From Miss V. to Los Angeles Landlords

I love this:


Dear Landlords and Managers.... (crappier the area the more pricey!)
Reply to: hous-643708616@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-04-15, 9:17PM PDT


...I know that the amount of bad mortgages and foreclosures have created an environment where lots of people want to rent- how lucky for you! But there are a few things you must know when the prices of your rent are more than half of what folks are making :

Here are a few blunders that to all too common these days:
1. "New York Style Living!!!" - this is code for smelly shoebox. Please keep in mind that the only reason that most people in New York live as they do is because they do not spend a lot of time in their apartments. If they did, the suicide rates in Manhattan would be sky high. It is not a privilege to live "New York Style" it is a matter of desperation and necessity.

2. "The Adjacent" phenomenon- Adjacent is not a selling point. Example: If an apartment is in Silverlake then charge Silverlake prices (though god knows why people want to pay them.) However, trying to tell a tenant that a place Union and Rampart (i.e. silverlake adjacent" ) warrants the same prices in rent is just messed up. It's like paying full price for piece of cake only to find that someone has taken a huge bite out of it. not cool.

3. As a rule in Los Angeles, the following is true: "The shittier the neighborhood, the more expensive the rent." You can live in a wonky studio in Echo Parque (read: crossfire between the Frogs and the Silverlake 13, with an occasional tagger vandalizing your car) for 1200!!! And guess what? You get to live in Echo Parque...fucking yay.

People please wake up and stop paying these ridiculous prices...you are being fooled. Landlords need to stop gouging. It is greedy and wrong and it won't stop until people stop letting them.

5 years

Pea​​ce​ can​​no​t​ be kep​​t by for​​ce​.​
It can​​ onl​​y be ach​​ie​v​e​d by und​​er​s​t​an​​din​​g.​ -Al​ber​t Ein​ste​in

Today, I pray for my American brothers and sisters who need to come back home to their loved ones and for my Iraqi brothers and sisters who need to be free.
love and peace,
naz

Happy New Year-1387!

Happy beautiful Iranian Norooz(new year) to you all! Tomorrow in Los Angeles at 10:48:19pm, we will celebrate the new year and beginning of Spring.

If you like to understand Norooz/Nowrooz and its long lived traditions, I recommend a doze of health, a bit of fire in your heart and whole lot of passion. It's a good day. In honor of this day I like to share 5 of my favorite things about being Iranian(in no specific order).

1) Music and dance
2) Poetry
3) Architecture
4) Food
5) People

Look at me looking at you

I don't get out much by myself. I've been trying more since studying for the big test*. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with my friends and my lovely Ryan, but I'm a voyeur and being in the company of others doesn't lend itself to looking and listening to strangers. But yesterday, I sat at my favorite local café, Casbah, studied a bit and watched for a long time.

Here are two of my observations to share:

Most charming couple

A beautiful woman with a white off shoulder shirt and a tall blond man sitting next to me side by side. Bo big deal, right? Big deal. They were doing the sunday cross-word puzzle together. She was doing the horizontals and he was doing the verticals. Two pens and all. At the end they looked at their iphones and debated on the choices they had for the remaining words together. Awww! I loved them, I wanted to tell them how charming and refreshing it was to see two people like that. Okay, I just did. Hope you two lovely people stay together. love is a puzzle, and couple that solves it together, stays together.


Stop-this-and-move-on couple

This happens too many times and I just have to write it out load and get if off my chest, "It's time to exit that relationship when you don't have anything to talk about any more." Why? Why? Why stay? She was eating her salad very slowly and with every bite she looked at him with rage. I'm scared at this point. He played on his phone while sipping coffee and shrugged and gave her dirty looks. You know the kind that pierces through your skin. Finally he got up and left. Sigh of relief, yes? No. He came back and said, "you are a piece of shit," loud enough that everyone adjusted themselves in their seats out of discomfort. Lovely. I should have said something to him or at least slapped him, but I didn't.


More on my weekend observations to come.

*LSAT and yes I'm planning on being a lawyer but a voyeur for life.

Spirit of the moving image

Years ago, I walked in to a gallery in New York and saw the most incredible thing:



It was hard to describe. I mean, I was always drawn to Film and television as a child and the art of moving images made me feel a little tingle inside but never knew this feeling. This was art, cinema, and experience at the same time. This was the work of Bill Viola. I have two google alerts, one for Iran and the other is for Mr. Viola, so he's kind of a big deal in my universe.

Knowing his work, Baptism had a different meaning all of a sudden. Water was a symbol. Simple was in. His sense of spirituality and quest for that moment of truth is admirable.

My top 6 love songs... (no order)

Love. If one can talk about it, then one has never experienced it. So let it speak trough music.

Creepy love:




Nothings says intense more than this:




Bjork=Love=this: (Michelle J. would agree)




This makes me cry every time, Ryan and my first concert together in Motwon:





This is for my parents, they hold each other's hands every time they hear this. Here is to 35 years of you together:


and...

Camera Obscura, Your Picture

I made it.

I'm here.

Language is the source of misunderstandings, and that's what my favorite little guy, Le Petit Prince states. first, I read this book when I was very very small. I was mesmerized by the words but more by the intricate drawings. Those images seemed alive to me, the planet, the flower, the snake; they were breathing and speaking to me. My childhood was shaped by images, moving, still, and even the ones in my head. Years later I've chosen image making as my profession but I still like to revisit those childhood moments, those ghosts, those shapes and colors. What I miss the most about them is their innocence and purity. I don't get that in the grown-up world.

Stay with me. It might be worth it. Not sure what this is going to be about, maybe about images, maybe about ghosts, or even ghostly images.

I leave this one with a piece of history, very important history.

The Lumiere Brothers' - First films (1895)