Tall Order

In the midst of chaos and confusion, you finally come across someone different, someone who gets your DNA screaming sacred melodies of union almost immediately -- even if you're tone deaf! And in one fell swoop, all your ideals and priorities, every single principle and deal-breaker, each one of your petty schemes and over-analytical calculations, each and every game and trick you've mastered in time, even your impressive collection of fictitious boundaries and meaningless numbers, your entire past experiences you've been religiously projecting onto the present, not to mention your whole gamut of worries and doubts and fears ... they all just melt like lemon drops. You know you're home and nothing else ever really matters.

"Can I have one of those, please?"

"Sure," She says casually. "Anything to go with that?!"

All That Sat

The shot I thought was a blank must have been tear gas, or else the earth is spewing this thick mustard vapor in disgust. What I can’t fathom is why Angelo’s going toward it! Against my instinct, I follow him to the source of our contorted suffocation, only to realize the seasoned rioter‘s plan involves grabbing the fuming canister of blister off the ground with his bare hand and flinging it as far away as possible from the crowds. If only he knew he’d soon be in dire need of his best eye sight to find his soul mate, yet again. Two dozen coughs and spits later, we can breathe after a fashion, but to our chagrin, we’ve lost our queen Robin to the pandemonium unleashed in this insane game of street chess. Just a few minutes ago, she was regally lashing out at a nervous young man who -- presumably in an attempt to display Persian chivalry of some sort -- had dared urge Angelo to better protect his lady.

We slip into a house where the wide-eyed sympathizing owners help us regain composure. “Don’t you even think of washing up! Just let your own tears do the trick,” stresses my brother in arms, meticulously wiping all around my inflamed eye sockets with a damp cloth once he’s briefly dealt with his own temporary blindness and scorched hand. Our makeshift saviors appear to be in no need of profuse gestures of appreciation, which Angelo greatly appreciates as he dashes out the door with an almost palpable apprehension on his face belying the mustered-up tranquility. Left-brained and detached, I suggest moving forward and westerly, thinking Robin must have marched on to our original destination. But the pragmatic Romeo’s intuitive radar is fully functional by now and he begs to differ. We join a small band of frustrated protesters fleeing to the west seeking an unblocked entrance back into the main street, but he starts masterfully scuttling backward while scoping out every possible corner near and far, the way a rescue pilot would look for a life-long pal lost in the land of cannibals. Precious minutes are going by. And there! He’s spotted her amidst the haze of chaos. Incredulous and grateful, I embrace a relieved Juliet who’s walked her earlier talk dauntless and taken care of herself with flying colors, mostly green; there are tears again, but of a different persuasion this time. And I can’t help feeling inadequate for having mistaken other-worldly focus with resigned tranquility.

Now, a young man is taking turns blowing cigarette smoke into his wife's eyes and mine to counteract the corneal effects of a creative assortment of pepper gases fired by these huge monsters of anti-riot police clad in black armors, gas masks and shields. Are they even Iranian? Still disoriented after the over-diligent peace keepers of our town rained down sizeable rocks on us from across the road with no mercy whatsoever, we hear a cacophony of motorcycle roars and barbaric yawps over women's shrieks of terror and indignation. Within the columns of foul smoke rising from the dumpsters and car tires people have set on fire, I can barely make out ruffians disguised as the dreaded paramilitary Basij -- or is it the other way round? -- on blood-red dual-sport motorbikes waving their machetes toward the scattering bewildered groups of people and shouting bellicose Islamic mantras to invoke the powers of a Shiite figurehead, or something.

By 9.00 pm, I'm back home in my bathroom under a cold shower stream trying to get the CS gas residues and whatnot out of my eyes and out of my pores. My neighborhood, a lower middle-class suburb in the south east, is antithetically hushed, except for the occasional chants of "Allah 'O Akbar" cried out from the roof tops in defiance of the injustices inflicted on us by our Draconian brothers; indeed, what a great God! Will He at least be taking care of those brutally beaten up and humiliatingly dragged onto big black vans destination unknown?

