Persian Odyssey: Part V – The Sacrificial Lamb

We returned from doing the tourist thing in and around Hamadan sometime in the afternoon. My student's family planned to honor their “special guest” with a traditional Iranian feast for such occasions and had asked us to return early enough so that they could “prepare” for it.

I was ushered into the living area of the house for refreshments which consisted basically of tea and fruit. I can still see in my mind's eye the baskets of golden fruit on a low table surrounding a red vase of flowers.  

I put my camera on the table next to the baskets of fruit and chatted with family members while sipping tea and munching on an apple. Soon, the men disappeared into the courtyard of the house. I sat around still sipping my tea, munching on the fruit (maybe grapes by now) making polite small talk with the ladies. It wasn't any deep philosophical, and certainly not political, discussion since they spoke no English and my Farsi was rudimentary at best. I was soon rescued by my student who asked me to come into the garden with my camera. I jumped at the chance to escape from the somewhat awkward language problem.

The men of the family were there holding down a bleating frightened-looking sheep. The sheep, it turned out, was to be the main course in the traditional feast in my honor. I must have instantly lost my desert tan and turned several shades of pale for any number of reasons having to do with culinary preferences, but the most shocking element of this whole scene was that they wanted ME to take a bloody picture while they cut the struggling sheep's throat. Aghast and horrified I stammered that I couldn't possibly take such a picture and showed my student how to use the camera while I almost ran back inside the house.

I sat there alone in utter silence (the women of the house had disappeared) praying that the deed would be done as quickly as possible and wondering how I could possibly eat the roast lamb without losing both face and the meat in front of everyone who had been so welcoming to me. Of course (as you may have surmised by now), slaughtering and roasting a fresh lamb is the highest form of honor you can pay an important guest in Iran.

Within minutes my grinning student (holding the rear legs of the sheep looking at the camera in the photo below) came back with the camera apologizing that he couldn't make it work. It was a somewhat complex SLR camera for a novice to use. So, I looked at him, laughed (hysterically, I suppose), took the camera and said: “What the hell!” to myself. Out we went and they proceeded with the slaughtering of the lamb and I took one of the most remarkable pictures I have ever taken. Oh, and yes, the fresh roast lamb was out of this world (as the lamb now was), and no, I didn't disgrace myself.

 the slaughtering of the lamb

To be continued...

Twixt Christmas and New Years

Twas the night, not before, but of Christmas. And all through the house not a sign of Santa could be seen. I at the computer and the SO in the bath, it's hard to believe it's the 25 of December. But not to despair, I've been here before. You see, this is Japan, a Buddhist and Shinto land, where New Years is the big thing and a special cake on the eve of today is what Christmas is all about. Like in the West where December 25 is a time when families get together, January 1, called OSHOGATSU in Japanese, is when Japanese families flung far and wide come home. So, our small family will be together on January 1.

Since a Christmas tree isn't appropriate I decided the combine the spirits of two worlds. A kind of East meets West of the flower world. I tried loosely combining the Japanese art of Ikebana with the decorations of a Christmas tree with the following result. This will be our holiday tree.

So, anonymous, are you hooked on my little cliff hangers? :-D

It gets better. 

Persian Odyssey: Part IV – Hamadan

Hamadan, like Damascus in Syria, is thought to be one of the oldest cities in the world, built, perhaps, as early as 3000 BC. Around the 6^th Century BC it became one of the capitals of the first Persian Empire along with Susa and Persepolis under the Achaemenid kings Cyrus and Darius--both “the Great”. The main purpose of my trip (besides adventure) was to visit the archeological sites of these ancient cities. Hamadan was the first one on my itinerary.

              night view of Hamadan

I had arranged to meet up with one of my IIAA students and visit with his family. So I arrived in Hamadan and, following his written directions, managed to find his family's home. Teachers are held in high esteem in Iran and I was warmly welcomed and treated to every courtesy the family felt I was due as the teacher of their son. I was a little embarrassed at such attention, but secretly basked in it. I was informed that a banquet would be held in my honor that evening. Imagine, a banquet in my honor! Sounds like Thanksgiving turkey with all the trimmings, doesn't it?

