It is therapy against fear Against being scared to death Of loneliness Of sadness, home-sickness, depression, —I paint so I won’t cry, (sometimes I paint and cry at the same time, multi-tasking quoi) —I make a sculpture so I will temporarily forget how scared I am Of illness, loneliness, sadness, uselessness, Death, Alzheimer, — No wonder so much opium is needed Art is my opium, my pot, my joint, my Mary Joannaaaaaa In lieu of suicide, I look at drawings by Leonardo DaVinci, Read letters by Albert Einstein, Watch videos of Rudolf Nureyev dancing, Ivan Vasiliev dancing In lieu of suicide, I dance with Elvis singing with Ann Margaret Jailhouse rock against arthritis pains Hound dog against homesickness, Then there is the poetry of Yevtushenko And Pasternak Sa’di’s love poems, Hâfez, Omar Khayyam Novels of Backman, A man called OVE, his Parvâneh . . . Yes sir, There is work to be done, before suicide

— G. Zimmerman Farrell

I have had a long, passionate love affair with libraries and bookstores. Any time I come out of such premises, the meteorological conditions have changed; If it was daylight when I went in It is invariably night when I come out; If it was hot when I went in, It is cold when I come out. In case of some libraries, even the season may have changed. Whenever I enter a library, I leave my body at the door. It is a good thing most libraries and bookstores have attendants who check the stacks at night before closing up. They bring me back to my body. Sometimes in the past, this has required force.

— Goli, some time late 20th century

My to do list was a bit time consuming: —Change the world —Make peace in the Middle East —Educate all women and teach them all methods of contraception —Stop population explosion (which, by the way, Is the one and only way to controle polution, maybe help climate change? Once a baby is born It has to have pampers, food, heating, medicine, transport, fuel, plastic toys, education, Electricity, internet, smart phone, books, car, you name it it wants it) —Feed the hungry —get rich, etc. etc. Now I have settled for: —put order in that closet —Give away excess clothes and books, papers —Find cleaning help, find a gardener And most recently: —Stay alive until tomorrow —Don’t think so much about best methods Of suicide, watch a dvd instead. Call a friend, go for a walk Take a deep breath, Stay above the soil Until tomorrow….. and Tomorrow voilà

— Goli

All my life I had wished to become a great person— I mean really great— One night the wish grew so strong that it kept me Awake— At around 3:00 a.m. I decided to do something about it— To take a positive step—so I lighted the little lamp by the bed— It was one of those adjustable study lamps— I turned the light towards the wall— A tall, blank wall and stepped out of the bed To stand between the lamp and the wall— And there I was: a gigantic figure on a blank wall. I had really become a great big person.

— Written about age 23, North Carolina

Sound of the moments clapping Listen to the wings of sallows, footsteps of spring! Listen to the joy of sparrows, the spring coming! Behold the violet's shy coquetry smile of the sun,singing of the wind, sprouting of the willow. listen to the rain kissing the flower laughing the spring coming. Behold the moments clapping, listen to the joyful applause, nature's standing ovation the count down to the imminent equinox. Again this miracle of earth and rain and sun again the glory of the rainbow March, magic, color, light, blossom, grass, song, smiles, hello, fragrance, hugs, kisses, greetings, thanks. Again the face of Nowruz,, New Day, again new joy of ancient feast again new hope, again new love again our eyes, our hearts must celebrate, the rainbow colors of new hope on this old date, while they all join, this ancient rendez-vous to rejoice, rejuvenate. Time's sorrow is not ending, arise! for the simple joy of, a breath of fresh air a breath of that spring fresh air.