Later that evening, covered in dust, ash and half-dried blood, I'm pressing a young girl's gushing wound inflicted by a baton to the head as hard as I can with one hand while grabbing on with the other to the end of the seat on a moped which is carrying the three of us to the nearest hospital. As we approach the entrance, far from a hero’s welcome, all we receive is menacing revolutionary guards rushing to arrest us. The driver takes a precarious U-turn to get away. Too fast. The bike collapses on us. I thought I've cushioned the blow with my right side, but the poor girl lets out such a shrill soul-penetrating shriek that I’m left with no doubt she’s broken an arm, to say the least. Somehow, we manage to get the bike back up and running before our cursing, bellowing pursuers reach us. Gee, they’re firing gun shots! Wringing my neck back to a painful angle, I can see they're actually shooting … not in the air, not to warn, but aiming at us! In the distance, someone’s shouting the British Embassy’s taking in the injured. But how to get there with elaborate road blocks set up on all intersections?

Curiously enough, at 4 pm the next day, an eerie silence has befallen everywhere. Apart from a few dark spots on the asphalt and the occasional smashed door of a building broken into last night by the “police” after their residents were seen harboring fugitives, there’s only a vague smirk on the face of the hundreds of guards strategically positioned at key points, and nothing else. All has gone calm miraculously. This is too surreal, even for a compulsive illusionist like myself.

On that Saturday, somewhere between Revolution Sq. and Liberty Sq. in the west central part of the great Tehran, we learned firsthand the excruciating truth about revolution and liberty. And Satyagraha … is best practiced whilst lounging on the couch with sugar lumps in your coffee and no lumps in your throat.

J-Che
Sep 2009, Tehran

On being left speechless.

This thought was too long for facebook, so I hope you will indulge me the space it takes here. I was not too sure about making comments regarding the violence in Iran, most especially since I am not Iranian. I don't feel like I can speak legitimately, or even intelligently about the particulars of what is happening there. However, I do feel the need to say something to my friends; to those of you who grasp much more completely than I do the implications of what is taking place, whose future happiness and prosperitey are tied up with the events unfolding in Tehran, Shiraz, Tabriz, Esfahan, and other places that space and my own ignorace prevents me from listing here. What then to say? Expressions of solidarity, compassion, or concern seem too easy; my ignorance is obvious and undeniable, and thus any such statements would, I feel, be lacking. The inescapable point is that I do not know, nor can I fully comprehend what each of you is going through right now. There is no way for me to fully share your outrage, your frustration, or your sorrow. I am left in a place where I want to help and support but am unsure what, if anything, is required from me. In the final analysis I can only offer to my friends what I do have, share what I sincerely believe, and ask your forgiveness that it is so painfully insufficient.

The first thing I would like to say is a word of caution, beware of hopelessness. Talking with a few of you over the past week, and following events on Facebook, Twitter, and a couple of blogs I keep coming back to the same thought, that there is the danger of resignation; on the one hand a chance that some will be demoralized by the actions of the government and vow never to vote again, on the other hand an attitude that change must happen now or it never will. These sentiments provoke in me the desire to say again, beware of hoplessness. The real danger in these days is that the brutality of the regime will convince some that their's is a lost cause or simply an unattainable dream, and that they should be more realistic about the power of the state. I can only caution that such false practicality is the trap laid by those who would use violence to enforce their will, it is an invitation to see the world as they do and to act accordingly. The only thing I can offer in rubuttal is the conviction that the agents of repression are really the ones fighting against the inevitable; it was most clearly articulated when a friend reminded me of a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

I have had account recently to think about those who support the current regime, not for personal gain or because their fortunes are tied to its success or failure. I keep coming back to thinking about the regular people who did vote for Ahmedinejad, who believe in Ayatollah Khamenei, and who will also have to live in whatever kind of Iran emerges from the chaos. The second thing I would like share also comes from Dr. King. I will just transcribe it here, as his words are far more potent than my own;

...Forced to live with these shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and to retaliate with corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love...Of course, this is not practical...My Friends, we have followed the so-called practical way for too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with the wreckage of communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way. This does not mean that we abandon our righteous efforts...But we shall not in the process relinquish our privilege and our obligation to love...To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in good conscience obey your unjust laws, because non-co-operation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is co-operation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour to beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory."

