Pages

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

"Shah's of Sunset's" MJ is a HOT MESS (a.k.a. We Love Her)

Did you honestly think I had forgotten to update you on "Shah's of Sunset"?! We're only two episodes in but, so far, my favorite character is MJ--officially the Hot Mess of this gem of a reality TV show.


Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Happy Persian New Year

"Noruz" happened at 1:11a.m. (EST) this morning, according to the lunar calendar. I'm staying at my boyfriend's place this week while he's in London, and he lives near the U.N., so I was not surprised when my alarm woke me up for the New Year and I heard Persians out in the street screaming "Happy New Year!" Only in New York (and only near the U.N.)!

The Christmas tree equivalent for Noruz is called the "haftsin," which is an arrangement of several symbolic items. For my incomplete haftsin, I had gotten a purple hyacinth, two red apples, and a small plot of wheatgrass obtained from a the Union Square farmer's market (I had a hell of a time trying to find wheatgrass last year). I carted all this crap uptown to my boyfriend's loft in a paper Anthropologie bag. The doormen gave me weird looks. I then arranged this sorry state of affairs on the granite bar counter (between a few bottles of liquor--whoops) so that when I woke up in the middle of the night to "celebrate" all by myself in my underwear and glasses, I'd be sitting at the traditional haftsin. The hyacinth and wheatgrass had wilted. I perched on the bar stool and diligently began dialing each of my family members to wish them a happy new year. I was done by 1:20a.m. and promptly passed out. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Asa from Shah's of Sunset

Not talented.

Not cute.

Not cool.
NOT M.I.A.

Shahs of Sunset Premieres

Since "Shah's of Sunset" (the new Ryan Seacrest-produced reality TV show about Persians in L.A.) aired, friends keep pinging me to ask what I think of the first episode.

I'll say the same thing I said about it back when I first heard this show was happening: While the show features the worst of the worst, I still like that it depicts Persians in America. I think people in the U.S. generally have very little understanding that there are Persian-Americans right here, next door, and that we are not all fundamentalists. I hope the show sparks dialogue.

The first episode surprised me. I knew a little bit about what to expect because I know the Persian community, but I had no idea they would be featuring a group of mixed Muslim and Jewish Persians. It's super interesting because I know not a lot of people know that there are a great deal of Persian Jews (the mayor of Beverly Hills is a Persian Jew, as are some crazy percentage of Beverly Hills, CA and Great Neck, NY residents). I just think that if your common moron who watches Fox News knew even this much (that not all Persians are Muslim), it would add that extra layer of complexity to their understanding of what they see on the news. That being said, while I think it's engrossing to watch Persian Jews say "Shabbat Shalom" in Farsi accents, I have never in my life seen Persian Jews and Muslims hang out in a tight clique like that. Maybe this is something common to L.A. specifically, but I've not seen this anywhere else. There was one scene in this episode where they're all having dinner and talking about how a Persian Jew and a Persian Muslim would never get married, and that is very much the idea that I grew up with, but otherwise, the show is really trying hard (maybe too hard) to show how "modern Persians" are different: Already, we see the inkling of a budding romance between the most generically attractive guy (Jewish) and most generically attractive girl (Muslim).