always ze germans

it seems my last week has been full of activities related to germany and the germans. first of all, a very close friend left last thursday:


so I tried to spend as much time as possible with and for her - arranging for her farewell, going to the airport, etc. we prepared a nice slideshow, watched the euro semifinals (so close turkey!) together, and had quite a fair amount of fun. I was obviously (?) rooting for turkey, which didn't make her all too happy, but germany won in the end, so it was good. me and another friend also resorted to calling each other up screaming "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!" and then instantly hanging up when turkey (me) or germany (him) scored. good fun. finally on thursday a bunch of us went to the airport with her to say good bye. she will definitely be missed.

and then there was obviously the finals last night, and once again I was on the other side of the german fence. we were quite a group of people, and there were some cheering for spain, others for germany, and it was quite a nice atmosphere. and I must say it got all the better thanks to spain winning. although a word of thought must go out to michael ballack, whom I can't feel more than sorry for. he if anyone understands what it means to be close, but not really there. just look at his 2002 and 2006:
2002: runner up in the world cup (suspended in the final due to getting his second yellow card in the semifinal), champions league, bundesliga (on the very last day), german cup.
2008: runner up in the european championships (played the final half-injured), champions league (on penalties - the last one hit the inside of the post), premier league (again, on the last day), league cup.
on top of that, he finished 3rd in the world cup 2006 (lost the semifinal in extra time) and runner up in the premier league 2007. ouch.

best conversation ever

an actual conversation that happened with a friend yesterday:

her: wow, you look so clean and shaven today, what did you do?
me: I shaved!

time

I need some extra time quite soon. not because I'm stressed (I'm not), or that I have lots of things I want to do (I do), but just because it feels like it's about time I take myself some necessary rest. right now it feels that I'm never able to be proactive, I'm always reacting to things, and that's never a good thing in the long run. there's always something to do, and there's also always something that should've been done a while ago.

we'll see how long this continues, it's been just on and on for the past few weeks, but hopefully it'll calm down soon. am now reading a book about slowness and such, but it's not exactly related to this. but it feels good.

field day for mosquitoes

today I woke up, counting to at least 8 mosquito bites over night. ouch :(

interesting connection

both these quotations are from 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Son of Bahá'u'lláh, Founder of the Bahá'í Faith:

"As ye have faith so shall your powers and blessings be."

"By faith is meant, first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds."

so by gathering (useful) knowledge, and then putting that knowledge into use (good deeds), that will give us powers and blessings.

random events happening again

I thought these random coincidences had stopped happening, after being almost five months since last time. this all happened the day before yesterday.

one of my friends whom I was on pilgrimage with last year, suddenly wrote to me and said "this and this person are here on pilgrimage right now". I checked up the list, and sure, they were here, but with two days to go, how would I ever be able to find them among 400 other pilgrims?

I asked her what they looked like, but went for the day before I got the reply. in the evening I went to the pilgrim talk, hoping that maybe I would be able to see them there. as the auditorium was full, I went and listened to the presentation via video link. now at the end of it, pilgrims were invited up to share experiences from their home communities. the second to last person happened to be one of the friends that I was looking for. however, since the camera was fixed upon the speaker, I couldn't see her, and when I asked another pilgrim friend that was there, he didn't remember what she looked like... after the talk, I tried looking at the pilgrims' name badges, to maybe have some major amount of luck. but no.

so I decided to go down with another group of people to just sit and chill at a café. after walking down the terraces, we join up with a group, bring a chair, and I sit down next to two pilgrims, a couple. we introduce ourselves, I ask them where they're from, and suddenly I just start shaking my head in disbelief. lo and behold, it's them! trying to look for them the whole evening didn't help, but suddenly sitting down at a random café, they're there! so I spent some time talking to them, until it was time to go home to sleep... :)

everyone deserves human rights

from the some artist that created the artshow prayer books on display, now comes the fight for human rights of Bahá'ís in iran.

the project everyone deserves human rights "... is a project that inspired 1,500+ people from around the globe to take a picture with a poster that speaks about the persecution of Baha'is in Iran. The pictures were then brought together as a symbol of collective unity and used to create a sculptural piece of body armour."


it's an incredibly cool project which I think will be able to affect a lot of people all around the world. here is the artist's statement:

It has become an unnatural reaction in this day and age to be desensitized when one watches the destruction and catastrophic daily events that take place in the world. The individual subconsciously justifies what they see by simply accepting it as the world we live in. Artists have the ability to shape our thoughts and ideologies. I think now more than ever that it is a very exciting time to be a contemporary artist and use the creative thought for the betterment of humanity. Artists can create awareness through contemporary art about the turbulent times we live in, the issues and problems that plague the world collectively.

