Monsoon Summer

Out one window, the smell of concrete being mixed. Out the other, the green smell of crushed vegetation.


a wasp is throwing itself against one of these window panes. Guess which one.

Abbas Kiarostami, RIP

So many deaths this year and each one feels like a blow, feels personal; and 2016 keeps on giving, mostly by taking away.

Abbas Kiarostami, who died yesterday,  has slipped several knives in the gut with his films over the years, and he did it again by dying so untimely. 

I don't even know what to say. I feel a frisson when I think of the time he delivered the Aravindan lecture at IFFK and we got to listen to him and to watch Five, with him somewhere in the theatre. 

I also feel a huge sense of loss. Escape Artist had both Forugh Farrokhzad and Abbas Kiarostami at its heart.

Here's a poem from his collection Wolf Lying in Wait

Monday, 4th July, 2016. RIP, Kiarostami.

Cryptic #8

Half a life or none.

That is the question.