New Calendar Offerings & Meline Toumani's Critique on Exile

April 30 (Sat.), 7-11:00 p.m.—"Blood," Exhibit/Reception in Iraq art series

An evening of art, performance art, music and dance. Selah Artistic Giving Center presents the fourth Iraqi/American collaborative gallery opening. "Blood" brings artists together to manifest blood's many meanings in such a way as to illuminate cultural tensions and beautifully provoke understanding. “Veil.Blood.Book.Desert” Four New Symbols of Peace By Iraq and America.

Selah invites everyone to come and experience a beautiful night of art, music, and dance celebrating the reconciliation of understanding. Chapter 4: Blood, April 30th, 7-11pm . 1001 e. 1st st. gallery #15, Los Angeles 90012. $5 suggested donation. Phone for more info: 213.626.0811.


May 6 (Fri), 7:30 pm—Poets Nathalie Handal & Sholeh Wolpé Read From New Works

Palestinian American Nathalie Handal and Iranian American Sholeh Wolpé are two of the most dynamic young women poets who are not from the United States, yet are part of a vibrant and growing Mideast literature in the diaspora represented by American contemporary literature. On Friday evening, May 6, 8 pm, they will both read from their new books, The Lives of Rain (Interlink 2004) and The Scar Saloon (Red Hen Press 2004), at Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, in a special appearance organized by Levantine Cultural Center.

Nathalie Handal is a poet, playwright and writer who has lived in Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East. She finished her MFA at Bennington College and her post-graduate degree at the University of London. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines, literary journals and anthologies worldwide, and she is the editor of The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, an Academy of American Poets bestseller and winner of the Pen Oakland/Josephine Miles award. She teaches at Columbia University.

Poet and translator Sholeh Wolpé was born in Iran but spent most of her teen years in the Caribbean and Europe, ending up in the U.S. where she studied Radio-TV-Film at George Washington University in Washington DC. Sholeh Wolpé is the director and host of Poetry at the Loft, a successful poetry venue in Redlands. She divides her time between Redlands and Newport Beach.

Founded in 2001, Levantine Cultural Center explores contemporary Mediterranean/Middle Eastern arts and cultures, and often collaborates with Beyond Baroque on the literary arts. Nathalie Handal and Sholeh Wolpé, Friday, May 6, at 8 pm, Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice 90291. Tickets $10, $8. Seating limited, reserved early. Call 310.559.5544 or 310.822.3006, or get tix online at www.levantinecenter.org. Two shows, one at 8 pm, one at 9:30 pm.

Tix for 8 pm show

Tix for 9:30 pm show

May 6 (Fri), Danae Elon's "Another Road Home" Opens at Laemmle's Music Hall

“Another Road Home ” is a must-see documentary. Writes Variety film critic Ronnie Scheib, "Danae Elon's 'Another Road Home' charts the filmmaker's search for Musa Obeidallah, the Palestinian man her parents hired to take care of her in Israel for the first 20 years of her life. Her quest leads her from her current home in New York to Paterson, N. J., and from there to the West Bank. Fascinating in its reticence, honest, well-intentioned exploration involving two families, 'Another Road Home' fearlessly emerges with a far different picture than was originally envisioned...

"The Elons and the Obeidallahs meet and break bread in larger and smaller group configurations, but only Musa seems perfectly at ease with all camps. This state of grace signally escapes everyone else; though effort, respect and good will are palpable, so too is the tension."

Laemmle's Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, 90211. Info 310.274.6869.


May 21 (Sat), 6:30 p.m./8:00 p.m.—Lebanese Zein Al-Jundi Orchestra and We Are Baladi Dance & Dabke Troupe

This Lebanese musical heritage concert features Zein Al-Jundi, aa traditional Middle Eastern ten member orchestra & female vocalist; and the "We Are Baldai" Dance & Dabke Troupe by: "WE ARE BALADI" Dance Theater. Cocktail & Social Hour 6:30 p.m.; Concert 8:00 p.m. Tickets: $50 donation. For more information call Pierre & Badiha Alwan, 310.322.8391 or Yvette Mockary, 323.870.4440.

Audience encouraged to attend in ethnic garb; several prizes will be awarded. Organized by the Maronite League of Our Lady of Mount Lebanon.

Our Lady of Mount Lebanon Auditorium: 333 South San Vicente Blvd. at La Cienega Blvd., Los, Angeles, Ca. 90048.


May 26 (Thurs), 7:30 p.m. p.m.—Advance Screening, Film Panel & Reception for "The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam"

Join director Kayvan Mashayekh, moderator David O. Russell (director of "I Love Huckabees" and "Three Kings"), writer/producer of "Frailty: Tom Huckabee, and international vocal star Andy Madadian for an exclusive preview of "The Keeper," followed by a filmmakers' discussion and reception. This moving feature raises essential questions about roots, identity, storytelling and the meaning of family ties.

