

(A funny article I recieved today)

Take One:
To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Take Two:
What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets.

Take Three:
Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections." The last one said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who
else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

It takes more than a Leica to become Bresson

Every time I see Sam, I realized how lazy photographer I am. We were doing the same thing, taking pictures, in Paris. He had a huge, at least 10kg backpack on his shoulders, filled with accessories, lenses and stuff, including my favorite, a magnificent super wide lens, and I, on the other hand, was walking around with a 220g camera, no accessories, nothing! To make the matter worse, I had even forgotten to bring my 200g tripod with myself to Paris! And as if it’s not shameful enough, that was the only thing I forgot to bring with myself!!! And then, he was running around, taking pictures, walking around the monuments to find the good spot, changing lenses one after another, and I was gossiping with Talayeh and taking some shots once in a while, as I was talking (my favorite activity!) between several proposal to sit down somewhere and have a coffee or a drink! You know, carrying around a 220g camera is not easy at all!



As a huge fan of Henri-Cartier Bresson, I was always so tempted by the idea of walking around everywhere with a tiny Leica and freeze the moment, that when Leica introduced a new fully manual D-lux 2, I didn’t think for a second to order it. Well, back then, I had no idea that you can do the same, with your bulky SLR and all those sets of lenses, but to be honest, I’m not that devoted anyway.

I mean, apart from a long list of problems and short comings, including inferior picture quality, not being able to use different lenses or filters, specially the one that I miss the most, Polarizer, and awful a lot of others, it gives you a huge advantage: it is not as intrusive as a SLR with a bulky, photo journalistic lens! and if you want to be a people’s photographer, it worth all the pain indeed.

There are a million ways to declare your love to your beloved, but I don’t know why most of them involve a sort of vandalism and destroying public properties! and almost all of them are somehow lame!



This one in particular, I don’t care how lame it is, has been executed quite tastefully. It caught my eyes, somewhere near the Seine.

What a useless habit…

Thinking I’m talking about. Wired but true! I mean, seriously, unless you’re trying to find a solution for the world’s hunger or global warming, do we need to spend hours and hours thinking? In the real life, do we really need to think that much?!

Personally, I never had any problem in life, required more than 10 minutes of systematic thinking. The rest, were always, trying to find an alternative that didn’t exist, were the excruciating pain of representing the problem in a way that the desirable solution could fit in, were to justify the errors, created by using those favorite answers!

Think about your thinking procedures! and try to be honest with yourself, aren’t you doing the same, almost all the time?! Take a look at this guy! Most of the time we’re just like him, well! not as handsome and muscular but anyway! Are we really waiting for this guy to find any solution for any problem whatsoever, no matter how deep he thinks?!



We think when need to think, which is fine, but when we found the solution, we think just a bit more to buy time before applying the undesirable solution, and then, we think more to avoid doing what we know we should, but we don’t want to. And we think again, waiting for a new alternative, suddenly comes from the above and reveals itself to us. Even sometimes, while we’re resisting doing the right thing, we think again, cause we don’t have anything better to do!

Here comes the worst, when we think we’re thinking, but what we’re really doing is subconsciously complicating the problem in way that the simple, obvious but disliked answer can’t fit in anymore! Then we can sit down, thoughtfully ask our friends “you see! I’m telling you, my problem is so complicated, what the hell should I do?!”

The harsh reality is that the gangrenous leg should be cut! Brutal but inevitable! The more you think about it, the more limbs you’re going to lose.

Sometimes, as soon as the thinking procedure yields a reliable and convincing result, no matter how harsh it is, we should stop thinking, go out, lie down on the green grass and just look at the deep deep blue sky. Just looking!

Please accept the apology!

Israel’s ambassador to UN: “We’re doing the people of Lebanon a favor. Most of them don’t like Hezb-Ollah and appreciate what we’re doing!”

I heard it, 2 minutes ago from BBC with my own ears!

Well, Mr ambassador, Lebanese are busy, burying their dead children, otherwise, they would thank you in person. Please accept the apology!

Alley of lost time!

When I was reading Marcel Proust's "a la recherche du temps perdu", I never thought I would find it in this cute little village in Rubelle, near Paris. I have to admit that my condition was as mysterious and strange as the name of this alley. I had 37 glass of champagne the night before (till 6 am), but I was as good as can be and I was doing photography at 9:00 am, the same day. No headache, no hangover!

Tonight I went to see the new Linklater movie, A scanner darkly, which was a masterpiece. The guy is a genius. Whatever he does is a masterpiece. I’ll write about it later. But before the movie began, there was a trailer for this new horror movie, Pulse, that seriously scared the shit out of me! I mean, the trailer was screaming that the movie is bullshit but GOD it was scary!
Now I came back home, and there’s this dramatic weather and thunderstorms, and I’m so happy that I didn’t watch Pulse instead! I’m so gonna watch it but definitively, I’m gonna check the weather forecast beforehand and certainly, I’m not gonna watch it alone! Anybody in?!

To the land of burnt Cedars...