My apologies.

To my friends

The Iranian election....

I know that some of you feel heartbroken, battered, cheated on, etc...

Let me tell you this...an election is only a ph test of society. Real change does not happen at the election, but between elections. You cannot expect to have a sudden result, if the nation is not ready.

In fact, having a sudden change without being ready, like a revolution for example (that you would know more about than me) usually does not bring the benefits that you would hope.

The "winners" of a sudden change will still have the same mindset of those before them. If you want to take power through power, it doesnt matter what your ideals are, because they will be corrupted.

Power corrupts. 

There have been example after example after example.....human history is full of them. Really, human history contains nothing else almost!! One power being replaced by another, and the new "beautiful" power has emerged and when times comes it is just as authoritarian as anything else.

Ask the Cambodians, ask the Russians, ask the Cuban.....and ask yourself.

True and lasting change occurs only, when you are not occupied with defeating your enemy. It occurs only when not occupied with being better than someone else. It occurs only when not occupied with traditional power as means to change.

It occurs, when positive, creative thinking is present. "Dont say that one person cant change the world, indeed......it is the only thing that ever has". 

All real change starts with yourself. If you are angered with Mahmoud, then you only reproduce his anger. If you are frustrated with Mahmoud, you only reproduce his frustration, and the frustration of all of his followers.

By saying, I want a sudden change, you are not looking inside yourself, or at least not hard enough. Sudden change brings about a lot of destruction, and violence.

Im NOT saying, "lets wait forever."

Im saying, take a look at the past...there has only been about 200 years since ppl though the world was flat. There has only been 30 years since the head of IBM thought that the world would only need maximum 5 computers.

Take things into perspective, and you will realise; Iran is headed for change...whether the religious elite wants to or not. It can not be stopped.

There are two basic principles of politics, in the philosophical sense;

1. Power Corrupts

2. What you fight against, you will only make stronger

So, stop fighting, at least violently, angered, frustrated fighting.

And start "fighting" for a true change, the change that can only happen within yourself. If you cannot get rid of your anger and frustration, then how is Mahmoud and his followers going to get rid of theirs??

Comments are appreciated. And a more elaborate post will be written if needed.

...

Frustrated
Nauseous
Furious
Helpless
Speechless
Incensed
Disappointed
Sad
Raped
Enraged
Hurt
Worried
Fuming
Bitter
Angry
Angry
Angry

Back in familiar territory

Arriving in Schlaining, where I spent a year in 2006-2007, memories are being played back to me like an internal youtube playlist.

Coming here in 2006 was another chapter in the script that is still in the writing, although some universal force seem to be guiding me in the to where Im supposed to be.

From the first awkward moments of my self-conscious awareness of the world around me up until today, I have from time to time, usually 2-3 years between each time, after having gone through a lot of experiences during that time and just living in the moment, had awakening periods. Awakening, in that Im able to look back on who I was two years ago and realising how much I have changed since then. The first few times I was completely attached to my own ego, not realising that my every thought and feeling was a result of my egos hold over my being, resulting in me interpreting this personal development as a sure sign on my own excellence.

I have since then been blessed with meeting people not so attached to their own egos. Slowly but surely, it began sinking in. Meet people with an open and curious mindset, and life will give you plentiful rewards. Starting doing this, but still not fully realising why and still being for the most part bound to my own ego, the next couple of awakening moments led me to interpret them differently. 

Now, realising how much other people contribute to my own growth, I started seeing how everything is connected. What used to seem like coincidences, or products of my own excellence, now felt like were not random at all. I could see that because I treated people with care and respect, and even if not seeing them again for years, the very same people came back into my life and with them opportunities that I would not have been given if they didnt have a favourable impression of me. Coincidence became more and more of an illusion, but my own excellence I couldnt quite seem to shake off. These incidents of positive karma were still too far between for me to rule out that this could just be because I "deserved" it.