My student and his cousin offered to show me around Hamadan. The most interesting artifact in town is the Ganj Nameh (treasure epistle) carved in granite on the side of Alvand Mountain dating from the 6^th Century BC. The inscription is in cuneiform and basically praises the Zoroastrian god, Ahura Mazda (no relation to the automobile of the same name I presume), and brags about the accomplishments of Kings Darius and his son Xerxes. I believe this was before the arrival of a pissed off Alexander the Great. (There seem to have been a lot of “the Greats” around in those days.) They no doubt walked on piles of skeletons to achieve their greatness.

                      Ganj Nameh--Xerxes, how great thou art...

After checking out a few more monuments of more or less interest, we went to the bazaar so that I could buy a few provisions for the next leg of my journey. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't much of the ancient city left to see. Being continuously inhabited tends to obliterate the ruins of preceding eras as new construction is built over the older buildings.

                    suburb of Hamadan and Alvand Mountain and cousin

                       outside the Hamadan bazaar

inside the Hamadan bazaar

By late afternoon we returned to my students home where I got the first shock of my trip.

To be continued.... 

Christmas Presents

I got a great Christmas present today. A gift of color, light and beauty. And it didn't cost a dime. But it is a priceless gift because it is from the heart of an old and dear friend who seemed to know instinctively what I would love to get for Christmas.

Call me Scrooge, but the ongoing collapse of the consumer shop-till-you-drop economy on maxed out credit cards got me to thinking about the value of the compulsive present buying that starts the day after Thanksgiving and goes on relentlessly until Christmas Eve. It seems to me that the more frenetic the shopping for ever more presents the less value is placed on any one of them in a kind of inverse ratio. I have seen people almost robot like open one present after another, hardly look at it, and then tear into the next one in the same robotic manner. Their self worth seemingly in proportion to the quantity and not the quality of the gifts.

Scrooge was a miser not so much of money as of the human spirit. When he bought a huge goose for the Cratchet family, he was not so much opening his purse, but his heart. The message of Dickens story is that a true gift benefits both the giver and the receiver.

As my old friend shared this gift of light and beauty with me, so I pass it on to you dear friends.

Click on the title to see this beautiful gift. If it doesn't raise your spirits, then maybe you need a visit by the three spirits of Christmas past, present and future.

                       Oh, and here is one more tree and, of course, me.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Can you see the resemblance?

I was doing a project with papier mache and paper clay in one of my elementary art classes a while back. I hit on the idea of using PET bottles to make it easier for the kids to work with the material. But I realized that it was such fun that I got carried away in my spare time and went hog wild. This little bust is the result of the fit of madness. The eyes are green marbles imbedded in the paper clay. I stained the whole bust with an oil-based maple stain and rubbed tempera blended to resemble a copper patina over the stain. Finally I varnished the whole thing.

Persian Odyssey: Part III – A Sense of Space

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness...” So wrote the 19^th Century Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran. He was describing how in any relationship people need the space to be who they are without one dominating and manipulating the other. Well and good. But have you ever thought about your own personal space. Where are the boundaries of the space we occupy on this planet? It can be almost non-existent as in sex; it can include largely ignored physical contact in a crowded subway car; a few inches or feet as in a friendly conversation. But when you are alone in the desert where you are vulnerable in the extreme, how close is too close for comfort?

I had an opportunity to discover my own personal boundaries and those of strangers encountered in the wilderness soon after I started out on my desert odyssey. I had stopped for the day and was camping on a mountainside overlooking a village off in the distance below me. Here is a photograph I took at sunset shortly before the incident. 

It was around dusk. I had set up my tent and finished my evening meal and it was beginning to get dark. I was relaxing with a cigarette and a cup of coffee and enjoying the view when I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye on the slope below me. Being alone and feeling vulnerable I kept a close eye on the motion until it coalesced into a recognizable configuration. It was a small group of people climbing up directly in my direction. Remember that the Islamic Revolution was already underway and foreign interests were being targeted and I was obviously a foreigner and alone. I did carry a knife for protection, but it would have been useless against a group if their intentions were unfriendly. It was already too late to strike camp and take off.

