Forough Farrokhzad: A Poet that fell silent too soon

Recently I was invited by a friend in Munich to a reading of poetry by an Iranian writer, who died much too young in 1967, only reaching 32 years of age. Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967) was the most famous woman in modern Persian literature. She was exceptionally in the sense that only an extremely small number of Iranian women have achieved anything outside of the home without dependence upon a relationship with a man or male patronage.

From the poems of Forough Farrokhzad, which Kianoosh presented this evening I remember the verses from "Another Birth"

   ... Life may be that cloistered moment  

     When my gaze comes to ruin in your pupils 

     Wherein there lies a feeling 

     Which I shall blend ...

During her short life, Forough not only wrote some of the most influential, beautiful and ever-lasting poetries of modern Persian literature, but she also became a proponent of childrens right, in particular for those from the poor families. Her engagement for the children being isolated and hospitalized for leprosis laid in her honest sympathy with those who are suffering. Unlike modern celebrities, who too often present themself in public with an alibi "social" project, Foroughs activites to help the children with leprosis came from her very personal desire to make the world a little bit better. From the movie "Moon, Sun, Flower, Play" by the German director Claus Strigel one can listen to Foroughs voice, hear how colleagues and friends remember this extraordinary woman and watch scenes from the street-battle preceding the Shahs dismissal and from the childrens leprosis hospital.

Skilled Angels Hand

Ghazal Dear,

I guess that must be your handwriting, that I found on a plastic envelope containing EtBr stained agarose-gels. I asked a friend at the Avicenna Bookstore here in Munich, to translate it into Persian, and she proposed that "24 wells" is " 24 خوب ".

If the date is right, than they were lying in the cool-room since two and half years. I thought to give them a trial electrophoresis with some fresh DNA samples we had for sequencing. And what a miracle: they are still giving excellent DNA patters. It must be your angel fingers while casting the gels that made them last forever.

Take Care my Dear Michael

----------------------------------------------------------------- Hello Michael, Yes this is my handwriting! So the gels are still there? Your friends translation was a bit misleading. She obviously just used a dictonary. "well" is "khob - خوب" yes its correct. but in english well is good and also what we use it in gels (like a slot or a hole. so "khob" means "good", but not "hole". And "24" in persian would be ۲۴ Don't forget, Persia was once leading in Mathematics, with men such as Al-Khwarizmi or Omar Khayyam. If you want to practise more, you can go here. So far, Take Care. Ghazal

Will Keira Knightly leave the train trough the steam ?

Many times Tolstojs novel "Anna Karenina" was brought on the cinema screens, by not so famous film directors, but with actresses who after playing the leading character became movie stars (or were movie stars before already). Sophie Marceau, Jacqueline Bisset, Vivien Leigh and of course Greta Garbo. And now, we have the pleasure to enjoy a more modern Anna Karenina, using state-of-the-art 21st century cinematografic techniques. One of the most intriguing moments in the 1935 movie with Greta Garbo shows her arrival by train in Moscow, when she arises through a steam-cloud and leaves Wronski, who came to the train station only to meet his mother, breathless.

  Before I consider to see the new movie (staring Keira Knightly as Anna and Jude Law as Mr. Karenin and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Wronski), I first want to see how the train station scene has been set up. If this scene is weak, or a disappointment as compared to Greta Garbos one, I wont see the entire movie.

The Moon -- one year later, but more than one year elder

Ghazal my dear, 

What is age, and what is aging, if everyone uses a different measure for this. This came to my mind when I did another picture of the moon tonight. Tonight it was once again the night of the Persides meteor shower. But since nothing could top the spectacular meteor that we saw together with you at the same night in 2010, I put more attention to the moon again (1). A year ago at the same night, we have been at the Bulgarian blacksea coast, and then the Persides night fell together with the full moon. This year, however, the same day in the year (11th to 12th of August), the moon looked completely different. 

Its shape was already ascending to less than 25%, whereas full moon was already 10 days ago (exactly at August 2nd). So it is of some interest to understand why according to the solar calender exactly one year passed by (and even the Persides meteor showers declined to this (2), but the moon implies something different. As a proof, the picture on the left shows the shape of the moon as of tonight, and you can compare with the picture from a year ago.

The reason for this asynchrony is that the circular rotation of the moon around the earth and relative to the sun happens once every 29 days, 12h and ~4min. This means, that 12 month for the moon (or one year for it) take only 345 days, i.e. 11 days less than a normal year of 356 days. Therefore the full moon of August 2012 was visible 11 days earlier than the full moon of August 2011.

This means that for people who rely on the sun as their calender reference, a year has some 11 extra days, as compared to people who rely on the moon as a calender standard (like muslims). In the long term, after 33 solar years (which the western civilisation and the Persians use) an extra year has already accumulated for people in the islamic world. I have no clue if muslims indeed celebrate their birthdays according to the moons calender, and count one extra life year every 33 normal years. And it is not completely unlikely, that the processes of real biologically aging (or lets call it maturing) is influenced to some degree by the imagination of aging. Maybe somebody who really feels elder, if he or she suddenly discovers that instead of 33, he or she is already 34 years old. So therefore you might conclude (together with the early Beatles) that it is better to "....follow the sun":

Sun is definitely good for a couple of physiological functions (vitamin D synthesis, production of serotonin which makes us happy and satisfied), but in higher doses it is doing the opposite: You know better than anybody else how UV-A and UV-B can accelerate the entire aging process, since you work on this issue and even got a scientific price for this. The Isar island, where some black ashes might still mark the site of our camp-fire, and which looked pretty uncosy and barely populated three weeks ago, today saw masses of locals who followed the sun and took advice from the 1960 Beatles song, rather than from your 2011 publication in Mutation Research.

I guess that now you'd like to know why I waited for an entire year, before sending you another photograph of the moon again. The reason was that after the Persides night in Bulgaria last year, my camera broke. I somehow smashed the display, and from then on it was totally black. But I did not want to throw it in the waste bin right away, since this camera was always a brave and reliable companion to us. So I left it untouched on my desk, before in a quiet moment three weeks ago I started to take it apart (like I did it with your wrist-watch two years ago). I soon realized that the broken display can be removed carefully and replaced with a new one. And soon I found through Ebay a possibility to get even seperate display units for virtually every single digital camera. I quickly located a provider with the funny name of GLOBAL-SHINING (3). Mr. or Mrs. Global Shining appeared to be a Mr. Ho, living with his GLOBAL STAR SHINING in Flat S30 1/F, Shopping Arcade, Tsuen Wan Centre, Tsuen Wan, Hongkong (4).

When I received Mr. Ho's delivery, the small parcell contained not only the brand-new Samsung camery display, it also had as a little extra a special screw driver (not only fitting the microscopic steel screws that held together the camera back, but also of perfect size for chinese fingers) and a handwritten piece of paper saying "Thank you for considering GLOBAL SHINING as business partner". 

