The German Fountain at the Hippodrome of Constantinople.

Modern vending kiosk in a train station in Hyogo, Japan.

An Internet kiosk in Hemer, Germany

Kiosk is a small, separated garden pavilion open on some or all sides. Kiosks were common in Persia, India, Pakistan, and in the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century onward. Today, there are many kiosks in and around the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, and they are still a relatively common sight in Greece.

In the Western hemisphere and in English-speaking countries, a kiosk is also a booth with an open window on one side. Some vendors operate from kiosks (see mall kiosk), selling small, inexpensive consumables such as newspapers, magazines, lighters, street maps, cigarettes, and confections.

An information kiosk (or information booth) dispenses free information in the form of maps, pamphlets, and other literature, and/or advice offered by an attendant.

An electronic kiosk (or computer kiosk or interactive kiosk) houses a computer terminal that often employs custom kiosk software designed to function flawlessly while preventing users from accessing system functions. Indeed, kiosk mode describes such a mode of software operation. Computerized kiosks may store data locally, or retrieve it from a computer network. Some computer kiosks provide a free, informational public service, while others serve a commercial purpose (see mall kiosk). Touchscreens, trackballs, computer keyboards, and pushbuttons are all typical input devices for interactive computer kiosk. Touchscreen kiosks are commercially used as industrial appliances, reducing lines, eliminating paper, improving efficiency and service. Their uses are unlimited from refrigerators to airports, health clubs, movie theaters and libraries.

Etymology[link]

Despite some claims that the word kiosk originally came from the Swahili language, all evidence points to a Persian origin.

Conservatories[link]

Conservatories were in the form of corridors connecting the Pavilion to the stables and consisting of a passage of flowers covered with glass and linked with orangery, a greenhouse, an aviary, a pheasantry and hothouses. The influence of Muslim and Islamo-Indian forms appears clearly in these buildings and particularly in the pheasantry where its higher part isban adaptation of the kiosks found on the roof of Allahabad Palace and illustrated by Thomas Daniell. Today's conservatories incorporate many Muslim elements, although modern art forms have shifted from the classical art forms that were used in earlier times.

See also[link]

Royal Military College of Canada information kiosk

• Pavilions
• Gazebo
• Bandstand
• Belvedere (structure)
• Fotomat
• Litfass
• Self-service kiosk
• Telephone booth
• ZoomShops
• Automated teller machine
• Automated Retail

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kiosks

References[link]

• Halsband, R. (1965 edn.), ‘The complete letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

محسن نامجو Mohsen Namjoo
Background information
Born	1976 (age 35–36) Torbat-e Jam, Iran
Genres	Persian traditional music Iranian folk music Iranian rock Acoustic
Occupations	Songwriter Setar player Singer
Instruments	Setar Guitar
Years active	1993–present
Website	www.mohsennamjoo.com
Notable instruments
Setar

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2011)

Mohsen Namjoo, (Persian: محسن نامجو‎), is an Iranian musician, singer-songwriter. born in 1976 in Torbat-e Jam, a small town in northeastern Iran. His unique style of music is influenced by Blues and Rock as well as Iranian folk music. The lyrics of his songs are also odd combination of Persian classical poems, his own lyrics, and contemporary poems; and uses the words freely with irony and sarcasm to carry the music and make a free style of singing.

The New York Times called Namjoo "Iran's Bob Dylan".^[1]

Career[link]

Namjoo was born in Iran in a Muslim family. When he was one year old, his family moved to Mashhad where he lived until the age of 18. His father, Mohammad Hossein Namjoo, died when he was 12. His family encouraged him to start attending music classes in classical Persian vocal music.

In 1994 he studied Music at University of Tehran in addition to taking some theater classes. In 1997, Namjoo quit the music program explaining that he found their teaching methods and material a repetition of what he has learned before and as a result would not benefit him. Namjoo also studied Iranian folk music. He is also familiar with Western musical styles, particularly blues and rock.

