Absolute Random Nonsense

Having obtained a few issues of the magazine Soccer International in 1990, I wrote them a letter in 1991 shortly after the US had won the Gold Cup. I asked for more information about the team and particularly about the Gold Cup games. I did not have high expectations of getting a response. For starters I couldn't see why they would send me anything for free. Even if they did send me an issue of their magazine, there was no guarantee that the mailman wouldn't keep it for himself. At best I thought I would simply get a subscription form back. I received nothing. In 1993, once in the US and college, I subscribed to the magazine and saw that one could also order prior issues. I ordered three issues from 1991. When they arrived I flipped through them. In one of them, in the section covering letters to them, one of the titles read "A US Fan in Iran." I wondered how I never came across this person when living in Iran as the two of us would have definitely stood out from the ...

Samantha Tajik is an Iranian model, actress, and a TV personality. She was crowned Miss Universe Canada 2008 in Toronto, Ontario on April 28, 2008 and went on to represent Canada at the Miss Universe 2008 beauty pageant held in Vietnam in July 2008. Samantha had the honor of being the first Persian woman ever to win the title of Miss Universe Canada. She has also excelled in the world of modeling, winning the title of "International Model of the Year" in 2007. She has also excelled in the world of high-fashion modeling. Samantha has been featured in many magazines, commercials and has walked the runway for numerous international designers. Samantha also trained and continues to train many aspiring models for different pageants and judges at many shows as the "guest of honor". At just two years old, Tajik left Tehran with her family, settling in Canada. Samantha grew up in Vancouver with her parents and younger brother. She then moved to Toronto, where sh...

In 1995 a girl in college gave me a book called "My Secret Garden" that dealt with female sexual fantasies. The book wasn't a novel but rather a collection of women's fantasies obtained through letters, tapes and personal interviews. I read the book and then for the most part put it away. A year of two later a friend of mine had to take a long train ride and requested some reading material. I gave him the book. He never returned it. The girl who had given me the book passed away in her 50s.  

Leila Bela is an Iranian avant-garde musician, writer, photographer, actress, multi-instrumentalist, playwright, and recording artist from Austin, Texas. Bela was born Leila Bela Kousheshi, in Tehran to a family of Persian female singers and musicians such as her great-aunt Monir Vakili as well as former Persian royalty, descendants of the Qajar Empire but was not raised by them. Her mother abandoned her at age four and she lived in several foster homes and with family and strangers all over the world growing up. In her early teens she was very active in the punk and underground music scene. She began attending Nightclubs and gay bars such as Numbers and Rich's in Houston, Tx. Despite her teachers urging her to pursue an acting career, Bela decided to start writing a concept album of experimental music after school and soon left the theatre world for music with a theatrical twist. After releasing her first album, which she recorded at home on a small recording device, she started p...

My introduction to the Ivory Coast was a story posted in a 1981 Keyhan Bacheha about a whale who had to make a delivery there. In the late 80s I saw a picture of the Ivorian soccer player Youssouf Fofana who at the time was playing for Monaco. In 1992 I read that Ivory Coast won the African Cup of Nations. In 2026 I attended their game at the World Cup where they defeated Curacao 2-0.  

Pirooz Kalayeh is an Iranian American filmmaker, writer, and professor whose formally adventurous, hybrid cinema interrogates institutional power, displacement, and the boundaries of non-fiction storytelling. A solo practitioner who often serves as his own cinematographer, editor, and sound designer, Kalayeh blends cinematic disciplines to create deeply intimate, politically urgent visual essays. His latest feature film, My Room in Tehran Was Called America (2027), epitomizes this form-shattering approach—weaving bedroom diaries, cross-border histories, and choral critiques of Western structures into a singular cinematic tapestry.  "I was born in Iran but raised in America. My whole life has always been split between these two worlds. Inside the house, was gormet sabzi, Persian rugs, and eating on the floor. Outside, was hamburgers, Star Wars, Scooby Doo, and America. I grew up like this all my childhood — and when I found myself in other communities, whether it was Hollywood...

I was never known for my beautiful handwriting and the many “S-satisfactory” marks I got on my handwriting assignments confirmed this. Even so, every now and then I would perhaps inadvertently turn out a brilliantly written handwriting assignment for which my usual satisfactory comment would be replaced with “O-outstanding”. Heading towards the end of the year, I had accumulated three of such scores. Alex, who at that point sat next to me and was equally horrible when it came to legible writing, somehow went through a metamorphosis. Almost as if a switch had been flicked on, his handwriting tremendously improved and it did not go unnoticed by Mr. Yowell. When he received his first outstanding mark I simply shrugged it off. With his second one I wondered if he was going to catch up with me. His third one, which also included a footnote of “excellent” had him bragging that he would beat me with our last assignment. I hardly doubted his prediction. Our notebooks were distributed bac...

It’s 9 p.m. on a Sunday evening. Westwood Boulevard is quiet, the hustle and bustle of the day a distant memory. At first glance, the Naab Café – a popular hotspot with the locals – seems equally desolate. But walk through the terrace, and the air comes alive with laughter, smoke and drifts of Farsi-laden conversation. There isn’t a single non-Persian in the place. “It’s like a scene from Iran,” Anahita Aminpour says. “Or at least, how I imagine it.” At 25 years old, Aminpour belongs to a new generation of L.A.’s Persians. Her parents, like many of those from the community, made the move from Iran to Los Angeles in the 1970s following the Islamic Revolution of Iran. L.A. is now home to around 600,000 Persians, the largest diaspora in the world. In 2010, the city of Los Angeles officially designated Westwood Boulevard as “Persian Square.” It’s also known as “Tehrangeles” on Google Maps – a portmanteau of Tehran and Los Angeles. “I’m definitely Persian.” Aminpour says...

The year 1995 was truly horrendous. So many awful things had happened, particularly at the end of the year, and as such I was looking forward to 1996. On New Year's eve, I sat in my room listening to the radio and the New Year's countdown and when the year changed I literally got up, jumped up and down and celebrated 1995 ending. Little did I know that every horrible thing that happened in 1995 would present its consequences in 1996.