By help of the microscopic screw driver and some forceps from the lab I quickly managed to replace the camera display, and the pictures on todays post are the proof how well the whole camera is working again. Since I was so happy about revitalising the nice camera with the Mr. Ho's help, I decided not only to give him excellent reference points on Ebay, but also send him some words of gratitude on a postcard showing Castle Neuschwanstein. It is nice to imagine how Mr. Ho mounts the colourful postcard to the wall of his Flat S30 1/F in the shopping arcade of Tsue Wan, Hongkong.

Is there a final take-home message from this post for you, Ghazal ?
I hope you will find one.
Take Care my Dear

Michael




Footnotes: 
(1) Surely you know that the Moon symbolizes the pure, innocent beauty in Persian classicla poetry. This is independent of the exclusive role of the Sun in ancient, pre-islamic Persian culture, philosophy and science. But because poetry is very much influenced by arabic traditions, their spiritual preference for the moon as symbol in religion and arts got access into the poetry of Hafez, Rumi, Atta and Omar Khayyun.
(2) The Persides Meteor shower lives up to its name: same as the Persian people do, it follows precisely the sun's calender. I guess that it follows in a precise and constant time after Persian Nouruz.
(3) Initially I could not figure out, if the name of the company GLOBAL-SHINING was referring to the moon or the sun. But now that I know that it is a Hongkong based company, I guess they even mean the Shining Stars.
(4) I guess Mr. Ho wont mind having his business address published here on my blog. But it might further promoted his excellent business. Just that Tsuen Wan does not have a postcode might discourage Hongkong tourists to drop into his store and buy camera displays.

A redshift of our E-mail traffic

Ghazal, Dear,

For the delay of your e-mails relative of the ones I send to you, there is this easy explanation. If I send you about one message per day, and receive from you only one in response per 2 weeks, it must have to do with your own location getting further and further away. The great astrophysicist Edwin Hubble was the first to relate the observation of a redshift (i.e. the elongation of wavelengths of the star light) with the proposed expansion of the entire universe The long intervalls of your response e-mails are an equivalent to this redshift, but maybe as a passionate car driver you are more familiar with the Doppler-Effect that is used by the traffic police to measure the speed of vehicles. In essence, its the same physical phenomenon.

In our case, the observation that daily send E-mails from me to you experience a dilation of their responses to only one every two weeks results in a calculated escape velocity of your location relative to Munich by 1440 km/h. (Whow, thats more than the speed of sound !!).

The calculation please find below.

This once again convinces me that you are an angel, which accidentally had to do an emergency stop in Munich 2 years ago, but now you are again in your other world where Angels rule and drive cars with chocolate engines.

Take Care Michael

First system developed to assess living conditions on other planets

Hi Michael,

You recommended last year to escape onto this newly discovered exo-planet Giese..., which is 20 light-years away from earth. I told you I can not leave Stockholm , cause my family needs me here and I am busy with my PhD project.

But today I red something in the newspaper, what might make your invitation more realistic: Some researchers have developed a computer program that after putting in some data it can predict the suitability of any planet for human life. So in case you will know about a planet that is not light-years away from home, but maybe only some light-hours, we might have its living-conditions checked with this program, before going there for a short visit.

Take Care /ghazal

A reason to get excited: 19 year old plays Hendrix

Desiree Bassett learned her first guitar rifs at the age of five from her father. Now she is 19 and rocks the Boston areas regular with cover versions of Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton and van Halen songs. She was born 25 years after Jimmy Hendrix' death, but look how she can revitalize his guitar spirit.

 

I hope it is no big deal for her to learn how to play it with a slightly slower pace, she seems to be in a rush at least at this concert. What I find amazing is to see that you don't have to play left-handed like Mr. Hendrix to get the "All along the Watchtower" right.

Why I don"t feel any sorrow for you, Basidj

Yesterday, I saw your face in this documentary about the elections and post-election demonstrations in Tehran in June 2009. I saw your coward eyes under the black helmet, Basidj. Like all of the other black-dressed and heavily armed puppets of your leaders, you seemed to enjoy this feeling of total power over the students on the streets of Tehran, who had nothing else to defend against you than their T-shirts, canvas slipper and hand-written posters.
You felt so much superior, when you started to beat them and kick those who were already laying on the ground. You felt so powerful, fed with drugs by your fat and conscienceless commanders and equipped with the newest high-tech guns and tear-gas bullets and batons from the top weapons factories of the world. How did you felt, when you did your so-called job out there ? I guess you wanted to impress your commanders and the other members of your squad by the ruthlessness of your beating, by the precision of your shooting. But we all know that you are just a bloddy coward. You think you are strong in the moment when you torture and kill unarmed young people, mostly students, young women but also children and elder people. Did you felt satisfied for pleasing your coward commanders and the heads of this criminal gouvernment.
And when you saw how the bullets from your guns made the streets turn red, didn”t you thought that this is more thrilling than your ego-shooter computer game ? And how does it feel if you kick your steel-armed boots into the belly of somebody whom you first chained feets and arms with a cable ? Does it gives you an emotional blow to imagine how the steel covers of your boots causes pain and internal bleeding in the person laying on the ground in front of you ? Did you considered kicking again and again, not just to score higher at your commanders record, but also to repeat this image of how your stupid steel boots so easily destroy the head of an intelligent young man or girl ? And later, when you throwed those who were wounded and could not escape anymore onto pick-ups and trucks to bring them to Evin Prison or Ghezel Hesar, I’m sure you knew that this was not a journey for medical treatment or recovery, but to further harras and rape and kill them. And if you later saw the pictures of Neda Agha-Soltan and Sohrab Arabi, cowardly killed by you and your commrades, how long did those pictures appeared in your dreams, before you got rid of them with more drugs and blood-money and more violence ?
But you should know, Basidj, that what you did 2009 on Tohid square wont be forgotten. You turned a peaceful demonstration into a blood shed. The hundred thousands that walked the streets those days, wearing green T-shirts and green shawls did not had enough phantasy to think that this day might end up in violence. The girls had put on their most beautiful jewelery and make-up and the men kept their expensive lap-tops with them in their bags. People were sure that this day would demonstrate the power of a peaceful political change and give hope for a better future of this country . The people on the streets felt the dawn of  a grey period of political speechlessness, and they were hoping to meet some of the political leaders to discuss the future of the country after the elections.
The millions who gave their vote in the 2009 election and later formed an endless band of the green movement in the streets of Tehran, they wont forget that their hope for a peaceful move was turned into a violent nightmare by Basidj cowards just like you. And the next time when they meet you on the same streets, don”t expect any more unarmed young intellectuals. The next time, Basidj, you will be attacked, there wont be an option for peaceful settlement any more. And when the magazin of your automatic gun is empty, and you again killed and wounded the first twenty of the protesters, than there will come another twenty and another twenty and the same to each other of your Basidj commrades. There will be hundred thousands again coming out of the universities, of the restaurants and shops and beauty-salons, from all the places they escaped to in 2009, when they had to run away from your guns and butons. But this time they wont run away any more, and they dont want to talk to you any more, but they will attack you and kill you. And then, the streets of Tehran will turn red again, but this time it will be your damned blood.
And if somebody will throw your dead corpse into the gateway of your house, there wont be anybody crying tears for your death. Your mother will come out at night and bring you corpse to the waste bin of the garden, together with the chicken-heads and rotten carrots and the bad smelling polo from last week. Your parents will be ashamed of you, there will be no mourning for you. And for all the cowardize of your life, Basidj, your children will forget your name. To avoid that others would point with fingers on them, they will tell everybody that they don’t know who their father was. Your name will be forgotten in a new, free Iran. And only the history text books will know a precise number of nameless Basidj cowards. And you will have been one of them, not more, but also not less.

