How to reduce ethno-religious groups to stereotypes and sleep well at night [An Excerpt]

A short guide for our multi-cultural society

Many of you may wonder why anyone would write a guide about a topic that by and large most frown upon. The reason is in a truly free society we should all be allowed to develop our skills and use them to foster understanding or at least pretend like we want to. But the fact of the matter is many of us just don’t care enough to spend time to learn about others. We take the easy way out by ordering ethnic food when we’re hungry and, with a straight face, tell our friends about it with the subtext being: “you see, I’m having burritos, I can’t be a racist”; or wish people happy Ramadan and Hanukkah while wishing we just had Christmas to contend with and not all these people with funny hats and razor shy faces (...) The idea is one can be ignorant, but still pretend to love others. Using stereotypes allows us to simulate knowledge and understanding of other cultures, albeit superficially. Here, we are going for optics, nothing else (...)

• Look at the most common traits in their gastronomy and apply it to all their food.

Sometimes tension may be neither ethnic or religious

We know that in many cultures there’s a vast variety of herbs, spices and vegetables used for nourishment. But do we really care? Of course not. Some of those spices smell weird and fill the hallways with odors no amount of Fabreze can get rid of. But we can’t say that to their faces, that would be insensitive and rude. Do you feel like vomiting at the sight of their side dish? No worries, just say you’re on a diet to avoid tasting raw crap on some other vomit looking substance with basil on top. To show your appreciation for their food, pick one item you like and side it with anything in your kitchen and call it ethnic (...) As an example, you should never be bothered with the great culture, civilization and history of Greece which nurtured such rich gastronomy. Just put feta on top of anything and call it Greek. 

• Pretend they have a proud history.

No matter who you talk to they will give you a long speech about the times gone by when they were a proud people, they greatest on earth until some half ass idiot brought their entire civilization to its knees. Don’t ask logical questions such as why was their amazing civilization brought down by a wimpy idiot if they were so great. Just play along and raise your eye brows as a sign of amazement and bewilderment. You can add words like “wow, I didn’t know that" (which for sure is true) and "what a pity" (which is not) for maximum effect (…)

• Act as if their language is beautiful:

You have probably lost count of the number of times you’ve listened to some unintelligible conversation in the subway or on the bus and you thought to yourself: "how on earth do these people understand this gibberish”, or, “what planet are these people from”. One of the rules of living in tolerant society is not to tolerate these thoughts going through your mind. If you feel guilty, go to your nearest Starbucks, order a flavoured coffee (preferably Mocha and non fat to avoid your ass getting wider), and pick up the latest literature on Kyoto agreement. This should cleanse you from the impure thoughts you had a bout the weird languages you heard on the public transit going to work. 

Once you feel ready, go back, find someone who speaks an unintelligible and weird language and say something like: “My God, your language sounds so beautiful! It’s like hearing two birds sing to each other (probably a crow, but don’t specify the type of bird in your mind), what language is that? Can you teach me some words?” Most likely the individual being asked will see right through you like a weatherman through the wind but will respond by teaching you a few profanities and tell you this is how they say hello, I love you. He’ll think you’re an idiot, and you’ll think “I can’t believe I am pretending to like this non-sense”. But the point is you’ve now learned to hide your true feelings with a smile and without spilling your flavoured drink (…)

• Pretend their civilization really contributed to arts and sciences:

OK, so here is one of the most critical and sensitive aspects of a multi-cultural society. By its very definition multi-cultural means that we celebrate what all cultures bring into the mix. But what if some of these cultures don’t bring in anything worth mentioning t? Is jerk chicken realty enough to be in included in the mix of great cultures contributing to the advancement of human civilization? What if some cultures, on a world scale, haven’t really been significant at all? What should you do?

First of all, you should purge yourself from such thoughts and go immediately to your local Starbucks for another flavored something and download the Kyoto agreement for a second reading ( refer to the previous bullet). Then, with a straight face listen to some ethnic dude explaining why if his culture hadn’t invented walking, Edison wouldn’t have discovered electricity. The point here is that we must pretend no one culture has contributed more to the advancement of civilization than any other. The fact that in reality this is completely false is utterly irrelevant. This is about your attitude, not facts, you views and not what really happened in history. Again, you should show complete amazement and surprise if the person mentions that the greatest artistic achievement of his culture has been banging their head against the wall. You should be as impressed as if you were witnessing the first landing on the moon (...)

• Look for the most obvious flaws and extend it to that entire population

This is really a very easy way of saying: “look, who you are and what you do is weird and I assume anybody else coming from where you have come from is also weird and does the things I don’t get”. Historically, we know that in many cases this is true (all middle-eastern women are hairy) and in some cases also true (all Scandinavian women are nymphomaniacs). But the fact remains we do not want to make things complicated. We’re just in need of quick analysis and we can’t be bothered with intricacies (...) 

