Listening to the great Persian singer Googoosh wail the plangent strains of Ghalibaf as the sun sank behind us and we crossed under the Hudson River into Manhattan today, it reminded one of how, in the cacophony of the voices of politicians, some of the heart and soul of what we share as humans can get lost among all the chest-thumping and fight for "miserable power," in Michele Montas' memorable phrase. Like the work of the brilliant, Lycée-educated Iranian author Sadegh Hedayat, whose book The Blind Owl was only available in his native land following the abdication of Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1941, the art of Googoosh, despite the language barrier, speaks as eloquently to the concrete and steel canyons of Manhattan as it does to Teheran's sooty, crowded lanes and serves, on evening's like this one, as a reminder that life is a more nuanced creature than mere politics could ever hope to completely address.
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