Iran News - Damab carpet workshop filed on Nat'l Heritage: "Damab carpet workshop filed on Nat'l Heritage
Thursday, June 23, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com
LONDON, June 23 (IranMania) - The Damab carpet workshop was recently registered on Iran?s National Heritage List by the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO).
The workshop, in which the world?s largest carpet was woven, is located in Damab village, northwest of Isfahan.
The 42 x 31 meter carpet was woven by 40 weavers over the course of four years, and it was completed in 1987. Valiollah Shahri designed the carpet.
The carpet was originally purchased by a Swedish dealer. Iranian experts believe that the carpet was later sold to a Kuwaiti industrialist and was probably partly damaged and burnt during the Iraq-Kuwait war. The fate of the carpet is still unknown.
Two other sites in the village of Damab, the house of village headman Mohammad-Taqi, which dates back to the Qajar era, and a 200-year-old Hosseinieh (site for religious ceremonies), were also registered on the National Heritage List."
Friday, November 25, 2005
RugNotes: Who Has the Room or Money To Purchase This Megacarpet? by Daniel Pearl -- 30 June 1997
RugNotes: "Who Has the Room or Money To Purchase This Megacarpet? by Daniel Pearl -- 30 June 1997
Articles written by Daniel Pearl -- 30 June 1997 "FROM THE ARCHIVES: June 30, 1997
Who Has the Room or Money To Purchase This Megacarpet?
By DANIEL PEARL
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BEN, Iran -- This is a small town in search of a really big floor.
It should be a bare floor, big enough to accommodate about 6,000 people, with no columns breaking up the space. And it should be crying out for the subtle decorative touch of the world's largest hand-woven carpet, with a third of an acre of beige, brown and blue swirls and flowers.
Working in two shifts in a converted fire station at the top of a hill, 84 women have spent two years on the carpet so far, and it is only half finished. The asking price, yet to be arrived at, could be as high as $1 million. There is nary a buyer in sight.
"I would like to see it in a great exhibition hall -- a big room, where anyone who walked in would say, 'Vuy!' ('Wow!')" says 21-year-old Mehrandokht Aghaie, sitting on a 100-foot-long bench at a huge loom, tying knots with woolen yarn around hanging silk threads and then swiping the excess with a razor blade.
Perhaps a European soccer stadium could put it on display when there isn't a game being played, says Farhad Shams, a sponsor of the project.
It's crazy to make such a big carpet on speculation, says Karim Mirzamani, a Tehran exporter. The market is so bad that for six months he hasn't even been able to get foreign orders for carpets of any size. The U.S., once the biggest market for Persian rugs, is off-limits now because of trade sanctions. Iran's taxes and currency regulations -- and low-wage competition from India, Pakistan and China -- have hurt the rug trade. Persian-carpet exports dropped nearly 35% last year, to $602 million.
Still, Iranians can't stop making carpets. By some estimates, the industry occupies one of every seven Iranians. "People in the villages don't have anything better to do," says Nasrollah Arvarian, 31, a weaver in the village of Sefid-Dasht, down the road from Ben (population 8,000). He has invested his life savings (about $21,000) in two living-room-size rugs that he and his family are weaving at home. His wife, Nargess, who sometimes works through the night, is bug-eyed from staring at tiny knots. "The doctors say I have to stop, but this is my job," she says.
Record Breaker
And certain Iranians can't stop making big carpets. That's the weakness of Elyas Abdi, 47, the designer behind Ben's megarug. He was raised in the rug-trading center of Isfahan. He says the 500 people in his family tree all have been in the carpet trade. His business card reads: "producers of the biggest carpets in the world." He says, "Every time I come up with a big carpet, I have to start another one to break the record." Mr. Abdi says he sold a 6,451-square-foot carpet to a buyer in Dubai. But for two decades his dream has been to weave the ultimate carpet: 50 meters long and 30 meters wide. That is an area of more than 16,000 square feet.
Mr. Abdi says he copyrighted the design, which includes a record-breaking six main flowers. But for years, he couldn't find a carpet trader willing to bankroll the project.
Then he found the Behezisti Foundation. Financed by the government and private-donation boxes, the foundation is a sort of workfare project, Iranian style. It helps get jobs for widows, orphans, and girls who have "gone astray," to keep them on the moral track, according to Siavosh Ahmadi, Behezisti general manager in the city of Shahrekord in western Iran. Actually, he says, "We do not find jobs for them, we create jobs for them." In his region, which includes Ben, that means supporting about 400 carpet-weaving projects. Most girls, and some boys, in Iranian villages know how to weave carpets by the time they reach their teens.