... and this could make me mad

I guess, Ghazal, that everyone wants to know that somebody is there listening to all our questions and doubts, our sorrow when we are desperate and our jubilation when we are happy.
The desire for somebody who takes away our feeling of being alone in a universe full of mysteries was perhaps the reason why man invented god. Man wished to hear from god what the stars on the sky are made for, why the sun comes and goes every day and why it does not stay quiet instead.
What are we born for, if death is inevitable.
What is the evil in the world made for, all the deadly diseases and earth-quakes and floodings that kill thousands of innocent people every week.

In fact, none of these questions were ever answered by any religion. In contrast, most of the holy books were more concerned to forbid people asking questions at all. They called it heresy and devils work.
One of the few mythological works that permitted questions and let the reader find the answer himself was the sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. With his attempt to find a meaning of human life and overcome death, Gilgamesh at the end realizes that there is no eternal life, and immortality can only be achieved through what we create during our life. If we achieve something great, we might get a page or a paragraph or at least a sentence in the book of the universe.
And here, the sumerian King Gilgamesh is very similar to J.W.Goethes "Dr. Faust", in that both are alone with their doubts. Like Gilgamesh has only a fried, Enkidu, so has Faust his companion Mephistopheles. But neither of the two were followers of a religious system, that could answer their questions. Johan Faust was seeking salvation in the arms of Margaret, he felt that it would be only her to appease his quarrels.

There is something between a man and a girl that can go independent of love in its conventional definition. If there is a undisputed confidence that somebody is listening to you, that takes you serious, than this person can become as important as were for the people in the past their invented and imaginary gods.

And once you think that you found somebody like this, who gives you confidence and whom you think you can address questions that others would misunderstand or laugh about, then you become more and more dependent on this very person. And the shear idea, that this person could suddenly disappear like a fata-morgana in the sky, because she did not left an address or canceled her e-mail account or changed her name for ever gives your mind a freezing shock.

......................................................................................................


okay.. why are you mad? i answer as soon as possible.
/ghazal

.....................................................................................................

Ghazal, what is wrong ?
It makes me mad that you don"t write a single word.
michael
......................................................................................................

Pierre Curie to Marie Skladovska

(August 10th 1894)

Nothing could have given me greater pleasure than to get news of you. The prospect of remaining two month without hearing about you had been extremely disagreeable to me: that is to say, your little note was more than welcome. I hope you are laying up a stock of good air and that you will come back to us in October. As for me, I think I shall not go anywhere; I shall stay in the country, where I spend the whole day in front of my open window or in the garden.

We have promised each other - haven"t we ? - to be at least great friends. If you will only not change your mind ! For there are no promises that are binding; such things cannot be ordered at will. It would be a fine thing, just the same, in which I hardly dare believe, to pass our lives near each other, hypnotized by our dreams: your patriotic dream, our humanitarian dream, and our scientific dream.

Of all those dreams the last is, I believe, the only legitimite one. I mean by that we are powerless to change the social order and, even if we were not, we should not know what to do; in taking action, no matter in what direction, we should never be sure of not doing more harm than good, by retarding some inevitable evolution. From the scientific point of view, on the contrary, we may hope to do something; the ground is solider here, and any discovery that we make, however small, will remain acquired knowledge.

See how it works out: it is agreed that we shall be great friends, but if you leave France in a year it would be an altoghether too Platonic friendship, that of two creatures who would never see each other again. Wouldn"t it be better for you to stay with me ? I know that this question angers you, and that you don"t want to speak of it again - and then, too, I feel so thoroughly unworthy of you from every point of view.
I thought of asking your permission to meet you by chance in Freibourg. But you are staying there, unless I am mistaken, only one day, and on that day you will of course belong to your friends, the Kovalskis. Believe me, your very devoted PIERRE CURIE

PS: I should be happy if you would write to me and give me that assurance that you intend to come back in October. If you write direct to Sceaux the letter would get to me quicker.

(Ghazal, my Dear, This is a letter that Pierre Curie wrote to his colleague and later wife Marie Skladovska. I found it in a book that I bought as present for christmas (Love Letter of Great Men and Woman, Macmillan Pan Books 2010). It is such a wonderful language, don"t you think so ? And you see, even the two had a deep friendship in addition to their professional relation, Marie Skladosvka not only got her MSc, but two times (!!!!) the Nobel Price (one for discovery of natural radioactivity).
In the letter above Pierre Curie obviously also tries to convince Marie to stay with him, both for a future scientific career but also in privat, although he knows that this suggestion worries her. You know, Ghazal, what I really would like to know: Did Pierre Curie also promised her that staying with him privatly would not hamper her chances to get the Nobel-Prices, same as I tried to convince you in summer, that spending some time with me wont have any negative effect on your MSc project.
Ghazal, I know you have a good sense of humor, don"t you ?
TAKE CARE, have a nice evening and dreams that make you smile.

Michael





On 20.12.2010 12:17, Ghazal F. wrote:

Hi Michael,
 I read everything, didnt jump over 1 and 2.

Thank you so much for letting me know. I just tried to organize my chaotic thoughts a bid and introduced chapters 1 -3 in the e-mail.

so the link for Ikea was and accident. maybe your dog was looking for attention.

Maybe our dog did it intentionally, because she felt that you ought to see the IKEA book ?

 So you went to Ikea, they didnt have the pizza yet? I think if you buy food or some cake then you can have free tea or coffee right? I heard a story, that the man who owns Ikea. He went to Ikea somewhere (not in sweden) then he wanted the coffee after his food. They wanted money for it. The man was angry and told them who he is and obviously they were ashamed or they didnt know about the free coffee. good that you got the free coffee.

Do you know, if he ever inspected one of the IKEA shops in Munich ? I was quite satisfied there, nothing for me to complain about. But this, in fact, had mainly to do with you guiding me around and making this visit to an exciting language course in Swedish.

I try to answer as soon as I can. dont have bad thoughts. And it is still Ghazal that answers, not an angel from another universe.