In late 1997 and early 1998, Namjoo had his first two concerts, themed "modern combination of Iranian poetry and music".^[2] In 2003 he started recording parts of his own works in Tehran. His debut album titled Toranj was officially released in Iran in September 2007. He also composed soundtracks for movies and plays.

He was featured in the documentary Sounds of Silence (directed by Amir Hamz and Mark Lazarz] which has been screened at international film festivals. He also appeared in a feature narrative film called Few Kilograms of Dates for the Funeral (Director Saman Saloor), played in various film festivals.

In 2006 he was sentenced in absentia to a five-year jail term for allegedly ridiculing the ash-Shams, a sura of Quran in the song named "Shams" by Iranian courts. The conviction took place in spite of his formal apology.^[3][4][5] After establishing in the West, he sang this song in his Oy album as a single.

Namjoo's first performance outside Iran was in January 2006 at the Tehran Hotspot of the International Rotterdam Film Festival where he played solo.^{[citation needed]}. Mohsen Namjoo performed his first live TV concert on the Persian News Network of Voice of America for the Norouz event for the celebration of Persian new year on Saturday, March 20, 2010.^{[citation needed]}

In 2010, Namjoo kicked off his "A Minor" tour with a new band ensemble centered around some of his most popular and courageous songs. In June they performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California (US).^{[citation needed]} In October they performed at the Sony Center in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Mohsen Namjoo also released a single titled "Such Strange Times" in June, a song sung in English.

He also writes poetry, and sometimes uses his own satirical lyrics in his songs blended with the classical poetry of Hafez, Rumi or Saadi. His music and words are very emotional and, in his works, he creates a fusion of various styles from traditional Iranian to blues and rock.

On May 21, 2012, Namjoo and Mohammad-Reza Shajarian the Iran's greatest traditional Persian music master shook hands for composing an album (Shajare Nameh) in which they both sing.^{[citation needed]}

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Toranj (September 2007)
• Jabr-e Joghrafiyaei (2008)
• Oy (October 2009)
• Useless Kisses (February 2011)
• Shajare Nameh (2012)

Live albums[link]

• Alaki (December 2011)

Singles[link]

• Strange Times (2010)

Audiobooks[link]

• The Alchemist (by Paulo Coelho), produced by Caravan (publishing), 2008

See also[link]

• Rock and alternative music in Iran
• Persian traditional music
• Music of Iran
• My Tehran for Sale

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mohsen Namjoo's Official Website
• Video : Mohsen Namjoo – Ey saraban Song
• namjooo fans mailing list at Yahoo Groups
• http://www.bugler.blogfa.com/post-52.aspx, Namjoo talks about Copyright in Iran
• http://kosoof.com/archive/360.php, some photos from World AIDS Day 2004, Tehran
• http://www.iranican.com/blog/?p=177, interview with Iranican September, 2008
• Leaked Song Causes Conviction of “Iranian Bob Dylan”
• Zolf bar bād madeh ... (Don't let the breeze blow through your lock of hair ...), a song by Mohsen Namjoo based on a lyric poem by Hafez: YouTube (6 min 35 sec). Hafez's pertinent lyric poem can be consulted here.
• Ey Sārebān Kojā Miravi? (O Camel-Rider, Where Are You Going?), YouTube (5 min 11 Sec).
• Mohsen Namjoo's Discography on IranSong
• http://www.wordpatch.com/2010/01/oy-mohsen-namjoo-feat.html Review of "OY" Album in Persian and English.