Mr. Abdi says he was sitting with some foundation people, listening to them complain about how hard it is to come up with new job-creation schemes, when he made his pitch for the megarug. He signed a deal with Behezisti in 1995 to provide about $160,000 in start-up funds. A job announcement about the project in Ben's mosque brought a crowd of 250 women to the site, many of them wondering whether the carpet was a joke.
Big rugs do have a history in Iran. In the 1950s, the shah ordered a series of approximately 1,550-square-foot rugs for his palaces. One of them is still on display, under eight dining-room tables in the north Tehran palace, now a museum. "It's the biggest carpet one could ever make," says one of the security guards, who tended the palace before the revolution, too. "I'd bet my eyes on it."
Competing Claims
Bad idea. The Guinness Book of Records lists a 54,000-square-foot carpet made with gold-enriched silk in eighth-century Baghdad as the biggest, though it no longer exists. Oman recently commissioned a very big carpet from Iran for its new Sultan Qaboos Mosque, but it is being woven in four pieces. At the Dubai Shopping Festival, Persian carpet dealer Abdul Rahim Forootan made headlines with his 8,600-square-foot "world's biggest carpet." "It's the biggest on the market," he explains, though the market for megacarpets is so quiet that he never actually had to unfurl the rug.
Handling big carpets takes some muscle. Every six weeks, Mr. Abdi brings in six men from Isfahan to raise the loom so the women, who earn 2 1/2 cents for every 100 knots, or about 50 cents an hour, can keep working at eye level. The yarn and silk threads for the 500-million-knot carpet together weigh seven tons, and the pylons supporting the steel loom are sunk more than 3 feet into the ground. When the carpet is finished, the team will break down the outer wall of the fire station and, with a crane, load the rug onto an 18-wheeler. If he can muster the manpower to unroll it, Mr. Abdi would like to stop and display the completed rug in Ben.
So far, there hasn't been a flood of interest from buyers, the rug's sponsors concede. They say the Red Crescent, Iran's version of the Red Cross, considered buying the carpet to resell for hard currency with which to buy medicines, but a new director put the kibosh on the plan. The Behezisti Foundation plans to tout the rug at a carpet exhibition in Tehran in September. Its brochure will say the carpet is "the symbol of Iranian people because of their patience, fine work and humbleness."
Big Bug-Catchers
Maybe so, but big carpets are more trouble than they are worth, according to Sefatollah Taghi Khani, curator of Tehran's carpet museum. The museum keeps one of the shah's leftovers in the basement, and airing it once a year takes 15 people, he says. "It's so damn difficult to move, even though it's one of the thinnest carpets ever made." Besides, Mr. Khani says, the bigger the rug, the more chance it will house insects.
Another problem, says Mohammed Reza Hakami, a Tehran carpet dealer: Carpets become more valuable when people have walked on them. That is one reason rug dealers and some buyers will leave their new rugs on the sidewalk for a few days. But "nobody could ever cover such a big carpet."
Besides, "They're cheating when they make the big carpets," says Shoukoufeh Sadeghi, weaving a rug with her three sisters in Sefid-Dasht. She shows how some big-carpet weavers save time by skipping knots, a trick called farsi boff. She says, "It's like machine made. I call it counterfeit."
Mr. Abdi says there is no farsi boff in his rug. He doesn't see why anyone would want to walk on a piece of art. And, as for bugs, he is using tobacco and mothballs to keep them away.
Updated June 30, 1997""
Articles written by Daniel Pearl -- 30 June 1997 "FROM THE ARCHIVES: June 30, 1997
Who Has the Room or Money To Purchase This Megacarpet?
By DANIEL PEARL
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BEN, Iran -- This is a small town in search of a really big floor.
It should be a bare floor, big enough to accommodate about 6,000 people, with no columns breaking up the space. And it should be crying out for the subtle decorative touch of the world's largest hand-woven carpet, with a third of an acre of beige, brown and blue swirls and flowers.
Working in two shifts in a converted fire station at the top of a hill, 84 women have spent two years on the carpet so far, and it is only half finished. The asking price, yet to be arrived at, could be as high as $1 million. There is nary a buyer in sight.
