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For all my friends, realist or optimist.
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This is a 17-month-old baby boy’s hand, as he gets ready to play with his mother in Tehran. Can you see the promise of new experiences and adventures of life in it? The hand belongs to Shaya, who is Mana’s son. Mana is a young Iranian woman who chronicles
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In 2001, while on a business trip, I was invited to the home of a family in Mashad as their new family member. They were a devout Moslem family, who lived in an old traditional house in the older part of Mashad, near Imam Reza’s shrine. ................... This is
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Those who live in this area know that summer months in Berkeley mean early morning and nightly fog enveloping the surrounding hills. This is a typical picture of how it looks every morning when I come into work these days. Directly facing you are Berkeley/Oakland Hills, through which a
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Exhibit A I was overwhelmed with my responsibilities today. When after spending a few hours in the kitchen and around the house I sat down to see how much of my " To Do List" I had accomplished (Exhibit A), I was really disappointed at myself! I had promised
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This is a painting by a female Iranian architect, named Mina Vijeh. I don’t know her. I saw her paintings on Iranian.com yesterday. She says the following unassuming and profound things about herself and her work, after she had to have surgery and stopped working and started painting again:
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This week in Tehran, Mohammad Kheirkhah, a talented young Iranian photographer, has a showing of several of his works, entitled "Iranian Woman" (Zane Irani). Look at this touching picture. Does it make you sad?
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Jason is the one sitting in the back. From an article in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Since I showed up to a job interview in Berkeley’s top administrative office in 1987, I have had a friend who is one of the most interesting and remarkable people I have ever
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By tomorrow morning, my family will start leaving. No more about that subject. Projects at work are taking a good shape and it feels good to get some long-standing commitments off my desk. I will also be learning some new project management software, and I’m excited about that. My
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This is a sad piece. My heart wrote it very early this morning. I dedicate it to Gol-e-Nargess. Last night I couldn’t fall asleep, because of something I had learned yesterday. I was thinking of the fifth family I now directly know who lost a loved one in Iran-Iraq
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One is an artist by profession and heart. He sees, lives, and talks music. When he plays, you can stare, but instead, you want to close your eyes and quickly write memories of that music in your heart. When he sits and talks about life, all the corners of
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The boys get in the car very early this morning and decide to play a game with me (again!). The younger one pulls out a CD, puts it in the CD player, and says: “Mom, let’s see if you know what song this is.” I am dreading being quizzed
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با تاییدات خداوند متعال به میمنت و شادمانی جشن عقد کنان دوشیزه آذر و آقای ه زیباترین شب زندگی خود را جشن میگیرندتا آنرا به بیادماندنی ترین سپیده عمر متصل نمایندومنتظر حضور شما سروران و عزیزان در این ضیافت شادی و موعد شیرین وصال هستندتا حلاوت آن را با
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I am off for the weekend, entertaining dear friends and family. I am feeling nostalgic, full of memories some of which I had forgotten. Today I remember the road to Rasht. After you pass Ghazvin's Koohin area, you enter the mountainous area which is the entry into Gilan. After
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So, O.K. My kids “borrowed” my car to go to work after they dropped me off in Berkeley this morning. Five minutes later I got a call from my younger son, telling me that they had been in an accident. I ran over, took one look at the two
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I was gone a few days and it felt longer. I was only a couple of hundred miles away and it felt farther. I was in the throes of love for those I can't have near, where all I could do was to taste, watch, touch, see, and feel
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Continuing on my search for Iranian dance and dancers everywhere, recently I came across a reference to Khorshid Khanoom Dance Company in Montreal, Canada. My information search was not terribly fruitful, as I couldn’t find a website for the group. I did find out that the group was founded
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My friend Debbie married her boyfriend of 10 years, Jon, two Saturdays ago. In a very humorous approach to marriage, as only Americans can, the two of them and their family members went to Las Vegas, where they got married in a chapel with an Elvis impersonator performing the
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As we drove up a freeway in Tehran, there was a bend in the road. When we finished the bend, all of a sudden we could see the majestic mountains to the north of Tehran, beautiful, tall, and breathtaking. Since my older son was seven and my younger son
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.....I have been working on complicated projects at work--things that have to do with numbers and budgets and planning. I am starting to deliver my projects one by one this week, relieving myself of the stress, but by the time I finally go home every night, my brain is
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Several years ago, I said I will never iron a man’s shirt again. I was going about, keeping perfectly loyal to that charming statement, feeling glib about it. My sons are required to wear shirts and ties to their work. As it turns out, every morning (including the weekends)
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My interview with Hamed Nikpay was published in Peyk’s Issue 110. Peyk is the publication of Persian Cultural Center in San Diego. You can look at that piece here for the Farsi text (Page 17) and here for the English text (also on Page 17). I had promised it
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So, O.K. It might appear that I’m having entirely too much fun in my life! All I can say is that yes, that’s partly true! I am blessed to be living in a place where so much can be seen and done if you only make a small effort,
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I am so excited! Starting this Sunday, July 8th, there will be an exhibition of Abbas Kiarostami's photography in UC Berkeley's Art Museum. This is to compliment his film series which will also be featured in UC Berkeley's Pacific Film Archives, capturing each stage of the director's remarkable career.
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“…Mom, what are you doing?” “I’m writing.” “That’s funny, it sounded like you were in your car, driving.” “I am in my car, driving, and writing…in my head.”
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“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.” Thomas Jefferson
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) Take a moment to look at my most favorite fruit in the world! These are white berries (toot sefid), grown on multi-branched leafy trees in Tehran, most notably in the suburb of Kan. They are quite possibly the sweetest fruits on earth, incomparable to anything else. Once a year
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Once a month now since April, I pull out his picture and talk about him. This is so sad, and it feels so inadequate. Can you for a moment imagine yourself in his place? A young journalist in the area of economics, returning from a workshop abroad, being arrested
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