I got drunk on music at Frank Gehry’s last night along with two thousand other people. Even though independence day usually is accompanied by the two Adamses - Samuel (the beer),  and John (the second president) -  this year was different.

It was amazing : an Iranian music ensemble called “Mastan” or the drunks, with its  director/vocalist, Parvaz Homaye, performed at Walt Disney music hall. The astonishing thing is that this group lives and performs in Iran and has chosen a name and lyrics laced with wine/intoxication/breaking repentance/dissent/hope… The young vocalist actually played on two big jugs - khomreh - that begged to be full of wine like Jesus’ in the marriage of cana!

How the mullahs managed to asphyxiate 70 million people by depriving them of music and wine is beyond my comprehension… Just look at these paintings: where there is music, there is wine. The concert last night proved that if you take the wine out of a Persian’s life, he’ll continue to sing about it! Move your mouse on the images to see a description of the paintings and the year they  were created.

These instruments have not changed in centuries but the music has evolved. I love this painting of Kamancheh (upright fiddle), tar and daf:

This gorgeous painting in a palace in Isfahan from around 1670:

Last but not least is this funny looking dude playing a lute:

Passionate improvisation is the basis of Persian classical music. Watch this clip to see some hard core first-rate Persian musicians - Kayhan Kalhor on kemancheh (spike fiddle), Hussein Alizadeh on tar (lute), Shajarian on vocals, and his son on tombak (hand drum) - warning to the uninitiate: there is heavy duty yodeling! I couldn’t resist adding these pictures of the great Kalhor playing and Yo-Yo Ma watching - they collaborated on the Silk Road Project:

Watch the Mastan here - they will be performing in San Francisco, San Diego and Washington D.C. this July.

صبح است ساقیا قدحی پرشراب کن
دور فلک درنگ ندارد شتاب کن
زان پیشتر که عالم فانی شود خراب
ما را ز جام باده گلگون خراب کن

حافظ

Listening to Rufus Cappadocia the other day on NPR, I almost had an accident! I seldom get excited about “fusion/cross-cultural music” but the more I listened to it, the bigger the smile got on my face. Just watch this clip to see what I got all excited about.

I liked what I heard so much that I made several images out of the few pictures I could find of him online. Rufus is a New York-based cellist and composer, a multilingual musician, a world music traveler, having studied and performed in a variety of traditions from American blues, folk and jazz to Spanish flamenco, Haitian vodou drumming and various styles from the Balkans, the Middle East and India. Reminding me that his last name, Cappadocia, is where Rumi lived, Rufus told me about his work with Rumi’s poetry and Vishal Vaid, the extraordinary Ghazal vocalist.

His CD sold out after the NPR piece but it will be in stock this week - it’s also available on iTunes. A modified cello has given him the flexibility to play in many settings with other musicians. Rufus is playing on May 18th in Oakland with Stellamara. Check it out if you live in the area.

The real magician is the one who puts Jimmy Hendrix and classical Persian music together…

So I am a movie junkie (and a news junkie, a history junkie, etc…) but the Oscar ceremony in spite of the very funny Jon Stewart almost always leaves me cold. A bunch of over-pampered, over-paid brats with some over-hyped films to be over-promoted! How about an award ceremony for great teachers or diligent beekeepers for a change? The red carpet saw a lot of blood this year…

Don’t get me wrong, I like big budget films but it’s always refreshing to see a low/no budget movie that makes it…I came out of Juno with smoke coming out of my ears - teen pregnancy is no laughing matter to me and to be so nonchalant about it in a movie that caters to the young is even worse - the script was over-written and awash in smart-ass dialog but I have to admit that the actors were all good.

Having an abortion is hard (just watch the great movie 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days from Rumania) but keeping the baby when you are 16 and giving it away must be harder. The U.S. is the only western country that still has a constant debate about abortion (thanks to organized religion of course). The picture above is from a métro billboard in France; it says: Sexuality, Contraception, Abortion, a right, my choice, our freedom. Can you imagine this happening in the States?

I am glad that Once won in the song category and the acceptance speeches were the best of the the night. I saw Glen Hansard first in the excellent rock and roll film The Commitments and he’s just gotten better. The song that got the oscar, Falling Slowly, is worth listening to.

Of the movies that were nominated and didn’t get far I loved the visually stunning The diving bell and the butterfly and The Savages and of course Persepolis. I read the diving bell book some years ago and found it depressing but the film was a masterpiece, Julian Schnabel’s masterpiece. I left all three movies with a feeling of elation, joy…

“Étais-je aveugle et sourd ou bien faut-il nécessairement la lumière d’un malheur pour éclairer un homme sous son vrai jour?” Le scaphandre et le papillon
“Had I been blind and deaf it wouldn’t take the harsh light of disaster for me to find my true nature” The diving bell and the butterfly

Los Angeles is basking in the light of having the remarkable Dudamel as its philharmonic orchestra’s next music director starting 2009.

