Absolute Random Nonsense

In the world of science, Harvard geneticist Pardis Sabeti is a rock star. She also fronts a guitar-heavy alternative rock band from Boston. She was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1975, where her father, Parviz, was a high-ranking official in the shah’s government. Two years later, on the cusp of the Iranian revolution, the Sabeti family fled to the United States, eventually settling in Florida. “My father took one of the toughest jobs in the government because he cared about his nation more than himself,” Pardis says. “His courage and conviction have always driven me to want to make a difference.” In the early 1980s, Pardis’ mother, Nancy, bought some old textbooks, a chalkboard and a couple of school chairs and set up a makeshift summer school in the family’s home for Pardis and her sister, Parisa, who is two years older. Parisa, assigned the role of teacher, put together lesson plans and gave out report cards; Pardis directed the “performing arts” and helped run phys ed. The wide-eyed, to...

One day as everyone was at Khanom Joon’s house in the living room and Ardi and I were sitting in the family room, a cockroach darted across the floor. We quickly cornered it and placed an empty matchbox on top of it. We then slid the matchbox’s exterior sleeve around it thus trapping the cockroach inside. We then began thinking of ways to wreck havoc with the cockroach. Although we had no specific plan in mind we both agreed that we should somehow involve Nina as the target. “Let’s just call her in here and ask her to open the matchbox,” Ardi suggested. “No that’s too obvious. She’s gonna know that something is up.” We scattered some matches around the matchbox. We figured that eventually everyone would come to this room and seeing the matches and matchbox on the coffee table, someone, hopefully Nina, would attempt to put them back in the box and thus release the cockroach. Scrutinizing the plan we found a number of flaws in it. For starters there was no guarantee that Nina would be am...

The Palme d’Or went to compatriot Jafar Panahi, but Roustaee’s feature won praise as did the performance of its star Parinaz Izadyar. She plays Mahnaz, widowed mother of two in her 40s and hardworking nurse, who rises to the challenge of a series of devastating personal tragedies.  “She finds herself almost in quick sands… but instead of retiring into mourning, she becomes an agent for change and improvement, not just for herself, but also for a younger generation around her,” Roustaee told the Deadline Studio. “Since I was small, I was surrounded by women like Mahnaz, family members, friends, relatives. She is composed of all these women,” he added. Izadyar is joined in the cast by Payman Maadi (A Separation), Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy (The Circle) Soha Niasti (The Two Lives of Sepideh) and and big screen debutant Sinan Mohebi, in the role of Mahnaz’s unruly teenage son.  Mother and Child is produced by Iranian film company Iris Film. Paris-based Goodfellas is handling internat...

"My ninth birthday fell on a school day, a bright and clear-skied Tuesday in September. I expected my mom to bring cupcakes to school during lunch, a tradition I loved because for one day each year, I knew I wouldn’t have to feel like the weird bookworm, the Iranian American, the outsider who couldn’t kick a soccer ball to save his life. I would be celebrated. But that year, no cupcakes. I went home to a dark house, disappointed. I was too young to know what it meant that my birthday fell on 9/11. People are always surprised when I tell them my birthday is Sept. 11. They’ll raise their eyebrows, or just flat-out say, “Ouch.” Given that I’m also visibly Middle Eastern, I get it. 9/11 was a day that changed America forever. It changed my life forever, too. During recess, boys would ask me why “my people” had attacked the Twin Towers. I was taunted and called names, like so many other Muslim and Middle Eastern people at that time. I was already used to feeling like an outsider. Now I...

I once had a math debate with a girl where I thought I would win for sure but ultimately she blinded me with precalculus.  

Diddy has said he couldn’t “function without” his chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, who was allegedly so instrumental to his “freak offs” and alleged sex-trafficking enterprise she is being called the Ghislaine Maxwell to his Jeffrey Epstein. As Sean “Diddy” Combs sits behind bars after being denied bail, and the feds pursue their investigation into his alleged trafficking venture, sources told the New York Post that “Kristina would know everything,” as she was more like his “manipulator-in-chief.” Combs was arrested on Tuesday and indicted on three counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution, and sources allege to the Post that Khorram helped him recruit sex workers—some underage—just as Maxwell was convicted of doing for Epstein. Diddy himself has emphasized Khorram’s role in his daily doings. In 2020, he wrote that she “keeps my world twirling” and “makes sure that I smile every day, and I don’t go into those dark places.” One way...

