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! :)