Author Archives: Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Elliott Carter – 101st birthday of the most miraculous of composers and still active!!!!

Text by the editor

Elliott CarterToday I read following news by Frank J Oteri in Facebook: “Frank J Oteri celebrated the 101st birthday of the most miraculous of composers–the still actively composing Elliott Carter–by completing the revisions on his wind quintet, EC apparently just wrote a new one, and by writing a completely new piece of music.”

“Wow”, I thought “this sounds interesting”! Let’s check this composer out whose birthday was yesterday.

So I searched in YouTube for him and found two videos celebrating his 100th birthday last year, such as Frank J. Oteri interviewing Mr. Carter…..

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DVD box set – 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa !!!

Akira Kurosawa portrait

Kurosawa dvd box setOn the centenary of Akira Kurosawa’s birth, Criterion pays tribute to the Rashomon posterJapanese cinema great with a monumental box set, AK 100.

The 25 films gathered in this treasury include Kurosawa’s ultimate whodunit and international breakthrough Rashomon; his ever-epiphanic masterpiece Seven Samurai; the princess-and-peasants caper that inspired Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress; and colorful, late-career opuses like Ran and Kagemusha.

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On July 7, 2007, The Boredoms performed a once in a lifetime concert at Brooklyn Bridge Park in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

I, Sohrab, moved with my beautiful wife to NY 7/7/2008. Exactly one year before I came, an old young Japanese friend of mine Yamatsuka Eye of THE BOREDOMS got seventy seven NY drummers together to perform at Brooklyn Bridge Park on July 7th, 2007. Eye of BOREDOMS

Before the show he explained to reporters how the number 7 historically is associated with the Milky Way and a romantic myth about how Japanese ancestors came from a river of stars in heaven. These ancestors called themselves messengers of the sun, or sun goddess Amaterasu, and so the number 7 is associated with the sun. “You are the 78th member! This is because the sound will spiral outwards, from left to right, like DNA, from deep inside of us right out to you. The 77 drum group is one giant instrument, one living creature. The 77 boa-drum will coil like a snake and transform to become a great dragon! “- Yamatsuka EYE.


A Japanese documentary about the examination of the 8th Dan in Kendo.

Sato Hironobu sensei (Kendo 8th Dan hanshi) and me at the BUDOKAN in Tokyo. Photo by Peter Ryan.

Sato Hironobu sensei (Kendo 8th Dan hanshi) and me at the BUDOKAN in Tokyo. Photo by Peter Ryan.

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

As you might know I have been a long time in Japan studying Japanese martial arts, such as Judo and Kendo. For a while I studied both martial arts, but later I decided to focus only on Kendo.

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