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به سوی راک فارسی

گروه راک «حک» یکی از گروه های فعال در شکل گیری موج موسیقی راک ایران در یک دهه اَخیر بوده است. این گروه مانند بیشتر گروه های راک در ایران یک پروژۀ موسیقی یک نفره می باشد که با همیاری و همکاری موسیقی پردازان متعددی از جمله؛ نوازندگان گروه راک «سرخس» و شهرام شعرباف رهبر گروه راک «اوهام» و نوازندگان و موسیقیدانان حرفه ای مانند؛ رضا اَبائی، کسرا ابراهیمی، اِحسان خواجه مولائی، مونا نامور، علی جبرئیلی به رهبری «مانی صفیخانی» تاکنون به پیش رفته است. پروژۀ حک در سال 2001 میلادی آغاز به فعالیت کرده و تا به امروز 4 آلبوم در سبک های آلترناتیو، فیوژن-راک و پروگرسیو-راک انتشار داده است.>>>

No War, No Surrender

Those who overlook the lessons of history are likely to repeat the mistakes of the past. President Barack Obama seems to be treading the same path on Iran that former President Jimmy Carter was on. That path led to the disastrous circumstances that are still being felt in today’s political sphere. Carter’s misstep was to turn on a key ally in the region the guise of promoting human rights, thereby assisting in the establishment of the current dictatorship. Carter urged that Shah’s regime take up the cause of human rights, in effect accusing the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, of blatant human rights violations. This was in the midst of Pahlavi’s democratic and economic reforms>>>

Action and Reaction

Any play with Iranian-born Bella (Ramezan-nia) Warda in the cast necessarily draws special attention to the acting. A cautious playwright creates a solid enough work to make her play’s ideas as immune to the quality of acting as possible, and playwright Joyce Van Dyke has done that in A Girl’s War. But powerful actors like Warda dig their spurs deep into the work, making it bolt like a trained animal shocked back into its wild nature. It is noticeable how much the other actors enjoy sharing their scenes with Warda as Arashaluis, the fiercely patriotic Armenian mother. To survive the intensity that this actress brings to the stage, the other actors courageously counter with their own show of force >>>

جنگ پير با جوان

اين كه سهرابِ نوجوان، بي گفتگو با پدري جهان‌پهلوان، بي هيچ تماسي با او، براي او تصميم‌گيري كند و پندار خامش را بي فراهم كردن تمهيدات لازم، عملي كند؛ حداقل، دستِ كم گرفتنِ رستم است و تنها از بي تجربگي ناشي مي‌شود. فراموش نكنيم كه برخي از پهلوانان شاهنامه، همچون زال و رستم مي‌توانسته‌اند تاج بر سر نهند و شاه ايران شوند؛ اما ترجيح داده‌اند پهلوان باقي بمانند. پشت و پناه مردم، شاهان و سرزمين‌شان باشند و هر زمان فرۀ ايزدي از شاهي، با خارج شدن از مسير داد و دهش، گسست، شاهي دادگر بيابند. در سراسر شاهنامه مهم‌ترين وظيفة پهلوانان غير از دفاع از سرزمين‌شان، نظارت بر كار شاهان است؛ مهار خودكامگي؛ نصيحت شاهان و در صورت لزوم تنبيه آن‌ها و اين همه امكان را با اثبات غمخواري و از خودگذشتگي كسب كرده‌اند. هر زمان لازم بوده از هيچ كوششي براي ياري رساندن به مردم و سرزمينشان فروگذار نكرده‌اند.>>>

First Khanom

Since becoming president in 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become one of the most widely known Iranian politicians. In direct contrast, his wife has been one of the most discreet spouses in Iranian political history. The world got its first glimpse of her in 2005, after she accompanied her husband on a trip to Malaysia. However, she did not speak any words and has hardly ever appeared in front of cameras since then. What was even more mysterious was her identity. She was only referred to as Mrs. Ahmadinejad in the very few reports which mentioned her. Her real identity was strongly protected>>>

