ANAGRAMS (80)

You sob on my shoulder
My shirt turns blue
And I have a hard-on
It's hard
I cannot go on
So hard
Hard-heartedly
With my shirt
Softly sodden by color of your eyes.

"This Europe of yours is so sad."

”... our old Europe at last philosophizes in the right way. We no longer say as in simple terms: “this is my opinion. What are your objections?” We have become lucid. For the dialogue we have substituted the communiqué. “This is the truth,” we say. “You can discuss it as much as you want; we aren’t interested. But in a few years there’ll be the police to show you I’m right.” -Camus, The Fall

I have always found a certain similarity between Albert Camus and Henrik Ibsen and that is their gloomy and sinister image of Europe * or still better what they had foreseen as what Europe would have become—and no surprise, it actually has, accordingly.

I have just finished reading The Fall and there Camus portraits a Europe of which Ibsen had prognosticated in his latest plays and yet Camus prophesizes another future that is our time’s. I find a straight line from Ibsen to Camus which has consentaneously handed down to even Lars von Trier’s Europa through, let say, Jürgen Habermas when he writes in the Philosophical Discourse of Modernity:
“A self-sufficiently advancing modernization of society has separated itself from the impulses of a cultural modernity that has seemingly become obsolete in the meantime; it only carries out the functional laws of economy and state, technology and science, which are supposed to have amalgamated into a system that cannot be influenced.”

Echo of all this can be heard in the mysterious voice of the hypnotizer/narrator of Europa: “You want to wake up to free yourself of the image of Europa. But it is not possible.” Isn’t that just the same voice as Jean-Baptiste Clamence in The Fall: “In order to cease being a doubtful case, one has to cease being, that’s all. […] A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.”

* It gets sometime tremendously alike: for example the character of Marta Bernick in Ibsen’s The Pillars of The Community—who longs to leave Europe for somewhere that “the skies are wider; the clouds move higher than here; a free wind blows overhead…”—extremely resembles the character of Martha in Camus’ The Misunderstanding: “I have no passion for this dreary Europe, where the autumn has the face of spring and the spring smells of poverty. No, I prefer to picture those other lands over which summer breaks in flame, where the winter rains flood the cities, and where … things are what they are.”

ANAGRAMS (79)

Nothing
That’s what it is all about
Day after day
Night after night
You still think I exist
Denying all denials
With a cleaver in your cold hand
Slicing my nightmares to
Years
Months
Weeks
Days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds...
Ha,
You think you exist?

ANAGRAMS (78)

I was a vegetarian
Now am a humanitarian
I was gay before
Now I’m gonna fuck your wife.

Clown-ass Fuckers

Denmark is a twisted country. Just read that the Danish New Nazi have turned pro-ecological! It’s al over here, apocalyptical!
Sometime ago the fucking National television broadcast the MC Battles in Copenhagen where bunch of kids diss each other to death. Imagine every household is watching this and the kids have 3 times 60 second to talk about the other guy’s sister and mom’s pussy. Now one guy won in the end and let’s say that he goes home and the mom opens the door hug the by and says she is so proud of him. Same mama whose pussy been discussed on the national TV the whole blessed evening!

Just dreaming of...

Tomatoes!

I love tomatoes. I mean I really enjoy having a tasty tomato—regardless the fact that tomatoes in Denmark are absolutely tasteless although they look great; perfectly round; blood-red! Sometimes I wonder, is the guy a farmer or a fucking artist? Anyways, lots of my friends think I don’t like tomatoes because they have noticed that I always order my sandwiches WITHOUT tomatoes. It has been so hard to explain to people that I don’t like tomatoes ONLY in my sandwich and it does not mean that I don’t like tomatoes. It’s just like: I like sex, but I don’t wanna be fucked in the ass! Does that make sense?

Hooked on Books

Nothing is nicer than having the chance to stay home as long as one can, lock doors and windows and read books without the disturbance of the reality out there. Mankind wouldn't necessarily need to leave the caves if they had a library in there. I wish I could just stay in my “cave” and read the book I love over and over again.

Edge of a Grave

”They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.”
Re-reading Beckett’s Waiting for Godot after many years and this time in English: it’s still powerful and startling. I have always wished to direct this piece one day. “One day! ….like any other day…” (as Beckett'd say) and I keep asking myself would it ever happen and when? “Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It’s abominable! When! When!”
Would I ever direct any performance again? I gave a workshop on acting at Teater Huset last Wednesday and was carried away by the work; working with performers, training, rehearsing, creation etc. I can’t seem to be going to get that chance anytime soon. But I can read Beckett and dream, wandering all around he’s wastelands and nowheres and blather his words:
“Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the gravedigger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries.”

Feeling Down?

A friend from afar wrote:

"Vahid, what do you do when you are so down,you don't know what to do?

"What do I do when I am down and don't know what to do? I blame the whole fucking universe and bitch and feel piety for the world that doesn't deserve me and then get drunk and high and listen to most aggressive music I've got as loud as I can and then read underlined passages of the books I’ve read and love and wander if ignorance isn't bless!" I said.