I didn't know if they knew I was there or actually had some purpose in coming up the hillside at that hour of the evening. It was getting fairly dark and it was possible that they hadn't seen me. I decided the most sensible thing to do was to make my presence known while they were still far enough away not to be overly startled. They, including some goats, were still coming directly towards me. When they were at a certain distance I stood up and said: “Good evening” in Farsi, the Iranian language. It seemed as if two magnets of the same polarity had suddenly pushed against each other. To my relief, they acted surprised and answered politely and began to veer off the straight line towards me and moved in an arc at a safe distance and continued nonthreateningly on their way. To feel secure I needed to know why they were there and asked them where they were going. They said that they were going to another village, that I wasn't yet aware existed, on the other side of the mountain . Somewhat relieved I said: “Salaam Alaikum,” (Peace be unto you) and they continued on their way. It took me a while to fall asleep though. I kept listening for returning footsteps from the village on the other side of the mountain.

But no, peace was still unto me in the morning. I ate some breakfast, had a smoke, broke camp and continued on to Hamadan where I would visit the family of one of my students.

  daybreak

To be continued....

Persian Odyssey: Part II – Preliminaries

A couple of the stops on my itinerary started at the class picnic. My class completed their course of study in basic English communication and specialized helicopter-related vocabulary in their IIAA cadet training program and were granted leaves if absence before the start of their helicopter flight training. (I was to start as an in-flight language “troubleshooter” after my trip, but that's a story for another time.)

Iranians love picnics which they hold in green belts—oases of a kind in an otherwise desert environment. Such a green belt in Esfahan runs along the Zayandeh Rudh (River) that bisects the city. One of the city's architectural gems, the Si-o-se Pol (33 Arch Bridge) crosses the river connecting the northern and southern parts of the city.

    Si-o-se Pol over the Zayandeh Rudh

In the course of our graduation picnic I told the students about my intended trip and they invited me to visit their homes since they would be visiting their families during their leaves. Two of them lived in towns that were on my itinerary (Hamadan and Kermanshah) and I said I would be delighted to visit their Iranian homes and families.

The day of my departure finally arrived. I had rigged the Yamaha with two enormous bags designed for carrying things on camels. Yes, really! I had to carry everything I would need for survival in the desert—both my survival and the bike's. I intended to camp out when not staying at students' homes, so I needed a tent and cooking paraphernalia. I would pick up provisions at bazaars along the route. I had to carry tools and some spare parts for the bike in case of a breakdown in the middle of nowhere (except the one thing that I eventually needed and had to ride on on a wing and a prayer without).  

  

my silver Yamaha Enduro 250cc. rigged for the journey

The first leg of my journey took me northwest out of Esfahan toward Hamadan. Click on the title to see Google Map.

To be continued....

You're Santa Claus

I guess you've sort of arrived when you can play Santa Claus without a costume. I had the unexpected thrill of discovering this dubious “honor” the other day. I am retiring from my current employment situation. I was doing a publicity gig for my next incarnation as a private part-time teacher at my friend's English language day school here in our town. It was a photo-op for next year's public relations brochure to introduce me as doing sort of “celebrity” appearances teaching Art, story telling and tutoring Japanese returnees (kids who have lived abroad and attended school there in English). To kick off the lesson in cartoon drawing I asked if any of the kids in attendance knew me. One of the little girls who is a 1^st Grader at the school where I have taught Art for 19 years raised her hand and said: “You're Mr. B.” She was right. Although I don't teach the 1^st Grade all the students know me as Mr. B. Another, older boy, who doesn't attend my school, said: “You're Santa Claus.” I said: “Well, thanks a lot.” And muttered to myself: “Well, you ARE pushing 70 after all.”

Well, OK, enough BS. This is all by way of saying HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all and to all a Good Morning. It's 10 a.m. here.

                                                      I added the hat

Persian Odyssey: Part I

I had a dirt bike in Iran. It was a silver 250cc. Yamaha Enduro. Actually, it was my second bike. The first one had been stolen right from my courtyard. It was a royal blue 250cc. Yamaha Enduro. In my eyes, the silver one could never match the beauty of the royal blue one. I learned to ride on the royal blue, but I became a veteran off-road and back-road rider on the silver Enduro.

