What a wanderer could wonder about...

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Muscle failures!

Have your muscles ever failed you? Well, that is a very broad question, you can say which muscle and considering that your body has more than 630 muscles, you can make a very long list of how each of your muscles can fail and how that could affect you! I'll bring a few samples here:

If your heart's muscles fail, you will have a cardiac arrest! That is the sort of muscle failure I've had in my nightmares in the past 12 years!

Have you ever heard of the phrase “my knees failed me”? That's actually the tight muscles that fail you. It is when under tremendous pressure (emotional or physical) you are unable to move or just fall down. It is quite common when you are faced with a great fear, or you are extremely nervous.

If your tongue and throat muscles fail you, you’d be unable to utter something comprehensible. It usually happens when you have a good deal to say, but some intensified emotions or confusions lock your voice in! One could also experience it while dreaming. It has happened to me many times, that while dreaming (or rather having a nightmare), I start screaming and I feel that my throat muscles are failing me since I don't hear my own voice and usually at this point I wake up!

The most interesting is perhaps when your facial muscles fail you. They can fail you both ways, to reflect your feelings when you really want to cover things up, and to fail you in showing what your true feelings are when you want to show them! Having control to restrain your facial muscles is sometimes good, to be able to keep a neutral face. But it gets really frustrating when your _trained to be neutral face_, don't budge to reflect your simplest feelings, like smiling!

Interesting, isn't it?

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Minuscule fantasy

My dearest Niki had his big day. I talked to him before and after it, he was nervous. I was nervous too, everybody was nervous. But happy at the same time. Amidst all the turmoil, the thought of his big day was something that gave me the feeling that fireworks are in order. Still, it was/is bittersweet.

And I did have the fireworks, and the tears too! Although very short and minuscule, there is a sanction on dreams and fantasies for the time being. I don't remember much about it, I just know I did have it.

And I can't tell them. Or shall I? I didn't ask to grow this fast, or did I? And now the responsibility is upon me, or is it? But certainly the guilt. Or is this the natural order of life? People come to life and people leave it to make way for the new?

The new loves the old, but has a certain way of restraining it. The old but loves him in the extremest public way. And they both love me (I think), but I haven't learned to give them back. Anger, fear and desperation sucks it all before it reaches my skin.

My aunt said I'm an incapable person, a waste. I thought I had got used to her offenses and insults, but this frank into my face, with her eyes testifying that she was just telling the truth from the bottom of her heart, it cracked and it took just too much an effort to hold together. Luckily there was chips and sandwiches to get reinforced and busy with. I feel like liking her more though, at least she is frank. The bliss of ignorance is long gone. Most everything is gone, or has been exiled.

I learned the Prim at last! I've made up my mind, enough of the humiliation and degradation. I just don't fit in, that is all. But Graphs are nice, so perhaps they have some room for me, they are polite and elegant, and sometimes handsome too! There are still things to hang on to!

Just nicely put...


داری می‌روی؟
داری من را با همه‌ی تراژدی‌ها، همه‌ی مترسک‌ها، همه‌ی ‏خوک‌ها، همه‌ی کرگدن‌ها، همه‌ی ماهی‌ها، همه‌ی رودخانه‌ها، ‏همه‌ی ماهی‌گیرها، همه‌ی گورکن‌ها، همه‌ی همه‌شان، تنها ‏می‌گذاری؟
من با همه‌ی تراژدی‌ها، مترسک‌ها، خوک‌ها، کرگدن‌ها، ماهی‌ما، ‏رودخانه‌ها، ماهی‌گیرها، گورکن‌ها، همه‌شان می‌رقصم؛
می‌خندم؛
آتش‌بازی می‌کنم؛
می‌خوابم؛
‏...‏
حتماً باید امشب بروی؟ می‌خواهی همه‌شان را بفرستم مرخصی؟ ‏خیلی‌ وقت‌ست نرفته‌اند. راستش این‌طرف‌ها هم خیلی شلوغ ‏شده. می‌خواهی تمیزش کنیم؟
داری می‌روی؟

می‌ترسم تمیزش کنم و برنگردی.‏
حیف نیستند؛ اما رقص، آتش، خواب، ...‏

می‌ترسم تمیزش کنم و برگردی.‏


‎□‎‏ ‏‎□‎‏ ‏‎□‎

وقتی اسکیمو‌ئه با اون لباس همیشگی و کلفت‌ـش وارد بار شد، با ‏طعنه ازش پرسیدیم گرم‌ـت نمی‌شه؟
با همون نگاه بی‌روح و خشک‌ش گفت «من از یه جای خیلی سرد ‏می‌یام»...‏
همه ساکت شدیم. ‏
اون هم نفهمید که ما حرفی واسه گفتن داشته‌یم یا نه...‏

‎□‎

سال‌ها بعد، وقتی تو قطب دیدم‌ش که تنها با یه چوب ماهیگیری ‏بالای یکی از این چاله‌های کوچک روی زمین نشسته بود ازش ‏پرسیدم «تو این همه مدت سردت نمی‌شه؟»‏
با لحن طعنه‌دار و حاضرآماده‌ای بلند خندید.‏
پرسیدم «واقعاً تو این همه مدت تنهایی سردت نمی‌شه؟»‏
ساکت شد. ‏
و من هیچ‌وقت نفهمیدم حرفی واسه گفتن داشت یا نه...‏

‎□‎‏ ‏‎□‎‏ ‏‎□‎

-- Source: Horm

Friday, July 27, 2007

Poor sort of memory...!