We live in a time when there are constant advances in communication technologies that open broad avenues of interaction among the planet's diverse populations. Artists should use this global communication and diversity of the world's people as a tool to express the arts. I have used the power of the internet and e-mail to create a global network of the world’s people—a demographically diverse group have thereby come together to participate in this world wide artists’ collective. I believe that Fine Art should not be coined as high art and alienate the majority of society who cannot intellectually understand it at an educated level, but instead encourage the masses that art can be used to move the hearts and change the minds of men. I believe by encouraging this project, I am giving the participants the chance to see that even though they are not artists they can all contribute to the arts and be apart of this ever evolving history of art. No matter what work of art and of what culture, it is a living teacher of mankind's evolutionary development. Art can influence society; art can spark social, intellectual and educational revolutions of thinking.

I embarked on an internet based project, via Facebook. I created a network page were I created awareness about the issue of human rights violations, injustice and persecution. I directed it to a specific minority group. The group is the Bahá’í community which is being oppressed and persecuted by the fanatical regime governing Iran.

I left it open for anyone who was on Facebook to join my world wide collective and participate in this project, in collaboration with me. To this date, nearly 1000 people have joined the group and I have received over 1500 photographs from around the world from people who are concerned about the injustice and human rights violations directed at the Persian Bahá’í community in Iran. I wanted to create an artwork and art movement that is directly addressing social change and reform—the world’s people cannot go by and just let injustice prevail in the world. We need to educate ourselves, our friends, our colleagues, co-workers, family members, and communities on the local, national and international levels about the issues and problems that plague this turbulent world, from domestic family problems to the world problems.

We as individuals cannot get comfortable with our material lives but instead should be seeking to better our world. Art is a reflection of society and if society needs social change, then art should depict and inspire social change within its ideas. I have made a body armour out of the 1500 photographs that I have received, which comments at the injustices directed towards the Bahá’í community in Iran. No matter how much they are being persecuted, the entire world is protecting them and supporting them in the spirit of justice and love as symbolized by the armour. Their efforts to apply the Teachings of their Faith into actions of spiritual and social development that are conducive to the prosperity of their people and homeland are not forgotten by the peoples of the world, and in fact, we are with them in spirit, praying for them and protecting them.

The most distinctive aspect of this artwork is not necessarily the 1500 photographs of people holding up signs or the aesthetics of the armour. The artwork already took place through the conversations that have been taking place creating awareness about the persecution of Bahá’í in Iran. It is the individuals from around the world making a conscious decision to participate and thereby educating their friends, families, co-workers, associates and strangers about the persecution, injustice and oppression that plague our world. The conversation is the artwork and the photographs of them holding the sign is a documentation and acknowledgement of that event in time. It was a worldwide collaboration of hundreds and hundreds of people. The participants then sent me the documentation photographs of people holding the signs; I then made them into body armour. The body armour thereby becomes a symbol of a time based event that happened over a course of eight weeks around the entire world.

In essence, I have used modern age technology to communicate an idea of collective unity, justice and human rights through contemporary art.

Shahriar Asdollah-zadeh, 2008

when football goes a bit too far

I'm a die-hard football fan, but even I think this is a bit too much... even though it's really, really funny. the miracle of cordoba happened in 1978, when austria beat germany 3-2 in the world cup, much to the surprise of pretty much everyone. a couple of weeks ago, artist massimo furlan reenacted that game, by himself. without a ball. just imitating the movements of one player, goalscoring hero hans krankl. read more about the performance here.

the most scary part? more than 3000 people came to see it.

my new e-mail

[firstname].[lastname]@gmail.com - you should know what to fill in ;)

please start using that one from now on, as my uni e-mail will be discontinued in two weeks.

unity!

Strive with heart and soul in order to bring about union and harmony among the white and the black and prove thereby the unity of the Bahá'í world wherein distinction of colour findeth no place, but where hearts only are considered. Praise be to God, the hearts of the friends are united and linked together, whether they be from the east or the west, from north or from south, whether they be German, French, Japanese, American, and whether they pertain to the white, the black, the red, the yellow or the brown race. Variations of colour, of land and of race are of no importance in the Bahá'í Faith; on the contrary, Bahá'í unity overcometh them all and doeth away with all these fancies and imaginations.

