Wednesday, June 27, 2007

A cover for local highways

1.
It was a clear image but I didn’t have my camera to capture its history.

I woke up around 4 PM…I had my shoes on… After that I was in between of libido and logic for a while and of course libido took over. The window was open and I could have smelled the rain…Now, it is Tehran’s turn….

My mom was in front of TV as well as my father. She is reading less than before. But my father is the same; he has plan up to the age of 95.

Tiger Lilies and “Reading Lolita in Tehran”…That was the plan that I finished in the afternoon.

The price of petrol increased 500% in the news.

I could have imagined long queue in local highways. We were in one toward a tunnel. We stopped behind a traffic light. Red with a counter: 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, …

The highway went into darkness because of electric cut off. In the car beside, two girls were kissing passionately.

Green and the first gear: we went toward the tunnel full of cars with people inside.

I was thinking how many stories can be written just in this tunnel, a tunnel toward future.

I am sure these cars will move soon although the price of petrol is 5 times more than before in this tunnel linking 2 local highways.

2.
“If you want, you can pay first. I have many books”. I said to the girl behind me in the queue. She didn’t say a word. Her shy blue eyes was locked on the title of her book: “Ansichten eines clowns”

Nima came with a book in his hand. He read the first sentence of the book with a massive smile:

“Democracy is against all religions, particularly Islam”. All of us started smiling in the queue.

I think these smiles are so promising.

Mr. Abbassi is an engineer who is working in this book shop, a simple man, thinner than me with a moustache. He brought another book:

“It has been translated recently. It is amazing”

Butterfly and Tank: the fifth column and four stories of the Spanish civil war.

Our eyes converged to each other on the title, like two parallel lines meeting in infinity.

Both of us bought the book and went toward our mutual destiny in different local highways.

3.
I’ve always liked to write a story ending with heart attack, a scenario that Amir had played up to the end.

I can remember the last lines that he wrote in a local highway:

“I’ve gradually came to this point that western intellectuals owe a great respect to third world intellectuals, because of the great pain that they are receiving for being intellectuals.”

Reza, the book terrorist, stole my new book. We went to his house after visiting my uncle who had an open heart surgery a couple of days ago.

In the beginning of the book I wrote:

“I am so crazy that I have still hope to this stupid friendship, which is full of rubbery and abuse. I was crazy, I am crazy and I will be crazy.

I hope at least you allow me to read the lines that I’ve paid for it.

You know how much I love you and Maryam but what I wrote is none of your business”

I still haven’t written a story ending with heart attack.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Afterword for local highways

1.
It was a point at the end of a highway. Then it was converted to a yellow beetle and gradually gradually to a car with a kid on the back. The kid of our story waved his hand and I did so. Then Nima turned to left and his mom to right while both of us were looking at each other and enjoying the last moment of our friendship.

That kid in the yellow car faded in another highway and we in another one, but he helped me to write an afterword for my last post.

Sometimes we have to see certain people in our life and pass them. As soon as we pass them or maybe a while after, we will realize how important they were for us.

It happened to me with 180 kilometres per hour plus the speed of his mom’s car.

2.
She came here for the first time and we had dinner with my parents. I took her hard drive to copy some music.

Double Whiskey and a couple of Margarita…My father treats girls much better than guys. When we had dinner my father asked:

“So, is she your mom, aunt, sister, or what?”

I have 3 moms, 5 aunts and 19 sisters. But Nima has one mom, one aunt and no sister. Thanks god that both of us have just one father.

“I’m just Ali’s friend; we know each other for 12 years”

We didn’t say anything more about that. Nima joined us and we enjoyed the rest of the night around the table.

She went to a highway to come back another day.

3.
I really like my new T-shirt, but it will not help me if I really need to go to toilet.

I urgently needed one. My gut was like a Piton full of shit. I had no way except going to the posh restaurant nearby.

It was a queue on the entrance for getting served. But I didn’t want to be served. That’s why I passed all the people in the queue and went inside.

It was so intensive that I turned to the first door without looking to the sign. Instead of toilet it was manager’s room. She was in my age, I think.