It was the fateful year, 1978, of the Islamic Revolution and I was living and working in Esfahan, said to be the most beautiful city in Iran. Much of its architectural beauty derives from the 16^th Century when it was Persia's capital under the Safavid dynasty. But, no, I wasn't there researching 16^th Century Persian architecture. I was indirectly working for the hated Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, although we only heard rumors about his tyrannical regime. We were to learn the truth soon and brutally enough.

My work was teaching English to cadets of the Imperial Iranian Army Aircorps who were in the helicopter pilot training program at the army base outside Esfahan. On the right are some of my colleagues on a picnic on the banks of the Zayandeh Rudh. After a few months of classroom study, the graduates would undergo Bell helicopter flight training, using their rudimentary English conversation skills, with American instructor pilots (who, of course, couldn't speak Farsi—imagine!), and who were fresh from the napalm runs of the Vietnam War. When my class graduated I decided to take a 7-day solo trip on the Yamaha that would take me to  the sites of the summer, winter and ceremonial capital cities of the ancient (circa. 500 BC) Persian Empire: Hamadan, Susa and Persepolis.

By then the early convulsions of the revolution had already begun. There had been fire bombings in Eshahan of places that were considered sinful to Islamic sensibilities, but popular with Western expatriates and the younger more progressive elements of the native population—movie theaters, nightclubs, bars and restaurants; as well as a few banks for good measure. Gunfire could be heard nightly outside the thankfully high walls of our house, including machine gun fire. By morning, however, the streets had been cleared of any bodies that might have fallen the previous night. Some of my friends warned me against traveling alone under the circumstances, but I couldn't resist a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these historic places. The trip turned out to be one of the most dangerous but unforgettable experiences of my life.

To be continued....

Throw Away Old Ladies Mountain

It sounds better in Japanese: obasuteyama 「叔母捨て山」」. In modern American slang we might say “throw grandma under the bus”. There is a legend in Japan about this mountain for discarding no longer productive people over 70-years old. Did such a strange custom really happen? The legend has been made into a classic movie titled “Narayama Bushiko” (The Ballad of Narayama) twice, in 1933 and 1983. It takes place in rural Japan sometime in the unspecified past. The original film was shot in pre-war Japan in sort of a mixed western play and Kabuki style. The 1983 version is filmed in a more natural world and is rather explicit in some of the scenes. It's basically a story of survival and family relationships in a subsistence level society.

The time has come for two of the old villagers to go to Mt. Nara to die—one willingly the other not. They must be carried by the eldest son just before the first snow flies so that they will not have anything to eat and potentially survive on the mountain. It is a very moving tale of what it really means to be alive and human in a world of scarcity where an extra mouth to feed can mean hardship for an entire family.

Click on the title for a trailer of the 1983 version with English subs.

The Lemon Tree

In search of the perfect cocktail

The SO and I were in Bratislava, Slovakia (previously the other half of Czechoslovakia) to see an opera. We had read about a well-reviewed restaurant/bar in town with the melodious name of The Lemon Tree on tripadvisor.com. We left our hotel on a gray rainy afternoon to do a little sightseeing and find it. The main square of Bratislava, where The Lemon Tree is located, is a sort of scaled down version of Wenceslas Square in Prague. The opera house sits at the north end of the square kitty corner from the swanky Blu Carlton hotel. Next door to the hotel sits what appears to be a prison or military installation with a barbed-wire crowned chain-link fence, impact barrier-ed gate with armed guards and several black SUV-type vehicles behind the fence—didn't notice any dogs though. Passing by with some trepidation (didn't dare take a picture) we spied an innocuous bronze plaque that announced it as the Embassy of the United States. Next door to that we found the building that houses The Lemon Tree. To our great delight the food was superb and the cocktails a treasure. I had a French Manhattan made with 3 parts bourbon, 1 part Dubonnet with a twist of orange peel marinated in Cointreau. Add a little of the Cointreau marinade for added zing and swirl with a couple ice cubes, don't shake. Mmm! Click on the title for The Lemon Tree website.