Challenge Question:

Who is hairier?

[A] Middle eastern men

[B] Italian women

[C] A Scandinavian woman in a same sex partnership with a Middle eastern man

[D] Asian man

As you can tell one of the 4 answers is a giveaway to make it easier for you to go through the exercise (obviously D cannot be true)

(…)

Practice:

On your next trip to work take the subway and stand nearest ethnic looking person. Pay attention to what they are reading and whether you recognize the alphabet or characters. If you don’t, you have an opening. Ask a simple question like: what language is that? It looks really difficult. Continue with questions like: where are you from? Do you believe in polygamy? Spice the conversation with comments like: “I love spicy food”. If they tell you their food isn’t spicy, say something like: “oh, I meant food with a lot of spices in it not hot” (…)

 

Mona Lisa in the Bathtub

In 2004, a group of Italian archaeologists made one of the most amazing discoveries of the early 21^st century. They unearthed a previously unknown painting by Michelangelo, believed to be the inspiration for his subsequent masterpiece, Mona Lisa. This painting, called Mona Lisa in the Bathtub, is one of the pivotal Renaissance works of art,  a period better known to its contemporaries as Epocum di Artisti Homosexualis.

Mona Lisa in the Bathtub with Pro V Shampoo and Conditioner

Michelangelo revolutionized the Renaissance artistic landscape and, as such, exerted great influence on many young artists who ended up going nowhere in their lives. His influence, at once shocking but not absorbing, is even more significant when one doesn’t considers the insignificance of his influence. The score of artists who followed him truly believed in a world where one can draw two parallel lines and colour the in between space and call it art.

This painting has come to symbolize the agony of humanity lost in an ever shifting post hygienic era, where soap and shampoo are missing yet the yearning for a global village where everyone is a potential village idiot is strong. Removed from reality, yet attached to his tunic, Michelangelo opens up a new door as he closes many. His legacy is not so much in form, substance, convention or novelty he brings in, but in the fact that I know how to spell these words. He is most definitely in the top ten most influential artists of all time even though it is futile to rank artists since most don't know how to count.

Michelangelo came from the illustrious Vermicelli family known for its patronage of music and sausage. The Vermicellis were one of the two powerful families in Northern Italy during early Renaissance, the other being the Panzerrotis with whom they competed for supremacy in Florence and Venice. 

One of the main points of friction between the two families was their pedigree. The Vermicellis were direct descendants of Alfredo Fetuccini, who had married Michelangelo’s great grandmother, Maria Molto Picolo Panini.  During the 100 year war the Paninis and the Fetuccinis had different allegiances and would not mix with each other except when forced by tomato sauce. This long family feud gave rise to rivalries which at times were violent and unpredictable, but always included Calamari.

Although little of this feud is known, there are documents which shed light on how the Fetuccinis tried to undercut the Vermicelli’s patronage of sausage and art in order to damage Michelangelo’s reputation. 

A projection of human existential angst, Mona Lisa in the Bathtub is an expression of man's hunger after eating dumpling and sees the world as a composition that reflects the unconscious will of a cosmopolitan villager looking for a ride to a local witch burning jam. One can get a glimpse of Michelangelo’s femininity by studying his interpretation of man's inner skeleton at odds with his non-linear masculine persona. Later in life, Michelangelo confessed that Mona Lisa in the Bathtub not only inspired him to paint his master piece, Mona Lisa, but also encouraged him to shower more frequently, itself a challenge in medieval times.  

In Mona Lisa in the Bathtub we see the desire to use shampoo, yet, the sculptural elements in the painting point to a digestive symbolism that to this day upsets ones inner turmoil as one looks for public bathroom.Therefore, it is not surprising that today’s mediocre exhibitions owe so much to Mona Lisa in the Bathtub’s revolutionary interpretation of form and substance. 

This style of painting, which lacks both form and substance, gave way, later on, to a popular style adopted in the 20^th century called “constipated impressionism”. The main focus of the style is to zoom in on the agony of human condition while constipated during the creative process. As one studies the details of this masterpiece, it is easy to realize why so many modern artists draw inspiration from it as it democratizes art to the point even one with the artistic ability of a four year old can draw on a canvas and sell it to international museums.

Michelangelo's journey as an artist is a journey without a ticket, full of passengers who forgot to use deodorant. The new discovery will undoubtedly become an object of inspiration for countless talentless aspiring artists who will never make it but feel educated enough to talk about art in local cafes. 

Upon reflecting on Mona Lisa in the bathtub, it is hard not to realize that there is not much to reflect on except the desire of one of the most acclaimed artists of human civilization to have a few moments alone in the bathroom, preferably with running water.