When I saw her, I didn’t know what to say. She asked in a very polite way: “What can I do for you, sir”.

I wanted to say I am looking for the toilet but instead I farted loudly with a sticky smell.

It was 10 second silence and drops of sweat all over. I dived in the ocean of shame with my new T-short.

It took another 10 seconds for her to tell me:

“End of corridor, on the right”

I did exactly the same, but when I opened the door I just heard a massive girlish shout.

Apparently on that particular space-time coordinate, “on the right” meant “on my left” as far as shitting is concerned.

When I was serving their fancy toilet with a dish of Piton in tomato sauce, I was thinking how many internal and external highways we have to pass to realize how to forgive ourselves because of the silly things that we did in our life, either we were responsible or not.

I really like my new T-shirt although Nima said that I look like rubbish collectors working from midnight till morning in local highways.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Local highways

1.
When Hamid showed up, it was almost midnight. I was talking with another Maryam, Reza’s wife. We were in a highway down in time, to our memories from university, her dream to have a baby, and my cell in a remote island which was so far from the reality that I was breathing at the moment.

I saw him as always with a cosy nest full of smile. Deep black eyes and long black hair brought his face out of my ancient myths, the components that we should re-narrate nowadays.

I’m dying to say
Just a word…
Just a word ?!
Keep it silent

“Don’t worry, this is also passing. Can’t you see it?” He said.

That’s the way to drain in our being. When we were in the elevator at 3:00 AM, I was sure that I am going to see him again, since he promised me by his eyes not a word.

2.
We were in another highway with a squadron of humming birds above us. Tehran is a mega polis with an absolutely chaotic transportation network. Cars and people reach to sort of unity. This is the reason that cars can act like people and people like cars.

Chasing in highways, working in highways, racing in highways, jogging in highways, spying in highways, kissing in highways, fighting in highways, socking in highways, partying in highways, drinking in highways, thinking in highways, smoking in highways, reading in highways, sniffing in highways, praying in highways, dying in highways…Everyone in this jungle deal with highways in his/her own way.

Before fading in our back, I could have managed to read the name of the manufacturer: “Support Foundation of Miserable in Islamic Revolution”

Apparently, it is one of the wealthiest cartels in the whole world, based on Economist. They have business from construction to oil business and from carpet to agriculture. My parent’s flat is in one of the high rises built by them. There are always some doll girls and westernized boys in the lobby full of makeup and boot fit jeans.

At the end, when we passed a truck full of machinery carpets, I had this feeling that my tribal being is the Meta archetype of Persian carpet, full of colours and paradoxical forms, all drown in a unique canvas.

3.
We were in the highway ending to Shian nuclear site in east of Tehran. But instead of going there, we turned in the last round about to go to north and enjoy the green part of the country for some days. We passed mountains and peaks to go down and see how green can gradually cover the land without any explicit indication.

Based on the WMO, Iran has 12 different climates out of 19 possible climates.

Totally we drove 1000 kilometres in 3 days and experienced 5 of them.

4.
“You can’t smoke here.” I was in Hotel Ramsar’s lobby with an absolutely full stomach. I went out to finish my cigarette. On my back was green mountains covered by fog and in front Caspian Sea with shinny blue waves.

While finishing my cigarette, I was defragging my mind in the safe mode. I know that many of my hidden files are still not in order.

I always want to overcome myself, many times without any reason.

When I came inside, I saw the guys sitting on the sofa with 3 girls. They were young painters and wondered if we are photographer.

It took 15 minutes for me to tell her what I’m doing in my life. She understood, but I got lost more. That’s why I couldn’t realize that we were already in a local highway down to sex, drugs and rock’n’roll.

In the morning when we came out from Dr. Golmohammadi’s place, the landscape was covered by the thick blanket of fog, like many of my hidden files.

Sometimes I don’t need to see everything around and indeed I can enjoy with this ignorance.

5.
We were less than half a meter far from hell. The car decided to stop at the last moment. We even didn’t take off to see what was going on. Mani was continuing his funny story. I was 10 centimetres far from having heart attack because of laughing at his story.