'Abdu'l-Bahá

one of the great benefits of being here is to actually be able to interact with all the people from all over the world. it's not always flawless; different cultures and backgrounds do create different expectations on people and situations, but it works. quite well. and it's beautiful.

observation shot

took this shot last week, from the observation point, looking out at the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh:


I like it. in other news, not a single cloud in the sky today. I like that too.

have you cut your hair?

I got asked that question *three* times yesterday. does it look like I have?

photo idea

we've all seen pictures of people jumping up and everyone being in the air while the photo is taken. those are fun and creative, but there's a bit of a feeling of "been there, seen that" now I think, even though they sometimes do create quite awesome shots.

so what would be a cool thing to do then? I think a wave-looking formation could potentially turn out really well, something along the lines of what is commonly referred to as an audience, or mexican wave:


what do you think, wouldn't that be cool?

edit: I perhaps posted it in a bit of a rush yesterday, so a bit of clarification: I obviously meant to take a wave-like shot of people jumping, so you'd have a few just starting to jump, a few further up in the air, and then at the end people already on their way down. taking a picture of a couple of people doing a mexican wave would indeed be boring and even more so along the lines of "been there, seen that"...

my brother's gone...

my brother's gone. he left early yesterday morning (ie monday night), and arrived home quickly, and I suppose rather safely. unfortunately I wasn't able to spend as much time with him as I would've liked to, which is my own fault, but I think and hope that he enjoyed his time here. it was two weeks that went by rather quickly, and I'm already looking forward to having him here again.

euro 2008 has started, and I've actually been more excited than I thought. and obviously, with a goal like this, how can I not be?



excitedly looking forward to seeing what else we'll see these upcoming 2-3 weeks...

more books!

I thought I'd stopped reading literary novels for a while, but I've recently picked it up again. am more than halfway through a swedish one, men that hate women, and so far I like it. hoping to be able to finish it soon, and then continue...


... with the three other books I got today!

I got the kite runner and a thousand splendid suns, both by khaled hosseini. I've heard some really good things about the kite runner (and I suppose the movie was quite good as well?), so we'll see how it goes.

the other one I got is called in praise of slowness, which deals with the hectic society we live in. I suppose it is sort of a revolt against the stress that we all experience, trying to do everything quickly, and preferrably five things at the same time. we'll see if it's any good or not, I just bought it based on a few reviews here and there.

and we'll also see how long it takes me to finish these books, hopefully not too long!

time for a new e-mail! :(

it came as a heavy blow, the e-mail. my e-mail account with my uni will be closed down in three weeks. it makes sense, as I haven't been studying anything for more than a year, but still unpleasant news. so now I have to start looking for somewhere else to make my default e-mail account. I currently have a hotmail (only used for msn and diverse spam), and two gmails (one for blogging with a half-unserious address, and a proper one). the way things are looking now, I'll probably go over to my gmail, but I'm just looking to see if anyone else has any other suggestions. then I'd probably also have to look into exporting everything over...

in completely unrelated matters, here's a video of some really nice freekicks. maybe something to work on:

it's been a while

things have been a bit busy here as of lately... with my brother and other visitors being here, pilgrims, and a lot of work to take care of there's been little time for much else. right now I tried to plan a few things wih another friend, and it turned out that basically the upcoming two weeks it won't be possible to meet up, which seems kind of weird. whenever one of us is available, the other one is not. and then there of course are a lot of people leaving, all the time...

last week we commemorated the Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh, and it was a very special feeling of being out there at 3 am at night, as that was when He passed away. we got the opportunity of going into the room where He passed away, and offer our prayers and supplications there. it was a very nice atmosphere and a spiritual feeling.

between the visit to His room and the commemoration, we went into town to have some food, and also took a few pictures. I think this is the one that turned out best:



in other news, euro 2008 is coming up. it's going to be slightly exciting (not exactly sure which games I'm looking forward to), and a bit of a test of my detachment. in usual cases, I'd pretty much be glued to the tv for every single game, but now I have to decide which ones are important to me, and obviously there'll be classes and other talks as well to think about and prioritize. we'll see how it turns out, but there'll obviously be some games that I will try my very best not to miss - sweden for sure, hopefully I'll be able to see spain, italy and portugal play (they usually play fun and good football), and obviously as we'll get further on in the tournament I'll see more of the games. other than that, we'll see how it goes...