Makeup tips for visiting an Iranian coffee shop

Two girls explain how to get your look right when visiting an Iranian coffee shop:

Video tour of Mashad's Arab quarter

Jadid Online has an interesting video tour of the Arab quarter of the Iranian city of Mashad. It's only 5 minutes long, with Persian commentary and English subtitles. It covers the enduring clan system, funeral rites, sport, religion, family and identity.

Nazanin Rafsanjani explains ta'arof on This American Life

Nazanin Rafsanjani was a guest on popular NPR radio show This American Life with Nancy Updike, during which Nazanin explained ta'arof. Someone took the time to put together a slideshow of Iranian scenes to accompany her words. It's both funny and insightful at the same time.

Hey Ayatollah, leave those kids alone!

Classic Pink Floyd song Another Brick in the Wall remade as Hey Ayatollah, leave those kids alone! by Canadian band Blurred Vision:

U.S.-Iranain power relations, politics and conflicts in the early 1970s

Andrew Scott Cooper, author of a the book The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East, was interviewed on the excellent Conversations With History series.

The hour-long interviewed covers a range of interesting topics and sheds light on some previously unknown aspects of the U.S.-Iranian political alliance at the time.

• just how essential the Shah (personally) and Iran were to U.S. foreign policy goals in the Middle East and Asia from the late 1960s through the 1970s
• how Nixon personally gave the green light for Iran to raise it's oil prices
• how the OPEC oil embargo and rising price of oil shifted the balance of power in the Shah's favour
• the Saudi role in worsening Iran's economy and weakening the Shah's position
• the personal relationships between the Shah, Nixon, Kissinger and surrounding figures

Hichkas - Iranian rapper

Here are a handful of videos from Iranian rapper Hichkas. You might know him from the film Nobody Knows About Persian Cats

Hichkas - Ye Roozeh Khoob Miad

Hichkas - Bunch of Soldiers

Hichkas - Ektelhaf

It's great to see that rap music in Iran, as everywhere else in the world, involves standing around on street corners in large overcoats. However, Hichkas looks great, has some interesting lyrics and certainly shows some of the real Tehran in his videos. Some of his homies look distinctly baby-faced/like they're wearing their sister's coats/they're bank clerks or engineering students.

صفر دو یک

Turkish short film about folk music

Here's a great Turkish short film about the government's attempts to stifle folk music and encourage the Westernisation of Turkish culture many years ago.

Tehran: Another side

Here's the trailer for documentary that aims to show another side of Tehran. This is not the Friday prayers crowd, but young people trying find their way in the world.

Iranian comedians - helping you find the right one

From time to time I go through the referrer statistics to find out what people coming to this blog from search engines are looking for. Many people have landed here following searches for Iranian comedians. That's good because this blog has the ultimate list of Iranian comedians.

Looking for 'Persian comedians in Los Angeles'? You'll be wanting Peter 'The Persian' Shahriari.

'Iranian comedian who does accents'? - that's probably Omid Djalili. He does some great accents ranging from his normal London 'geezer' and his wife's most refined English, Nigerian English (particularly a Nigerian parking attendant), Turkish, Indian, through to his career-defining high-pitched Arabic accent. Maz Jobrani, Ali Salimi, Elham Jazab all do accents too.

'British Iranian standup commedienne' (or 'shappi khorsandi hot', I'm sure she'd be happy to know that's what you think), 'comedy Iranian women UK' would all be looking for Shappi Khorsandi. Here's a snippet of Shappi Khorsandi on BBC Persian.

'Tissa Hami on YouTube'? You'd actually do better to search on YouTube, but this is the Internet, so I've done it for you! You want this, this and this.

'Best comediennes list' - might feature Shappi Khorsandi, Tissa Hami, Sheila Vossough, Mona Mahani, Elham Jazab, Negin Farsad who are all 'Iranian standup female comediennes'.

'Iranian comedian at the Laugh Factory'? I thought that was Kinner Shah, but I think I was wrong about that.

'Gay Iranian comedian'? Ali Mafi.

'Iranian comedians in the UK' - Patrick Monahan, Jody Kamali, Omid Djalili, Shappi Khorsandi and her brother Payvand Khorsandi. Matthew Nouriel has a British accent and links too. So add him to that list.