Sergei Parajanov (Armenian: Սարգիս Հովսեփի Փարաջանյան, Sargis or Sarkis Hofsepi Paradzhanian; Georgian: სერგეი (სერგო) ფარაჯანოვი, Sergei (Sergo) Paradzhanov; Russian: Серге́й Ио́сифович Параджа́нов, Sergei Yosifovich Paradzhanov; Ukrainian: Сергій Йосипович Параджанов, Serhii Yosypovych Paradzhanov; also spelled Paradzhanov or Paradjanov January 9, 1924 — July 20, 1990) was a Soviet Armenian film director and artist, who significantly contributed to Ukrainian, Armenian and Georgian cinema.^[2]

He invented his own cinematic style, which was totally out of step with the guiding principles of socialist realism (the only sanctioned art style in the USSR). This, combined with his controversial lifestyle and behaviour, led Soviet cinema authorities to repeatedly persecute and imprison him and suppress his films.

Although he started professional film-making in 1954, Parajanov later disowned all of his pre-1964 works as "garbage". After directing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (renamed Wild Horses of Fire for most foreign distributions) Parajanov had become something of an international celebrity and simultaneously a target of attacks from the system. Nearly all of his film projects and plans from 1965–1973 were banned, scrapped or closed by the Soviet film administration, both local (in Kiev and Yerevan) and federal (infamous Goskino), almost without discussion until he was finally arrested in late 1973 on trumped-up charges of rape, homosexuality and bribery. Parajanov was imprisoned until 1977, despite a plethora of pleas for pardon from various esteemed artists.

Even after his release (he would be arrested for the third and last time in 1982) he was a persona non grata in Soviet cinema. It was not until the mid-1980s, when the political climate started to relax, that he could resume directing. Still, it required the help of influential Georgian actor Dodo Abashidze and other friends to have his last feature films green-lighted. His health seriously weakened by four years in labor camps and nine months in a Tbilisi prison, Parajanov died of lung cancer in 1990, at the time when, after almost 20 years of suppression, his films were finally again allowed to be featured in foreign film festivals.

Early life and films[link]

Parajanov was born to artistically-gifted Armenian parents Iosif Paradjanov and Siranush Bejanova, in Tbilisi, Georgia. His childhood was blessed with having access to art from an early age. In 1945, Parajanov traveled to Moscow, enrolled in the directing department at the VGIK, one of the oldest and highly respected film schools of Europe, and studied under the tutelage of directors Igor Savchenko and Aleksandr Dovzhenko. In 1948 he was convicted of homosexual acts (which were illegal at the time in the Soviet Union) with a MGB officer named Nikolai Mikava in Tbilisi. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but was amnestied after being incarcerated for three months.^[3]

In 1950 Parajanov married his first wife, Nigyar Kerimova in Moscow. She came from a Muslim Tatar family and converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity to marry Parajanov, to terrible consequences: she was later murdered by her relatives in retaliation for her conversion. As a result of this tragic event Parajanov left Russia for Kiev, Ukraine. There he produced a few documentaries (Dumka, Golden Hands, Natalia Uzhvy) and a handful of narrative films: Andriesh (based on the fairy tale by Moldovan writer Emilian Bukov), The Top Guy (a kolkhoz musical), Ukrainian Rhapsody (a wartime melodrama), and Flower on the Stone (about a religious cult infiltrating a mining town in the Donets Basin). He learned and became fluent in Ukrainian and remarried (with Svitlana Ivanivna Shcherbatiuk aka Svetlana Sherbatiuk aka Svetlana Parajanov) in 1956. Shcherbatiuk gave him a son (Suren, 1958).

Break from Soviet Realism[link]

Tarkovsky's first film Ivan's Childhood had an enormous impact on Parajanov's self-discovery as a filmmaker (later the influence became mutual, they were also close friends). In 1964 he abandoned socialist realism and directed the poetic Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, his first film in which he had complete creative control and which won numerous international awards. Unlike the subsequent The Color of Pomegranates, it was relatively well-received by the Soviet authorities. The Script Editorial Board at Goskino of Ukraine praised the film for “conveying the poetic quality and philosophical depth of M. Kotsiubynsky’s tale through the language of cinema” and called it “a brilliant creative success of the Dovzhenko studio.”