O You Classical Romanticism, Get Outta Here

A while back I was texting a compliment to someone I had just met. In my mind I thought I had gone one step beyond the usual niceties I bestowed upon female friends and companions and I thought the text back would be something along the lines of " Ped, you are such an amazing guy, you are by far the best, the most intelligent, the most incredible person I have ever met in my life". To my surprise, though. the response was: "you are very pleasant too"!

Of course, there are many ways to interpret this response. One would be that my expression of admiration wasn't as out there as I thought it was. Two, that her expression of admiration was really out there from her perspective, three, that she was just too tired to be creative or, four, that I should stop trying to be romantic.

A Method To Their Omelette

It is this last option that truly bothers me. Anyone who knows me also knows how much I enjoy classic movies from back when  kisses were not wet, actors went method to say their lines, and no one pushed anyone on the kitchen table unless they intended to make an Omelette. Since I steal most of my lines from these movies I expected the response I got to be as method and Omelettey as the one I usually see in those movies. I wanted there to be a method to their Omelette. And therein lies the problem.

Comparing an age of just released "talkies" with an age of instant communication is just wrong. The message, the messenger and the medium are all a function of each other. You express things differently in a two page letter that takes two weeks to reach its intended reader than in a grammatically massacred one liner that is immediately read by someone. This is when emoticon replaces emotion, smiley replaces facial expression and a abbreviated XOXO replaces a warm embrace. This is when love is downloaded and feelings uploaded; when one's mind crashes under the weight of its never-truly-lived memories and reality is rebooted at the slightest hint of discomfort. This is when we, these new comers to the age of global reach struggle to reach those a few blocks away. This is when the weight and meaning inherent and latent in each word has been decapitated, decimated and deactivated.

O you nano seconds of emotion, how fast you've been deleted. O you digital display of emoticons, so perfect on a high resolution screen, how fast you've been archived.

So the lesson I should learn here is that I have to stop living my life in black and white void of any colour and sound. I am no Cary Grant, and even if I were,  no one knows who he was anymore. I am not running after a train in a dark and misty station, with men in brim hats in the background, while waving to my sweat heart. No, why bother when I can type "BRB", and problem solved. I may have issues with emoticons but you have to admit there are many more emoticons than the actual emotions your facial muscles can express. I may feel sad but I can still LOL because, let's face it, who's going to hear you anyway? The words may be decimated but from afar I can seem like a wizard with auto-correct and spell check.

Come to think of it, in many ways this represents an added advantage to me. I could never serenade, even after voice lessons. I never sent any roses to anyone but now I can copy and paste its image in my emails; it is much cheaper (and probably more environmentally friendly anyway). I won't duel anyone to death to get to the woman I desire, that would objectify women and portray them as second class citizens. Besides I am pretty sure now that would be considered first degree murder and, though I did fencing in university, you can't really kill anyone with those Sabres anyhow.

Funny how one realizes he may not, after all,  be who he thought he was. Who am I to criticize those texting decimated sentences and decapitated words with their context deactivated through the virtual digital universe, when it makes so many happy? Who am I to laugh at nano seconds of emotions when it is magnified by the numbers it reaches?

So I bid you farewell classical romanticism. This is my last homage to you. As much as your are dear to me and I admire your mannerism and eloquence, you have never been there for me. I still love you from afar but your belong to a past I have never been part of. You may have spent many sleepless nights in Seattle but I've had my share of insomnia in Toronto, Tehran, Barcelona. You could never guess who was coming for dinner and I could never have my breakfast at Tiffany's. My hat off to you, if I had one, for all the characters and images you instilled in me. But I have grown out of you. I want to text without context and measure my happiness with "likes". I won't just run north or northwest, I want to be everywhere. I want to add and delete as I please and live vicariously though these nano-seconds of non-emotion; maybe virtual, but every byte as real.

Drill baby drill (or why I am getting married to Sarah Palin)

My bride to be Sarah Palin (pictured in a parallel universe)

For those of you who are asking what’s a guy like Ped doing falling in love with a gun toting, creationist, climate-change denying neo-con like Sarah Palin, let me just tell you she is a dream come true. But first of all let me set the premise right (this is the premise in my head). In order for me to marry Sarah Palin a few changes to the physical reality, as we know it, have to take place which I believe them to be very much possible and plausible:

-- We are living in a parallel universe where I was born in Alaska to a father who is a Grizzly bear hunter and a mother who collects Caribou skull
-- I enjoy moose hunting with my wife
-- I am 6’2” and have never left Alaska
-- I am very good looking (no change there from the real world)
-- I am amazingly intelligent (again, no change)
-- Women are dying to go out with me (this could happen in a parallel universe, seriously)
-- She is not married or engaged to anyone
-- We went to the same high school where I was the captain of the football team and she was my prom date

So now that we know the premise let me tell you why I think she is a good match for me:

-- She is strong (I love it!)
-- Not afraid to fight back (yeah baby!)
-- She believes in creationism. Ok, have you looked at her? She is quite a creation, don’t you think?
-- She doesn’t believe in climate change: so OK, let’s see. I can easily deny climate change as long as we’re together, after all there’s still about 10% of the scientific community that is not sure. I just don’t know why I feel like the temperature is rising every time I see her (is it just me? or is it global warming? I guess we’ll never know)
-- She wanted to name the bridge to nowhere a bridge to Ped’s heart. Cheesy maybe, but true.
-- Every time she lowers taxes my heart starts pounding.
-- She may be drilling offshore oil, but she is drilling my heart onshore.