Fereydoon Moshiri — translated by Goli

Je viens de Téhéran je parle Persan j'ai appris votre langue et beaucoup d'autres encore pour que de temps en temps je puisse fêter, faire une soirée internationale/litteraire chez moi ce soir le repas est somptueux, parce que ma soeur m'a donné un coup de main, (et elle est très bien) ça sent bon, safran et tout, j'ai invité Cyrano, Jacques Prévert, Corneille, Racine, Jean Valjean, Voltaire, Candide, Cunégonde, Roxane, Sa'di, Hafez, Mo'lana Rumi, Forough Farrokhzad, Sepehri, Goethe, Rilke, Shakespeare, Jane Austin, Dante, Oscar Wilde, HeydarBaba de Shahriar, Vahshi, Omar Khayyam, Ferlinghetti, Eliot, Shaw, Pezechkzad, Yeates, Madame de Staël, Corine, De l'Alemagne, Baraheni, Khoii, Bahrami qui parlent avec Khanom Joon (ma grand-mère) On parle en alexandrins, en mathnavi, en rubaii, sauf Monsieur Jourdain qui parle en "prose" avec Emma, (Bovary-Woodhouse) On se comprend parfaitement, Upham Pope, assis et très à l'aise, fume sa pipe meerschaum en parlant avec Khanomjoon, Phillis Ackerman, Gibran Khalil, et Sergei Sholochov Ma grand-mère et Aqdas Khanoom, ma tante favorite, bien aimée, sont la, autour du grand samovar en cuivre qui brille et reflète les lumières des chandelles et de ceux qui sont assis autour de ma table. On dirait que c'est l'Âge des Lumières ce soir Khanomjoon verse le thé dans les tasses de porcelaine avec beaucoup de soin, comme d'habitude je circule et sers le thé, tandis que Aqdas khanoom envoie Ragueneau le Pâtissier circuler avec les baqlavas et les tartelettes amandines, Il semble content, Ragueneau, de servir "ses rimeurs"! Hafez m'appelle du doigt, il me dit discrètement "du vin"! Alors je circule encore avec du rouge et du blanc et je dis: merçi messieurs et dames les poètes, écrivains vous m'avez honorée de votre présence, ce soir vous avez illuminé ma maison, et ma vie vous l'avez enrichie, embelli la décoration intérieure de ces espaces fabuleux de mes pensées j'ai beaucoup fêté chez vous il est grand temps que je vous invite a mon tour soyez les bienvenues chez moi faites comme si vous étiez chez vous. Je vois qu'il y a une commotion près de la porte une sorte d'émoi, d'agitation alors je m'approche, je vois qu'on ouvre un chemin et laisse entrer Shams qui arrive de Tabriz, il est grand, beau, imposant, "le soleil de Tabriz" regarde autour de mon salon, il voit Rumi qui s'est levé et qui montre à Shams le siège près de lui, Shams s'installe à côté de Mo'lana Rumi et ils commencent à parler comme s'ils avaient repris au milieu de la phrase, après tant d'années. Ils causent en tête à tête nous les regardons fixés, fascinés éblouis, fascinés depuis toujours. Nous pensons: c'est bien pour cet homme qui s'appelle Shams de Tabriz que Rumi a écrit le plus grand et le plus merveilleux poème d'amour, en 600000 lignes. Il n'a pas juste dédié les poèmes à son bien-aimé, il a tout simplement signé l'oeuvre entière: Le Divan de Shams de Tabriz le soleil de Tabriz, (la muse, l'inspiration éternelle, Est-il tout simplement devenu son bien-aimé? Par métamorphose? Par dévotion?) Le grand mystère de cet amour a bafoué, ébloui les savants depuis des siècles, dans les volumes, et des tomes, des bibliothèques entières Ce soir chez moi, ils continuent de se parler en tête à tête Roxane, souriante, est assise entre Corneille et Cyrano Hafez échange des ghazals avec Shakespeare qui récite des sonnets, Goethe écoute attentivement, et sourit "Avec Hafez plus je vieilli, plus je me sens rajeunir" la causerie continue, Forough éclate de rire à ce que Keats vient de lui dire, On dirait qu'elle aime ce beau garçon, je fais circuler le vin, Ragueneau le thé et les tartelettes amandines. Tandis que Li Ba écoute Cervantes parler a Du Fu. Je viens de Téhéran de temps en temps je fais la fête, j'invite tout le monde chacun parle sa langue, mais tout le monde se comprend mais moi, je ne comprends pas du tout le secret de mes rêveries multi-lingues, multi-culturelles..... Sans barrières, ni frontières, sans limite,ni de temps, ni d'espace, ni de langue, C'est un grand mystère qui me dépasse (les merveilles mystérieuses du cerveau humain) une grande fête éternelle, sans frontières, Littéraire, s'adressant à Evtuchenko, Sepehri prend la parole: Je viens de Kashan de profession je suis peintre de temps en temps, je fais une cage En peinture, je vous la vends pour que la chanson du coquelicot qui est dans la cage, vous enchante et rafraîchit le cœur et l'âme de votre solitude. Moi, je viens d'Iran j'ai appris votre langue et beaucoup d'autres encore j'ai passé ma vie, ma jeunesse aux bibliothèques du monde (bibliophile que je suis), Aux laboratoires de langues et après avoir bien écouté, et répèté, ré-pé-ter di-li-gem-ment, religieusement et beaucoup de fois pendant des heures et des mois et des années Monsieur Guex, prof du labo de langue et de civilisation française m'a dit: "Mademoiselle Irani, vous êtes merveilleuse" ça y est, je suis arrivée enfin, je saute de joie, histoire de dénouer les secrets topographiques/géographiques de l'interieure de la cavité vocale bref, la bouche, et cela fait l'affaire, m'arrange la question de prononciation alors désormais tout baigne pour mes voyelles Et le chemin qui mène au cœur des Parisiens passe par leurs voyelles. Je circule encore grand-mère verse le thé dans les tasses de porcelaine, Ragnau, enchante, sert les tartelettes amandines aux lumières autour de mon salon moi du rouge et du blanc Merçi mesdames et messieurs, J'ai beaucoup fêté chez vous J'ai appris votre langue J'ai passé les jours de ma vie dans les bibliothèques du monde et si je pouvais revivre ma vie J'y passerais les nuits aussi. Merçi d'être venus ce soir servez-vous de tout, librement, Faites comme si vous étiez chez vous.

