1. I have not written for several weeks. I have had to spend my time wisely and properly and avoid any extra curriculum activity to catch the remaining jobs of mine. Therefore, I could not write (considering writing is a recreational activity)!;-))
2. Mona Lisa gets the real faces. Thanks goes to Narges for the link. I used to research in area of image processing. One of the works I came across was how can we simulate human face for understanding of machines i.e. human face expression and its translation for robotics. Good old days:))
3. I have been reading a book called Reading Lolita in Tehran written by Azar Nafisi. This is a book about experiences of an English literature professor during Iranian revolution. What I enjoy most in this book is the fact that it reflects the facts about Iran but from different point of view. I wish to describe a passage from book where it shows how strange people had behaved during early days of Iranian revolution in 1979. Conversation is between one of Ms. Nafisi students (i.e. who is in Islamic Association of the university) and her.
Ma’am, may I talk to you for a second? Although we were in the middle of the semester, I had not been assigned an office, so we stood in the hall and I listened. His complaint was about Gatsby. He said he was telling this for my own good. For my own good? What an odd expression to use. He said surely I must know how much he respected me, otherwise he would not be there talking to me. He had complaint. Against whom, and why me? It was against Gatsby. I asked him jokingly if he had filed any official complaints against Mr. Gatsby. And I reminded him that that any such action would be in any case be useless as the gentleman was already dead!
But he was serious. No, Professor, not against Mr. Gatsby himself but against the novel. The novel was immoral. It taught the youth the wrong stuff; it poisoned their minds-surely I could see? I could not. I reminded him that Gatsby was a work of fiction and not a how-to manual. Surely I could see, he insisted, that these novels and their characters became our models in real life? Maybe Mr. Gatsby was all right for the Americans, but not for our revolutionary youth. For some reason the idea that this man could be tempted to become Gatsby-like was very appealing to me. There was, for Mr. Nyazi, no different between th fiction of Fitzgerald and the facts of his own life. The great Gatsby was representative of things American, and America was poison for us; it certainly was. We should teach Iranian students to fight against American immorality, he said. He looked earnest; he had come to me in all goodwill.
Suddenly a mischievous notion got hold of me. I suggested, in these days of public prosecutions, that we put Gatsby on Trail: Mr. Nyazi would be the prosecutor, and he should also write a paper offering evidence. I told him that when Fritzgerald’s books were published in the States, there were many who felt just as he did. they may have expressed themselves differently, but they were saying more or less the same thing. So he need not feel lonely in expressing his views.
The next day I presented this plan to the class. We could not have a proper trial, of course, but we could have a prosecutor, a lawyer for defense and a defendant; the rest of the class would be the jury. Mr. Nyazi would be the prosecutor. We needed a judge, a defendant and defense attorney. ….
4. I saw Marmolak (The lizard) movie a few weeks ago and as usual Kamal Tabrizi (director) has done a different job than any other director. I quite enjoyed watching it. I was Passing by Farhang theater in shariaty street last night and there was this sign posting there: “ Marmolak tickets are sold out for today, tomorrow, and a day after!!!”
5. Traffic around the International Book fair is tolerable. I personally feel the city hall and Traffic police have done a reasonable job to achieve this.
6. wowo, blogspot got make over! it looks how do we say: LARGE;-))
7. Does anyone know of any Salsa place in Tehran?? I know it is an odd question, but...
No comments:
Post a Comment