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!)

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.

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

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.

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.

My dear basketball

This year, was the first year in my life that I was away from my family for most of the important family events or holidays, like the new year and the birthdays. The side effect of being away (or perhaps the most important effect :P) was, not receiving presents! My good friends did throw me a lovely birthday party here, but when Norouz was approaching, I thought now that my lifestyle has changed, perhaps I should get myself a present. And that was how I got myself a basketball!

To my utmost grief, my dear ball, my dear companion in many light nights of Stockholm, tore apart tonight! :( A few days ago, I got the ball reinflated, but as usual I was in a hurry so I didn't check whether the pressure is right. Tonight when I took it out to play, after some dribbling, it just tore apart. But I guess I shouldn't worry much, I had to leave it behind in Stockholm anyway. One may say I'm an unfaithful owner, but anyway, I'm already planning to get a better one as soon as I arrive in Zurich :D

IAUM-CCC 4

Well, it is already four years from the first IAUM-CCC. I have some good memories from those programming contest days at IAUM and I'm very happy I am still involved (Although I'm watching what is happening from outside and as we say in Persian, "فقط از دور دستی بر آتش دارم").

The forth year of the "Islamic Azad University of Mashhad - Collegiate Coding Challenge" is going to be held this summer. Although there is a possibility that I'd miss the final, I'm quite happy that I'm going to be in Mashhad for the most of it. I bet my parents will try to kill me when I tell them I'm going to be off to good old IAUM for several Fridays, but I hope by now they are used to my "hassani habit" of going to school on most of the Fridays! :P

Anyway, here are the links:

- CCC4's details and contests' program
- IAUMCCC4 weblog

The first round is held online, so spread the word and take part if you are interested in programming contests and you can read/understand Persian!

Tormenting dear...

One of the worst tortures in life is to be tormented by a dear one who only has your best interest at heart...

The Road Not Taken

Today I saw a poem by Robert Frost that I had sent to a friend 13 month ago.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Now that I look back at it, those days I was tormenting myself with the question whether I was taking the right road. Although I was trying to push the question to be about coming to Stockholm or going to Canada, deep down it was still more about to go or not to go. Almost everybody I knew had disapproved of my decision in a way or another, but I had dragged myself through it all, and as the time grew nearer, I was more in doubt about everything. The last week before my departure, all my muscles were tense, I didn't like to talk to people about the fact that I'm leaving, and I had postponed packing to the very last minute. As a result of all the tension, I missed doing a lot of things. I didn't properly say good bye to some friends and relatives and I didn't finish some of the work I had to do before leaving, like re-setting my parent's computer and lots of other things. Now that I think of it, I should have really invited my friends out and properly thanked them and say good bye, but I was so reluctant to bring up the matter, so everything went messy. The funny thing is I'm still afraid, afraid to death of how I'm proceeding with my life.

But I have come to realize that this fear and tension doesn't have much to do with the road I'm in, I would have it no matter which road I had taken. Why all this tension and fear? I really don't know… perhaps it is the restlessness of my soul or because of my agonizing self-disdain.

Anyway, if nothing, coming here gave me the chance to realize (in practice, I might have known this, but experience is something else) that the real question is not where I am or where I go, it is who I am and how I am. I hope yet another move reveals more of this mystery to me.

When I told my father about my decision to go to Zurich (which he was partially advising me against), he said "Yeah, that is my Maryam, you've been like this since you started walking, you couldn't stay put, or where everybody else was. If we were at a picnic, after some time, you would have gone 10 meters away, and if we joined you, you would have departed after a while again."

So I guess I just need to make peace with myself.

Friend or a shadow in the pool...

"I do not want a friend who smiles when I smile, who weeps when I weep; for my shadow in the pool can do better than that." Confucius

Is self from self: a deadly banishment!

And why not death rather than living torment?
To die is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by
And feed upon the shadow of perfection
...

- William Shakespeare (Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 3. Scene I)
--
I came by this painting of Silvia by Charles Edward Perugini some time after I posted this piece, I'm appending it here. It is quite nice, I particularly like the dress!

D5: All Things Digital

The 5th Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital executive conference has just come to an end, with some interesting exhibitions and interviews. The climax I guess was the interview with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It has some interesting insight on where the industry is heading, and some good advice on how to move foward and not get stuck in your past!

Steve Jobs: There’s a lot of things that happened that I’m sure I could have done better when I was at a Apple the first time and a lot of things that happened after I left that I thought were wrong turns, but it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter and you kind of got to let go of that stuff and we are where we are. So we tend to look forward.

And, you know, one of the things I did when I got back to Apple 10 years ago was I gave the museum to Stanford and all the papers and all the old machines and kind of cleared out the cobwebs and said, let’s stop looking backwards here. It’s all about what happens tomorrow. Because you can’t look back and say, well, gosh, you know, I wish I hadn’t have gotten fired, I wish I was there, I wish this, I wish that. It doesn’t matter. And so let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.

You can read the transcript or watch the video.