book by Ghodsi Mirafzali

I have a book from the San Jose Public Library system that I like very much. It is a small book with page-long vignettes about different aspects of Norooz and the Haft Seen. I cannot find this book on Amazon, but apparently it may be available through ketab.com.

The Mystery of the HAFT-SEEN by Ghodsi Mirafzali, translator: Ali Andalibi, P.H.D.

I like this bit about Norooz:

"Norooz's rituals are steeped in the wisdom of antiquity and should be carried out in earnest and treated with profound respect."

Something new I learned from this book is a peculiar chaharshanbeh-souri ritual called Audiomancy.

"Audiomancy: for this fascinating synchronistic ritual, individuals would first make a wish. They would then go stand on a street corner and listen for the answer to their wish in the first conversation that they would overhear between two people."

a thousand words in the telling

"Farsi suits Persians. It is an outgrowth of the Persian sensibility. I have already spoken of the Persian character in regard to love and romance, but I haven't mentioned Farsi's most adorable feature: it is the language of liars. Not of cold-blooded liars - that's not what I mean. Not of liars who use language as a pickpocket uses his fingers. No, I mean those who dream, those who tell stories to themselves that they believe because of the beauty of the telling, those who use words to make roses bloom in the desert, where the sun has baked the soil black and red. [...]
Is is not the language of the downright, of the straight-talking, of the morally fearless. Can you ever get a straight answer from a Persian? No, it's not possible, because on the way to providing a straight answer, the Persian suddenly becomes aware of a hundred more fascinating routes to the answer, and before he knows it, before she knows it, a simple yes or no has become an adventure that requires a thousand words in the telling."



- Zarah Ghahramani, excerpted from "My Life as a Traitor"

Iran = "Aryan"

I think of myself as a Persian rather than an Iranian. This is not hairsplitting. Persia existed before Iran, a name for the country that dates only to 1935, when the Pahlavis chose Iran, meaning "Aryan," to impress Western powers with Persia's supposed "white" racial pedigree. To think of myself as Persian allowes me to embrace the whole of my country's history, going back to the flowering of a distinctly Persian sensibility under the early Persian emperors - Achaemenes, Cyrus, and Darius -- twenty-five hundred years ago. For the first fifteen hundred years of Persia's existence, Zoroastrian was the state religion, and so, by embracing Persia's past, I also embrace the roots of my religion..."

- Zarah Ghahramani, excerpted from "My Life as a Traitor"

tadig

My mother is obsessed with "crispy rice" - tadig - so Ali's mom made it for us for dinner. Yum!

Iranian women love to get nose jobs

Last night, the topic of nose jobs came up during dinner. I did not realize that Iranian women often have their genetically well-endowed noses surgically altered to reflect a more Western ideal of beauty.

"...the Persian nose, it seems, is out of style."

As someone who believes that natural beauty is much more appealing than chemically altered human aesthetics, this trend is another fascinating cultural phenomenon within the Iranian community.

Documentary: Nose, Iranian Style (Mehrdad Oskouei) [link]

When researching to find the documentary, we also came across this 2005 CBS evening news report. Iran: Nose Job Capital Of World (Jaime Holguin) [ link ]

I'm particularly interested in exploring the connection between makeup, rhinoplasty, and head covering for Iranian women.

(By the way.... nose jobs are not Haram??)

the role of a Persian man...

[ tongue-in-cheek ]

... is to rearrange all of the beemers in the driveway when someone needs to leave the house.

Persians are infamous for throwing perpetual house parties. My husband's parents live in a sleepy cul-de-sac in San Jose and on any given night you will see their driveway overflow into the the street, expensive cars haphazardly parked together and blocking one another in.

I am not someone who 'gets' cars. I appreciate the aesthetics of beautiful design, but do not understand why so many people have undying devotion to a particular brand or model. In my husband's family and their community of friends, BMWs seem to be the only way to go and I am trying to understand why this is true. The BMW is more than a status symbol; it seems to be a way of life.

According to my cousin Anita, it used to be the older people had Mercedes Benzs and younger people had BMWs. Now most people own BMWs: they are fast, well-made, and BMW provides excellent customer service. It's a status symbol, but also appeals to the practical side.

After seeing all of the luxury cars owned by not-always-wealthy people, I have to say that I've never seen a people group more dedicated to a particular type of car.

movie: Blackboards تخته سیاه Takhté siah

Tonight we're watching Samira Makhmalbaf's 2000 film Blackboards (Takhté siah - تخته سیاه). It's filmed in the highland Kurdistan region of Iran, groups of Kurdish refugee travelers are all headed for the Iraqi border.

BLACKBOARDS

Directed by Samira Makhmalbaf; written (in Kurdish, with English subtitles) by Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Ms. Makhmalbaf; director of photography, Ebrahim Ghafori; produced by Mohamad Ahmadi; released by Leisure Time Features/Kimstim. At the Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 85 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Bahman Ghobadi (Reeboir), Said Mohamadi (Said) and Behnaz Jafari (Halaleh).

• NYT review here
• Wikipedia page here
• IMDB entry here