Still London

Third Day
The third day was a good day in London. I spent half of the day in my hotel room, sorting out the Danish affairs: calling, e-mailing SMSing etc. Then I wend out, heading for Soho. My first appointment was at 7:30 so I just wandered around and entered a “sport bar,” a place full of machines for various types of game. I had only seen such places in the movies before. There were lots of noises and colored lights and shooting and racing: everyone was fucking their money like maniacs. There was a particular gambling machine that drew my attention: Penny Fall. It’s so pathetic; you’d drop pennies into the machine and the machine accumulates them and when it’s piled up enough coins, the some would fall off machine and you’d take the coins and drop it back to the machine again! How much fucking sense does that make? I hope I can see one the bigger sport bars some day, one of those I’ve seen they have in Japan or US. They’re very inspiring.

In the same building, there was a shop on the first level where one could get dressed like a cowboy or a upper class nineteen century lord and take photographs against “wild west” background! You can find all sorts of weird stuff in Soho.

Then I went to Odeon Theater, bought the most expensive ticket I have ever bought for a movie and saw Scorsese’s The Departed in the biggest movie theater I have ever been at. The theater was almost empty, but the film was great. The movie doesn’t look much like Scorsese, yet has some his great touch. The sound and the picture was superb. Now I understand what doubly surround sound is for and why the heck you should keep cleaning your camera gate after each take. If you don’t the audiences are gonna see it on Odeon Theater’s screen!

Having seen a good film I rushed to the Leicester Square station while the can of backed bean was jumping around in my back-pack. London is full; London is intense, it attacks you. I can’t find time to eat. I eat in the morning at the hotel and then have the meal for the rest the day, in case I’ll find time between to things to eat a little.
I got off at the Oval Station where I met Sndra Buch. We went the Blue Elephant Theater to see 22 Death Scenes. I knew the Blue Elephant Theater through Mikkel Harder, the director of the Danish Royal Theater who had introduced me to the former director of the Blue Elephant. The guy is not there anymore, but I met the duty manager of the theater after the show. He was very welcoming and nice and wanted me to contact them later. The performance was also interesting. I am glad that I can see so many different aspects of London’s cultural scene in just a few days.

Forth & Fifth Day
I was waiting for a package from Amazon.co.uk but figured out that the mailman just left a note and I have to go to the post office to pick it up. The package contains Augusto Boal’s Games for actors and Non-actors and a DVD collection of three Sergei Eisenstein’s movies. It’s been ages that I wanted to have this DVD. (Now I got it! I went and picked up my stuff at the Royal Mail this morning.)
After lunch I left hotel to meet Paul, one of Ur-Hamlet actors. I made a mistake and went to a wrong address and then also got off at a wrong station and everything got pretty much complicated. Now I think it is very easy to go around in London, because the underground is just greatly planed. But yester I gained the experience of how awful it could be to be fuck-knows-how-many-meters-under-the-ground when you are just not on the right track. I met Paul 50 minutes later. We had coffee and a nice chat and then went to the Warehouse Theater to see Love and Human Remain which turned to be very cheesy. But again I am happy to be able to see all these different stuff in London and meet different people.
Before the show began, Paul and I sat in theater’s bar for a drink. It was my first drink since I left Denmark. Actually I do not have the need to drink in here. It was fine yesterday to have double Gin-Tonic just for refreshment, but I can do without drinking as much as I do in Denmark where it seem compulsory to drink all the fucking time because there isn’t any other thing to do.
Anyways, the bar at the theater was too bloody smoky and with the little bit of a cold that I had it was torturous. However I lost my voice and I think it is due to last night’s smoke. I can hardly speak or the sounds I am capable of producing at the moment has little to do with human voice.
After post office, I went to the supermarket and then to the pharmacy and bought some Voicezone pills that is supposed to clear my voice up. So far I still sound like that fucking kinky creature in the Lord of The Rings.
I was gonna meet an Iranian friend this evening, but guess I’d better stay in and watch El Mariachi since that doesn’t require any talking from my side!

Back to London

First Day
I had written a few notes last time when I was in London but was so lazy to put them on my weblog. Entering London wasn’t a pleasant one this time. I had a quarrel with the immigration officer who was asking stupid questions and was just a pain in the ass. I got pretty pissed off. That wasn’t a good beginning, but the rest is going well.I arrive at Gatwick airport and took the rain to London Bridge. I was running late, so I called Jim, the guy at the hotel to let him know I’ll arrive a bit later that what he was expecting.
I don’t know how it is when one has a UK number but I rarely have proper signal on my mobile when I am in London. In the subway, however there is no signal at all. So it makes it very difficult to call people, especially when one is as mobile addict as I am!
However after standing in a cue for half an hour, I toped up my Oyster card at the London Bridge station and took the subway to Manor House via King’s Cross and then a bus to the Amhurst Hotel. I have book a single room, but Jim said that he didn’t have a single room and gave me a twin room with bathroom for the price of the single. It happened that the room is the very same one where I stayed last time. This hotel has the lowest price in London to my knowledge and ain’t that bad.