Goli — Genève, été 2000

Dear friends, Romans, countrymen, classmates.com, this is the extent of madness in a multicultural, multidisciplinary (or lack thereof) dream. I have only transcribed it partially. Of last night’s dream, here are some excerpts. There are large gaps and consider this as a rough draft (cherk nevees, brouillon, Entwurf — life is a rough draft that we don’t get to correct); some passages will be added later. But I promise not to send you any further “paak nevis” or “corrections”. You guys are constantly in my dreams and Tehran University houses the most beautifully written chapters of my soul. In fact most nights I see myself sitting next to Ferdowsi’s bronze, seated statue (with 2 bolsters/motakkas) in front of Daneshkadeye Adabiyyaat and looking at life from there. I conduct many “class reunions” from that vantage point, plus many musicals and operas of Haft Peykar. Ich habe noch einer Koffer in Tehran University. Take care, goli

I am standing on the escalator going down under the Pyramide du Louvre. It is November but a sunny day in Paris, and I see rainbows on the marble floor beneath the glass pyramid that is sucking the sun light and projecting it in all directions, illuminating the Richelieu wing and Sully wing, the pyramid idea coming from ancient Egypt to Paris by an American architect of Chinese origin, IM Pie, to bring the sunlight into the far corners of this ancient palace/museum.

Napoleon wanted to bring Egypt to France; IM Pie has succeeded in realising Napoleon’s dream. I am playing cards with the gamblers by Cezanne and then move on to David’s Coronation of Napoleon. I go and sit next to Mme Recamier on her famous reclining chair. She turns and smiles at me. I say bonjour, comme vous etes belle, chic, elegante, parisienne. She compliments me on my good accent en français and asks where I learned French. I tell her my Mom, being extra ambitious for her children to learn the language of Victor Hugo, Molière, Voltaire, Aragon, Prevert, brought Mlle Dominique to our house in Tehran and that is how I learnt French. Plus in Lausanne and many hours in the language lab, repeating doggedly after Monsieur Guex, plus a thousand linguistic shocks that the mind of immigrant is heir to.

Mme. Récamier gets up and takes my hand; we walk together with Mme. DeStael and Mona Lisa down the path in DaVinci’s La Joconde — we are in the Tuscan countryside. I turn and wink at one of the guards in the Grand Gallery at the Louvre who smiles back and waves his hand, and then I ask Mona Lisa what DaVinci really meant by her smile? She laughs loud, throws her head back, and puts her hand around my shoulder and we all sit down at the table opposite Christ in the Last Supper by Dali who is also sitting at the table.

I am thrilled to be in such celebrated company and say to Dali that it is a nice coincidence that he was named after the saviour, Salvadore, and now we are having the last supper with Him. Dali says: your dream notwithstanding, the Last Supper is in Washington DC, and the original DaVinci Last Supper is on the wall in Milano, Italy. I answer: To be or not to be, that is the question. To dream or not to dream. Ay there’s the rub—

I am going up to Darekeh, Hafthoz, and further up, forgot the name of the top station where you get to drink tea with dates and maybe an omelette for breakfast with hot bread from the oven. I am getting pomegranate juice at another stop on the mountain. Then I am jumping over a stream of clean water coming down the cracks in the mountain and I hear a 14 year old boy singing to himself or to his companion: reeg Amoon o doroshtihaye u… zir paayam parniaan aayad hami. I am walking through Sed Esmaaiil Bazaar south of Tehran Bazaar (Sabze meydaan), and go to meet Aagha Rezaaye Rikhtegar… he has a foundry right there in his small shop, does neat precise work, has prepared what I had designed.