                                                  French Manhattan

Postscript: After a somewhat disappointing performance of Don Giovanni we returned to The Lemon Tree for a late night snack. This was In March, shortly after the triple whammy of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear plant meltdown in Japan. The joint was jumping with the young club-scene crowd. The same friendly young waiter from dinner was still there and served us again. He noticed that my SO is Asian and, in a good-humored sub-Rosa tone, told us that he had heard on the Internet that the earthquake was caused by the Americans who detonated a nuclear device in the underwater fault. With rumors like that, it's no wonder the Embassy looks like a fortress.

PS #2: There are several curious and humorous sculptures here and there in the old town. These have been rearranged to suit my “artistic” purposes. 

                                           Bratislava Castle

                                                    camera shy

                                 paparazzo

Madame Butterfly meets Urban Cowboy II

I've just been fiddling around with trying to get a video of the jazz combo mentioned in the previous post on YouTube. I think I may have figured it out. If it works, it isn't of the greatest quality since it was taken in low light with a rather small and unstably held camera, but can give you an idea of the sound of the instruments. Also, I need to learn how to edit video. I am really a novice in this area. If you click on the title of this post it will automatically link you to the video. 1000 pardons.

PS: If you read this post and the link works for you, I'd appreciate a short comment like: "Yup, it works!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiI9gnrfaKo

Madame Butterfly meets Urban Cowboy

My old friend, Madame Butterfly, invited me to a concert of traditional Japanese music recently. She is an artist of the traditional instrument known as the koto 琴、a kind of harp. Many people in Japan have an interest or hobby known as shumi 趣味, often in traditional areas such as ikebana, tea ceremony, calligraphy, traditional sports such as kendo 剣道, a kind of fencing, etc. English Conversation is another, less traditional, area of interest. Those interested in studying about an interest form groups around a teacher, called sensei 先生, who is a master in the area. Madame B. is the sensei of her group interested in playing and performing koto concerts. I was the sensei of an English Conversation group of which Madame B. was a member. At any rate, pictures are worth 1,000 words, so here are a few pictures from her concert entitled “My Life's Road”.

    Madame Butterfly and me

    instruments include the samisen and shakuhachi (a kind of banjo and bamboo flute)

                                          on the samisen

                                       she's 4-years-old and got stage fright,
                                       but did perform later in the program to everyone's delight

                                                    on the koto

                                          part of an ensemble

    jazz combo combining traditional and modern instruments and styles

    koto, samisen and shakuhachi with voice

The Perfect Con

I consider myself a pretty sophisticated traveler, but, at least once, I took my eye off the ball—or should I say off my wallet. It's impossible to explain. Maybe it was the influence of the neo-gothic horror of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. It looks like Gaudi took the idea of a cathedral and threw gobs of mud at it. Anyway, the con. A youngish woman came up as I was busily taking pix of the cathedral. She had a clipboard and said she was taking signatures for some worthy cause. I forget exactly what it was. So, disarmed by the “worthy cause” I added my name to the list. OK, good deed done for the day. Not quite. The good Samaritan senorita then asked to see my ID to verify my signature. So, I offered to show my passport, but, no, she wanted to see my credit card signature. My SO, having rebuffed the partner of my senorita, was frantically trying to stop me from pulling out my wallet. The partner came over to me saying she was the “professor” of the other one. I should have: 1) realized at that point that I was being conned, 2) listened to my SO; but no, I blithely showed my card but wouldn't let her touch it. Then I put the card back in my wallet and in my pocket.  The two disappeared in the wink of an eye. Some onlookers came up and told me those women had stolen my money. I said: “What!” and took out my wallet. Sure enough, the pickpockets had cleaned me out to the tune of 150 Euros. They either missed one small bill, or decided to be generous and leave me subway fare to get back to my hotel. Take your pick.