 God to hear this, I feel a big relieve. But still think that parts of you are angel like. Maybe thats one of the facettes of your personality that is only visible to other people.

Its christmas soon. What will you and your family do? I will be at home with christmas-tree. will probably get presents. and then at night I will go to a concert with a friend. Its Googoosh, a persian singer. she is very famous since long back. My first time to see her.

I had a look yesterday on some Googoosh videos on youtube. It is very emotionally, but probably requires knowledge of the lyrics. Are there also songs with her on the CD you once gave to me ? But why does she staines her hair blond ?

your view of people not knowing all about themselves. it was interesting. I wonder how other people see me. would be interesting to see yourself from another point of view. i thought about this when i was younger.but you can never really see how other people see you. but interesting.

Yes, you are right. Only very rarely people are honest enough to tell you which picture they have from  you. Whether it is a positive one or a negative, it requires some convidence between two person to speak out. But on a long term, it is useful to find out. I remember, a friend at university ones told me that  " ... I am very unlikely to have real friends.." and others complained that "... I  am always cynical..". I thought that this was result of an misunderstanding, and tried to change my appearance a bid. Never know whether it helps.

take care
/ghazal

Take Care, Ghazal.
Michael

A view from the outside

Hi Michael,

I read everything, didnt jump over 1 and 2.
so the link for Ikea was an accident. maybe your dog was looking for attention.

So you went to Ikea, they didnt have the pizza yet? I think if you buy food or some cake then you can have free tea or coffee right? I heard a story, that the man who owns Ikea. He went to Ikea somewhere (not in sweden) then he wanted the coffee after his food. They wanted money for it. The man was angry and told them who he is and obviously they were ashamed or they didnt know about the free coffee. good that you got the free coffee.

I try to answer as soon as I can. dont have bad thoughts. And it is still Ghazal that answers, not an angel from another universe.

Its christmas soon. What will you and your family do?
I will be at home with christmas-tree. will probably get presents. and then at night I will go to a concert with a friend. Its Googoosh, a persian singer. she is very famous since long back. My first time to see her.

your view of people not knowing all about themselves. it was interesting. I wonder how other people see me. would be interesting to see yourself from another point of view. i thought about this when i was younger. but you can never really see how other people see you. but interesting.

take care

/ghazal

....................................................................................

Dear Ghazal,

Was so nice to read your e-mail. I am amazed, because you are very good in saying a lot of things with a few words only. I am very bad in this, very inefficient.
This is a general problem of german language: it needs many words to express simple things. And then, if I want to say it in englisch, I intuitively use a lot of words as well. I think I should learn from you.
I did not knew the story about the IKEA director, but it is really nice. So this man obviously likes to visit his own shops around the world without telling the employees beforehand that he will come. Thats good, that I like a lot.

I was not sure if you celebrate Christmas, now I know. Do you know that the Christmas tree is much older than christian religion. It goes back to pagan faith, when people believed that there are ghosts all over nature, that there are fays living in the forest (I think they are called "Peri" in persian) and angels all around. It is mostly irrational believe, but for me better than christian religion with its punishment, cheap morality and ignorance of science.
You probably also heard that this figure "Santa Claas" is an invention from Coca Cola, and is rejected by the Pope and the Vatican. In particular here in catholic Bavaria the church is heavily campaigning against Santa Claas and the Christmas Trees. They would like to have Jesus Christ and Crosses instead.
I"d like to hear the music by the persian singer Googoosh. Do you think I might find it on youtube ? I once found music by a persian singer Dariousz. It was good, it was very emotional. It gave me a shiver along my back (like Shirley Bassey, but the shiver I got from her is even stronger).

We will stay here, more or less. If the weather is nice, we go to the mountains for skying. But I will also use the time to do some article writing. It will be very quiet in the institute, this means nobody will be here to disturb me. I already have been to Berlin two weeks ago, already prepared the gifts for my parents and my sisters family.

Thanks once again for your mail, I enjoyed very much to read from you. I never got the impression that you have bad thoughts, Ghazal. I just could imagine that you have lots of things to do and to sort out and to organize. I know you are a very planed person, what is good in a sense that you have aims. Please don"t think that I want to interfere with them, I just like to exchange thoughts that - maybe because we are so different and so far away - I can tell much easier to you than to friends or relatives.

I see that I start to write endless epics once again, and risk that you get tired by them. Therefore, I"ll better stop now and instead send another e-mail soon.

Take Care, Ghazal, stay strong and happy and get the bad ghosts out.

Michael

PS: One last thing, that might be interesting for you: Do you remember the August "Stjaernfallen" called Persides ? Guess where the name comes from ? You were probably already wondering about it before: It comes from Perseus (son of the mythological beauty Danae, whom Zeuss visited as a golden shower). And there is the theory, that Perseus was the founder of the persian nation. Funny, isn"t it. But not all historicians agree with this.

Something for you to consider: The Shabby Chick

Ghazal my Dear,

I hope you don"t mind this form of address, but I can not imagine starting a letter to you other than this way. O.K. an exception would be "Dear Miss F...", which would be in a funny contrast to the privacy we had here in Munich.

#1 (If you want to read about the mail with the IKEA link, continue here, otherwise go to #2)
Ghazal, my Dear, if your last e-mail had one important message than it was this: if I want to challenge your quiesence, to wake you up, and to make you curious enough to ask something, I have to write something that - with or without intention - appears confusing (like this Web-Site from Ikea). The weblink to Ikea was indeed send of by a a sort of accident. I was just about to save it, when I got distracted by our dog who hit the keybord such a way that it was send to you. In fact, I did not want to send another mail right after, with explanations or excuse could have only made you think I"m mad.

#2 (if you want to learn about a Saturday at IKEA, continue here, otherwise proceed to #3)
Last Saturday I helped a friend to move flat (I think I told you about her: she was my class-mate at gymnasium, and after University married a boy from Algeria, only to got the permission to flee from East-Germany. She has divorced already many years ago, and since then has trouble to sort our her life). Anyhow, as part of her removal into a new flat, she wanted to go to IKEA to buy some furniture. So I drove her there with a small truck, and although the weather was a catastrophy, we arrived there straight (unlike in June when we drove there, and I was so much distracted by you sitting next to me that I missed the exit from the motorway and we ended 50 km further north). This time it was different, more business as usual. My friend is so delicate, that selecting the right kitchen furniture took her 3 hours. Therefore I decided to go to the cafe, since I had the nice memories when we were there and you argued with the service lady about the missing pizza.
Meanwhile, the cafe was rebuild, it is huge and like a lounge area. You can have coffee, tea and even hot chocolate for free, and I think you would like this a lot (the next time you come to Munich we have to go there together). While I was waiting for her to sort out the kitchen furniture, I drank at least 4 tea and 2 and half hot chocolate, and read the entire weekend newspaper. Than, I found a nice book that was on display there, and this book is called "Geliebtes Zuhause" or "ÄLSKADE HEM", as I later found out. It is a funny book, cause it shows 9 swedish houses and their inhabitants. What was interesting for me: that you don"t see any of them living with IKEA furniture, instead they all have a very exotic and non-commercial style. Most of them live in old house, that are anything else than luxurious and comfortable. But all of them emanate an atmosphere of creativity and happiness. If you by chance go to IKEA, have a look at the book. What was really fascinating for me, that our old house here in the eastern part of Munich very much resembles one of the house in this IKEA book. So I got happy to learn that our house is not simply un-finished or primitive, but it can be considered stylish according to swedish taste (by the way, there is a special term for this: Shabby Chic or have a look at this Blog ).
The final essence of this day was: Even though IKEA worked hard to rebuild their coffee-shop, sitting there for 3 hours was a waste of time, if I compare it with the evening we were there together in June. Neither the free tea and hot chocolate nor the new, elegant lounge interior could compensate for the absence of an inspiring company as you were. The nice book, at least, drove my thoughts away a bid.

