Marzieh Ghiasi

Spring has arrived and the McGill campus looks absolutely stunning…

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

- Albert Camus        

A friend shared this collection in Time a while back, but I stumbled upon them again today. The pictures are by photographer Peter Menzel and are part of the book “Hungry Planet: What the World Eats“.

Bhutan, Shingkhey Village — $5.0
Family recipe: Mushroom, cheese and pork

Before coming to university, I never really thought about food beyond ‘what’s for dinner?’ but since coming here I have to admit my perspective on food has really begun to transform. Aside from learning that I will never make it as a chef, through friends I’ve become exposed to the politics of food, from the meat industry to global food production. I’ve had to research on the Green Revolution and learn in class about agricultural genomics. I’ve gotten to know about the current food crisis, food and women’s rights and even food and homelessness in lectures and conferences.

I am really fascinated by these pictures because they capture a truly colourful cross-section of cultures, juxtaposing some startling differences between what we eat, and how much we [are able to] spend on our food. But I think what is even more striking is the nuanced story that the foods set on the table tell about each family, painting a unifying narrative of the human condition and our basic needs– needs that make us human. It seems as though food ties into every aspect of health, environment, economics and justice in a very subtle yet important way. After all this, it has become a tiny bit harder for me to look at the dinner plate the same way.

*Picture source. The exhibition is on display at Montréal Science Centre until May 3^rd.

“Don’t want to be your exotic…” She declared after the round of applause at her entrance. The music gave way to silence, a few whistles, then in darkness the whole room hushed. “… like some colorful dark fragile bird imprisoned.” she said resolutely. Adorning a red glittery shawl, she let every page fall to floor as she showed us her mother, strength, her Brooklyn, the New Orleans she had seen, the Palestinian that she was, the poet, the daughter, refugee, landless, broken levees, falling bombs, fragility, prisons, youth, loss, men, women, beauty, skin… the nuances of being.

I had the privilege of seeing Suheir Hammad here in Montreal last night. Although I was excited, in retrospective I am not sure what I expected walking up Boulevard Saint-Laurent that afternoon. I had seen her performances on Def Poetry, but seeing people behind the screen, you can never be certain of what is real. When she took the stage, it was almost hard not to feel mesmerized as words —beautiful words, brutal words, few words— fell so effortlessly into their natural habitat, budding from each one a thousand thoughts, and from each of those a thousand emotions.

Brilliant! What a lady. She’s the real deal.

The past few days Montréal’s temperature has averaged a cool -20°C, otherwise known as nostril-hair freezing cold. This kind of cold is not really a great motivator for hanging out outside. So I’ve been occupying myself with the news (a mix of alarming and horrifying), drinking tea and re-reading some Vonnegut. I find myself coming back to these books year after year, and every time finding them more powerful, more truthful… and myself crying like a baby. This is from Timequake, his answer to… why bother?

“Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.‘”

ps. This blog has a new look and a new name!
pps. How awesome is that door garden gnome? I want one.

A realization
The path idly abandoned
led home, after all.

*Photograph source (©zeligueWB)

For anyone here in Montreal, this event held on the global day for Darfur looks to be very promising and informative. Hope you can make it!

More info

The past few months have been quite eventful to say the least, and hopefully, once I am able to catch my breath I will be able to post pictures that reflect the daily life and my discoveries while adjusting to life in Montreal.

Every college guide must begin with the obligatory “coming to university is an once-in-a-lifetime learning experience” and other variations. As it has been clearly established by now, college-guides are not meant to be taken seriously other than for one’s viewing pleasure of glossy photo shoots involving abnormally happy people, and permanently-green… deciduous trees. Perhaps I am being a tad harsh on the generic college-guide, there may after all be some truths to those brochures that we all so fondly chuck out.

Learning experiences? Well, the classes and professor have been stellar, not a too radical departure from high-school as everyone would have you believe, but definitely a lot bigger classes, a lot more choices, and a lot more interesting lectures. I have had the opportunity to meet people– literally from all over the world, although there always manages to be a Nova Scotian right around the corner, not to mention the home in a box [aka. gigantic Scotia bank tower presiding on Rue Sherbrooke]. It’s great to be in a campus where there is always something going on and a cause to get involved in [an esperanto-speaking group? Surely you kid *brain explodes* ...]. Yes, Coming here has indeed been a grand change and huge learning experience, moreso than I ever expected, and in ways that I never expected. For instance, it is definitely possible to memorize word-for-word an entire 80 page biology manual, although not before resorting to consuming the sheets in hopes of retaining the information. And, of course, as fun as it maybe to experiment with food, chocolate is a standalone food, it is not meant for experimentation. Just in case you are wondering, yes, I tried… no, it is not a good idea to use chocolate as pasta sauce, nor does it mix well with cheese.

Anyways, I just wanted to share a quote from Carl Sagan that I found tremendously inspiring when I was younger. Pale Blue Dot, displayed below, is the infamous picture of Earth, 4 billion miles out in space, at the edge of the solar system, taken by Voyager 1 in 1990, followed by Carl Sagan’s remarks on what this picture represents. I would like to share this because I find what Sagan presents to be both unsettling and moving on a fundamental level. Sometimes I find the existentialist parts of me, parts that desire to set the human definition and experience as encompassing all that is real and all that matters at odds with his perspective. At the same time however, I find myself awed by the profound truth in Sagan’s description of the entirety of humanity’s experiences on this planet.

“Our posturing, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves….

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ’superstar’, every ’supreme leader’, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. … There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

-Carl Sagan