"I would like to see it in a great exhibition hall -- a big room, where anyone who walked in would say, 'Vuy!' ('Wow!')" says 21-year-old Mehrandokht Aghaie, sitting on a 100-foot-long bench at a huge loom, tying knots with woolen yarn around hanging silk threads and then swiping the excess with a razor blade.
Perhaps a European soccer stadium could put it on display when there isn't a game being played, says Farhad Shams, a sponsor of the project.
It's crazy to make such a big carpet on speculation, says Karim Mirzamani, a Tehran exporter. The market is so bad that for six months he hasn't even been able to get foreign orders for carpets of any size. The U.S., once the biggest market for Persian rugs, is off-limits now because of trade sanctions. Iran's taxes and currency regulations -- and low-wage competition from India, Pakistan and China -- have hurt the rug trade. Persian-carpet exports dropped nearly 35% last year, to $602 million.
Still, Iranians can't stop making carpets. By some estimates, the industry occupies one of every seven Iranians. "People in the villages don't have anything better to do," says Nasrollah Arvarian, 31, a weaver in the village of Sefid-Dasht, down the road from Ben (population 8,000). He has invested his life savings (about $21,000) in two living-room-size rugs that he and his family are weaving at home. His wife, Nargess, who sometimes works through the night, is bug-eyed from staring at tiny knots. "The doctors say I have to stop, but this is my job," she says.
Record Breaker
And certain Iranians can't stop making big carpets. That's the weakness of Elyas Abdi, 47, the designer behind Ben's megarug. He was raised in the rug-trading center of Isfahan. He says the 500 people in his family tree all have been in the carpet trade. His business card reads: "producers of the biggest carpets in the world." He says, "Every time I come up with a big carpet, I have to start another one to break the record." Mr. Abdi says he sold a 6,451-square-foot carpet to a buyer in Dubai. But for two decades his dream has been to weave the ultimate carpet: 50 meters long and 30 meters wide. That is an area of more than 16,000 square feet.
Mr. Abdi says he copyrighted the design, which includes a record-breaking six main flowers. But for years, he couldn't find a carpet trader willing to bankroll the project.
Then he found the Behezisti Foundation. Financed by the government and private-donation boxes, the foundation is a sort of workfare project, Iranian style. It helps get jobs for widows, orphans, and girls who have "gone astray," to keep them on the moral track, according to Siavosh Ahmadi, Behezisti general manager in the city of Shahrekord in western Iran. Actually, he says, "We do not find jobs for them, we create jobs for them." In his region, which includes Ben, that means supporting about 400 carpet-weaving projects. Most girls, and some boys, in Iranian villages know how to weave carpets by the time they reach their teens.
Mr. Abdi says he was sitting with some foundation people, listening to them complain about how hard it is to come up with new job-creation schemes, when he made his pitch for the megarug. He signed a deal with Behezisti in 1995 to provide about $160,000 in start-up funds. A job announcement about the project in Ben's mosque brought a crowd of 250 women to the site, many of them wondering whether the carpet was a joke.
Big rugs do have a history in Iran. In the 1950s, the shah ordered a series of approximately 1,550-square-foot rugs for his palaces. One of them is still on display, under eight dining-room tables in the north Tehran palace, now a museum. "It's the biggest carpet one could ever make," says one of the security guards, who tended the palace before the revolution, too. "I'd bet my eyes on it."
Competing Claims
Bad idea. The Guinness Book of Records lists a 54,000-square-foot carpet made with gold-enriched silk in eighth-century Baghdad as the biggest, though it no longer exists. Oman recently commissioned a very big carpet from Iran for its new Sultan Qaboos Mosque, but it is being woven in four pieces. At the Dubai Shopping Festival, Persian carpet dealer Abdul Rahim Forootan made headlines with his 8,600-square-foot "world's biggest carpet." "It's the biggest on the market," he explains, though the market for megacarpets is so quiet that he never actually had to unfurl the rug.
Handling big carpets takes some muscle. Every six weeks, Mr. Abdi brings in six men from Isfahan to raise the loom so the women, who earn 2 1/2 cents for every 100 knots, or about 50 cents an hour, can keep working at eye level. The yarn and silk threads for the 500-million-knot carpet together weigh seven tons, and the pylons supporting the steel loom are sunk more than 3 feet into the ground. When the carpet is finished, the team will break down the outer wall of the fire station and, with a crane, load the rug onto an 18-wheeler. If he can muster the manpower to unroll it, Mr. Abdi would like to stop and display the completed rug in Ben.