'Iranian comedian on Comedy Central'? Probably Maz Jobrani.

Looking for an 'Jewish Iranian comedian' or 'Iranian Jewish comedian'? That could be Dan Ahdoot, Marvin Karrazi or Matt Kazam.

'Middle Eastern 3 comedians'? Probably the Axis of Evil comedy tour with Ahmed Ahmed, Aron Kader and Maz Jobrani. Other comedy tours in a similar vein include Allah Made Me Funny (with Preacher Moss), Negin Farsad's Bootleg Islam, Co-exist? featuring Tissa Hami.

'List of Arabic comedians'? Not yet.

Google Translate, Facebook and iPhone now support Persian/Farsi

Google Translate adds Persian

I started writing a blog post just before voting began in the Iranian presidential election about the lack of a Persian option in Google Translate. With so much content on the web in Persian, it would have been great to be able to do a quick and rough machine translation into English.

Searching Google brought up no news about any new languages coming up in Google Translate. There are questions on mailing lists asking if it was going to happen, but those asking were always redirected to this FAQ saying large volumes of bi-lingual texts were needed.

But now Google Translate supports Persian (even though it's a very rough alpha version):

We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran. Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use to communicate directly to the world, and vice versa — increasing everyone's access to information.

Being a machine translation, it's not perfect. It will certainly lose some of the flavour of Persian, the flourishes and idioms (which always lose something in translation), but it's a start. Cyrus Farivar has more on the accuracy, but seems glad it's finally here (as am I!). You can use Google Translate to translate BBC Persian into English, translate Persian tweets into English and now, the entire Persian blogosphere!

YouTube relaxes rules to help Iranians

Google also relaxed its rules on classifying videos on YouTube after graphic videos of violent attacks by Basij members on demonstrators were removed. Google lived up to its "don't be evil" motto (especially after the hurdles Iranians had to clear in order to upload their videos in the first place).

Facebook launches a Persian interface

hanks to the work of 400 Persian-speaking volunteers Facebook now has a Persian interface that automatically detect browser language and displays accordingly. The company says...

Since the Iranian election last week, people around the world have increasingly been sharing news and information on Facebook about the results and its aftermath. Much of the content created and shared has been in Persian—the native language of Iran — but people have had to navigate the site in English or other languages.

Great news and a triumph of collaborative working from those involved.

iPhone 3.0 supports Persian

People in Iran were some of the first to get jailbroken iPhones. With the highly anticipated version 3.0 of the iPhone OS, they've now got a legit Persian interface!

Pic taken from Cyrus Farivar's blog

Twitter switches to HTTPS for added security

Twitter switched over to HTTPS to ensure extra security for its web-based users. It could just be a coincidence, but I suspect its also a response to the popularity of the #iranelection hashtag and coverage the service has been getting. I'll be uploading a user guide to getting Google Translate and Twitter to work together.

Swedish-Iranian stand-up comedians

It seems that stand-up comedy is popular in Sweden too. With several Swedish-Iranian stand-up comedians. And, even in Swedish, you can tell what the first joke is...

The ultimate list of Iranian stand-up comedians and comics

This list probably isn't definitive, but hopefully it's a start. Following the series of blog posts, for all Wikipedia contributors, lazy newspaper journalists, other bloggers and comedy fans, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... the ultimate list of Iranian stand-up comedians.

• Ali Mafi
• Ali Sadooqi
• Dan Ahdoot
• Ebrahmi Nabavi
• Elham Jazab
• Eslami Anthony Shams
• Jody Kamali
• K-von
• Marvin Karrazi
• Matin Zabzehroo
• Matt Kazam
• Matthew Nouriel
• Max Amini
• Maz Jobrani
• Mohammad Ali Salimi
• Mona Mahani
• Negin Farsad
• Omid Djalili
• Pardis Parker
• Patrick Monahan
• Payvand Khorsandi
• Peter Shahriari
• Reza Peyk
• Sean Tahmasebi
• Shappi Khorsandi
• Sheila Vossough
• Tissa Hami
• Yashar Kafi

This list of 28 comedians, stand-ups, jokers and comics, male and female, is almost entirely people in the Iranian diaspora and includes people who are half Iranian, have maybe never set foot in Iran and maybe don't know a single word of Persian. So some of them are only vaguely Iranian. And some may have only ever done one stand-up gig, but thankfully someone posted it to YouTube. Some have had their own TV shows, other merely bit parts. Some have crossed the globe and others merely become famous in their city's Iranian community.