We know how to make jocks out of tragedies, although we can be part of tragedy.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

From Birmingham to Ethanol 96%

1.
Drunk and in love…Drunk and not in love…Not drunk and in love…Not drunk and not in love…Whatever…

My mobile says it is 5:30 AM, although here is 8:30 AM…This is also one of the wired things that we’ve got used to it. When we used to something, we will spoil it for sure…Like time, space, nature and chances that come into our life.

I’m in Dubai international airport trying to write something:

Drops of rain
All over the garden
Like humans,
Meet randomly
And fade away

Maybe it was a reason behind it or even wisdom. Or maybe it is just one of the eastern belief, although I think all the major stuffs in our life happens quite randomly, at least from our point of view if we want to just stick to the sensible information.

But I like Spinoza crappy bullshits. It is almost 10 years that I have been trying to find the evidences to prove there is something beyond our sensible information. Up to some extent I was successful. But I am still not sure, especially if I want to stick to the last pairs in my information time series

“Maybe you were just a breath far from the truth, but you couldn’t stand it”. Yannis told me the other day.

After each major earthquake, there are several minor ones. Last one happened in the Birmingham airport. I was in the pub and a little bit drunk. Two couples and a single guy around 60 were playing boring pub quiz. They were British but not from Birmingham. So what the fuck they were doing there? I never understood and I will never understand. Maybe just to make an earthquake…

- Who was the inventor of colt?

None of them could answer. I was beside them. Without any control I said:

- Samuel Colt, American inventor, 1814-1862

This word was like a tunnel brought me back to my 8th years of age, when I was struggling with my grandpa’s encyclopedia. Odipos, Sophokolos, Machiavelli, Gagarin, De Vinci, Neil Armstrong, Ben Sina and many other names…But on that particular time I was just thinking about Ernest Hemingway. A sudden enlightening told me why. Why he was ended by a bullet. He was in front of me drinking his last drops of whisky. Thanks god that Samuel was not around. He was just an answer in the quiz.

A theoretical physicist told me that my major earthquake was at least around 9 Richter… 9 Richter in a box…If it happened in Tehran, minimum 6 million people would die. But I’m still alive. Should I be happy for that?

It is 9:30 here and I am in the middle of dream and reality. In my dream, I’m telling my future daughter her favorite story…How I traveled into a stone…

- Daddy, tell me the story of your travel into the stone.

I cover her with the blanket, like clouds cover the sun.

- Once upon a time daddy saw a stone, which seemed to be so comfortable to live. So daddy went inside and cleaned all the room. Then daddy brought some smaller stoned as table and chairs…

Her shinny questioning eyes was locked on my mouth.

- And what happened next?
- Then daddy cooked a delicious meal with wild flowers, a real rebellious dish.

That was the end of the story. It has been always important for her to hear the last part of the story, always. I think for her this story was like a Columbus gate to his father’s new world.

When I opened my eyes, my head was full of numb feelings and some memories which should be expressed by a broken leg not words. I was analyzing the smashed parts of mine, the particles which are all related to a period with no shape, no form…A series of events that happened like a broken wings.

In the reality, I am trying to find something for a girl back home. At the end, I am sure I am not going to buy anything because I don’t feel.

Maybe her words remember me…

Two Arabs are passing by with at least 6 times more weight than me, but 6 times less than the weight of the names in my brain.

2.
When I got to Tehran, it was my brother and only my brother. I hugged him and he smiled. He took my stuff. I wanted to smoke. He took the car and we drove in the highway to home.

I saw my ancient land for another time. Tinder sticks and my brother and a poem in my head:

These expensive trips
To the gate of being
To one, dying of another one
Doesn’t make any difference

Sometimes, my heart is clapping for me
It is taking me by hand
And kicking me by legs
Logic with rotten brain
Has no way to be back

When Pegout 206 is in the highway
When the poverty and crack is on the table
My heart is flying in the desert

When there are chains and locks
When the door of jail is open
The one who is escaping
Is a real wonker

Everything is laughing at us, Nima
Everything is ruining with us, Nima
Everything is burning with us, Nima

When the pray is finishing
When the peace is ending
When the honesty is shivering
It is the time to take a shower

Wow, if it rains
If it rains

When they put your head in the gutter
Write your biography on the water
When they take your hand from behind
Just write on the surface of bubble
Write for love, wine, flowers
But don’t forget the darkness

Wow, when your history is finishing
When the words are ending
When others are kidding with your honesty

I just want to cut
I just want to cut
I just want to cut

This is the story of my tribe.