So far, there hasn't been a flood of interest from buyers, the rug's sponsors concede. They say the Red Crescent, Iran's version of the Red Cross, considered buying the carpet to resell for hard currency with which to buy medicines, but a new director put the kibosh on the plan. The Behezisti Foundation plans to tout the rug at a carpet exhibition in Tehran in September. Its brochure will say the carpet is "the symbol of Iranian people because of their patience, fine work and humbleness."
Big Bug-Catchers
Maybe so, but big carpets are more trouble than they are worth, according to Sefatollah Taghi Khani, curator of Tehran's carpet museum. The museum keeps one of the shah's leftovers in the basement, and airing it once a year takes 15 people, he says. "It's so damn difficult to move, even though it's one of the thinnest carpets ever made." Besides, Mr. Khani says, the bigger the rug, the more chance it will house insects.
Another problem, says Mohammed Reza Hakami, a Tehran carpet dealer: Carpets become more valuable when people have walked on them. That is one reason rug dealers and some buyers will leave their new rugs on the sidewalk for a few days. But "nobody could ever cover such a big carpet."
Besides, "They're cheating when they make the big carpets," says Shoukoufeh Sadeghi, weaving a rug with her three sisters in Sefid-Dasht. She shows how some big-carpet weavers save time by skipping knots, a trick called farsi boff. She says, "It's like machine made. I call it counterfeit."
Mr. Abdi says there is no farsi boff in his rug. He doesn't see why anyone would want to walk on a piece of art. And, as for bugs, he is using tobacco and mothballs to keep them away.
Updated June 30, 1997""
RugNotes: Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized - Mohammadali Karimi
RugNotes: Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized - Mohammadali Karimi: "Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized - Mohammadali Karimi
Economic news in brief (Feb. 6): "Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized
TEHRAN –- Managing director of Iran Carpet Co. Ltd said that most of the stocks of the company would be ceded to the private investors by the end of the year.
Mohammadali Karimi stated that the company is to sell some 19% of its stocks to its current employees, its retired employees and those weavers it sponsors. Meanwhile, some 51% of the stocks will be sold to the National Pension Fund and about 30% to the Commerce Ministry. He also pointed to the recent reduction in the volume of Persian carpet exports, saying, “This should not be regarded as a matter of concern for the price of our carpets has not decreased.” Foreign customers are now distinguishing between Persian carpets and those illegally copied in another countries, he uttered.""
Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized - Mohammadali Karimi
Economic news in brief (Feb. 6): "Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized
TEHRAN –- Managing director of Iran Carpet Co. Ltd said that most of the stocks of the company would be ceded to the private investors by the end of the year.
Mohammadali Karimi stated that the company is to sell some 19% of its stocks to its current employees, its retired employees and those weavers it sponsors. Meanwhile, some 51% of the stocks will be sold to the National Pension Fund and about 30% to the Commerce Ministry. He also pointed to the recent reduction in the volume of Persian carpet exports, saying, “This should not be regarded as a matter of concern for the price of our carpets has not decreased.” Foreign customers are now distinguishing between Persian carpets and those illegally copied in another countries, he uttered.""
RugNotes: Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot for $710,665 alleging unpaid invoices
RugNotes: Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot - 2004-06-24 - Atlanta Business Chronicle: "Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot - 2004-06-24 - Atlanta Business Chronicle
Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot - 2004-06-24 - Atlanta Business Chronicle: "Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot
Bashian Bros. Inc., a nation importer and wholesaler of Oriental Rugs, has sued Home Depot U.S.A. Inc., doing business as Expo Design Center, for $710,665 alleging unpaid invoices.
The complaint was filed June 14 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in Newark.
Bashian said in the complaint it supplied Oriental Rugs to Expo Design Center stores throughout the United States on a consignment basis in the Expo Design Center Hanging Partnership Program. When Expo Design Center recently terminated the Hanging Partnership Program, it allegedly failed and refused to pay for those Oriental Rugs which it was obligated to purchase pursuant to that program. Many of the invoices have allegedly remained unpaid for more than a year. ""
Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot - 2004-06-24 - Atlanta Business Chronicle: "Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot
Bashian Bros. Inc., a nation importer and wholesaler of Oriental Rugs, has sued Home Depot U.S.A. Inc., doing business as Expo Design Center, for $710,665 alleging unpaid invoices.
The complaint was filed June 14 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in Newark.