I was visiting Jardin des Plantes in Paris. I sat down under this massive, beautiful tree to rest for a minute. I raised my head to read the label. As much as I adore nature, I’m clueless about the name of the trees and the flowers! On a small bronze label, it was written: “Le Cedre du Liban!”

I thought to myself, how I wish visiting Beirut sometimes in the future!

Since I had deliberately disconnected myself from the world, I had absolutely no idea that at the same time that I was enjoying the peaceful shadow of this gracious Lebanese cedar, the land of the Cedars is falling into pieces. Karl Marx once said: “History always repeats itself twice, first time as tragedy, second time as farce!”. At least in the case of Beirut, the only thing to laugh about is the world’s reaction toward this tragedy!

Oh…the Glorious Jarret!

About six years ago, I went to this cute little restaurant in Place des Vosges, and I had a dish called Jarret de porc, which simply was a peasant dish, braised porc leg shank with beans. It sounds crazy but to repeat that unforgettable experience was one of the things I was fancying the whole time I was planning revisiting Paris. First time I went there, it was with Marjan. But since we were kind of full for such a heavy dish and also she was willing to try more of the French cheese, we sat in another café on the other side of the square and had wine and cheese instead. Did I mention that I spilled red wine on her white skirts?! Thanks god it was not a first date! Anyway…




Couple of days later and after hours of walking in Paris, I went back to that square, as hungry as possible. I went to that restaurant and asked “six years ago, I had a magnificent Jarret de porc here. Do you still have that on your menu?”

With a half a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape , one of my favorite French wines, and in this magnificent old square, I can put the experience somewhere between watching Annie hall for the first time and a very good sex! I think the rating was clear enough !

Semi-Canadians!

As I was listening to the news about the war in Lebanon, I was stunned by the amount of the Canadian casualties which was somewhere between ten to twenty percent of the whole figure. For seconds, I was wondering why there are so many Canadians in Lebanon, but as they announced the names, everything became clear.

Apparently, during the Lebanon’s long and bloody civil war, a good percentage of rather rich, educated and dominantly French speaking population of Beirut had been immigrated to Canada and mostly to Quebec. During the period of peace and prosperity in Beirut, most of those immigrants, now with Canadian passports, had returned to Beirut and have been working and living there ever since.

Now, the problem is, the awfully large amount of people with dual nationality who haven’t been integrated properly into the Canadian society for whatever reasons, those who’ve come back to their original countries long ago, working and living there and they’re just carrying the Canadian passport as a backup, puts the government of Canada in a very awkward and uneasy situation.
From one side, the government should react in a proper way to the fact that a lot of Canadians have been killed by Israel’s attacks, but from the other side, it’s improper by nature to react to the death of those who apart from their Canadian Passports, are internationally regarded as Lebanese and not Canadian!

The mild and somehow neutral reaction of Canada shows that regardless of what they say, they seem to believe in the existence of a so-called Second class semi-Canadians! The subject that if not addressed and debated properly, can cause considerable problems in the future for the credibility of the Canadian citizenship!

Is Paris Photogenic?

In Persian and Arabic literature, there is a term called “Shahl o Momtane” which simply means something that seems so easy to do but in fact, it’s not.

The first time I visited Paris, which was six years ago, I literally didn’t have the slightest idea how to put a film inside a camera, let alone taking pictures. So All I got from there was a huge visual library inside my brain of all those beautiful monuments and streets. I think there is no need to explain how I was dying to get to Paris and indulge myself and my cute little Leica. In fact, taking good pictures of Paris is somehow like taking beautiful shots from Natalie Portman. How hard could it be?! Well, it turned out to be hard enough! I may say, significantly harder than taking photos of aesthetically-challenged Toronto! ( I still believe it’s a cool city but you have to admit it’s not beautiful per say!). but why it’s so hard?

First of all, the charm of Paris is so overwhelming that like a hearty roasted pork in Munich’s October fest, it’s as hard to digest as it’s delicious. There is a good chance that for the first couple of days, you find yourself, just wandering around, wondering where you should point the camera to. Even after that, the tougher decision would be how to frame the picture. Everything is so delightfully pretty and so strongly connected that it looks like a crime to exclude any bit of it from the rest.

Even when you find your frame, there’s a huge technical problem and it’s distortion. Most of the dreamy streets in Paris are so narrow that they hardly allow you to step back far enough to be able to avoid distortions, caused by shooting with a wide angle lens from the bottom of a tall building from very close distance and unless you’re using a quite pricy shift lens, you should find a way to incorporate that so called problem into your style some how.

Another problem is, as a tourist, you don’t have the luxury to be always at the right place at the right moment like a photographer who actually lives in Paris. Not only you’re going to visit Pairs in a short period of the year, and mostly in the summer, your time also is going to be limited and whether you like it or not, you’ll find yourself in front of a magnificent scene, where the sun is in the middle of the sky and you’re going to have some strong, unflattering shadows combined with some unpleasant colors and if you really want to depict the details in the buildings and your camera can not be equipped with a polarizing filter, well, you should start singing “good bye blue sky” in front of that wall!