This brings us right up to the time when I arrived in Schlaining for the first time. I was really ready for a new direction and influence in my life, but not knowing how to get there. Thinking that peace studies would be the thing for me. But even though I met people with an open and caring mindset, I was still to some extent using people for my own benefit and amusement. I couldnt have come to a better place.

My year here was utterly painful. I thought that I had "understood" something about the world and about myself, and came in with a cocky attitude. What happened was the following: after being put in place several times by other students trying to inform me of my destructive behaviour and me still not getting it, the universe itself turned on me and gave me a lesson of a greater dimension. I kept making worse and even worse choices, going in to a spiral of hurt. My reaction? Drinking shitloads of alcohol, and when not doing that, keeping to myself in my room too embarrassed to face the world.

After receiving my first and hopefully last death threat, crashing a car while drunken driving, crashing my beloved laptop while drunk, breaking a tooth (yes, while drunk) and making "enemies" because of treating women like sexual objects, I finally let go. I cried, and I cried.

It was a crash course, and a very much needed one. I am immensly happy that through all of these endeavours, I still managed to make some friends that will be friends until the universe dissolves. My friends were my biggest critics, and for that I salute you. 

Even though, I had to wait two years, almost to the day that I crashed the car, for my next awakening moment. Im not keeping you in suspense on purpose...but right now I have to take a break. The youtube playlist just pumped up the volume.

Confessions of a Confused Soul

These past few months have been like an emotional roller-coaster for me. I have been torn between nostalgic and often angry flash-backs of my childhood and the potentially bright but not-necessarily-so future.

It seems that my ideas of self-healing were misled or at any rate haven’t worked yet. I used to believe that integrity with my past came from somehow flying back through time and righting every wrong; of course every wrong that is judged by my current worldviews.  More specifically, if I felt that somebody has done me wrong, I should somehow make them, though only in my mind, admit their mistake.

I am starting to feel that it might be that I need to leave the past were it is and accept that whatever that has happened has basically acted as building blocks of my very person. I face two paths now: if I like “me”, then I should stop dwelling on the unchangeable past and merely appreciate the effect of these events. If, however, I don’t, then I need to be changing something and that something is in the now. Either way, rationally speaking, not much can be done about the past but to get more and more entangled in a rather tedious and useless act.

Well, now that I am writing this, it seems very obvious. But believe me; I have been struggling with it constantly, surely without result.  

Goodbye Solo (2007)

Solo is a cab driver in Winston-Salem NC. He is originally from Senegal and is the opposite of his name. A passenger, William, is planning a one way trip to a desolate spot called the Blowing Rock and be left alone there. He offers solo $1000 to take him there in about 10 days.

This, however, is not one of those movies in which everything goes according to plan and things fall neatly into place. A bond of sorts does form between Solo and William, but it's not the kind either of them anticipated, and the film never even comes close to straying into Lifetime movie territory.

If you are planning to drop by at Ritz to watch this, I think it will be a good idea to bring Taste of Cherry up in your Netflix queue and watch it if you haven't done so yet.

Bahrani, Iranian-American director of the movie, relies on the legend of the blowing rock, which I did not know when I watched the movie. The legend has it that

a Chickasaw chieftan, fearful of a white man’s admiration for his lovely daughter, journeyed far from the plains to bring her to The Blowing Rock and the care of a squaw mother. One day the maiden, daydreaming on the craggy cliff, spied a Cherokee brave wandering in the wilderness far below and playfully shot an arrow in his direction. The flirtation worked because soon he appeared before her wigwam, courted her with songs of his land and they became lovers, wandering the pathless woodlands and along the crystal streams.