“True class: South America’s lightning conductor . . . what I experienced was sensational. His name is Gustavo Dudamel - he produced enough electricity to light up Birmingham - a young man with boundless talent, deeply in love, and the world at his feet.” The Times (London)
Dudamel started by playing the violin before becoming a conductor - listen to him play as the devil himself in this clip. His joy and exuberance are contagious.

Venezuela is not all about Chavez and his histrionics - it could also be about El Sistema, an organization that gave birth to the likes of Dudamel through teaching music to children. I first read about this a few months back but tonight the 60 minutes program (a must see) just blew me away…250,000 Venezuelan teenagers and children, most from impoverished backgrounds, are participating in El Sistema that has already produced many world class musicians - Mahler and Bernstein are keeping them out of trouble - All over the world, young people have so much to give and from whom so little is expected…

My other favorite Venezuelan is Manuel Graterol’s daughter, Flor.

Of course amid all this musical euphoria, the cynic in me remembers George Steiner’s quote: “we know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day’s work at Auschwitz in the morning.

I love my iPod! It’s ancient but I don’t want to get a new one yet; I have to admit that having a portable music library has not been my primary concern but the podcasts…oh the podcasts…

Many of my friends have asked about subscribing to podcasts with an iPod (or any other MP3) - this is how I listen to my news from around the world - it’s like TiVo-ing your favorite radio shows; you have to install itunes and take it from there:

1) if you don’t already have itunes download it for free at http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
2) install it
3) go to itune store/podcast http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcasts.html
4)search for shows you like halfway through the screen:

And the rest is pretty easy. Here are some of the things I listen to: NPR morning news, scientific american , slate magazine, 2000 ans d’histoire, in our time with melvyn bragg, Radio Lab, NYT’s Frank Rich/Maureen Dowd , etc… I do download a “medley” of different stuff and I hardly listen to music on my ipod but that’s just me - the beauty of it all is that I can listen to what I want when I want and with a little gadget (iTrip), it even plays on my car radio.

Five minutes in the morning to download the podcasts from my computer and this can carry me through Life’s rush-hour…Happiness is a lot of small/little things.

It rained today in Los Angeles and I pretended that the fall was here, that there is actually a change of weather, that time doesn’t pass me by in a bigger hurry in the absence of seasons in southern California. Going through the four seasons makes you realize that you are aging with the rest of the Earth, but not where I live…

We are surrounded here by evergreens and we rarely use our gloves/umbrellas/fireplaces; every time that I see a sycamore or a Japanese maple tree losing quietly its leaves, I am transported back to my childhood in Tehran where the year was divided into its four glorious versions. Summers were hot and dry, winters cold and white, etc…

The autumn leaves was adapted from the beautiful poem by Prévert. Both Juliette Gréco and Yves Montand had this song in their repertory.

I still remember the spectacular color shows of New England falls; It’s quite amazing how the green leaves turn to brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red - a never ending spectacle.

Momijigari (leaf peeping in the U.S.) is the japanese traditional pastime of viewing the changing colors of the autumn foliage when it snows yellow and red.

I got to know the work of this great artist in 1998 in paris at the Michelle Boulet gallery. I just found out that Verlinde has been very active in the past few years. I loved this piece of one of his paintings which reminded me of Jean Ferrat’s song, l’Amour est cerise.

I just found this fabulous picture of Roland Schlager that i scanned some years ago - i love the absurdity of it - Starbucks has never looked this good.

I still love Blunt’s song, You’re Beautiful,

in spite of the overexposure of the past couple of years; I made this image when I first heard it - i thought it would be a great song for some fashion d�fil�, maybe Dior’s of the 1950’s.

I’ve always loved these ladies! I have fun playing with their images. They’ve been called torchères (torchieres), lampposts and some pretty banal names but I think that they deserve to be called by a “grander” name like “the green Lucinas” (Lucina: she who brings children into the light). I’ve photographed them several times (they are the best models, they never move). Their color changes from bronze green to dark jade passing by some moss and celadon.

The Paris opera house is not hosting any operas; it is now mainly used for ballet performances. Carrier-Belleuse, an old friend of Charles Garnier, the architect of this great theater, contributed the elaborate torcheres that hold the candelabra illuminating the grand staircase and the lampposts outside the opera house.

“Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.“ Robert Burns