Bashian said in the complaint it supplied Oriental Rugs to Expo Design Center stores throughout the United States on a consignment basis in the Expo Design Center Hanging Partnership Program. When Expo Design Center recently terminated the Hanging Partnership Program, it allegedly failed and refused to pay for those Oriental Rugs which it was obligated to purchase pursuant to that program. Many of the invoices have allegedly remained unpaid for more than a year. ""
RugNotes: Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience
RugNotes: Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience: "Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience
Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience: "Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience
Source: Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency
As a contemporary example of Iranian architecture, the design of Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art has been inspired by certain traditional Iranian as well as modern architecture. This architectural style is inspired by the wind-towers of Iran and was designed by the Iranian architect Kamran Diba. It is built in three floors and has been used as a permanent exhibition since 1977.
The Museum has nine galleries, three of which are dedicated to paintings by international artists from the museum's permanent collection. The permanent collection contains paintings from artists such as Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Andy Warhol and many more. Temporary exhibitions are held in the other six galleries throughout the year.
The Sculpture Court is a semi-enclosed exterior space within the museum complex. It is an appropriate setting for the sculptural works of three outstanding artists: "Le Therapeute" by Rene Magritte, "A Man and a Woman" by Alberto Giacometti, and "Horse and Rider" by Marino Marini.
Most of the museum complex's grounds are located to the north of the museum building and called Sculpture Park. The Park is home to works by a number of the world's leading sculptors, including "Capricorn" by Max Ernst; "The Prickly Pear" by Alexander Calder; "The Reclining Figure" by "Henry Moore"; "Homage to Pablo Neruda" by Eduardo Chilida; "Multiplied by Space" by Max Bill; and "Shirin and Farhad" by Parviz Tanavoli, amongst others.
This museum comprises a cinemateque, a Library, a Coffee Shop, Book Shop and a Photography Workshop.""
Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience: "Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience
Source: Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency
As a contemporary example of Iranian architecture, the design of Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art has been inspired by certain traditional Iranian as well as modern architecture. This architectural style is inspired by the wind-towers of Iran and was designed by the Iranian architect Kamran Diba. It is built in three floors and has been used as a permanent exhibition since 1977.
The Museum has nine galleries, three of which are dedicated to paintings by international artists from the museum's permanent collection. The permanent collection contains paintings from artists such as Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Andy Warhol and many more. Temporary exhibitions are held in the other six galleries throughout the year.
The Sculpture Court is a semi-enclosed exterior space within the museum complex. It is an appropriate setting for the sculptural works of three outstanding artists: "Le Therapeute" by Rene Magritte, "A Man and a Woman" by Alberto Giacometti, and "Horse and Rider" by Marino Marini.
Most of the museum complex's grounds are located to the north of the museum building and called Sculpture Park. The Park is home to works by a number of the world's leading sculptors, including "Capricorn" by Max Ernst; "The Prickly Pear" by Alexander Calder; "The Reclining Figure" by "Henry Moore"; "Homage to Pablo Neruda" by Eduardo Chilida; "Multiplied by Space" by Max Bill; and "Shirin and Farhad" by Parviz Tanavoli, amongst others.
This museum comprises a cinemateque, a Library, a Coffee Shop, Book Shop and a Photography Workshop.""
RugNotes: Sculptures by Parviz Tanavoli on Display in Armenia
RugNotes: Monday, June 07, 2004: "Sculptures by Parviz Tanavoli on Display in Armenia
Mehr News Agency English: "Contemporary Iranian Artwork Go on Display in Armenia
TEHRAN June 6 (MNA) ?- A selection of artwork by Iranian contemporary artists are to go on display June 12 at the Yerevan National Art Museum, Armenia.
According to the Public Relations Office of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, a total of 60 paintings, statues and installation work by contemporary artists will be showcased for two weeks.
Paintings by Marco Gregorian, Mohammad-Ibrahim Ja?fari, Edmund Ayvazian, Kamran Katuzian, Sirak Melkonian, Gholam-Hossein Nami, Mahdi Hosseini, Gizella Varga Sina?i, and Sharareh Salehi, sculptures by Parviz Tanavoli, Fatemeh Emdadian, and Shideh Tami as well as an installation work by Bita Fayyazi are among the works to be put on display.
An exhibition of artwork by Armenian artists was displayed at Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts in 2001. ""
Mehr News Agency English: "Contemporary Iranian Artwork Go on Display in Armenia
TEHRAN June 6 (MNA) ?- A selection of artwork by Iranian contemporary artists are to go on display June 12 at the Yerevan National Art Museum, Armenia.