I am visiting Artist Tabrizi in his studio, feasting my eyes on his exquisite works, also visiting: Shahvaq, Abdollah Hesaam, Kadkani, Eslaami Nodooshan, Mashad, Toos (marqad e ostaade Toos ast een be darbash jobbeh saay…), golaab geeri, Qamsar — I smell those roses, whole fields of them. Khaneye Ardabilihaa, Kashan. Ferdowsi statue in front of Taalaare Ferdowsi, Tehran University. Book store hopping in front of Tehran University and coming home needing a truck! Not just for the books, but also posters, post cards, exquisite works of art… Maybe a suffocating atmosphere (moheete khafaqaan) is more conducive to creation of such extraordinarily beautiful works of art… Maybe absolute freedom and comfort are not always the ideal conditions for production of top quality artwork. Sometimes hard times and suffocating censorship, even sorrow and tragedy may be conducive to the creation of great works of art and the soaring of human imagination. Maybe from the depth of a miserable prison, the human soul will try to reach for the stars. As Einstein once remarked: “I believe with Schopenhauer that one of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness… A finely tempered nature longs to escape from personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.” Tell me about it. Our eternal Persian dilemma: this world or the next? Here and Now or the Garden of Paradise, Pardis, morghe baagh e malakoot or aalame khaak — are we birds of Paradise or of this earth?

I am browsing through the bazaar in Amirabad (forgot the name)… standing for hours in front of art works from Tanavoli, weeping of joy — “Nightingale and the Rose”, and “Oneness of Existence”, Vahdate Vojud. Tanavoli’s student Mash Esmaaiil, his iron goats and Don Quichotes all over the place. I am skiing in Dizin then Shemshak, eating baked beets in the street in winter. Chelokabob in Nayeb, Yaas, Tehran Baazaar. I am looking at mountains, and then their photos by Kasraaiyan, and all the exceptionally glorious works of art that artists of my country do not cease to produce.

I go up to the stage to receive my academy award for the best foreign Opera production. I take the microphone: Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears: If it were now to die, it were now to be most happy… most happy. Why the beautiful child is going blind? Why, why, why? [Sorrow]… is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it, and even then must bleed again, though not in pain. Where there is sorrow there is holy ground. (Oscar Wilde, De Profundis)

Then I recite Hafez and Rumi in Persian and then speak in prose, à la Mr. Jourdain in Molière: … Az aan be deyre Moghanam aziz midarand… ke aatashi ke namirad hamishe dar del e maast. … Why do they honor me, in the Magi’s monastery? It is for this fire in our hearts, that keeps glowing eternally. Hafez is smiling and nodding to Dali and to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. — Stranger, what do you seek or ask from us? Tamino: Friendship and love. — And are you prepared even if it costs you your life? Tamino: I am. (Magic Flute, Mozart)

Rostam Dastan enters the stage and sings with a great tenor voice: be baazaargaani az Iran be Toor / bepeymoodam een raah e doshvaar o duur — to save you from this prison. Then Ferdowsi himself, who has been sitting on his pedestal, leaning against those two bolsters, comes down on the stage and recites his poem: out of verses did I build a mighty castle, that neither wind nor rain nor passage of time can destroy… nor shall we cease from exploration and at the end of our exploring shall arrive where we started…

My body is a garage where I park my soul. I want my soul to be a Ferrari, a Rolls Royce, a Firebird and a Lamborghini, a bus and a tank and a Harley Davidson all at once. Maybe also a bike, for good measure. Environment-friendly and all that. How the garage looks is not important, although I try to repair the leaky roof and put a fresh coat of paint, every once in a while. But I keep my concentration on the Firebird’s engine. The fire in our hearts, the eternal, deathproof fire of Zoroaster. And nearby there is a cool place where the soul of the deer will no longer wish to escape.

Luciano Pavarotti enters the stage and sings of the battle of Rostam and Afrasiab. There is Zahhak e Mardoosh and Mefisto, Vodan and professor Dumbledore at the back of the stage and Pavarotti/Rostam speaks to Dr. Faustus… Bijan and Manijeh are sitting in the background with Fereydoon, under the shade of a lime blossem tree, on one of those park benches with attached wooden table, by the cascading waters of Haft Hoz. Leili and Majnoon are sitting with them too. They are having tea with gaz from Isphahan. Leili is laughing aloud and Dr. Faustus looks at her and then smiles at Rostam who is sitting on a rock next to his magnificent horse Rakhsh. I see also the marble horses of Marley by the Pyramid du Louvre. Bahram and Farimah and Khishtan and Farideh and Lagha are sitting with me on the bench by the Pyramid of Louvre. We are having sandwich jambon with Pepsi. Farideh is laughing and reading “the Pulse”.