When I was younger my dad once threatened me, "You've got 6 months to get yourself a job or get out of this house." Luckily my career panned out nicely.  

One time we came across the movie Sahara starring Brook Shields. It was already the evening when we began watching it and by the time it ended and we continued killing time just hanging out, it was close to midnight. I offered to drive everyone home afterwards. As we piled up into the car something occurred to me. “It’s pretty late and we’re probably gonna get stopped and asked where we’re going. If I say I am dropping you guys off he’s gonna wonder what we had been up to this late. We can’t say we were watching an illegal movie. So we need to get our stories straight.” “No one’s gonna be stopping us,” Ardi said. “Let’s just go.”   “Ok but if we do get stopped, let’s say we were all playing a computer game. There’s nothing illegal about that.” “Fine,” Ardi replied. “Wait,” I continued. “What if they ask us what we were playing? We can’t have different stories. We have to coordinate this.” “No one is gonna ask us these stupid questions. The cops probably don’t even know what a compu...

Sorry to this man, but The Traitors season 3 cast had "no idea" who Sam Asghari was when they all arrived to the castle. The model/actor has a few onscreen appearances on his resumé, including Hacks, NCIS, Black Monday, and Mel Gibson's action-thriller film Hot Seat. But Asghari is best known for being Britney Spears' ex-husband — a fact that went over the heads of his Traitors costars. "I didn't know Sam," Wells Adams told Entertainment Weekly. "I know who Britney Spears is, but I don't know some random ex of Britney Spears." And Adams wasn't alone. Bob the Drag Queen revealed he felt the exact same way in a recent YouTube livestream. "I did not know this man was Britney Spears' ex-husband," Bob said. "I don't know him, I do not know this man ... He's a nice guy — to me. He might not be nice, I don't know. I can't vouch for anything beyond that." In fact, a cast member actually thought Asghari wa...

  یک بارکه حدود نه یا ده سالمون بود توی بازار میوه توی ماشین نشسته بودیم و برای مردم ادا اطوار در میاوردیم. یک دفعه یکیمون بلند به کسی که بیرون بود داد زد خفه تو کونت. طرف شاکی شد و صبر کرد پدر و مادرمون بیایند و به اونها این حرف را گزارش داد. توجیه طرف هم برای حرفش این بود که میخواست بگه خفه تو دلت ولی اشتباه در اومد.  

"Like most Easterners, I have a large family, with stories flowing in all directions. Unlike Westerners who have "family secrets," in the East, and in this case in Iran, we talk a lot, we tell everything, and we grow up in a family with all these characters from the past and these stories. So, I tried to transcribe this impression that I felt as a child living in the middle of a huge family—including ghosts!—but also the amazement of listening to stories told by the elders. I created some characters by drawing right and left from memory, others that I invented because they served the story, others that are a mix of people I knew. Finally, being imbued with this past helped me to compose a gallery of characters without my being overly concerned about whether the Western reader would recognize them." - Negar Djavadi  

If you purposely try to fail but succeed, which one did you actually do? 

When I got married at age 26, I changed my name in the masthead of Cosmopolitan even before it was official so the issue that hit newsstands after my August wedding would reflect this new and improved version of me. I was no longer Atoosa Behnegar, the kid at home no one noticed or cared about…this background character of my family and school communities so who desperately wanted to be seen and cherished. I was finally seen and cherished by this boy who put me above everything else. But wait, let’s back track. When I first met him at 23, I didn’t think we could possibly have a future simply based on his last name. Rubenstein. Atoosa Rubenstein? I just couldn’t see it. I was born a Shiite Muslim and immigrated to the US from Iran. If I married him, I would be identified as Jewish for the rest of my life. It didn’t bother me, it just felt like false advertising. But honestly? I was 23 and living the dream in NYC. Surely this guy wouldn’t be The One anyway – I mean, I wasn’...

