Hello?… that was just a joke!

Posted on November 26, 2007 by Michele

Ok people I was just joking when I said I was going to have plastic surgery! I talked about the United States’ dire economic situation (true), having a kid in law school (true) and needing cosmetic surgery (maybe true but won’t do it) to make you guys buy my stuff.

These are my 2007/2008 holiday cards:

I hope that you had a good thanksgiving – I always cook two turkeys no matter how many people are coming to my house (one in the oven and one in a pot) and this year wasn’t an exception – great persian stuffing camouflaged as the usual stove top…

“Thanksgiving is when gluttony becomes a patriotic duty.” To me, this is one holiday that is not tinted with religion or acute nationality.

The real turkey this week will be president Bush going to Annapolis when thousands are protesting in Jerusalem and Gaza against the talks.

Mike Luckovich sums it up in the above cartoon; I like Bob Gorrell’s too:

I am shameless…

Posted on November 19, 2007 by Michele

This is a shameless plug to sell my posters, my t-shirts, my images in general; my métro café poster has finally gone on sale on the major print stores.

A framed version’s been on my kitchen wall for a few months since the artist (meaning me) gets a preview/bonus set before all of you mere mortals! Remember, I am trying to be shameless, cocky, insolent, cheeky, impudent, etc…

You can buy most of my work on demand from RedBubble.com; they have 80 works of mine that you can purchase in many different sizes and formats. They even have T-shirts that i have designed.

These are some of my posters that you can find on Allposters.com, Art.com, Artselect.com and many other art sites on the net.

Ok, I’m a pig!

Posted on November 12, 2007 by Michele

I am not a chocolate person – I am not an ice cream person – I am not even a french fries person but I have no resistance when it comes to good pastry with tons of real cream. It’s not the sugar I am after, it’s the fat!

Ah…real whipped cream; the sexier name would be Chantilly…Making it the right way is an art in its way to extinction – even in Europe; I made a scene a couple of years back in la Rotonde, when they served me a café liegeois with cream coming out of a can! I left the café more heartbroken than angry…

Well boys and girls, this post was supposed to be about “fiber to the curb/kerb”, a telecommunication system based on fiber-optic cables, but i found this subject sweeter on a Monday.

Being a wimp with a high cholesterol count and in the absence of real Chantilly, I treat myself to a “hearty” nonfat cafe con leche. “Stressed spelled backwards is desserts. Coincidence? I think not. “

Coming to life with an iPod

Posted on November 5, 2007 by Michele

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.

Halloween in Darfur

Posted on October 30, 2007 by Michele

Living in the 21st century and exposed to Darfur and Iraq via our television sets, nothing can scare us anymore. Hannibal Lecter opens his victim’s head and eats his brain alive and I remember that instead of being revolted, I smiled at the stupidity/absurdity of the scene – unlike the Exorcist, the horror film masterpiece, that kept me awake for a few nights, 25 years ago…

Walking in my neighborhood, I can tell which houses have kids – they are usually meticulously decorated.

Halloween originated in Ireland and October 31st was perceived as the night during which the division between the world of the living and the dead is blurred hence having jack-o-lanterns (made of pumpkins, turnips or beets) to scare the evil spirits away. Tomorrow night, children (and adults) will dress up as scary creatures: ghosts, ghouls, zombies, witches, and goblins – Harry Potter galore…

The picture below is my last year’s crop.

Southern California is burning – sudden and intense changes…

Posted on October 22, 2007 by Michele

Wildfires, burning out of control, are continuing to threaten thousands of homes in California. A lot of people are going to lose theirs today. You can’t help but to have this incredible sense of the fragility of everything. As human beings we are wired to think that everything will stay the way it is, safe from sudden and intense changes…

We’ve had a very dry summer and the global warming is not helping. It is pretty scary to watch (even on TV) a fire that “jumps the freeway”. In my last post, I said that we have only one season here but I have to correct that because we have four: the earthquake season, the mudslide season, the fire season and the last but not least the Oscars season – each as unpredictable as the others in its outcome.

Just found these images (above) by Pooya Monajemi on BBC. Like Dante, we may all need our guide getting us out of Hell. “What region of the earth is not full of our calamities?”Virgil

swiming pool, wildfires, california

The arbitrariness, the randomness of it all is astounding…”You did or did not escape the fires?” That could be the current definition of a Californian. The two images (above) from yahoo say more about these devastating fires.

I took the picture above from my car, trapped on the closed down freeway 14 near Sand Canyon, a couple of hours ago – I still have the smoke on my hair.

“Leaf peeping” in L.A.

Posted on October 16, 2007 by Michele

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 am in favor of kindness and you prefer concentration camps

Posted on October 9, 2007 by Michele

Isaiah Berlin was a political philosopher and historian of ideas. He remains a hero to me.

one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, he remained true to his humanity. “I came to the conclusion that there is a plurality of ideals, as there is a plurality of cultures and of temperaments. I am not a relativist; I do not say “I like my coffee with milk and you like it without; I am in favor of kindness and you prefer concentration camps” — each of us with his own values, which cannot be overcome or integrated. This I believe to be false. But I do believe that there is a plurality of values which men can and do seek, and that these values differ.”

Sex, Sex, Sex…

Posted on October 7, 2007 by Michele

Now that i have your attention, I have an important announcement: you can buy many of my images from this fabulous site. You can get them as cards, mounted prints, canvas prints, even framed. My major posters are still being sold on all the “art” sites of course.

I have been waiting to get more of my images on redbubble but I think that it’s time to tell my friends about it; I will be adding to the batch little by little.

The models here are the beautiful Joey House, House of Petals‘ owner/actress and a friend, Mark.

“I can resist everything except temptation.” Oscar Wilde

The new Ang Lee film, Lust Caution, was released last friday and the NC17 rating is already making it more important than it really is. NY Times article made me want to see it. When it comes to TV, the HBO’s “tell me you love me” is an example of unnecessary, gratuitous sex shown on screen. I really don’t need to see Jane Alexander in an oral sex scene but that’s just me…

Mamal Isfahani

Posted on October 6, 2007 by Michele

I met this artist last week and can’t wait to go to his show this coming Saturday, October 13th, at 5921 Whitworth Drive #101; Los Angels, CA 90019; from 7:00pm to 10:00 pm.

Mamal is a modernist sculptor, working in metal, concrete, and wood (gorgeous wood i have to add) but I found him very excited about his new venture into the realm of painting where whirling dervishes mix with naked women…

I particularly loved his wood work which is one of my favorite media. It was interesting to see this veteran of Iran/Iraq war (sculpted his first piece with his army knife from a piece of wood he’d found in a battlefield and dressed it in a metal jacket and a helmet to protect it from missiles), playing with his cute dog, Gorgui. He described how he’d fallen into a place between hell and heaven and closed his eyes to the red and bloody scene around him in one of the bloodiest nights of the war. The red is omnipresent in his work.

mamal_isfahani@yahoo.com (310)500-8993

Michele Roohani

“Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult.”