We are going to visit Père Lachaise, Oscar Wilde and Hedayat and Sâa`édi and his “Cow”, Gaav. Suddenly khaale Sooskeh and aqa Mooshe appear out of Shahr e Qesse and tap dance in front of us. I notice that Didi and Gogo and Potzo and Lucky (from Waiting for Godot) are sitting next to us watching Shahr e Qesse with us.

Farimah reads from Wilde, the Fisherman and His Soul, and then the Birthday of the Infanta. We ask her to read Yeats: the soul remembering its loneliness, under the frenzy of the fourteenth moon, the soul begins to tremble into stillness. An aged man (woman) is a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing, for every tatter in its mortal dress. Cyrano takes off his large hat and bows to Farideh, and Bahram recites: the girl with long braided hair… hundreds of seas later… and a thousand mirrors yonder…

Goli’s to do list: clean kitchen shelves / buy milk, bread, fruit / bring enlightenment to Iran’s government / fix nails / repair Shamsol Emareh / make appointment re. haircut / free Ganji and save his life / make more pedestrian crossings in Tehran / mend socks / make Palestinians and Israelis love each other / do more exercise (abdominals, knee bends + push ups, rope jumps). Rostam gets on his splendid horse Rakhsh, and gallops to where Ganji is kept, picks him up, puts him on Rakhsh and gallops away to Zabolestan and the top of Kooh e Qaaf mountain where Seemorgh is waiting to educate us. We all want to be brought up by Seemorgh and by none other.

I come from Tehran, I speak Persian, but I learnt YOUR language, and many others as well. So that once in a while, I can give a big party, of the literary variety, and invite everybody. This evening dinner is sumptuous, my sister has helped and she is the best. You can smell the delicious saffron rice a block away. I have invited Cyrano, Jacques Prévert, Corneille, Racine, Jean Valjean Voltaire, Candide, Shakespeare, Roxanne (from Cyrano), Sa’di, Hafez, Mowlana Rumi Forough Farrokhzad, Sepehri, Goethe, Dante, Oscar Wilde, Jane Austin, Heydarbaba de Shahriyar Vahshi, Omar Khayyam, Ferlinghetti, Eliot, Shaw, Pezechkzad, Yeates, Mme. De Stael, Bahar, Khoii, Moshiri, Corine, Bahrami who is talking to Khanomjun, my grandma we talk in blank verse. Mathnavi, Rubaii except Monsieur Jourdain who speaks “en prose” to Emma (Bovary/Woodhouse) everybody understands everybody perfectly. Upham Pope, smoking his Meerschaum pipe Is sitting, relaxed and is talking to grandma, Phyllis Ackerman, Omar Khayyam and Solzhenitsin are listening. Rudaki is smiling and playing his guitar. My favorite, beloved aunt Aqdas Khanom is sitting by the big shiny Samovar that reflects the lights of the chandelier, and the lights of the luminaries seated around my table this is indeed the age of enlightenment tonight. Grandma pours tea in the porcelain cups, With lots of ceremony, as usual And I take the tea around the table While Aqdas Khanom sends Ragueneau, the pastry-cook from Cyrano, To take around almond cakes and baqlava. Ragueneau looks happy to serve his “rhymers” Hafez calls me by waving his hand And whispers discretely: wine! So I take around some red and some white wine And I say: Thanks a lot, gentlemen and ladies, dear poets and writers, thanks for coming, you have honoured me by your presence, you have enlightened my house tonight, enriched my life and embellished the interior design of those fabulous spaces of my dreams, my thoughts I have spent the best times of my life feasting at your parties It is high time that I invite you in return, Welcome to my house, and Please, make yourselves at home.

— Goli

I like my Persian compatriots' long standing love affair with nothingness. And I say "Persian" to include a literary/linguistic country from Samarqand, Bokhara, Herat, to Balkh, Dushanbe, Ashqabad, Konia, Baku, Ganja... from Tehran all the way to TehrAngeles... rather than a country with political borders. We love nothingness and all its paraphernalia with a passion. After all what is Persian poetry, our most cherished national pass-time, but elaborate, polished, worked on nothingness?

It is the most abstract of all fine arts (architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, in order from the most concrete to the most abstract). Also Persians do not "write" poetry, they "say" it.