3.
Reza and Niki came together. He stole the new book that I was reading, big bustard. When it is coming to books he is a real son-of-a-bitch.

I was talking with my mom about translation and she gave me some stuff from one of her students:

“You,
Stood on your feet
Like a human being
Not like an animal
Like a tree, oak
Raised and died”

(The tragic sense of life in men and nations, Miguel de Unamuno)

Why this one? I looked at her, and she looked back. In between was a flooding river of unspoken words.

Apparently, it is flooding in Birmingham as well.

4.
I went out with my brothers friends. I think Persian beauty is a real fact not an illusion. Maryam is a Persian girl, with American passport, carrying an amazing hidden beauty not only in her face but also in her soul. We went together to Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

It was 35 Maryams there with Iranian passport.

5.
I have been trying to post in Blogger for the last 2 hours. The only thing that coming on the screen is this message:

“This page can not be displayed”

Even the Blogger website is filtered in this country.

However, we know how to deal with restrictions. We’ve got used to it. I called a friend and he is going to send me an EXE file to break the wall….Nothing can stop us… Nothing…

Monday, June 11, 2007

Andrew's key could open all the invisible boxes

A trip and another trip. This one was just a moment. Realization of something very serious. That nothing is serious. Even the most disgusting feeling, which is the feeling of ruin. The picture that just came out of a missing key and cover all myself and my surroundings.

I opened the most crappy box in mankind's soul and explored all inside for a week. After that I understood that I shouldn't try to open everything in my soul although it is challenging and adventurous. Being brave sometimes (in my case, most of the time recently) means stupidity.

After 10 days, another stability. Or maybe just a self protection. After lots of hassles, I could have managed to close the box and put it in the corner of myself. Maybe it wasn't me and it was closed by itself or at least the box pretend to be closed. I am not gonna open it again, simply because I am really afraid of this particular box. But I have to be very careful with the other boxes there. I hope they are not going to be opened by themselves...

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Draws of 75, 77, 78

75.
My 2nd language is Persian
My first language is silence
My mother tongue is forgotten


77.
Monday: a hole
Tuesday: a couple of holes
Wednesday:two holes and another hole
Thursday: many holes
Friday: holes on the road
Saturday: holes in my home
Sunday: my whole is a hole

78.
Hey you, the flag,
On the tower of wind
Dancing?

You'll also fall one day

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Draws of 72, 73, 74

72.
I called your mouth, apple
Naked fire, delicious landscape

How come?
You want me to not like you?
With these oaks, trees,
With these nights, snows
And silence

How come?
With two birds
And a couple of
Lemon leaves?

73.
Like water
Like breeze
Moon
Mystery
River
Road

When did I find myself like that?
And where?

Like the sixth sense,
Strange

74.
Tired of you,
But more from mine
I walked in an unknown street
And I thought about the pleasure
Just passed by in a funeral

You were so simple and nice
With a green hat and dark pants
You were born in my poems
And buried there

Sunday, June 03, 2007

The key

This story that I want to tell, started with a key which was initially lost and finally found, followed by a discussion in pub, four poems and it has been finished a couple of minutes ago by a phone call.

Sometimes I am thinking that the whole story is not important. Not at all actually. All ups and downs, mental and physical trips are just residuals. The importance, maybe, just lays down in some rare moments, some images, and these images make us to live the story or let say bare the story.

We never start a story. Story will start by itself and finish by itself.

The story that I wanted to tell finished by itself before starting, although I am living with its clear images.

A key which was initially lost and finally found, a discussion in pub, 4 poems and a phone call.