And in the summer, they are tourists everywhere and no matter how hard you try, it’s almost impossible not to have them in the frame, and unlike super cute super elegant Parisian girls, most of the tourists are not so pleasing to the eyes to be included in the compositions.

And the last but not the least, every corner of this city has been excavated by many photographers including giants like Bresson and Doisneau and it’s almost a mission impossible to make anything unique or original.

Ok…I think I’ve made enough excuses to justify why my pictures aren’t so great…

Oh God…when I was leaving for holidays, two weeks ago, Israel was still fighting with Palestinians in Gaza. All of a sudden, there’re bombarding Beirut?! I got a Figaro at the Airport and for seconds, I had the impression of time traveling or something! I actually did check the date on the paper…it was not 1982, it was July 16th 2006.
I can’t leave you unsupervised for two weeks?

A very North American comment

Four things you’ll miss in Paris
Customer service, English keyboard, Smoke free environment, and most of all...Air conditioning,

That was disgusting…

In the history of the world cup, only two times the final has got to the penalties and Italy was part of both of them. Do you any wonder?

A team who defended in front of a 10 Men’s France, a team who didn’t have even one opportunity in the second half, doesn’t deserve to win.

A false penalty in 92nd minute, a goal in 118 minute and a win in penalty thanks to the bar… good luck Italy…seriously…good luck.

I’m beginning to believe in the Catholic God…apparently it works…

The loneliest man in the world

Germany lost…at least Italy deserved to win and it lessens the pain….

I was in Brussels, with Ali, Leili and Marjan…Ali and Leili both die hard Italian fans and Marjan, not a real fan but enough anti-German to cheer for Italy, we were in an Italian bar with at least 100 Italians and I'd never felt lonelier in my entire life!

I have to say though, just watching those Italians, swearing and waving their hands was a huge stress reliever to be honest and watching Ali who was accompanying them with the hand gesture and some seemingly Italian phrases that in fact were nothing but noises, so typical of him of course, were quite entertaining!

And after the game, I had no idea that you could find so many Italians in Brussels. They were everywhere, blocking almost every streets in downtown Brussels, dancing and cheering till morning. I felt like I was in Rome and what a bad time for a German fan to be there!

I’m happy that I had so much fun before and after the game that I could handle it rather easily. Although it’s the world game but it’s still just a game and it simply can not ruin my so far wonderful trip!

For now and since I’m in Paris, vive la France and Allez les Bleus!!!

Paris

I’m leaving tomorrow for Paris to attend Arash and Mana’s wedding. Couple of days in Paris, a day trip to Brussels, a daytrip to Munich if Germany reaches to the final, and a possible trip to Barcelona if I could find a good company. That’s been my plan so far.

Anybody has any idea?! Suggestion?

Orkut’s 9 commandments!

1. You’re Profile photo should be at least from a period of your life in which you could pee on your own!
I know you’ve missed the attention you’ve been receiving when you were three, but believe me, no one fantasize a 35 years old man, in dipper!

2. You’re not here only for Activity partners and business networking if you’re profile photo is more like a Victoria Secret’s add!
Either change your photo or admit that you like attentions from people you don’t have any business with but you don’t mind to be their partner in some activities!

3. Girls, just because our country situated in the continent of Asia, you’re not qualified to call yourself Asian!
For that matter, certain other rules apply.


4. If in your profile photo, you’re in a pink bikini in Cancun, holding a Pina Colada, you can not chose Islam as your religion!
Sorry folks! Islam has some regulations that you’ve already broken a dozen of them in one picture so… get over it!

5. That gorgeous elegant lady with those dreamy eyes is not you, she’s a deceased actress called Audrey Hepburn!
I don’t know how much you hate your actual appearance, but seriously, putting up that beautiful picture there, doesn’t change anything!

6. Dragging your boyfriend into your profile picture is not cute!
There are multitudes of places where you can prove your love to your partner and Orkut’s profile photo is definitively not one of those. Changing your relationship status to committed is the decent, less pretentious way of declaring the same thing!

7. You can call yourself a Very Left liberal, if you can distinguish the difference between your left and right hands!
To be politically Very left is not a symbol of being cool, it’s choosing a life style in which your father should start paying taxes and you can’t go skiing on Monday mornings!

8. Funny and quick-witted are the compliments, OTHER PEOPLE should give to you!
If you are so obsessed to be called those, ask one of your stooges to write a testimonial for you!

9. That dark spot in the horizon could be anything from a palm tree to a lost camel. All cameras these days have a button with which you can zoom in! Next time you want to take a picture for your profile, use it!

Sorry! Since I had to go to the bathroom, I couldn’t wait for God to send the last one. You figure it out yourself.

Deutschland über Alles - Part Five

It won’t be easy, you’ll think it strange
When I try to explain how you sucked
That you try to defend after only one goal
You won’t believe me
All you will see, is a team that has lost
And should go back home, with the tears
and you must get used to it too!

Don’t cry so loud Argentina!
The truth is you surly deserved it
When you are better, and you play defensive
You’ll pay the forfeit
And it’ll be expensive!

Have I said too much? There’s nothing more I can think of to say to you
But all you have to do is look at the tape of match! to know that every word is true……..

(Music)