Once you have memorized a poem, a ghazal from Hafez or Sa'di or Rumi, it is there: voila, polished, elaborate, filigreed, pure thought, nothingness, heech, the secret that sits in the middle and knows. Our long standing love affair, our 1000-year-old meditation with Rudaki and Ferdowsi, Khayyam, Rumi, to Sepehri, Farrokhzad, Lotfalian, Bahrami, Samandar, Kadkani, Behbahani, Attar.... add your own list .....

We have been meditating to the music of Ney, the flute, a hollow reed full of air: nothingness music from the void, air, wind dancing in an empty reed, turning round and round, as if around the Sun: Shams, and whirling in and out of strategically placed "holes" in the reed, more nothingness, the space between the notes that makes the music.

Yes Sir, nothingness is serious business here.

Our favorite national drink: tea... which is aromatic hot water: nothingness

Our favorite national fruit: the fine little fragrant, Persian cucumber, mostly water, lots of taste and flavor, near zero calories, heech. And we consider those cucumbers as fruits, not some third rate vegetable.

Persian watermelon belongs in the same category as our cucumbers.

Our favorite snack: "tokhme" roasted watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds,

Pear seeds or anchoochak, even apple seeds.

Once my Mom was on a bus trip, going from San Francisco to Reno, Nevada. Next to her was seated an American lady who was puzzled and greatly intrigued by my mother eating something for hours, that smelled extremely good and appetizing but invisible. She kept taking something out of a large transparent bag and eating it, but there seemed to be nothing in the bag. My mother says that finally the lady took out her glasses out of her bag and put them on to see just what on earth was going on.

My mother finally decided to put her out of her confusion by telling her that she had roasted something like 50 apple seeds and that was what had kept her happy, satisfied, and made the travel time pass much faster and more enjoyably. But Mom said that she was sort of embarrassed to offer the lady this microscopic but delicious and healthy, low calorie snack.

One of our greatest living artists, Parviz Tanavoll, has concretized, given body to this long love affair with his set of NOTHING/HEECH sculptures that are incredibly beautiful. In another group of works, Tanavoli calls one of his magnificent huge, shiny bronze sculptures: vahdate vojud! Only a Persian could do that. Unity of Being. Oneness of Existence.

Tanavoli has also a painting that is called "Bolboli barg e goli khoshrang dar menghaar daasht" (the Nightingale with a beautiful flower on her beak) that made me cry. The nightingale has a red lock on the beak, signifying forced silence. Nothingness.

Another great sculptor, Abdollah Hesam, among many beautiful works, has a mural sculpture of a man with a closed zipper on the mouth.

Nothingness being what it is/ for us Persians:

tangible, a real thing, heech,

has a free standing, independent,

bona fide name of its own, "heech"

having nothing to do with "no" nor with "thing" /

in fact nothing to do with negation at all.

The silence between the notes that makes the music.

Having been brought up on Hafez, Rudaki, Nezami, Rumi...

We walk on air, on nothing,

high, intoxicated without any visible Intoxicant

our addictive substance being: art, poetry, love, ecstasy

yes sir, Ecstasy being a real thing to us

Tangible and in daily use /not the powder/ but the real thing.

And now this new fangled Internet, the lovely WWW has brought about the ultimate union of the lovers, the vesaal, between us and our beloved heech, our centuries old love of the ethereal heech, the phenomenal way in which Persians have taken to the Internet, like ducks to water. Our newly rekindled, rejuvenated love affair with this "virtual world of an invisible "web" of radio waves, is the consummation of a long awaited reunion of the lovers, Romeo and Juliette NOT dying, but living happily ever after, watching the sunset together, seeing their children grow. All the marvellous Persian web sites and the emails criss-crossing the continents and the oceans, have created a virtual home, a "vatan"

The dot.com world has encouraged me to the point that I want to go back and rewrite the script, changing some chapters of our history:

King Mahmud Ghaznavi will NOT be influenced by the bad guys in his entourage and will change his mind and pay Ferdowsi the promised golden treasure. What is more, he will take Ferdowsi to live beside him in the Palace, the way Lorenzo di Medici (II Magnifico) took young Michelangelo to live and work in his palace, and even built a sculpture garden for him.

Rostam will recognize his son Sohrab BEFORE he is killed and together they will go and find Rudabeh and they will build a magnificent house and garden in Zabolestan. The garden is so lovely that Simorgh decides to go live there as well. After all Simorgh is the one who raised Rostam's father, Zaal e Nariman. Shams Tabrizi visits them too, from time to time. Bijan and Manijeh also.

And Mirza Taqi Khan e Amir Kabir will NOT be killed and instead he will build many other DarolFonuns polytechnics all over Iran. He will also rebuild the Ark of Bam, and repair Apadana, in Perseplis.

