People and places

I wonder if there is a magic in the spirit of places, streets or cities, some grow deep roots in people's soles. What is this magic? Does it come from the solid constructed soil and sand, the metals and the shiny glassy walls? Or it comes from us; human beings and the events that take place there?
I am standing in a corner, in Washington square, NYC; watching the crowd, it moves like a giant wave. I spot Jeremy and Simon among the crowd. Jeremy is a tourist from San Francisco. He was rubbed last night by a group of youngsters, right there. He hates that spot, even Manhattan and the big apple. And Simon is walking there too. He is a New Yorker. He used to love Washington square, because he met Angela in the same spot five years ago. She was his greatest love ever. But they broke up three years later. He was in pain and sorrow for a long time. It took him more than two years to get over her. Since then this monument reminds him Angela and the grief he went through.

But we know that Washington square has been the same for decades, no matter who is passing by or how we feel about it.

My new homeland, my former enemy's friend.

It is ironic few weeks after I received my Canadian citizenship and I relocated to Montréal/Quebec I saw this documentary about Gerald Bull on CBC's Fifth estate. I found his finger prints all over my nightmares back in a big slice of my and many others' lives:

If and when arms inspectors return to Iraq, they will be on the lookout for all kinds of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction (See "The Secret Killer"). But they will also be looking at Saddam Hussein's conventional arsenal. And experts predict they may just come upon blueprints - maybe even fingerprints - belonging to the late Gerald Bull. Once a darling of the North American defense establishment, Canadian Gerald Bull spent his last years in exile in Belgium, dreaming up powerful weapons and selling his designs to whomever he chose. And though his life ended in a hail of bullets a decade ago, his legacy lives on...CBC Newsworld - Fifth estate
During the Iran-Iraq war we were living hundreds miles away from the front line, but once in a while Saddam bombed Tehran or fired missiles toward the capital. Many civilians were killed. We were living in a state of fear for 8 years, though we were the lucky ones, never mind about those who got killed or paralyzed. Here is the ironic part, those missiles were crafted by a Canadian astrophysicist, Gerald Bull. He began researching and developing the predecessors of those missiles back in 1960s in McGill university here in Montréal.
I remember vividly on a weekend night, one of those missiles hit a 4 storey building in a busy residential area. That night there was a birthday party in that building and more than 40 kids were burnt to ashes instantly.

The truth is...

Now that Bush's party has taken over all the three power spots, god knows how far he's gonna go with his aggression. Now he has all the supports and he is gonna monkey around more and more. It's ironic that many Americans indicate that Bush is not that nation's actual choice (I remember watching a debate on BBC channel weeks ago, when Michael Moore was asked about Bush's foreign policy, he said first of all he is not a legitimate president; and he began ranting about the Florida ballots). With all due respect to Amircans like Michael Moore, I disagree about illegitimacy of Mr. Bush, they have shown over and over that rednecks like Bush or Reagan are their choice and, oops they did it again. Americans knew that if the Republicans win this week election, Bush will get more support for his yahooing in his foreign policies and they gave him this support, quite consciously and deliberately.

The Black Crow is gone!

He was a blogger, Iranian, 33. He was living in London, Britain. His real name was Kassra Movahhed. He was an interactive multimedia expert.I didn't know him before the news. I read about him here and there. He committed suicide in his apartment. This was his fourth attempt. I don't know what to say. I didn't know him but still feel quite shocked. Some say he was one of the victims of chemical bombs in the war between Iran and Iraq.
He wrote dark humor in his blog. A note was found on his monitor saying:

A crow wants to fly,
Leave the wings alone!

Meep up! How damn it?

This is the second time that I go to the bloggers meeting, arranged by Meetup.com and I can't find anyone. I hate it when it happens.

Too close in fact

A glass of Noir in your hand
On its dark rouge surface
Two green moons
Blazing out a secret.
How deep should I dive in,
To capture the secret?

I have a good friend who is a translator from English to Farsi. His name is Ahmad. He has quite a varied translations from Lorca and Neruda to Anton Chekhov, even very contemporaries like James Finn Garner. Mr. Garner has a very funny story about Ahmad's translation of his book Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. Check it out.

:: Iranians mostly are medium dark skin colour, with brown eyes and brown hair, but at the same time there is a variety of physical appreance, like green/blue eyes, blonde/red hair, very bright skin (moonlightish), tall, short, hairy, bald, bushy eyebrows, big noses, acceding small noses and et cetera. With this variety of looks, when you as an Iranian live in abroad it is not easy to recognize another Iranian specially when they are not speaking (no matter what language), but as soon as they catch each other eye to eye, that's it, voilà! An exchange of smile, or nod of heads shouts "Hi you fellow Iranian,...". And how they do that? I don't know exactly, It's all in that wireless eye to eye connection. The look at people's eyes all the time, friends' eyes , family's, even strangers'.

Meet up!

I was so excited about Blog meeting, a combo of bloggers and montrealers, the best thing that could happen at this deadly quiet slice of my life.
I went there, the Second cup @ 1551 St. Denis, I entered, most of the tables were taken by loners, reading or hiding their loneliness, there was one table occupied by three young deaf people, communicating with their own language, which was foreign to me, and then two beautiful girls sitting at another table, I wish they were bloggers, but they said no and they thought I was trying to make a conversation - and I was - and the only group left there was the party of three Second Cup makers behind the counter, I didn't think they were bloggers; so disappointed I grabbed a shitty coffee and took over a corner, I hid my loneliness behind my first Second Cup. I don't know how good I did. Were you there? Tell me.

Why? Why? Why American politicians don't learn from the history? Another war? Another invasion, regime change? Is this a vicious circle? The big nose of American foreign policy and in response more violence from barbaric fenaticism and again and again and again. I am sick of both sides. I just hate two things, religious and power of politicians, but never could ignor'em. They have been overshadowing the life since ever and obivousely for ever.

This is my first post of this blog. I mostly write in my Farsi blog. English is my second language. The bad news is things here occationally may not make sense, but the good news is we can blame it all on my english, even if it's me who doesn't make sense. (like this!!! I don't know what the hell I'm trying to say.)
I hope I can catch and cut good slices of life and write them down here everyday, but sometimes some slices of life just grab my throat so tight and they won't let go of me. That's when you'll see just a blank page and nothing more.