Kamran is a twelve-year-old boy in the present day who discovers that his ancestor is the 11th-century mathematician, astronomer and poet of Persia, Omar Khayyam. The story has been passed down in his family from one generation to another, and now it is his responsibility to keep the story alive for future generations. His dying brother, Nader, begins telling him the story as we flash back from the modern day to the epic past where the relationship between Omar Khayyam, Hassan Sabbah (the original creator of the sect of Assassins) and their mutual love for a beautiful woman separate them from their eternal bond of friendship. Throughout the telling of the story from Nader to Kamran, we periodically return to the present day to reveal the frailty of life and how stories such as ours easily fade with the passing of each generation. When Nader dies, Kamran cannot contain his curiosity and sets off on a journey to find a book known as "The Great Omar," which was bound nearly 100 years ago and was a lost treasure on the Titanic. He comes across the Heiress (beautifully portrayed by Academy Award winner Vanessa Redgrave) of a mansion in England whose grandfather was the famous bookbinder who created "The Great Omar." It is here, that Kamran learns about the importance of how the poetry of one man 1000 years ago has touched the lives of millions who still echo his verses from one generation to another. Kamran continues his journey to reach his grandfather to learn the end of the story. It is finally revealed to him that it wasn't Omar's poetry that made him important, it was the poetry of his life. Hence, be proud of your heritage because it is the stories in our past that make our future more meaningful.

Omar Khayyam Commentary by Tom Huckabee

Omar Khayyam lived an outer life of great productivity and renown, in the service of an absolute monarch and under the watchful eye of a strict religious authority. He published nothing but scholarly articles on astronomy and mathematics during his lifetime. His private stash of poems is a map of his inner world, where he roamed without restriction or fear, free to shout suppositions that would have meant death if whispered in public. The message of his Rubaiyat is profoundly simple, devoid of facts but full of meaning, effortlessly erotic and joyously literate. It is philosophical but promotes no particular system. Yet, some have seen it as a mandate for agnostic hedonism and as an esoteric path to Allah. It is antiquarian, slightly futuristic and wholly present, appealing equally to seekers of all ages and both genders. Like an ancient underground stream, connecting the world's religions, races and cultures, it flows just as smoothly in Chinese, French and Hungarian as it does in the original Farsi. It can be used to seduce a lover, soothe the afflicted or bury your father. An idiot can understand it, but a genius may not. Only by the grace of God did Omar's Rubaiyat survive, to show us just how bright some candles burned during the so-called dark ages.

Seating limited, reserve your tickets early. 310.559.5544. Tix only $10. This event is a special benefit for Levantine Cultural Center.

Harmony Gold Theatre, 7655 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 90046.


Another Country A Critique on Exile

by MELINE TOUMANI

Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran
by Azadeh Moaveni

In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran
by Christopher de Bellaigue

[from the May 2, 2005 issue of THE NATION]

It's difficult to identify the exact moment when the shift occurred, but it must have been sometime after President Bush debuted the phrase "axis of evil" in his January 2002 State of the Union address, and sometime before Azar Nafisi's memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, landed on the New York Times bestseller list two years later. From the mouths of politicians, broadcasters and members of book clubs across America, Iran no longer sounded like the past-tense conjugation of a verb for fast movement. "Eye-ran" had become "Ee-rawn." This refinement of pronunciation, tentative at first, has grown exultant. Recently a correspondent for National Public Radio emphasized the long "a" so earnestly it sounded like "Ee-rone."

What made this development possible was, first of all, the 1997 election of President Khatami, which opened an era of reform; newspapers reported that veils were slipping, young people were partying and the Internet was working its subversive magic. Around the same time, galleries in New York and Los Angeles showcased work by Iranian artists, and Iranian films became wildly trendy (since 1997, when Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry won the Palme d'Or, seven films from Iran have won prizes at Cannes). Through some alchemy of politics, optimism and the vagaries of pop culture, Iran chic was born.

Even when the reformist revolution did not arrive as hoped, the consecutive tragedies of 9/11 and the war in Iraq kept Iran in the spotlight. In 2003 Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights lawyer, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and a few months later a massive earthquake struck the Iranian city of Bam. The very next month, Iran achieved the ultimate form of mainstream recognition in the United States: three Academy Award nominations (for House of Sand and Fog, a drama about an exiled Iranian family struggling in California). Meanwhile, Iran's last empress, Farah Pahlavi, published her recollections in An Enduring Love. The Iranian-French illustrator Marjane Satrapi published a second volume of her comic book memoir, Persepolis, to great acclaim. Another memoir, Journey From the Land of No, by Iranian-Jewish emigré Roya Hakakian, received ample praise. And Nafisi's book jumped from hand to hand; now at week sixty-two on the bestseller list, it shows no signs of slowing down.

Read the rest of the original article in The Nation.

About Us