And Mansour Hallaj will NOT be hanged and he will tell us to sit down upon the ground beside him and will tell us, in great detail and in a leisurely manner, while having tea and baqlava, and maybe gaz from Isphahan, all about the "truth" and we shall ask him to elaborate, and he will reveal "THE secret".

And Emam Hosein will NOT be killed, and instead Yazid and Shemr will change their minds and bring nice drinks and ice water to the desert, and then will take them all back to have dinner together.

And Rabe'e will live happily with her beloved (who will NOT be killed by her brother) and she will write lots of nice love poems and we will take her chocolates on Valentine's day.

Goli — May 2005, first published on iranian.com

I wrote this in February 2001. The date is significant in that it is a few months before September 11. Although the content is still true in my mind, I would probably not be in this kind of optimistic frame of mind. Beelzebob, Mamon, Lucifer et al seem to have temporarily lured some of our brothers to their camp. I hope this is a temporary derailment and that they will soon find their way back into the world of reason, truth, beauty, peace, and love.

We have come a long way since the Neanderthal — we live much longer now, eat much better food that we don’t have to go hunting for. Our ancestors used to risk getting killed for a piece of meat or, at best, die later of a wound sustained while hunting for a meal or running away from wild beasts.

Now a great many of us get our meat and bread, fruits and veggies, at the market, the supermarket, or the hypermarket depending on where we live, from Taiwan to Madagascar, from Norway to Wagadougou, America, Honolulu, to Fiji, Tasmania, Kabul, Samarghand. We cook our food easily on a stove, sit in a warm room, protected from wind and rain and snow storms and many other cruel elements of Nature; we sit in artificial, man-made rooms, unthreatened by lions and bears and other wild beasts, and we eat in front of that loveliest of all human inventions: the television.

We can afford now to watch National Geographic on TV and self-righteously worry about endangered species, tigers of Bengal, lions of Persia, panda from China, etcetera etcetera (lots of etcetera), who used to all hunt us for food.

More of us live longer and happier lives than ever before — just look at the statistics from 200 years ago, 500 years ago, 1000 years ago… thanks mostly to plumbing and penicillin plus all those other miracle drugs, magical surgeries, miracle technologies that cure, maintain, inform, entertain us in far corners of the earth, televised, telephoned, telemedicined, tele-commu-nicated to. Not one dull moment, not even time to contemplate all these miracles, taken for granted in daily life.

No time off from boulevard news 24 hours a day, to think and realize: it is only a small, minuscule number who are violent. Good guys outnumber bad guys by a huge margin. The media’s yellow journalism and their boulevard press want to make us believe otherwise. They put the spotlight on the small number of half-wit, terrorist kids in high schools and elsewhere. Large numbers of us are kind, quiet, peace-loving people. We are only ignored by the boulevard press media. We don’t make the covers of magazines and all those other new zines.

Even in seemingly conflict and trouble spots, they exclusively report on the bad guys. They ignore all the polite, kind, caring young people of these trouble spots. No wonder violence is propagated and encouraged. The rare serial killers are shown on TV and magazines, their minds and lives dissected ad nauseam, day and night. Half-wits and marginals, who might otherwise stay calm, are excited into action. The quickest way to be on the cover of blah, blah… magazine, is a chilling mass murder. For such marginal half-wits, TV has replaced God.

We want to know how the scientists’ minds work, how the artists create those marvelous works, how do they give up TV, close the door, turn off the phone, say no to invitations to party, and instead of skiing, and a million other pleasures that the flesh is heir to, sequester themselves to create something out of nothing? We want to know how good governments work; we are sick to death of being shown the anatomy of the brains of half-wits and criminals, plus the minutia of their thought process. That is only for criminologists, and maybe detectives. Not for us, the general public. In the boulevard media, unlike in reality, Beelzebob, Mamon, Mephisto and company have won over.

In real life, however, we have come a long way since the Neanderthal. And we definitely could use a pat on the back.

— Goli, February 2001 · first published on iranian.com, August 2005

Democracy… prizes self criticism as it cannot be prized in an autocracy… democracy flourishes under self criticism, whereas an autocracy dies by it.

In 1973 when I was studying at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, I was flabbergasted by the big deal that was made out of the Watergate break-in. Here there was this opposing party that had attempted to find out what the rival party was up to. They had tried to sneak in and take a peek at what the opposition was doing. I thought wow! This is the only country where such a big deal is made out of something that is a routine banality anywhere else. In most other countries the leaders of the opposition are systematically murdered, kidnapped, or they simply disappear without any trace.