According to the Public Relations Office of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, a total of 60 paintings, statues and installation work by contemporary artists will be showcased for two weeks.
Paintings by Marco Gregorian, Mohammad-Ibrahim Ja?fari, Edmund Ayvazian, Kamran Katuzian, Sirak Melkonian, Gholam-Hossein Nami, Mahdi Hosseini, Gizella Varga Sina?i, and Sharareh Salehi, sculptures by Parviz Tanavoli, Fatemeh Emdadian, and Shideh Tami as well as an installation work by Bita Fayyazi are among the works to be put on display.
An exhibition of artwork by Armenian artists was displayed at Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts in 2001. ""
RugNotes: iranian.com: Heech revisited: Nothingness being what it is for us Persians: tangible, a real thing
RugNotes: iranian.com: Heech revisited: Nothingness being what it is for us Persians: tangible, a real thing: "iranian.com: Heech revisited: Nothingness being what it is for us Persians: tangible, a real thing
iranian.com: Goli Farrell,: "Heech revisited
Nothingness being what it is for us Persians: tangible, a real thing
Goli Farrell
May 16, 2005
iranian.com
I like my Persian compatriots' long standing love affair with nothingness. And I say "Persian" to include a literary/linguistic country from Samarqand, Bokhara, Herat, to Balkh, Dushanbe, Ashqabad, Konia, Baku, Ganja... from Tehran all the way to TehrAngeles... rather than a country with political borders. We love nothingness and all its paraphernalia with a passion. After all what is Persian poetry, our most cherished national pass-time, but elaborate, polished, worked on nothingness?
It is the most abstract of all fine arts (architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, in order from the most concrete to the most abstract). Also Persians do not "write" poetry, they "say" it.
Once you have memorized a poem, a ghazal from Hafez or Sa'di or Rumi, it is there: voila, polished, elaborate, filigreed, pure thought, nothingness, heech, the secret that sits in the middle and knows. Our long standing love affair, our 1000-year-old meditation with Rudaki and Ferdowsi, Khayyam, Rumi, to Sepehri, Farrokhzad, Lotfalian, Bahrami, Samandar, Kadkani, Behbahani, Attar.... add your own list ...
We have been meditating to the music of Ney, the flute, a hollow reed full of air: nothingness music from the void, air, wind dancing in an empty reed, turning round and round, as if around the Sun: Shams, and whirling in and out of strategically placed "holes" in the reed, more nothingness, the space between the notes that makes the music.
Yes Sir, nothingness is serious business here.
Our favorite national drink: tea... which is aromatic hot water: nothingness
Our favorite national fruit: the fine little fragrant, Persian cucumber, mostly water, lots of taste and flavor, near zero calories, heech. And we consider those cucumbers as fruits, not some third rate vegetable.
Persian watermelon belongs in the same category as our cucumbers.
Our favorite snack: "tokhme" roasted watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds,
Pear seeds or anchoochak, even apple seeds.
Once my Mom was on a bus trip, going from San Francisco to Reno, Nevada. Next to her was seated an American lady who was puzzled and greatly intrigued by my mother eating something for hours, that smelled extremely good and appetizing but invisible. She kept taking something out of a large transparent bag and eating it, but there seemed to be nothing in the bag. My mother says that finally the lady took out her glasses out of her bag and put them on to see just what on earth was going on.
My mother finally decided to put her out of her confusion by telling her that she had roasted something like 50 apple seeds and that was what had kept her happy, satisfied, and made the travel time pass much faster and more enjoyably. But Mom said that she was sort of embarrassed to offer the lady this microscopic but delicious and healthy, low calorie snack.
One of our greatest living artists, Parviz Tanavoli, has concretized, given body to this long love affair with his set of NOTHING/HEECH sculptures that are incredibly beautiful. In another group of works, Tanavoli calls one of his magnificent huge, shiny bronze sculptures: vahdate vojud! Only a Persian could do that. Unity of Being. Oneness of Existence.
Tanavoli has also a painting that is called "Bolboli barg e goli khoshrang dar menghaar daasht" (the Nightingale with a beautiful flower on her beak) that made me cry. The nightingale has a red lock on the beak, signifying forced silence. Nothingness.
Another great sculptor, Abdollah Hesam, among many beautiful works, has a mural sculpture of a man with a closed zipper on the mouth.