Disclaimer: If you know of other Iranian or Persian stand-up comedians or other good videos of Iranians doing stand-up comedy then add them to the comments. Most of this information was found using Google and YouTube.

Response on the streets of Tehran after the Mousavi/Ahmadinejad debate

The response on the streets of Tehran after the Mousavi/Ahmadinejad televised debate. A typical Tehran scene... A traffic jam.

More traffic jams...

Full presidential debate timetable

Air time: 1800-1930 GMT on IRTV3

• 2 June: Karoubi-Rezai
• 3 June: Ahmadinejad-Mousavi
• 4 June: Mousavi-Rezai
• 6 June: Ahmadinejad-Karoubi
• 7 June: Karoubi-Mousavi
• 8 June: Ahmadinejad-Rezai

Source: ISNA news agency.

Iranian comedian - Ebrahim Nabavi

Ebrahim Nabavi is an Iranian satirist and researcher. Not really much of a stand-up, but interesting nonetheless.

Short clip in Persian

Short clip in Persian 2

Iranian comedian - Ali Mafi

Openly gay, Muslim and very funny, Ali Mafi was keeping a blog/vlog of his stand-up performances, but it hasn't been updated since the middle of last year. YouTube has some more recent performances...

Performing at SF Comedy College

SF Comedy College (part 2)

Iranian comedian - K-von

K-Von has an Iranian Muslim father and Scottish-American Presbyterian mother and he's toured with Maz Jobrani on the "Brown and Friendly" comedy tour. He holds a weekly show at the Laugh Factory.

K-von's standup material touches on everything from being raised in a Las Vegas based multi-cultural family to some of his more absurd observations regarding the perils of internet dating.  A comic who is prepared to perform in any venue and often works with children in the audience, K-von makes an extra effort to keep his comedy clean with a little edge to it.

K-Von's website list upcoming shows, video clips and more info. He's also a fitness and swimming coach, and K-Von has a blog!

From Comics Without Borders

Talking about his dad

Persian men

Trash-talking

Iranian comedian - Eslam Anthony Shams

Eslam Anthony Shams is an Iranian-American comedian and successful actor. His comedy routine switches between English and Farsi and he's got some harsh words for those Iranians in America who go to his shows and don't enjoy the 40% of it that's in English. Here's an interview with him.

Stand-up

More of Eslam Anthony Shams

Iranian comedian - Peter Shahriari

Better known as Peter the Persian, Peter Shahriari is one of the most established Iranian comedians in America. Born in Tehran, he's been performing around Los Angeles for over 10 years. He's a regular at the Comedy Store there and is no stranger to improv and just getting onstage to do his thing. He studied political science and law at UCLA and as a self-described comediologist he brings a great deal of insight and intelligence to his onstage act. He was also a part of the Sultans of Satire comic relief project. He's also a practicing attorney!

Taking on stereotypes at USC

An interview with Voice of America

In Persian with some English.

More stand-up

Iranian comedian - Matthew Nouriel

Matthew Nouriel was born in London, England to Iranian parents. In his teenage years he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he lives to this day. Matthew has worked in television, film, and theatre, and more recently, been performing stand-up comedy. His Iranian heritage, along with his British sensibilities and American influences result in a unique point of view in life, and ultimately result in very funny comedy. Matthew Nouriel is on MySpace and has his own YouTube channel.

Live at the Comedy Store

Talking about hair, manicure and machismo

Back at the Comedy Store

Iranian comedian - Yashar Kafi

Yashar Kafi is an Iranian import to the US, speaks Persian as his first language and studied at Oregon University. Yashar Kafi has his own YouTube channel with all his videos. And he's on MySpace. He's a great stand-up comedian who's just starting out and has already become a regular at places like the Comedy Store. His act focuses on stereotypes, perception and the comedy of politics and necessity. He's particularly sharp when it comes to the clash between political ideology and reality, showing how politics can make for great comedy.

Talking about employment and terrorism

More stand-up from Yashar Kafi

Most recent stand-up video

The loneliest cupcake

Yashar Kafi also stars in this very odd short video...