World Cup 2010 | A Total Disaster

Okay… An absolute disaster just took place… The English mates drew with Algeria… Is “draw” the newest trend in England or what?! Their performance couldn’t have been any worse… C’mon now, your annual salary can feed a nation and you can’t run a field or keep a ball? Was that for real? Do I sound upset? Yes? That’s because I am!

I’m a loyal fan, though, and still keep my faith tight and my spirit high. Let’s wait until Wednesday and see if they’re EVER going to thrill their fans or if it will be another nightmare all over again.

S

Red White

My eyes play and wonder… I hold on to it tight… upside down… vice versa… vertically… clinging to the horizontal bars… I flip it over while he just tastes the rejection.

“To love is sad”, I read him saying… it ignores the color of the fresh-cut roses in granny’s green garden and refuses to wait… to wait for the dawn… for the deep empty skies and their sumptuous charm… it chases the true meaning and its monotonous sheen.

But why is it red on white? It’s a heart with no love or perhaps it’s only a dream… the dreamer’s dream of nineteen sixty two with a vacant heart…

… dreaming love.

S

West Side Story

I grew up in a family where “West Side Story” played a big role in my formative years and didn’t act less than a bible in a Catholic household. Yes, my father was – and still is – fanatically obsessed with the movie and encouraged us to watch it over and over as little kids. He’s confessed that as a teenager, when the movie first came out in Tehran in the 60s, he treated himself to seeing the film no less than twelve times on the big screen and that every single time was more pleasurable than the last.

I always wondered why a 7-year old girl should watch a movie, based on Shakespeare’s masterpiece “Romeo and Juliet” and set in the modern era, to the point that we knew all the songs that Toni sang to Maria, entire pieces of dialogue between the Jets and the Sharks, their fights, their hatred, and their loves.

As time passed and I grew older, I realized what bliss it was to have the first film of your life listed as “West Side Story”. I always think, this movie is a piece of art that should be treasured. Based on the most remarkable play, with music and songs that tear your heart into a million pieces, with top-notch acting, with a director and choreographer whose souls should be blessed for their glorious work — what isn’t there to like and love?

Last Thursday, my sister generously treated the whole family to the ballet suite of our beloved “West Side Story”, a stunning and flawless performance presented by the National Ballet of Canada for a limited time. Sitting beside the man who introduced this beauty to my life, seeing his excited face, flushed with joy while remembering his youth fifty-odd years ago, imitating the Prologue at his high school basketball field, was a treasure that I honestly will not exchange with anything else.

Yes, years passed, time flew and we all grew grays, but “West Side Story” never did and never will.

S

…

Your memory is a monster; you forget – it doesn’t. It simply flies things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you – and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you.”

— John Irving, quoted in The Times of London

Two In One

She looks abused with a busted heart. The black veil is her sole hope to cover her deep scars. Propped against the sun-dried bricks on the sheer walls, her tearful gaze is on the tiny little pebble that builds her never-to-arrive mañana. She thinks of nothing and would rather drop her thoughts of an unfinished world with no mercy.

In contrary, she looks being all loved yet owns a blurry heart. While questioning the parallel lines, she looks at her veil without the slightest clue of the deadly scars. Yes, she stares at something unanswered while wiping the salt off her eyes. In her nakedness, she holds a white towel just to sympathize with her sorrow, her joylessness, her hopeless tomorrows. The sense of guilt rapes then murders her soul in slow motion.

In my sight, they are two in a sole soul. They are both alluring. They both define art.

S

Still Life: Egg, Glass

Looking tall, the liquid is floating still, imprisoned in the dark side of the solid glass. The ostrich egg is taking up the most space on the lucid plate on a rustic counter. Looking numb and not at all delighted, the gigantic egg cries out loud for a sip of its companion to make her drunk. Wildness is what she desires to justify her untamed past life.

It’s an old silver scene with a background full of senselessness, but one which gives you enough excuse to own and honor it.

S

After the Bath

The only light heating the room comes from the flames burning in the fire place. The wood is burning slowly and warming up the sisters. One sitting and one standing, both naked on a thick reddish kilim, toasting their hands, while utterly hypnotized by the battle between the wood and the fire. Their orange hair matches the flames warming their immaculate faces. Even the old mirror standing beside them can’t take its eyes off.

S

World Cup 2010 | Brits Draw with the Yanks

Nothing is more exciting than watching a World Cup game in an English pub with fellow die-hard fans all around you. Yep, that was me yesterday. It wasn’t the best result, I know. I mean, Mr. Green, are you bloody kidding me?! However, as the Lightening Seeds said all those years ago: We still believe, we still believe… Football’s coming home… It’s coming home… It’s coming…

S