Fukjushima Revisited

Everyone enjoys the benefits of the energy generated by the world's nuclear power plants. But, of course, nobody wants a nuclear plant “in my backyard”. A short video clip in the Washington Post filmed in one of the post-apocalyptic “ghost towns” in the Fukushima no-go zone recently makes it pretty obvious why nobody wants one “in my backyard”.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-trip-to-japans-nuclear-ghost-town/2011/11/19/gIQAKVgKcN_video.html

How to balance the voracious requirement for affordable energy in highly industrialized countries with the downsides of producing that energy: Fukushima/Chernobyl type disasters, ongoing energy wars that plague the Middle East, environmental degradation, etc., is probably the most urgent problem facing us in the 21^st Century—if we are to survive it in any recognizably human fashion.  

Fukushima

The mention of the iconic "Hiroshima" probably embodies the fear and horror that the world has about nuclear holocausts, just as the haunting photos in the museum embody the fear and horror we have of nuclear radiation. For the first time journalists have been allowed to tour our modern Hiroshima--another town with an island in its name--Fukushima. "Good fortune Island" has become almost as infamous as "Broad Island". Articles in The New York Times as well as The Japan Times ran stories on the tour. But the slide show in the NY Times taken at Fukushima Daiichi tells it best.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/11/13/world/asia/13japan.html?ref=world

Political Deadlock

I don't normally intend to use this blog for political comment since I tend to be an apolitical non-partisan observer of world events. I am not politically neutral, however. The current political and economic state of the nation (USA) has led the federal government beyond gridlock into a deadly kind of Hatfield-McCoy hatred/vendetta. Rome burns, but the band plays on. There are obviously no simple solutions to the mess America (and Europe) are in. Although no politician will use the dreaded “D” word, we are clearly in a political/economic global neo-depression. It will take years for this monster to shake out all the rot and debt that has accumulated in both domestic and public piggy banks (or, more likely, bare cupboards). The spectacle of clueless scrambling to offer band aids for gaping wounds and sanctimonious finger pointing of partisan blame across the aisle and up and down the social ladder is truly appalling. The Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times!, seems more than appropriate. This is beyond interesting, though, it's morbidly fascinating.

Personalizing Death

We were wandering around Vienna's Central Cemetery one day last January looking at the tombs of some of Vienna's celebrated classical composers—Bach, Beethoven, etc. I began to notice that some of the tombstones were not your usual chunk of granite or marble or what have you. Some are (1) amusing, (2) grandiose; but a couple were quite (3) evocative and (4) moving. Here are the four in that order:

1)

2) 

3)

4)

Beer and other mood enhancers

A budding young writer in our extended family (of man) is trying, when sober I presume, to make a few pennies writing beer reviews. Well, we all have to start somewhere. I washed pots and pans in a crummy Miami Beach hotel once long ago. My problem with beer is that it's too slow and too filling and does nothing for the full-length sideways profile. Wine is OK for a few sips however much oenophiles may rave about bouquet and back taste subtleties. After that it gets a little acrid in the mouth. Nope, make mine cocktails: tasty, strong and fast. Of course, best of all, is still proscribed substances from the flora kingdom. Here is a sample of his beer commercial style. Pour yourself a beer and you'll find a new talent there. http://www.examiner.com/craft-beer-in-boston/pumpkin-beers-are-signs-of-the-season-review?CID=examiner_alerts_article

IPO or...Introducing my new blog

This title is probably about a clear as the peak of Mt Everest in a blizzard. Let me explain. I've been toying with the idea of doing a website or blog for some time. I finally decided to you-know-what or get off the pot and this little blog called "Noilly Prattle",  http://noillyprattle.blogspot.com/ , is my first attempt.  It's basically a kind of newsletter to use for my convenience when traveling, in particular, but anytime something important or interesting comes up, or just to say Hi, maybe. I hope it will amuse you, maybe move you, and that you will feel free to comment or criticize [but not too harshly]. It will be automatically updated whenever I post something. If you like it, you can bookmark it and have a look from time to time. You can comment anonymously if you wish. Or you can email me as usual also more privately. When traveling I will update it more often and probably add pictures I think you might find interesting.

Going Forward

Trying out various images and color harmonies for the Noilly Prattle blog page. Decided to try this image (modified) for the main background.

Getting started

New to blogging and trying to figure out how it works.

http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42423