#3 (you have to continue here, even if you skipped #1 and #2)
... and for the next days, Ghazal my Dear, before I might receive another letter from you not earlier than Saturday, I just try to find out if possibly my mails are just too long and over-stress your patience. It always takes a long time before you answer, and sometimes I already thought that something got lost. But then, I got the feeling you don"t want to tell a lot. O.K., everybody keeps thing for itself, but I hope there was something more exciting and fascinating happening during the last days than a talk to MHR and SH. You must have your thoughts, your plans, your ideas every day, things you enjoy or you dream of. And other things that you hate and you condem, and at least those you could write about (Although I wish so much that there are more moments in your life to enjoy than things that you hate). I remember it was always nice to have long conversations with you, when we met somewhere, but the same seems to be more difficult in writing. You probably don"t like to put thoughts into words and put those into an e-mail. Or maybe you are simply too impatient to wait for e-mails.
I think I still live to a certain degree in a dream-world, and that I continue to write e-mails to you is part of this.
I can never be sure, if there is still this young lady Ghazal, somewhere at the other end of the internet to read my mails and answering them. But I carry on, assuming if it is not her, than maybe an angel in another universe reads it, and sometimes I even believe that this extra-terrestial angel sends back long answers, that appeare on my blog and are signed as /ghazal. These dreams, whether or not they have any real base, keep my mind in ballance. There is too much bullshit in the world that tries to enter our minds and destroy our souls. So what is bad about creating a little universe of dreams, made from old houses, castles, persian cats, frisky dogs and beautiful horses, and an inspiring, charming human beeing with tentalising hair and blue eyes and a dark voice, and to keep this all as barrier against the intruding stupidity from the modern society ?
(PS: Maybe you oppose this view, and I would be extremely glad to read your contradiction. But keep it fresh, send it right away. If you wait for too long, your sensation will fade away !!!)

Otherwise, Take Care my Dear,

Good Night , Enjoy your dreams

Michael

If you can"t love him, shot him !

Ghazal my Dear,

Tonight I have something very unusual to tell you. It is so unusual, because it is something commercial, about shopping and beeing happy to have found something very useful.

I know you got excited now, don"t you ?
You can"t stop reading any more, right ?
You wan"t to know what it is, don"t you ?

(You are really sweet !!)

But be aware: it again has something to do with you and me !! (just a little material and technical aspekt in addition to all the happiness that you brought to me by your shear presence).

It is about the little Smartphone-Adapter-Plug that somehow broke
(Could be that it broke because you poked and bended and cut it, since you thought it is a piece of your fingernail ?) It is not so important, how it broke and why, it is just the adapter, its wasn"t the Smartphone"s heart that broke, I know you wouldn"t be able to do this, you are too much an angel to break hearts.

Well, I searched this special Hewlett Packard Smartphone shop today and guess what:
I found the adapter (same colour: black, as you prefer for men. No pink. If there would be a pink one, I would have bought both of them: one for me and a pink one for you in case you need the GPS again).

And what is so amazing (and for this I have to be grateful to you, since I would have never found this):
This little adapter thing comes together with a SOLAR ENERGY RECHARGER !!!!
This means, I can not only mount the Smartphone to the car again, but now I can recharge it in the sun !!!

It will always remind me of this summer 2010, which in my memories will always remain as the most sunniest summer ever.
Although the nights in the moon-light and under the meteor showers and the stars were amazing as well. Who knows, maybe the light of the stars and of the moon is sufficient to recharge the phone with this little crazy adaptor.

Ghazal, my dear, tell me what you need to recharge your life battery !
You are always so calm, sometimes I"d like to make you explode, to beat me in the face, to shout on me, to see you holding a gun on me (of course only with bullets that hurt, but don"t kill), only to see that you are full of energy.

But this probably would change everything, you would not be you anymore, and for me the illusion, that you are the grown up daughter of the persian family that I met 20 years ago in Berlin would fall down in pieces.

Are you o.k., happy (I know, its hard to tell. One always could imagine beeing a little bit happier).
I permanently feel guilty, sometimes feel as if I have taken you as hostage here in Munich, keeping you in this single room in the guesthouse like a nun in an eremitage.
I only feed you with words, but they can not get rid of your loneliness.
At least I should have given you a cat, such one as Holli Golightly had in "Breakfast at Tiffany"s". It could lean on you in the evening, and purr if you crawl its fur. It would jump on you lap, when you watch a movie or listen to some music.


Wish you a pleasant night, funny dreams, sleep well

Michael
................................................................................................

michael,

im glad you found a better adapter for your phone! didnt know that such thing exsist, an adapter that charges the phone with sun. interesting. :)

haha i dont want to hold a gun against you and shoot, i will stay calm.think it is better. dont think my mum thinks im calm at home.

dont worry about me. i enjoy unterschleissheim. the guesthouse. i feel so relaxed and calm when i am here. and i am so happy with everything.
cats are cute, but only when they are babies.

see you tomorrow

/ghazal

...............................................................................................

See you tomorrow, my Dear.
Thanks to confirm that you enjoy and relax. Even if you would have told me this already a million times: I"d like to hear it once again !

Sleep well, dream something happy.

Michael

PS: Ghazal, my Dear, Can you imagine the head-lines in the newspaper:
"MSc student shoots down its supervisor". This would make us sooooo famous.




Anyway, have a sweet night, but this time I think I have to take care :-}

For Ghazal, the Scientist and for Ghazal, the Angel

Ghazal my Dear,

Are you still awake ? Do you have another conflict with some insects ?
I"ll drive by the guesthouse, and if there is still light behind your window, I call from downstairs. If not, I"ll go back.

M.
................................................................................................

Ghazal my Dear,

I wished we could stay there sitting and chatting untill the moon disappears in the morning. O.k., the following day in the lab would be a bit sleepy and dizzy,
but I would be happy. You see you experienced your first night out there in the wild, and no spiders, no bat no vampires or rapists. The world is sometimes much more comfortable and fazinating and lovely than our fears tell us.

