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On the morning of January 9th, 2001, the local mailman rang at
our door asking whether he was at the right address. In his hand
was a package from Iran (hence the confused mailman) addressed
to EmptyWords (hence an even more confused mailman). I quickly
signed for the package and rushed inside to open it. Content:
two beautiful books about Death in Farsi (the language of the
Persian people of Iran). So this
was what the guy was talking about in his email.....
This all
started a few months earlier, when we got an email from R-Joe
asking us for our mailing address. We had no idea where he was
from, and I guess we assumed he, like a lot of you, was from the
States. But then this package arrived all the way from Iran and
we were totally amazed. He told us one book was for Chuck and
the other for us. So we sent a copy over to Chuck, who in his
words was, "truly blown away and extremely honored by the
obvious work and devotion he put into bringing the book to life".
Meanwhile we got to learn
that there were three guys behind all of this:
*R-Joe (Ali Arjmandi), to whom I was already introduced. He made
the cover of the book together with Mahyar's brother (Maziyar
Mohyedean, actually the fourth guy).
*Mahyar Mohyeddean who actually translated all the lyrics into
Farsi and
*MP (Mohammad Pazhutan) who did the corrections as well as some
writing.
Iran is a culture very different
from what we are accustomed to in our comfortable and rich Western
Society. We understood when emailing with the guys, how extremely
difficult it must have been for them to realize this piece of
work. This got us very interested in the story behind it and the story about metal in Iran. We thought it would be a nice
idea to share this with you all and we asked Mohammed if he could
write it down for all fans to read. Read the words and understand
one simple, underlying message. Whoever you are and wherever you're
from, those who have a story to tell will always find a way to
express the voice of the soul.
The sitekeeper, February
2001
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Drifting into
the lives
Seep into the soul where emotions hide
Dark skies were beating me down
With shadows of deceit slashing at
Trust till it forever bleeds
With doubt, with pain, with trust
Is pain
When you
think of me in your
Multidimensional mind, try and wash the
"evil" from your mind and open it
When you
taste the truth you will
See like others before me, to you
I am past, a story to tell
Tell it
You may
think you own the end
Take another close look at the script
Of sadness etched in the book
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About three years
ago an Iranian company released a book about Pink Floyd, it
was the first book about a band including just their lyrics.
Soon many companies began to release such books about Metallica
(5 different books), Camel, Beatles etc....
I was wrong when I thought it was a new way to inform people
about musicians because the books were full of rumors and it
was just a way for making quick money. As a result, I decided
to create a book including the articles about metal music, then
I chose to focus on Chuck Schuldiner's lyrics for many reasons.
Firstly he is one of the pioneers of the metal movement, secondly
his lyrics are great and they have a lot of things to say, they
make us think about the facts of life. Thirdly we really appreciate
sophisticated poems with deep meaning, like those in our culture,
great poets like Rumi & Hafez.
Well, I started translating
and writing articles. Most of the time my friend Mohammad &
me were discussing and sharing our ideas about them. After 9
months I finished the book. I took it to some book companies
but most of them had any keen on it and some of them offered
to buy it but they decided to change it for making quick money,
so I replied them a big NO.
Then I visited Mr. M.J.
Mosafa, a famous philosopher and writer. He told me that he
was tired of deceiving rules of companies too and he had received
a certificate to print his book himself. Then he read some lyrics
and translations and said, "They are great". His words
made me hopeful because he was a writer for more than 30 years
and has translated most of the Krishna Murty's books. Then he
told me that he will support me and I can use his certificate
to print the book myself.
I made up my mind to print
it myself. I took it to the Ministry of Culture to receive permission
to print it. After about one month they replied that there are
some problems, first they wanted me to censor the lyrics of
the song "Spiritual Healing". I discussed with them
and they agreed to censor just two sentences. There were some
pictures of Chuck Schuldiner inside the book and on the cover
and they told me to remove them. I asked the reason because
similar books contained pictures of vocalists. They said since
the beginning of this year they will no longer let anyone do
it! But they let me print the covers of the albums easily!
I received the permission,
and when you receive the permission they give you papers with
45% discount. So I took the papers to a printing factory and
at last after a year and a half, the book
was brought to life. When I saw the first one in my hands something
came to my mind: "There are things in life worth fighting
for".
There are a few mistakes
in it due to software problems but I will correct them if there
will be a second edition, if there is one. There is no rose
without a thorn.
Mayhar Mohyeddean
mahyardean@hotmail.com
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The
Book Crew
Translations,
articles and edition by Mahyar Mohyeddean
Design by Maziyar Mohyeddean
Computer art works by Ali Arjomandi
Thanks to Mr. M.J. Mosafa and Mohammad Pazhutan for their time,
sharing ideas and creativity.
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Mahyar and Mohammad |
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EPILOGUE
That's not where the
story ended (don't forget to look behind the cover). Chuck sent
over some gifts for Mahyar to Iran, also some CD's which were
initially confiscated by the Iranian Ministry Of Culture. Mahyar
talked with the man at the Ministry for five hours about music
and lyrics (describing the philosophy of metal vocals) because
only instrumental music is allowed in Iran. He managed to convince
him and was finally allowed to take the CD's home. What a big
surprise it was when they wrote us saying that that same Ministry
bought 500 copies of Mahyar's book for the national public libraries
of Iran! So for the Iranian fans visiting this site, you know
where to go.
The sitekeeper, April 2001
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February 2002
Especially for the Iranian fans: Mahyar has published his second
book about Testament and it's available in the stores in Iran. |
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