My competition against Hamid became a regular thing and he proved to be much better – or luckier- than me. Often times my throws would be blocked by passersby while on the other hand his would take lucky deflections past me. I gave full reports of my matches, mostly losses, to my groupmate Seyedanmalek, to which he would often sarcastically reply, “You sure are making the 5th grade proud.” One morning prior to recess I showed Seyedanmalek a new ball that I had retrieved the day prior. “Today, I’m gonna use this ball to beat him,” I said. He rolled his eyes showing that he didn’t quite believe me. I’m not sure how my match turned out, although I am under the impression that I lost. It was after lunch break and prayers that I was approached by a classmate, Shahrestani. “Where did you get that ball?” “From home,” I replied. “It’s mine.” “It’s not yours,” he shot back. “It’s mine. I lost it during lunch.” While initially I was startled by the confrontation, however, his last comment assure...

Ashley Izadi was on a commercial for Invisalign.  

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is standing by the company’s recent changes to employee benefits despite backlash from workers. The ride-hailing company recently told workers they needed to return to the office to work in person three days a week and changed the eligibility for its month-long paid sabbatical benefit. Starting in June, employees must work from the office three days a week—up from two—and eligibility for a month-long paid sabbatical was raised from five to eight years. Some previously approved remote workers were also asked to return to the office. In an interview with CNBC following Uber’s Q1 earnings, Khosrowshahi said the company wanted people back in the office. “We think it’s a great policy and it’s the right mix of giving your employees flexibility but also getting them to the office for those all-important teamwork tasks,” he said. “We want people in the office, we want them working hard.” When pressed about workers who took the job with the remote work option, Khosrow...

Almost on a daily basis I requested more tapes from Ardi. He next made one for me that started off with Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors before it gave way to a string of Pet Shop Boys’ songs (Always on My Mind, Left to My Own Devices, I Want a Dog, Domino Dancing). Side B had a variety of singers including Taylor Dayne (Tell It to My Heart) and Kylie Minogue (I Should Be So Lucky) before ending with Alan Parsons’ Standing on Higher Ground. I requested a few more known tapes such as Madonna or Michael Jackson albums before I turned to Ardi to recommend some new material for me. As such I was introduced to Toto for which both Ardi and I found ourselves quite fond of the song Stop Loving You and later to another Alan Parsons’ song La Sagrada Familia. Another day he made me another album copy and said, “This is some new black girl that’s getting really popular in America. Her name is Tiffany.” I got familiar with the content of each new album as I drove around the area. Many mornings ...

An employee at the Caspian Restaurant in Germantown, Maryland, a Iranian-owned restaurants with branches around the Maryland, DC, Virginia area, recently communicated to two individuals who went into the restaurant to use the restroom that the facilities were only available to paying customers. At first the two men accepted and began to leave; after a moment, however, they started arguing with him, at which point the employee calmly asked them to leave the premises. The video begins with a man displaying his Keffiyeh, asserting that the employee's actions are motivated by racism, claiming that the scarf is the reason for asking them to leave. The part where the employee explains that the restrooms are for paying customers, however, has been omitted, and the entire exchange has been posted on social media without the main issue about the exchange being described. The proprietor, Mr. Amir told Iran So Far Away that many of the random people who have come into the re...

Michailovic pushed his glasses back and sighed.   “The following numbers are being released. ”The numbers came spitting out of Michailovic’s mouth, resembling in more ways than one a madman with a machine gun in a massacre.   Hardly anyone showed any reaction, making it impossible to tell whether they were shot or not.   The notable exceptions were a couple of smiles breaking out here and there as some numbers were being skipped.   As the list carried on, Callahan realized that before long it would be zooming in at an alarming rate on his proximity. Callahan had no idea who those ahead of him were, but he could see that none of them were making the cut.   He considered it good, after all the more gone before him, the higher his chances were.   He looked up at Michailovic, almost trying to read his lips before the words were spat out. “116.” Callahan looked around, trying to identify the holder of this number.   However, no one was responding. “117.” C...