Category Archives: Blog

I finally hiked up to this lovely fort crumbling on a mountaintop not far behind my house in the sands of Oman…

Since the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art has the most valuable modern art collection outside of Europe and North America, I was delighted to finally pay a visit to the museum — which is home to works by Picasso, Warhol, Van Gogh, Pollock, Lichtenstein, Dalí, Bacon, Monet, and more.

I loved seeing this surreal sculpture by René Magritte at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran…

I enjoyed wandering through March of the Sun, a lovely exhibit of desert photography at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, while giving a series of lectures for the Commonwealth Club of California in Iran. The large desert tableaus made me feel like I was back home in the Sultanate of Oman.

I ended my day at the new Africa Coffee Shop in Muscat after my presentation on Rimbaud in Ethiopia and Yemen at the international Connecting the Dots Conference at Sultan Qaboos University in the Sultanate of Oman.

I wore my Amharic/English Rimbaud t-shirt from Ethiopia today for my talk on Rimbaud and disability at the international Connecting the Dots Conference at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman.

I was elated to finally visit the Film Museum of Iran while giving a series of lectures for the Commonwealth Club of California in Tehran, since I publish on (and absolutely love) films from Iran. Like many, I believe that Iranian films are the best in the world (they certainly dominate at international film festivals). One of my recent journal articles on disability in Iranian film, “From Leprosy to The Willow Tree: Decoding Disability & Islamic Spirituality in Iranian Film” in Disability & Society, was included last year in the Rethinking Disability on Screen symposium at the University of York.

Since I have published on the history of the Iranian film industry and the earliest films ever produced in Iran (the chapter “Iranian-Russian Cinematic Encounters” in the book Iranian-Russian Encounters: Empires and Revolutions since 1800), I was delighted to find an original poster of the first Iranian film “Abi and Rabi” in the museum. Equally as exciting was walking through rooms filled with posters of modern-day award-winning Iranian films. Now that I’ve been to the museum, my new dream is to appear or perform in an Iranian film (anything is possible!).

I felt such satisfaction seeing this portrait of Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol in Tehran, while exploring modern art in Iran.

While in Iran giving a series of lectures for the Commonwealth Club of California, I visited Eram Garden in Shiraz — which has a pavilion inscribed with verses from the mystical Persian poetry of Hafiz.

I am very happy and humbled to share that I have been invited to be a guest speaker in Iran for the Commonwealth Club of California, the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States. Last year’s invited speaker in Iran on Iranian affairs was author and veteran Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer.

Other notable speakers in the history of the Club have included U.S. presidents back to Teddy Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Bill Gates, Mikhail Gorbachev, Kofi Annan, Robert F. Kennedy, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The mission of The Commonwealth Club of California is to be the leading national forum open to all for the impartial discussion of important public issues. The Club also hosts a weekly radio broadcast (the oldest in the U.S. — it dates back to 1924) — which is broadcast on more than 230 public and commercial radio stations.

I hiked through a moonscape tonight with my chihuahua & friends under a marvelous moon in the Sultanate of Oman.

I started my morning off early (7 am!) by exploring beautiful boulders in my favorite wadi in the Sultanate of Oman…

I have fond memories of visiting Sufi shrines while in Balkh, Afghanistan — sad to hear about today’s deadly attack.

I ran into hundreds of bats at Bahla Fort in the Sultanate of Oman — hanging from the rafters of each dark room!