Give Me Back My Story

“Rooster” is one of those associations that connects me to major roads of my past, to the intersections from which different paths of association branch out. I can take any of these roads and soon be traveling to different spaces of my life and identity. It links me with many clusters of memories, to the street I was raised in, to my mother’s colleague Raana, to my playmates and a zoo we created together, to Americans, and to our yard which is itself associated with many other faces and stories. Finally I got you there. Now you are curious, asking, “How is it that your yard is associated with roosters? That is a good question that opens up a whole story of its own>>>

From Zahak to plastic prostitutes of Tehran

Here is a quiz question: - If I were to ask you to identify one single style of narrative that has consistently existed in our Iranian Art and literature for several millennium what would you say it is? OK, I’ll give you a clue, what do writers and Artists do under repression and censorship? The answer is they use allegory. More consistently for the last 1400 years, these allegories are signs of how as a nation we have taken bends and twists to comply, shape or live with Islamic law or live under tyranny of kings, sheikhs, Sultans and Khans and say what we want to say>>>

A Valentine to Iran

These days when we find a rock with the imprint of a seashell we know it’s a common fossil. But in the days when Science hadn’t already imagined our world for us, the question of how the sea creature got so far inland, inspired stories. The ancient Iranians had seen rocks fall from the sky, so they imagined monsters called deevs who could throw rocks all the way from the bottom of the oceans to the tops of mountains. There is a well-known story in which a deev called Akvan battles the Iranian supreme champion Rostam. But that episode doesn’t say anything about Akvan throwing rocks from the sea. Why did Akvan toss rocks to dry land? Was he fighting another monster, was he building a home for himself? We don’t know. Obviously large parts of Akvan’s story are lost to us>>>

Take the Last Chance

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Do you love poetry?

“Do you love poetry?” Someone asked me. I used to listen to Shamloo citing the poems of Rumi and Khayyam during the nights of war in the dark, walking in my room, going from one corner to another, and pausing for seconds by the window to watch the city outside, the apartment buildings facing our apartment building, the narrow street, and people in their home – unaware of being watched - and feeling like a voyeur....Maybe this is how I loved to be a writer. Every night, the old woman of the second floor washed her feet in her kitchen sink, looking tired and bored....Maybe this is how I decided to leave my home>>>

نسل در هم شکسته شصت خورشیدی

با یکی از کارمندان ارشد وزارت خارجه حرف میزدم .برای ماموریت جدیدی به تهران می رود .چمدان اش را دیشب با هم مرتب کردیم .چند دست لباس زنانه و وسایل روزمره و پنج روسری رنگی که یکی اش را خودم برایش خریده ام و خرت و پرت های دیگه. نقشه ی بزرگ تهران را جلویش گذاشتم و همه جاهایی را که با پوست و خون و قلبم دوست دارم نشانش دادم و بی اختیار اشک همه ی صورتم را پر کرد .بی آنکه نگاهم کند گذاشت با دستمال کاغذی پاکش کنم .از دربند و خیابان شریعتی و قلهک و نیاوران و میرداماد و میدان محسنی برایش گفتم .توپخانه را نشانش دادم و از هوای مسموم تهران برایش حرف زدم. آنقدر از تهران گفتم که بی اختیار گقت: می خواهی با مسئولیت خودم ببرمت تا این همه غم غربت از پا نیاندازد ترا هادی جان!>>>

Angels of War

Tom Cruise’s WWII thriller Valkyrie has had some oddly nonsensical reviews. I saw the film a few hours after I had returned from a Gaza protest rally; so images of civilian massacre were freshly painful on my mind, making one particular symbolism in the film go far with me. Von Stuaffenberg had lost an eye to the enemy, and the film made sure the audience kept that in mind. Despite the cruel wording, the "eye for an eye" directive in the Torah is meant to limit the retribution one can exact. It is a ban against unbridled vengeance. If someone pokes out your eye, then take his eye if you must. But you are forbidden to go on to kill his wife, burn his kids, tear down his house, take away his livelihood, and devastate his land>>>