Your hair has a tantalising smell. It was most difficult for me to tear away from it.

Have a good night, sleep well, dream about a journey to the moon, but my usuall plea: Please come back.

I like you so much, Ghazal for you stating "I don"t regret anything". If you are still awake, listen please to Edit Piaf.


TAKE CARE

Michael
................................................................................................

Ghazal my Dear, now I try for the third time to write you a mail. Two hours ago, the Helmholtz mail server died, than I started to write the same mail on my privat mail-server, which suddenly also kicked me out and I lost 2 pages of text for you.Therefore, I now send you something short:I had this awfull job in the afternoon and evening to recover all personal date from my broken PC. These data were manuscripts, reports, science reviews, sequences, protocolls, gel-images, fotos of tumor and millions of other stuff I collected from my work during the last 12 years. And what I realized at the end: 99% of it is useless and wont be interesting for anybody any more. Isn"t this frustrating, how much we work what later got lost or what we later don"t want to read any more our self? In contrast to this, each time I read the text of the Persian-Cat blog, it makes me happy and excited and satisfied. As compared to all the million files on my computer disk, the blog is so small in size. But every word, every sentence is great, is relevant, as meaningful. And it will always be like this, I think not only you and me will always like to read this record of a wonderful summer and this funny exhange of thoughts between the two of us. I guess if other people read this, either now or 100 years later, they will also consider this great and important and simply human. Don"t worry, Ghazal, about what I wrote above regarding that work in science, and that it can sometimes appear useless to us. It is just a temporal feeling, and we all live in science for the very few moments when we make a great discovery and are Nobel-award candidates.You are still at the very beginning of your career, and I will do everything to encourage you to carry on. Because scientist can be one of the most satisfying and exciting jobs. But there always might be moments of frustration, and for these it is good if you have other areas of your soul that do not depend so much on how the gouvernment or the society or the boss or your colleagues judge your work, but a field that gives you power and satisfaction by itself. You have your beloved family, your movies and persian music, that will always help you to keep the head above. I "have" you, who just with a few words and a smile can compensate for a lot of hussle here at work (and of course I have other things, like music and books, that also help me to stay alive).What else shall I say?
Be strong, stay as lovely as you are, enjoy every day and every night and meet me at your deams.

Michael

Beach without you

Hi Ghazal, my Dear,

I hope you are doing well and feel o.k.
Is it quiet now in the Lab ? Usually this is the best time to concentrate on the project. I hope so much that you find some intellectual satisfaction with the project and not have to consider it as a hard burden and a duty to fulfill.
I prepared some text about the mapping, the markers, the mouse strains and linkage. It should somehow fit into the thesis structure (as much as I remember it was part 2 or so). Just break it apart into the several sub-headings.

And of course, if you find in the text something difficult to understand or wrong or strange, please write me back. I very much like the intellectual conversation with you and I learn a lot from your questions as well.

I will also send you something that explains the animal experiments (the older ones we did years ago and the JF1 x FVB crosses). Was Prof. T. already around ?

I think of you and your aristocratic character, that is so much different from the people here around which are very loud and miss any sense of ellegance. This is usually what one can expect at a beach,but the kids like this and therefore I have to decline.
I"m waiting to see you next week.

Take Care,my dear

Michael

................................................................

Hi Michael!!

T. has not been here yet. I think he chose this week on purpose. Both
you and M. are on vacation.
It is a bit quiet yes. I put aside the labwork yesterday and today to
sit and read and write. btw, the sequencing worked!! im happy. me and
claudia will maybe analyse the data later today.
it is not a burden to do this project. everything has been good so far.

I do not know how to thank you for writing so much for me. i have
written a bit about the mapping and microsatellite and QTL. but it was
not as much as yours. so thank you. you should not do this on your
vacation. just go and have fun. right now i am concentrating at the
first part with chernobyl and thyroid cancer.

take care and see you next week!

/ghazal

...............................................................
Ghazal my Dear,

Good to hear that you managed so well to continue with the project and the thesis during this week. Good luck with the sequence analysis,hope you and C. find some interesting variations between the two strains.
I attache a piece of text that describes the rational for using the JF1 and the FVB/N strain in this project. Please double-check if any of the chromosomal loci or gene names are consistent with what you wrote before. Also, in case you find any other discrepancies with the other text-pieces,please mark it in red and we will go through when I am back.

Ghazal, please don"t feel obliged to say "Thank you" for these small pieces of text. It is my very duty as a supervisor to help you with this. It is you who is doing the sophisticated and very decent experimental work day-by-day, without complaining that it is getting boring. Therefore,it is in fact me who must be extremely grateful. Don"t forget this, please.
And what is maybe even more relevant, that you always have this endless patience with me, if I come around and require that you spend the time after work with me. No MSc student has the commitment of going to the movies or to an exhibition or to the beach with its supervisor, or attend with him a concert or watch the meteor shower in the middle of the night. You could have in fact complaine with Prof. T. right from the beginning and ask for another project or another supervisor. I know I was always a bit violently when I asked you to meet me after work,and who knows how often I have disturbed your planing for the evening when you wanted to read or write something for the project. Therefore,it is the least I can do to help you to get everything together know for the thesis, it is a very small compensation for all the nice days and moments you have been with me and for having been always so patient and listened to my silly stories and telling me something from you. You could have easily send me to hell, you never did (I hope you dont wish you could have done this, but you did not wanted to risk your project).

Ghazal, you will see at the end (and everybody will agree) that a successful MSc project does not need this archetypical and hirarchical relation between student and supervisor, but it also can be done if there is a (sort of) frienship.
For me,to be honest, you are too much a mystery to call this a simple friendship.

I wish you a pleasant evening, a relaxing night, and nice dreams.

Michael

PS:How is your watch doing ? I hope that "No news are good news" and it runs precisely now, since you gave it a bit more freedom around your arm.

...............................................................
hi michael,

i think i found one mutation on the third exon.

yes u are right i could ask prof. t. for another project (and he would not give me another since i already tried in the beginning). but i enjoy it here i would not do it. u could also be a bad supervisor and not wanting to help. so i am grateful.

i send u a text with some questions. answer just if u have time. no hurry.

my watch is suprisingly doing great!its strange.

have a good day!!
/ghazal
................................................................
Ghazal my Dear,

Congratulations for finding a sequence variation in FGF10 in one of the mouse strains..
You could check (using Ensembl and search for FGF10 in mouse,and click on the left panel on the button for variations) if this sequence alteration was already described in any other mouse strain. You should also check if it might cause an amino-acid change, in case it is still part of the coding sequence (I remember large parts of exon 3 were already 3" UTR. Maybe you find something.
Before I left, I already ordered primers to test the FGF10 transcript and expression. Could you,please write a mail to O. and ask if and where she has stored the JF1 and FVB/N RNA or cDNA from thyroid (she extracted it as part of her MSc for the expression array).