America is confident enough to prize self criticism (although this self criticism is sometimes carried to ridiculous extremes). As far as I know, for most of the twentieth century and especially since World War II until today (Christmas 2005), the rest of the world has tried to imitate the United States. Young people everywhere on the globe want to do things the American way because it seems to be working better than anywhere else (there is more opportunity, more prosperity, more freedom and more scientific progress etc.). The whole world wants to do things the American way. Everything America does is imitated around the world. This includes America’s harsh self criticism (Herbert Marcuse, destruction of the existing order…). So why are we surprised that America’s enemies (those who envy all things American) also imitate America’s self criticism?

I recently asked a European senior diplomat: why is it that the “international community” finds it so fascinating to talk ad nauseum about how prisoners are treated in Guantanamo and Abu Ghuraib and the CIA’s alleged “secret prisons” abroad, but nobody seems to give a damn nor care a penny’s worth about all those other prisons around the world where for long centuries innocent writers, journalists, and thinkers are and have been incarcerated, tortured, and killed? Why is it that nobody seems to find it worth giving any attention to what is happening to all the world’s “political prisoners” who are perishing as we speak NOW, but this thing called the “international community” cannot get enough of talking about the poor little terrorist suspects that are allegedly mistreated in Guantanamo etc.?

The diplomat, who is also a friend, said: Do you want the diplomat’s answer or my honest opinion? I said of course I want your own honest, un-sugar-coated opinion. He said: because people expect America and Americans to be better than the rest of humanity. Americans are expected to be angels, demi-gods or simply gods. I said: then what do they expect those who jail writers and journalists all over the place to be? He said they are expected to be the scums and thugs that they are and nobody expects them to behave any differently than they do.

I was grateful for this diplomat friend’s honesty, but I was also very sad. Many countries in the world have governments who are scared of criticism and change. They all lack the self confidence that only comes from real democracy. Regimes that feel rooted in popular support through real representation can tolerate criticism, and “Democracy… prizes self criticism as it cannot be prized in a dictatorship. Democracy flourishes under self criticism whereas dictatorship dies by it.”

America is the country that prizes self criticism. But since America is constantly and universally followed and copied and imitated, so criticizing America (rather than self criticism!) is the enemy’s way of imitating and copying Americans! They criticize the USA, instead of criticizing themselves.

Selective indignation: I have been amazed at the amount of time and space given by the media to treatment of detainees in Abu Quraib prison and in Guantanamo. There are many many prisons around the world where people are tortured to death every day, every hour, as we speak dear reader, but the media are NOT interested in investigating those. Even so-called humanitarian and human rights watch organizations ignore prison conditions in Cambodia, North Korea, Iran, some countries in Africa, and many other places, and concentrate almost exclusively on Abu Quraib and Guantanamo. It is as if American prison guards are expected to be angels and the rest of the world is expected to be scums and torturers and murderers and that is all right. Only Americans are expected to be nice guys by the “international community”. All others are expected to act like thugs and murderers. This in a way is a compliment to America (USA) and Americans. Only they and no others are thought of as honourable people who are supposed to be good. All others can be thugs and who cares?

— Goli, Christmas 2005

I started reading very young. And having a good memory I memorized the best bits and pieces of what I read. Then I sort of started thinking using those bits and pieces from poets, thinkers, and novelists in the languages I added as I gallivanted in libraries, lecture halls of universities. And later listened to online courses and lectures I found here and there. Here I have a small selection of quotations from some of my favorites. Considering all the horrors humanity has so far lived through, it is quite remarkable how much great art and superlative literature has been produced. This here is my little selection. Enjoy.

Kunst ist die höchste Form von Hofnung. (Art is the highest form of hope)

Gerhard Richter

I always imagine that paradise will be a kind of library.

Jorge Luis Borges

Death and taxes are unsolved engineering problems.

Romana Machado

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Winston Churchill

Bumper Stickers

Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.

Susan Rivas

I’d rather be over the hill than under it.

David Brown

I’ve run out of sick days, so I’m calling in dead.

Jennie Cline

I don’t suffer from insanity… I enjoy every minute of it.

Alison Anderson

Voltaire

Le meilleur des humains est celui qui contribue au bonheur des humains.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

The ear is the avenue to the heart.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.

And a few more

A government of laws, and not of men.

John Adams, 1774

First ask yourself: what is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

Dale Carnegie

Ne me dit pas quel est ton nom, ou ta croyance, dis-moi seulement quel est ta souffrance.

Louis Pasteur

What you want, what you are hanging around in the world waiting for, is for something to occur to you.

Robert Frost