Sourena » Observations

Siroos Ghahremani and His Zoo

Sourena — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:19:54 +0000

Older people in Shiraz still remember Siroos Ghahremani: a weird mixture of traditional “Ma’rekehgir”, Anthony Quin‘s character in Fellini‘s La Strada, with a touch of Hollywood and Italian ‘historic’ movies of the 1950s. In the early 1960s he established himself as the only star of his popular one-man show. He also made a small private “zoo” in Shiraz to make some money on the side by showing off his skinny malnourished animals caught in small cages.

Last year, while I was walking around Zand avenue, I saw some pictures of Siroos Ghahremani at a photo store’s window. I went in and bought a few digital copies of the available pictures. Some were digitally tinted, and some were still in original black and white.

These pictures show a glimpse of an era in Shiraz’ history, a period of transition from of an older life to another one. I still don’t understand many things in these pictures, like why the “Imperial” army and police forces are involved in his shows, or why people give him a “cup of victory” as the winner of a one-man competition. Nevertheless one still finds them interesting to see.

Hessaby, Einstein, and Haftseen!

Sourena — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:31:43 +0000

This piece is only in Persian. To read it in Persian click here.

Summery in English: The post is about an Iranian student of Physics in Princeton in the 1930s named Mahmoud Hessaby. After graduation from Princeton Mahmood Hessaby went back to Iran and assisted the new pro-Western Iranian government to establish a “School of Sciences” in the brand-new “University of Tehran”. Years later in the 1990s, his son Iraj Hessaby claims that his father was a friend of Albert Einstein, Niles Bohr, Schrodinger, and Dirac; and makes up stories about the incredible adventures of his father in Princeton university. Within a two-year period the book is published thirty times. The post is a commentary on one of the stories from that book. It also brings up the question why such a ridiculous book became so popular in Iran.

Roger Cohen and Iran

Sourena — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:52:58 +0000

This February Roger Cohen wrote a series of OP-EDs in New York Times (links on the sidebar) that many here, in the United States, found “controversial.” I didn’t see anything controversial in them. His description of the country is nothing but truth. I didn’t find anything in them from what I have seen in Iran in my recent trips. His argument that Iranian government is not totalitarian is very true, and those who criticize Cohen for that probably do not know that much about what totalitarianism means. Hitler, Saddam, Peron, and Mubarak are all known as dictators in terms of the type of government they have established but not all are considered totalitarian rulers. It seems some of Roger Cohen’s critics want the journalists to see the world in black and white before writing for the US media.

On Thursday, March 12, 2009 Roger Cohen and had a discussion with some members of the Los Angeles Iranian Jewish Community, about his pieces in New York Times. The event was moderated by Rabbi David Wolpe at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Watch the video:

Dehkhoda Encyclopedia of Persian is online!

Sourena — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:17:41 +0000

Dehkhoda Encyclopedia of Persian is finally online. It is a very belated online presence, considering the fact that there is an Iranian government-funded institution called Dehkhoda Encyclopedia Institute whose sole purpose of existence is to make this encyclopedia available to the public.

It is not clear who is behind the online version of Dehkhoda Encyclopedia of Persian at “loghatnaameh.com”. Unlike Steingass’ Persian-English dictionary or Hayyim’s New Persian-English dictionary the people behind this project are completely hidden. On the website there is not any mention of the people who have worked on the project, neither there is any information about their methodology, rules of conversion, and the sources of funding. Even checking the domain name’s Whois does not show any information about the domain’s owner. Interestingly enough, despite all the ambiguities about the site’s owners they have the nerve to ask the visitors to donate to their project. Sure enough, there are also poeple who donate to the site through a free Blogger page with no information about the owner, connected to a Paypal account that does not reveal anything but a free email address.

Personally, I never dare to send money to such a website, but I appreciate their work. They have done something the government-run Dehkhoda Institute should have done years ago.