Thanks for writing that you feel o.k. with how the project developed and that you are o.k. with everything and don"t regret that you came to Munich. You gave me the nicest and most exciting summer of my life, Ghazal. I never felt so much inspiration, excitement and satisfaction to share with somebody a project and many hours after work as with you.

Take Care

Michael

PS:I go through your text today and send you comments tomorrow

Sandman and Sauerkraut

Hi Ghazal my Dear,

It was a pitty I found your e-mail (the one you wrote 2 o"clock a.m. last night) only this morning.
Hopefully, you did not stoud awake for the rest of the night waiting for an answer. If I would have known that you didn"t sleep yet, I would have checked my mail-box at night again.
Sometimes it is fascinating to stay awake, while the rest of the world sleeps, don"t you think so ? One gets the feeling to be alone in the universe with its own thoughts, which can evolve more freely then. I think the night is a very productive time if one has to bring back to mind what happened during the day. O.k., one might lack some of the important REM-Phases in such a night, but this might be compensated by some extra nocturnal experiences. By the way, we have here in Germany the mythological figure of the Sandmann, a very friendly little gnome who visits all kids in the evening and blows them some sand into the face (to make them sleepy). Do you have such a character in Sweden too ? Here we even have a daily short TV-program featuring Sandman for the kids. This is supposed to be the signal for them to go to bed.

What you wrote about the relationship to your mom was very intriguing, and it is perhaps a rare case that between the generations such an intense and confidental link exists. But perhaps you are also very important for your mom,like the outpost in the modern world. For sure, she needs you as much as you need her. I would be extremely courious to see how you explain your mom your newly discovered love for our Sauerkraut. I mean the stuff is really delicious, therefore I absolutely understand you eat almost the whole pack at once. But still, the stuff is considered so typical german, that a commonen nickname for Germans in english is KRAUT.
But meanwhile, Sauerkraut also became very popular on the Balkan states (ask Natascha), in Russia and even in Korea (where they add some very spicy ingredients). And now, for the first time in history, we might see Sauerkraut even become a delicatesse in Sweden and Persia (with your help as a gourmet ambassador).

Ghazal, my dear, in case you want to hear some nice radio music tonight: a few minutes ago a 5 hours program about the Beatles started on Bavarian Radio 2 . You might find the station on your radio at 88.4 MHz or 89.5 MHz.

I hope you had a nice day and you had your own sunshine inside of you. I wish you a relaxing and inspiring evening and a night with nice dreams.

Take Care
Michael
................................................................................................

hi michael,

i slept directly after the email, its fine=)

i never thought about that, that u could be the awake while the world sleeps. i just have that feeling when i drive at night. i feel so free and that the road is mine haha.
no, i have never heard about the sandman before. how can sand make u sleep i wonder.

i ate all the sauerkraut today. really tasty. i told my mum about it and she think she knows what it is, i will show her when she comes.

i wish u a good night as well!!

/ghazal

................................................................................................

Ghazal, my dear,

you are perhaps an angel flying around at night in your dreams. Where do you drive at night in your car ? Could be dangerous, dont you think so ? But maybe you are looking just for this danger at night ?
Do you remember when I suggested your preference for the taste of Bitter Lemon might have something to do with a general feeling of convidence and overwhelming happiness, so you are intentionally seeking for some risk that gives you a thrill. It is the same why people go to the Tivoli fun fair, they usually only go if they are happy. And the thrill of danger at the giant wheel or the train-of-horrors shall add some flavour to an otherwise to monotonous happiness.

Ghazal, I miss you a bit.

Michael

PhD project in Munich

Ghazal my dear,

I hope you have a pleasant evening and that you are not only standing in the kitchen. Be careful, if the swedish authorities see this, you will be punished for not following the official policy of womans emancipation. I keep my hope, that the people are more free in their decisions and understand, that doing something in the kitchen can be very pleasant as well. I like it, it has some relation to science and to lab-work, don"t you think so ?
Anyhow, I would also be very happy to know that you enjoy these few days and nights of warm and bright summer. May and June was so awful, always grey and cold and wet, that even myself (who has an atypical high level of serotonin, dopamin and melatonin) started to get signs of depression. However, there was always the hope to see you the next day, which was and still is the best remedy against sad emotions.
You are completely different, I know this, you have this potential deep inside of you to stop any influence from the outside and concentrate on thoughts and memories and dreams (you call them day-dreams, for me they are end-of-the-day dreams). Maybe you can switch your mind to the angels universe, I would not be surprised.
I think when I saw you the first time sitting in the front raw in the seminar room, you were in exactly this state. It was winter time, cold, wet, streets covered with mud, snow-flakes penetrating the space between neck and coat, shoes did not dry anymore and looked like on a 1st world war battle field. But there you were sitting and filling the seminar room with the aura of an oriental garden. Ghazal, who you think could resist this picture ? Whom you want to blame for immediately feeling the desire to follow you in this other world ?

Now at least the climate changed for the better. After work I always pass along a lake to go swimming. Later I spend the night in the garden and read or play some guitar. The only audience usually is our dog. The rest of the family sits inside and insists they don"t hear. In summer time, southern Germany can be a pleasant place. And winter time is also fine, with a lot of snow and clear sky. What is usually less pleasant are the few month in between.
Ghazal, maybe you consider doing your PhD in Germany. I think the competition is less strong than in Sweden. Talk to Iria or Olena, they will tell you that in Munich it is easy to live and have fun without knowing a lot of german. There are so many high-class institutes in Munich, the two Universities and the Max-Planck-Institutes and Helmholtz also has some very strong groups. And Sweden and Germany are virtually neighbours, only the Baltic Sea between them.

Oh, something else I have to ask you: I bought today this pink Panasonic MP3-player station (the one we looked at last Friday in the Electronic Super-Market).
It was by the way a unique product, something like a prototype. Therefore, I got it without a proper box. Only at home I found out that it is completely incompatible with my Hewlett-Packard Mp3-player. I therefore will give it to you tomorrow. And you keep it (at least till the end of your project), we already know it works perfectly with your IPod.

Sorry, that I wrote once again such an endless mail. And you might consider it complete nonsense.
Take Care
Michael

...............................................................................

hi michael,
no i dont stand in the kitchen, i dont like to cook.

you should maybe go inside and play for your family then:) but its nice to play for the dog as well i guess.
no i would want to go back to sweden. its better. i will be with my family. im not saying munich is a bad place. but home is always the best place.

you bought exactly the one we saw? why, i dont think your son likes it. but you should keep it. i use my computer and listen to music through it. but it was kind of you.

have a good night!! :)

/ghazal
................................................................................
Dear Ghazal,

You are right. I should more often ask you for your opinion before doing something. The MP3 players design does not suit our sons taste: He only accepts black stuff. He is at an age when boys are very concerned to appeare maskuline, and the slightest risk that somebody might think he loves girls stuff makes him mad (the player is pink, as you remember).