So as you can see this is love at first sight, a match made in heaven. All I need is a new reality to make it happen. Drill baby drill.

Oh Doris, I still love you like when I was eight

A couple of weeks ago as I was going through the TCM movie line up I accidentally noticed "Romance on the high seas". A late 1940's movie, the description said this was Doris Day's very first movie. So I watched it.

Doris on the high seas

One of the fondest memories I have of my own childhood is how I used to rush home to watch the "Doris day show" week after week. Dubbed in Farsi, and probably being aired a decade or so after it was aired in the US in the 60's, the Que sera sera theme song and her platinum blond hair (that's what it looked like on black and white TV) simply captivated me. I fell in love. I truly did. I used to day dream about meeting her at her office, on the movie set, and somehow strike a conversation and make her see how I was the man for her. It didn't matter that I was seven or eight and she was in her late 40's, that I was in Tehran and she was in LA, that I spoke Farsi and she didn't. It didn't matter that she was from an era gone by. To me it seemed completely realistic for us to be in love, and maybe even co-star together. The series was translated as "The world of a woman" in Persian. I followed every episode, watched every romantic comedy she acted in with Rock Hudson and convinced myself that someday I will find a way to let her know how I feel about her. "I was so smitten, that though I'd never written any poetry" I thought maybe it's time I should. It was magic. Even today it feels so every time I watch one of her movies.

Many stars since have come and gone, but for me she remains the one and only. Cuter than Meg Ryan, prettier than Kate Hudson, sweeter than Rachel Weisz, lovelier than Thea Leoni, she was the only woman in my world. And to this day, with her in her late 80s I still believe she was the one who got away. Never far from imagination, every now and then I go back to the time I'd rush yo do my homework and eat my dinner early so I could watch her show. I become eight again. Escaping from my dreary school, unfriendly schoolmates and endless home works I did not want to finish, my world sheds its colours and everything turns into a black and white movie with her smiling in the opening scene.

The world being what it is I feel sad I'll never get a chance to tell her how she made me escape reality and dream, that I'll never get a chance to tell her that the impression she made on me lasts to this very day. And yet, with all impossibly stacked against me I insist and persist. So Doris, wherever you are, however old you are, I love you, I still love you like when I was eight.

Youth In Anger, Youth In Love

Every season has an end. The youth movement in Iran, in the making for a decade and so visibly expressed a couple of years ago, is a turning point in the 150 years of struggle between modernity and tradition in Iran, between intolerance and acceptance, fanaticism and openness, discrimination and inclusion. It is the outcome of a nascent civil society that seeks to redeem the sins of its past generations. If their parents brought about the idiosyncrasy of a theocratic dictatorship in the second half of the twentieth century, they seek to usher their country into a tolerant, egalitarian and respectful society of future. Make no mistake, it was the youth that demanded their leaders, themselves relics of this regime, to address the question of equality of men and women, minority rights and personal freedoms in their agenda and not the other way around.

About one hundred years ago the Constitutionalist movement in Iran made the country the first outside the western world to have a constitution, limiting not only the role of monarchy but also removing clergy from interference with law. This civil movement is not any less significant in its impact on the future of that country. Iran now, perhaps for the first time, stands in a unique position in that progressive forces and groups constitute a majority whose desire to to build a free, civil society is in definace of a decrepit order.

Every season has an end and this youthful, vibrant mass longs to be part of the new century. The renaissance in thought the Iranian society has gone through in the last decade alone is quite astonishing. This youth in anger is a youth in love: angry at falling behind a world moving furiously fast, in love with the lofty ideals it pursues; angry at being represented by the lowest elements of the Iranian society and seeking to reclaim their rightful image and place in the world; angry at being marginalized but in love with taking centre stage in inventing a new society. They are the other face of their society no one had seen. They shout loud because they walk silent; they attract sympathy because their cause knows no borders. The wave of their thought is the colour of their heart and the redemption of their regrettable past is the conception of an as yet unborn society.

This youth in action is an ideal in motion, its goals elemental in essence, its demands universal in nature. They may lose this battle but there is no defeat for an idea whose time has come. They have become the undeniable force, the unstoppable future. This youth in anger is youth in love. They are the season to come, the morning tide of freedom. The anger will pass, but their love is here to stay.