"White Queen: It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards!" -- Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

Monday, July 16, 2007

A taste for Music

According to my friends, I have an irregular taste when it comes to music (actually not just music but most everything!). But actually I am quite fond of my taste of music. I enjoy my music not just as something I play on the background, but I try to sense the feeling of the composer while composing or the player when playing it or see the imagery it tries to convey. This taste is not limited to any particular genre, it could be Iranian folklore music, or European classics, or even pop and rock. But the essential thing for me is the music itself, it can have a singer, but I can enjoy it only if the voice of the singer is well integrated into the music and is actually working like just another instrument in the orchestra (singers with exceptional voice or strong lyrics are exempted here).

Anyway, enough about me! I said all this because I wanted to talk about Hermes Records, which is my favorite music publisher in Iran. It has published some fabulous works that I think no other publisher in Iran would have dared to. Not for the fear of censorship, but for the fear of bankruptcy, since the audience of these kind of music is unfortunately quite limited here. You can hardly find their tapes or CDs in most music stores and to my utmost disappointment, one of the stores I knew in Mashhad who used to bring them told me today that they won't bring it since they don't get sold!

You can check out their online catalog. I have a few of their albums and I particularly like these (you can hear a sample by clicking on the name) Journey by Massoud Shaari and Christophe Rezai, Genesis by Navid Afghah, Gypsy Moon by Mohammad Reza Aligholi and Now and Then by Alireza Mortazavi.

Hermes Records is also the publisher of the Endless Vision by Hossein Alizadeh and Djivan Gasparyan, which was nominated for the Grammy Award 2006. I like the "Sari Galin" and "Shurangiz Improvisation" in this album very much.

As I said they have a very nice taste for what they publish and they do it with elegant packing as well. Most of the albums they have published have a story behind the music. For example, at the back of Gypsy Moon you can find:

"A lunatic falls in love with the Moon. He marches the world night and day, not to loose the Moon from his sight. A different style of using traditional motives accompanied by Iran's most passionate instruments like Daf, Setar, Kamancheh ..."

Or at the back of Genesis you can find:
"The story of Creation is the most important chapter in the mythology of the Babylonian civilization. Based on an ancient Sumerian tale, the order of the universe was built upon a dramatic confrontation between a Dragon-shaped creature who ruled the darkness, storms and the seas, and Mardukh, the God of Babylon. After over forcing the devil-hearted Dragon, Mardukh created the sky and the stars, the trees, animals and finally mankind.Genesis is formed in three separate parts: Genesis, Universe, Life .
Genesis, the album, is a remarkable experiment, using the diverse sound generating capabilities of Iran's traditional Drum, the Tombak. Navid Afghah, a young talented musician and Tombak player, tells the story of Creation by making a unique and colorful ambience with his instrument..."

I have planned to buy all their works and make a complete collection. Unfortunately most of what I have is on tapes and it is hard to take tapes along so I should start collecting the CDs. There are a few more of their works that I really like to get hold of before I leave, like Safar, Ditirambi and Cello Songs for Silence. I hope I can find them. I'd recommend you to treat your ears to some nice pieces as well, you won't regret it! (And no, I don't work for Hermes Records and I don't get anything from them!)

Monday, July 09, 2007

Four funerals and no weddings!

I arrived in Mashhad late at Wednesday night. Watching the small light dots on the way, I was thinking "Let it crash, let it crash...". Well, it didn't crash but in the past 5 days, I've been to 4 funerals (4 different people). It seems the wish or the curse has fallen on other people and tonight at the 4th one, I was thinking of one of Parvin's poems:


سالها نرد خدایی باختی
این گره را زان گره نشناختی

But I hope things are going to be better. I've recently figured that I kind of subconsciously enjoy playing the role of a victim. I seriously need to work on it, find the courage to face my fears and accept the realities of life, learn to embrace more of it and also learn to talk.

Friday, July 06, 2007

So I am

"If drunk on this precious wine, so I am
If a worshipper in this shrine, so I am
Each clan makes my image in it's own light
Maker, priest, or convert of my faith, so I am!" --Khayyam

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Home, Sweet Home!

Against all my anxiety and everything to come back home, it is just great to be home. After a year again, you can't imagine what a good feeling it is to sleep under a ceiling who you had opened your eyes to for about 25 years.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Dry eyes, lost cries

The weather in Tehran is so hot. So hot that incites the flame within and too dry for eyes to cry. It is noisy, so noisy for the cries to be heard, and so poluted, for the eyes to meet. It is also busy, too busy for people to forward a hand or spare a time.

I might have been born wealthy, but my life is definitely not painless. Or perhaps I'm just ungrateful, selfish, arrogant and too self-centered to feel and see.