Category Archives: Blog

I was filled with Thanksgiving Day gratitude and joy yesterday after an indulgent two hour massage at the Chedi in Muscat followed by pumpkin gnocchi on the sea and a performance of Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House Muscat (lit up in beautiful colors below).

I was excited to learn recently of an upcoming conference at the University of Texas on Iranian poet and director Forough Farrokhzad: Forough Farrokhzad Fifty Years Later (3-5 February 2017). The conference will focus on three themes: Farrokhzad’s poetry and status in Iran today, Farrokhzad’s influence in the hyphenated Iranian world outside of Iran, and the critical appreciation of Farrokhzad’s poetry qua poetry in the second decade of the 21st century. In my recent journal article on disability in Iranian film, “From Leprosy to The Willow Tree: Decoding Disability & Islamic Spirituality in Iranian Film” in Disability & Society, I discuss Farrokhzad’s groundbreaking short film, The House is Black — a meditation on suffering which mixes scenes of daily life in a real leper colony with her modernist poetry and religious verses from the Bible and Qur’an. The film, which you can watch above, had a profound influence on Iranian New Wave cinema. Recently, while giving a series of lectures in Iran for the Commonwealth Club of California, I had the opportunity to visit the Iranian Film Museum in Tehran — a dream come true, since I consider Iranian film the best in the world (due, in large part, to Farrokhzad’s influence on modern Iranian directors).

When I was living in Lebanon and teaching at the American University of Beirut as the Whittlesey Chair of History and Archaeology, I was so taken with Baalbek that I wrote about one of my field-trips to the ancient site in The New York Times (Visiting Bacchus in Baalbek). Another aspect I loved about living in Lebanon was walking by numerous graffiti every day of legendary Lebanese singer Fairouz on my jaunts around Beirut. This week, those two loves of mine came together as one — when the ancient ruins of Baalbek were lit up with images of Fairouz to mark her 81st birthday and the 60th anniversary of her first ever live performance. Happy Birthday to the “Jewel of Lebanon.”

I’m missing my friends in Mongolia, and looking forward to returning there soon for more research and fun (I’ve spent the past three summers doing research there, and speak Mongolian thanks to having studied the language at the National University of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar). I keep finding myself having flashbacks this week to all of my big adventures there on the steppe — looking forward to returning to yurt life soon…

The trailer above is for Sonita, a documentary (directed by Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami) about an eighteen-year-old Afghan girl whose family escaped to Iran after being targeted by the Taliban. In Iran, as a member of the sizable Afghan diaspora there, young Sonita began to rap (as you can see in the video below).

This fall, I journeyed to Ethiopia for research — and had a chance to enjoy the medieval rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. CNN published an article this week on the Orthodox Christmas traditions in Lalibela, urging its readers to walk with pilgrims on a journey to Ethiopia’s New Jerusalem.

Wherever I go (because of my background as a dancer, choreographer, and archaeologist), I like to consider how my body relates to the cultural heritage I am encountering. When we approached St. George’s Church, dug deep into the ground, I didn’t feel it would be right to do a pose standing up. So I laid down and tried mirroring the cruciform shape of the church, while honoring the flat ground one has to walk upon before moving on to its majesty below.

I had dreamt of visiting this particular church for decades (I had to pass a PhD exam in Coptic at Brown University and later studied Ge’ez at Harvard, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church) — so I was excited to explore it from every angle. When we finally got close to the entrance below, I noticed that the cross-shape was imperceptible, and felt inspired to embody that shape at one of its edges before taking a step inside…

If you travel to Yazd to explore its fine mosques and Zoroastrian temples, book a room at the serene Moshir al-Mamalek Garden Hotel — a lovely gem from the Qajar period which Iran has inscribed on its list of heritage sites. Its bubbling fountains and peaceful gardens make this hotel an ideal place for rest, relaxation, and meditation…

If you travel to the city of Kerman in Iran, be sure to visit Hamam-e Ganj Ali Khan — a beautiful bathhouse from the Safavid period (in the old city square) that has been restored and transformed into a museum.

I love the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, which has the finest collection of modern western art outside of the U.S. and Europe. Currently, the museum is hosting an exhibition of modern Arab art. Karim Sultan, the curator of the show, has stressed the power of art to transcend politics and division. He notes: “Whatever the situation is, art has a way of moving over the situation, and a lot of people engage in a different kind of conversation, perhaps in a positive way.”

I started off my Saturday with a 7 am hike to the crystal clear waters of my favorite wadi in the Sultanate of Oman. Afterwards, my friend and I feasted on delicious homemade pancakes — with bananas, walnuts, yogurt, and date syrup on top. A perfect way to start the day…

When I was teaching at Harvard, a good friend of mine used to come to my apartment in Cambridge to sketch me (and my chihuahua Anubis) for several hours each week. I’ve always loved sitting for artists — I find it incredibly meditative, and I enjoy observing their process and progression. Since we had previously spent a great deal of time together tracing hieroglyphs in ancient Egyptian tombs on a Brown University-Cairo University excavation at the Great Pyramids in Egypt, we were very comfortable spending hours together in silence while she sketched me for long stretches at a time. We never had any set plan of what we would sketch — because from sketch to painting, there’s no single clear path. I came to really appreciate sketching as a practice — requiring time set aside every week to observe, experiment, and play. Aside from its artistic benefits, sketching can be also be incredibly healing (drawing and sketching apps attest to its popularity). Looking over our sketches from that time, I am reminded that sketches can be art in their own right — there is something delicious, to me, about a sketch that is unfinished, unpolished, and raw. A triumph of process over product.

I stumbled upon this mosaic of Ayatollah Khomeini at his home in Iran with the Commonwealth Club of California.

Since I am a concert gamelan musician (and studied with Javanese gamelan masters in Solo while on a Fulbright in Indonesia), I was happy to find this video from Indonesia that not only features gamelan music but also shows a few gamelan instruments being played (while delivering an important greeting: peace be upon you).

I’ve spent the past three summers in Ulaanbaatar doing research (and studying Mongolian at the National University of Mongolia), so I’ve visited my share of Buddhist monasteries, nunneries, and temples in Mongolia. So I read with interest today that China has asked Mongolia to bar the upcoming visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (my chihuahua and I once had a private audience with him at Harvard). According to Mongolian monks at Gandan monastery (pictured above and below), his visit is for religious purposes only. When the Dalai Lama visited Mongolia in 2006, China temporarily cancelled flights between Ulaanbaatar and Beijing. It remains to be seen how China will react this time…