Take Care

Yours Michael

PS: I feel very sorry about the watch. You might think I broke my promise that it will work at the end. Now it appears, it does not. Instead, I only wrote you endless theories about time shifts and angels universe.
If you agree, I"ll open it once again.

Sleep well

Time Shift and Crystals

Ghazal, my dear,
what can I say ? Your watch indeed runs pretty slow. I opened it yesterday night to clean it (but of course it was extremely clean from the inside). Between midnight and now, 8 a.m., it lost again about 3 minutes.
When you told me your observation that it regularily looses about 15 minutes per day, I thought this indicates once again that you came here from another universe. Maybe you know the TV-serie "X-Files" with Agent Scully and Agent Moulder, who always find simple evidence that people like you and me come from outer space. I think both of them would like the idea that somebody with the potential to slow down a watch (if it is in close enough contact with its own pulse, like in your case) must come from another world (where, as we all know, time is running slower, the spiderman falls into love with a swan and people are born old to get younger every day).
But coming back to your watch, which I fully understand you want to have running with earth-compatible speed. Sure enough, you are also going to spend some more time here on earth, with no flight booked yet that will bring you back to your angels universe. I heard of cases, when Angels came here just for a short visit, and suddenly started to like the wild life in our world and decided to stay for longer.
Therefore, I will do my best today to set up your watch to +/- zero. I"ll put in a new battery, later we see. In case it still runs slow, I"m afraid nobody can help you and you would probably have to return it to the shop (in this other solar-system) and ask for replacement through warranty (you have not shown to me the warranty certificate: I guess it was issued from a shop not known here on earth !!! Something like "The Unified Reverse Time Company at Zartha").

But first, let me try to adjust it. We here on earth are good scientists and talented engineers, although we can not compete with you angels in terms of beauty and wisdom. Maybe I find a way to bring your clock-speed in synchronity with ours.

Have a nice and inspiring day, my dear.

Yours Michael

...............................................................................................

hi michael,

im fine, yesterday was a nice sunny day as today.

thank you for taking care of the watch. i think i should bring it to the shop in sweden. maybe they can fix it. or i just have to return it. haha no im just a normal girl living in the right time. just something wrong with the watch. :) you dont have to change batteries. i just have it until i go back to sweden or something. but really thank you for trying to fix it.

hope it was not too hard to take back the other bike to helmholtz. i would think its hard.

i will take a look at the trailer later.

take care!!:D

/ghazal

................................................................................................

Ghazal, my dear,

Of course every angel tries to insist he (or she) does not come from another star, but simply from a country a bit further north. O.k., I acknowledge that you learned some swedish to convince me of this. But maybe it was just enough to guide me through IKEA, explaining to me that "Ordin" means "order" and "Äpple" means "apple". I think I could learn this in a couple of days too. And what still makes me suspicious a lot are your blue eyes in combination with your dark hair. This, for sure is neither oriental nor scandinavian: this is celestial.

Now the latest news regarding your watch: I put in a fresh battery (guaranteed made here on earth), and have to say it seems to be 100% compatible with your extra-terrestrial DKNY watch. It runs nice and smoothly, and after 2 hours still without a second delay. I will leave it in for a couple of hours more, just to make sure it is stable. I just suspect, that your watch with its strong extraterrestrial energy has already influenced my watch at home, also causing this one to run slower now. Finally, both our watches now might run synchroneous, but are perhaps lagging behind normal earth clock-speed.

What would support this notions is the fact, that always when we have been together somewhere, like recently at IKEA or at the lake, in the coffe or just sitting with you in the car and driving the wrong way, I got the strange feeling that we were suddenly drifting into another time-zone, where everything is happening slower, but more intense. I would not say that it was an unpleasant feeling, it was just unusual. I think I could get used to it.

There is a second possibility to explain why the time around you runs 15 min slower per day. And this in fact has a scientific base, it is not a joke any more:

Some years ago US scientists wanted to understand how much is our human 24-hours diurnal rhythm (that controls when we sleep, dream, wake up, eat, work, digest etc) determined by the day-night-cycle of the earth. To study this, they recruited about 50 volunteers, who agreed to live for a month in a building that was completely isolated from any sun-light. The volunteers could only use electric light, which they switched on and off when they wanted. So finally, after some weeks in this isolated environment, the entire group had adopted its own rhythm of inactivity (sleeping) and activity (beeing awake, working, playing etc.). What was strange: their own physiological rhythm was exactly 11 min slower than 24 hours. Therefore, when the experiment was finsihed after 7 weeks, the people inside the building were almost exactly 12 hours laggig behind the day-night-cycle outside the building. This means, that we still have our own biological clock build in, that runs per day 11 min slower than 24 hours. It is only the astronomic day- and night-changes, that synchronizes us to an exact 24hours rhythm. Without seeing the sun coming and going every 24 hours, we would all live a slightly longer day. The most likely explanation for this slower running biological clock inside our body was, that it developed already in primates about 1 million years ago. And 1 million years ago, the earth was indeed rotating approximately 11 min slower per day (because the gravitational force between earth and moon continiously fasten it up).

If we use this knowledge, and remember that your watch runs 15 min per day slower, we might conclude that you came here from the past, from approximately 1 273.645 years before.
In case you think this is all very academic, have a look at these two papers that shows how DNA-repair and radiosensitivity changes with círcadian rhythm or how disturbances of the later can even increase cancer-risk.
Sorry, my dear, if I start to confuse you. It is not really my intention to cause you any headache.

I met today on the flee-market a man fro Persia, who used to sell books. I wanted to get something about Zartoscht, in case you decide to do the Pecha-Kucha about this. The man said he has a few in persian, but they are not for sale, you could only try to borrow from him. He also has german ones, but than I would have to try to translate a bit. I think it would be an interesting subject for a short talk. And you could combine it with some contemporary musicians who had or have zoroastrian roots (Freddy Mercury of Queen and former general conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra, Zubin Mehta).
I think due to my own interest in this philosophy, I might help you to collect some material.
But you have to made up your own mind.

At the end, Ghazal, here comes something for you just to relax:
It is a tour through the Swarovski Cristal exhibition and performance and I am absolutely sure that you will like it (it is calm, probably also runs on a slower speed and therefor more suits your rhythm of life).

Take care, don"t condemn me, relax.

Michael


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Ghazal, my dear,

Hope you had a nice day. I wish you some interesting dreams. You might dream of your wrist watch. It runs since 2 p.m. without any delay. But maybe now you are sad hearing this? Maybe this 15 min delay per day was one of the last links that connected you to your former angels universe, Ghazal.

I willl keep the old battery (the one that makes the watch running slower). If you feel to much nostalgia, I can put it back into the watch for a day or so.

Yours Michael