Discovery: on the way I saw a girl reading a book, titled The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook. I don’t know what the book is about, but I liked the title.

Tip: never go to London without a walkman and a headphone. I have never been in a noisier place than London. It is so damned noisy that I find myself shouting when I talk to people and am surprised how they are use to the noise and just talk in normal tone. (Actually I can’t remember how noisy Tehran was, it most be as noisy as London if not worse!)

After my arrival to the hotel I went to the local supermarket and bought some food. It is much cheaper this way especially when my room has a refrigerator, a microwave and an electric water-boiler. I think I’ll be both economically and hygienically better off eating here.Second day
I slept a lot last night. Went to bed last night at 10:30 and woke up at 10 a.m. this morning. I think I deserved it now that I am away from all the stresses in Denmark. I also have a flue that I need to get it off of my system and sleeping will help.
However I feel good being here. Jens Burau called me last night, worried what is happening to me and why I was so “fucked up.” I said I was alright. Actually I feel pretty good in here. I feel much better sitting all alone in my cheap hotel room than being in a party Copenhagen.
I did lots of things in the morning which were mostly related to Denmark: writing tons of e-mails and phone calls and stuff. I also registered the domain www.hid.tv eventually. It has been ages that I wanted to do that, but it was too expensive. I just said today, “fuck it; I’ll buy it!”

In the afternoon I left the hotel, took the bus to the Manor House. I am glad that I bought my ECCO boots before coming to London. They are a bit too warm for here but very comfortable for walking. I walked a lot today. From The Manor House St. I walked through Seven Sisters Road to the Finsbury Park Tube and then went through Blackstock Road and Gillespie Road to the Arsenal Station. I took the tube to King’s cross and the walked again through Pentonville Road and king’s Cross Road which bring you straight to Farringdon Road. From there I turned into Clerkenwell Road and then walked trough Aldersgate Street into Barbican Center where I had a ticket waiting for me to a German performance by Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, called Blasted. It was pretty German! That all I can say about it now. I wanna sleep!

P.S. I bought The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett at Barbican bookstore. I am happy about it because my sister couldn't find my Waiting for Godot in my library in Tehran when I asked her to send it to me. Now I've got it and a lot more.

Bush-dreaming

Last night I dreamt I was sitting on a sofa next to George W. Bush in a long corridor. We were just having a chat about silly stuff. He got pissed off and left with a dog or a creature, something that waked on four legs.
I think something is wrong with me. I have dreamed of lots of weird stuff before but never politicians! What would Freud say? Do I need to get laid as soon as possible?

'Sometimes it seems as if it's just as from Sweden to Denmark as it is from Sweden to Pakistan.' Agneta Frick, manager of a Malmö women's crisis centre.

You're damn right, ma'am!

It's all about color!

I’ve just been checking out the US Diversity Visa Program which is a lottery for green card. It has a Photo Validator that lets one know whether their picture is correctly formatted before they submit the application. To help the applicants they have put example of what the photo should or should not be like. Among the “improper” examples I found the ones above that is fucking funny. Somewhat you ain’t gonna make it anyway because you have either the “improper color” or are “too dark” no matter even if you are blonde!

I'm heading for London again next week and it's just so fucking cool! Can't wait!

Working with @WORK

I've began working with an international project called @WORK. I was invited by Nina Basset of Teaterkunst to join this project one rare sunny day of Denmark last July on the shore of Ørsund, Helsingør, looking at Sweden. I had just returned from Italy where I was working for Odin Theater’s Ur-Hamlet as a photographer. Ur-Hamlet was a huge international performance with 100+ people involved from all around the world. Coming back to the cold Denmark from the hot Italy after a great international encounter among other things, gave more then one reason to say “yeah, cool, let’s do it!” to Nina for this new international project. We talked about different aspect of the project and it sounded very interesting. And then there came the dreadful news: “we’ll have a workshop in Helsinki on December!” DECEMBER!?
Now we are going to Helsinki on Dec. 3rd where all the other partners of the project will be present. It seems that I am going to give a workshop, using the techniques of Theater of the Oppressed and what I have learned from Augusto Boal.
However, I called the embassy of Finland to make sure I can travel there without visa. The lady said yes “as long as you have a valid passport and a residency in Denmark you don’t need visa. But make sure that you put enough cloths on. When are you going there?”
“December!” I said. She said it could be extremely cold there on December and told me her story that she once came back from Asia for Christmas and it was minus 25 etc. and heart-warming information like that. Now, I hate applying visa; nothing is more painful than that because the visa people are normally fucking angry and want to get rid of you as quick as possible. After I finished my conversation with this nice lady, I was thinking to myself that it must be a pretty boring job to be a visa officer at the embassy of Finland. After all who the fuck wants to go to such a cold place. Maybe only Europeans go there and they don’t need visa anyway. So the lady was so happy—I assume—that a fucking Iranian called her asking about visa. I hope I didn’t disappoint her by not actually applying a visa!