Nothingness being what it is / for us Persians:
tangible, a real thing, heech,
has a free standing, independent,
bona fide name of its own, "heech"
having nothing to do with "no" nor with "thing" /
in fact nothing to do with negation at all.
The silence between the notes that makes the music.
Having been brought up on Hafez, Rudaki, Nezami, Rumi...
We walk on air, on nothing,
high, intoxicated without any visible intoxicant
our addictive substance being: art, poetry, love, ecstasy
yes sir, Ecstasy being a real thing to us
Tangible and in daily use /
not the powder/ but the real thing.
And now this new fangled Internet, the lovely WWW has brought about the ultimate union of the lovers, the vesaal, between us and our beloved heech, our centuries old love of the ethereal heech, the phenomenal way in which Persians have taken to the Internet, like ducks to water. Our newly rekindled, rejuvenated love affair with this "virtual" world of an invisible "web" of radio waves, is the consummation of a long awaited reunion of the lovers, Romeo and Juliette NOT dying, but living happily ever after, watching the sunset together, seeing their children grow. All the marvellous Persian web sites and the emails criss-crossing the continents and the oceans, have created a virtual home, a "vatan".
The dot.com world has encouraged me to the point that I want to go back and rewrite the script, changing some chapters of our history:
King Mahmud Ghaznavi will NOT be influenced by the bad guys in his entourage and will change his mind and pay Ferdowsi the promised golden treasure. What is more, he will take Ferdowsi to live beside him in the Palace, the way Lorenzo di Medici (Il Magnifico) took young Michelangelo to live and work in his palace, and even built a sculpture garden for him.
Rostam will recognize his son Sohrab BEFORE he is killed and together they will go and find Rudabeh and they will build a magnificent house and garden in Zabolestan. The garden is so lovely that Simorgh decides to go live there as well. After all Simorgh is the one who raised Rostam's father, Zaal e Nariman. Shams Tabrizi visits them too, from time to time. Bijan and Manijeh also.
And Mirza Taqi Khan e Amir Kabir will NOT be killed and instead he will build many other DarolFonuns polytechnics all over Iran. He will also rebuild the Ark of Bam, and repair Apadana, in Perseplis.
And Mansour Hallaj will NOT be hanged and he will tell us to sit down upon the ground beside him and will tell us, in great detail and in a leisurely manner, while having tea and baqlava, and maybe gaz from Isphahan, all about the "truth" and we shall ask him to elaborate, and he will reveal "THE secret".
And Emam Hosein will NOT be killed, and instead Yazid and Shemr will change their minds and bring nice drinks and ice water to the desert, and then will take them all back to have dinner together.
And Rabe'e will live happily with her beloved (who will NOT be killed by her brother) and she will write lots of nice love poems and we will take her chocolates on Valentine's day.""
iranian.com: Goli Farrell,: "Heech revisited
Nothingness being what it is for us Persians: tangible, a real thing
Goli Farrell
May 16, 2005
iranian.com
I like my Persian compatriots' long standing love affair with nothingness. And I say "Persian" to include a literary/linguistic country from Samarqand, Bokhara, Herat, to Balkh, Dushanbe, Ashqabad, Konia, Baku, Ganja... from Tehran all the way to TehrAngeles... rather than a country with political borders. We love nothingness and all its paraphernalia with a passion. After all what is Persian poetry, our most cherished national pass-time, but elaborate, polished, worked on nothingness?
It is the most abstract of all fine arts (architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, in order from the most concrete to the most abstract). Also Persians do not "write" poetry, they "say" it.
Once you have memorized a poem, a ghazal from Hafez or Sa'di or Rumi, it is there: voila, polished, elaborate, filigreed, pure thought, nothingness, heech, the secret that sits in the middle and knows. Our long standing love affair, our 1000-year-old meditation with Rudaki and Ferdowsi, Khayyam, Rumi, to Sepehri, Farrokhzad, Lotfalian, Bahrami, Samandar, Kadkani, Behbahani, Attar.... add your own list ...
We have been meditating to the music of Ney, the flute, a hollow reed full of air: nothingness music from the void, air, wind dancing in an empty reed, turning round and round, as if around the Sun: Shams, and whirling in and out of strategically placed "holes" in the reed, more nothingness, the space between the notes that makes the music.
Yes Sir, nothingness is serious business here.
Our favorite national drink: tea... which is aromatic hot water: nothingness
Our favorite national fruit: the fine little fragrant, Persian cucumber, mostly water, lots of taste and flavor, near zero calories, heech. And we consider those cucumbers as fruits, not some third rate vegetable.