One day a strange reddening of the sky brought the brave and the maiden to The Blowing Rock. To him it was a sign of trouble commanding his return to his tribe in the plains. With the maiden’s entreaties not to leave her, the brave, torn by conflict of duty and heart, leaped from The Rock into the wilderness far below. The grief-stricken maiden prayed daily to the Great Spirit until one evening with a reddening sky, a gust of wind blew her lover back onto The Rock and into her arms. From that day a perpetual wind has blown up onto The Rock from the valley below. For people of other days, at least, this was explanation enough for The Blowing Rock’s mysterious winds causing even the snow to fall upside down.

The pinnacle of human history

What is the greatest moment in human history? Landing on the moon, D-day, invention of printing, making and consequent use of Little Boy and Fat Man. I don't think so. All of those may be important days in human history but definitely not its culmination. I think it is the moment that human for the second time used a psychoactive drug (most probably weed). The first time was a jackpot hit, a vary lucky accident, bound to happen, important in its own right. Nevertheless, the second time is when the Homo sapien, consciously, said to himself or herself, "dude I want to get stoned, f*** with hunting and gathering", this is what I call a climax.

Le mépris (Contempt)

The opening line of the contempt quotes Andre Bazin, "The cinema substitutes for our gaze a world more in harmony with our desires." That made me expect a movie about desire and cinema and I could not be more wrong. The 1963 international coproduction is in beautiful Technicolor and cinemaScope. The story focuses on the relationship of playwright Paul Javel (Piccoli) and his wife Camille (Bardot). Paul is hired by ab American producer Jeremy Prokosch (Palance) to rewrite the script of a project, based on Homer's Odyssey, being directed by Fritz Lang (Lang himself).

On the surface, Contempt is a movie about movie making, the relationship between the producer and director. It ask what is the price of selling out; If the director is the prostitute who sells out the box office, the producer is, then, the pimp. In all aspects the movie doubles back on itself. Paul is selling himself out tho Prokosch and as his wife watches him, she falls out of love with him overnight and feels nothing but contempt towards him. But I was sure that all of
this was on the surface only. I tried to dig and figure out what Godard is saying. So like any self-respecting scholar, I reached over and Googled. After a rather long search, I could not agree more with Jonathan Rosenbaum saying:

Contempt is not simply a look at antiquity from the vantage point of modernity. Contempt is something more nearly akin to the reverse: a look at ourselves as we might appear to the Greek gods. Layering one antithetical style over another--classical over modern--Godard necessarily produces a work shot through with contradictions.

Godard, playing Lang's assistant director in the film, has the last word, heard over the final tracking movement across the sea, a final command to the film crew, "Silence," as the camera starts rolling--a command that's then translated into Italian. Godard's view of serenity and continuity is necessarily splintered, because the modern world is a Tower of Babel where languages and discourses compete for mastery over a purity that eludes our grasp. Not even silence is unmediated. There's a French silence, an Italian silence, a German silence, and an American silence; maybe even a Greek silence, which the film prefers to remain silent about.

All in all this is a dazzling movie and not be missed by any Godard
fan; something we should all be by now.

It’s been a while…

It’s been a while since I’ve felt so confined in this small cell, my world; barbed-wired by space and time. The walls, my body. The guards, people. Even my sun of passion is overshadowed by the thick clouds of my reason. It’s been a while.

It’s been a while since I’ve forgotten how to release myself of the shackles of my murky past. The rape of my soul by the monsters of this universal prison, the society. Veneered by such beautiful titles: parent, friend, teacher. 

All the signs lead me to shut my eyes. “Yes” says I; easier to forget the pain than to fight. Oblivion engulfs me and I drag myself on as a zombie with the filthy euphoria of ignorance. But flight is inevitable, I pry them open again. It’s been a while.

It’s been a while since I drew the essence of my being on the once white canvas of this life. Now, infected by the shades of dark grey morals that have blurred meaning.

It’s been a while since I used my wings. They’re gone now. Heavy with experience, can my limbs shoulder the burden? Can I leap far enough?

It’s been a while since I lived…

What kind of name is that :P

.....ummmmmmm, how does this thing work again?

hello everyone!