Persian watermelon belongs in the same category as our cucumbers.
Our favorite snack: "tokhme" roasted watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds,
Pear seeds or anchoochak, even apple seeds.
Once my Mom was on a bus trip, going from San Francisco to Reno, Nevada. Next to her was seated an American lady who was puzzled and greatly intrigued by my mother eating something for hours, that smelled extremely good and appetizing but invisible. She kept taking something out of a large transparent bag and eating it, but there seemed to be nothing in the bag. My mother says that finally the lady took out her glasses out of her bag and put them on to see just what on earth was going on.
My mother finally decided to put her out of her confusion by telling her that she had roasted something like 50 apple seeds and that was what had kept her happy, satisfied, and made the travel time pass much faster and more enjoyably. But Mom said that she was sort of embarrassed to offer the lady this microscopic but delicious and healthy, low calorie snack.
One of our greatest living artists, Parviz Tanavoli, has concretized, given body to this long love affair with his set of NOTHING/HEECH sculptures that are incredibly beautiful. In another group of works, Tanavoli calls one of his magnificent huge, shiny bronze sculptures: vahdate vojud! Only a Persian could do that. Unity of Being. Oneness of Existence.
Tanavoli has also a painting that is called "Bolboli barg e goli khoshrang dar menghaar daasht" (the Nightingale with a beautiful flower on her beak) that made me cry. The nightingale has a red lock on the beak, signifying forced silence. Nothingness.
Another great sculptor, Abdollah Hesam, among many beautiful works, has a mural sculpture of a man with a closed zipper on the mouth.
Nothingness being what it is / for us Persians:
tangible, a real thing, heech,
has a free standing, independent,
bona fide name of its own, "heech"
having nothing to do with "no" nor with "thing" /
in fact nothing to do with negation at all.
The silence between the notes that makes the music.
Having been brought up on Hafez, Rudaki, Nezami, Rumi...
We walk on air, on nothing,
high, intoxicated without any visible intoxicant
our addictive substance being: art, poetry, love, ecstasy
yes sir, Ecstasy being a real thing to us
Tangible and in daily use /
not the powder/ but the real thing.
And now this new fangled Internet, the lovely WWW has brought about the ultimate union of the lovers, the vesaal, between us and our beloved heech, our centuries old love of the ethereal heech, the phenomenal way in which Persians have taken to the Internet, like ducks to water. Our newly rekindled, rejuvenated love affair with this "virtual" world of an invisible "web" of radio waves, is the consummation of a long awaited reunion of the lovers, Romeo and Juliette NOT dying, but living happily ever after, watching the sunset together, seeing their children grow. All the marvellous Persian web sites and the emails criss-crossing the continents and the oceans, have created a virtual home, a "vatan".
The dot.com world has encouraged me to the point that I want to go back and rewrite the script, changing some chapters of our history:
King Mahmud Ghaznavi will NOT be influenced by the bad guys in his entourage and will change his mind and pay Ferdowsi the promised golden treasure. What is more, he will take Ferdowsi to live beside him in the Palace, the way Lorenzo di Medici (Il Magnifico) took young Michelangelo to live and work in his palace, and even built a sculpture garden for him.
Rostam will recognize his son Sohrab BEFORE he is killed and together they will go and find Rudabeh and they will build a magnificent house and garden in Zabolestan. The garden is so lovely that Simorgh decides to go live there as well. After all Simorgh is the one who raised Rostam's father, Zaal e Nariman. Shams Tabrizi visits them too, from time to time. Bijan and Manijeh also.
And Mirza Taqi Khan e Amir Kabir will NOT be killed and instead he will build many other DarolFonuns polytechnics all over Iran. He will also rebuild the Ark of Bam, and repair Apadana, in Perseplis.
And Mansour Hallaj will NOT be hanged and he will tell us to sit down upon the ground beside him and will tell us, in great detail and in a leisurely manner, while having tea and baqlava, and maybe gaz from Isphahan, all about the "truth" and we shall ask him to elaborate, and he will reveal "THE secret".
And Emam Hosein will NOT be killed, and instead Yazid and Shemr will change their minds and bring nice drinks and ice water to the desert, and then will take them all back to have dinner together.
And Rabe'e will live happily with her beloved (who will NOT be killed by her brother) and she will write lots of nice love poems and we will take her chocolates on Valentine's day.""
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