Moscow also agreed to Goskino of Ukraine's request to release the film with its original Ukrainian soundtrack intact rather than re-dub the dialogue into Russian for Soviet-wide release, in order to preserve its Ukrainian flavor.^[4] (Russian dubbing was standard practice at that time for non-Russian Soviet films when they were distributed outside the republic of origin.)

Parajanov departed Kiev shortly afterwards for his motherland of Armenia. In 1968, he embarked on Sayat Nova, a film which many consider to be his crowning achievement, though it was shot under relatively poor conditions and had a very small budget.^[5] Soviet censors intervened once again and immediately banned Sayat Nova for its allegedly inflammatory content. Parajanov re-edited his footage and renamed the film, The Color of Pomegranates. It remains his best-known and most emblematic film. Critic Alexei Korotyukov remarked: "Paradjanov made films not about how things are, but how they would have been had he been God." Mikhail Vartanov wrote in 1969 that "...Besides the film language suggested by Griffith and Eisenstein, the world cinema has not discovered anything revolutionarily new until The Color of Pomegranates ...".^[6]

Imprisonment and later work[link]

The Sergei Parajanov Museum in Yerevan

Parajanov's monument in Tbilisi

By December 1973, Soviet authorities grew increasingly suspicious of Parajanov's perceived subversive proclivities (particularly his bisexuality) and sentenced him to five years in a hard labor camp in Siberia for "a rape of a Communist Party member, and the propagation of pornography."^[7] Three days before he was sentenced, Andrei Tarkovsky wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, asserting that "In the last ten years Sergei Paradjanov has made only two films: Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors and The Colour of Pomegranates. They have influenced cinema first in the Ukraine, second in this country as a whole, and third – in the world at large? Artistically, there are few people in the entire world who could replace Paradjanov. He is guilty – guilty of his solitude. We are guilty of not thinking of him daily and of failing to discover the significance of a master."

An eclectic group of artists, filmmakers and activists protested, to little avail, on behalf of Parajanov, among them, Yves Saint Laurent, Françoise Sagan, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Mikhail Vartanov). Parajanov served four years out of his five year sentence, and later credited his early release to the efforts of the French Surrealist poet and novelist Louis Aragon, the Russian poet Elsa Triolet (Aragon's wife), and the American writer John Updike.^[5] His early release was authorised by Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presumably as a consequence of the General Secretary's chance meeting with Aragon and Triolet at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. When asked by the Secretary if he could be of any assistance, Aragon requested the release of Parajanov, which was effected by December 1977.^[7]

While incarcerated Parajanov produced a large number of miniature doll-like sculptures (some of which were lost) and some 800 drawings and collages, many of which were later displayed in Yerevan, where the Parajanov Museum is now permanently located.^[8] The museum opened in 1991, a year after Parajanov’s death, and hosts more than 200 works as well as furnishings from his home in Tbilisi. His efforts in the camp were repeatedly compromised by prison guards, who deprived him of materials and called him mad, their cruelty only subsiding after a statement from Moscow admitted "the Director is very talented."^[5]

Upon his return from prison to Tbilisi, the close watch of Soviet censors prevented Parajanov from continuing his cinematic pursuits and steered him towards artistic outlets which he had nurtured during his time in prison. He crafted extraordinarily intricate collages, created a large collection of abstract drawings and pursued numerous other avenues of non-cinematic art, sewing more dolls and some whimsical suits.

In February 1982 Parajanov was once again imprisoned, on charges of bribery, which happened to coincide with his return to Moscow for the premiere of a play commemorating Vladimir Vysotsky at the Taganka Theatre, and were affected with some degree of trickery. Despite another stiff sentence, he was freed in less than a year with his health seriously weakened.^[7] By 1984, the slow thaw within the Soviet Union spurred Parajanov to resume his passion for cinema. With the encouragement of various Georgian intellectuals, he created the multi-award winning Legend of Suram Fortress based on the novella by Daniel Chonkadze, his first return to cinema since Sayat Nova first premiered fifteen years earlier. In 1988 Parajanov made another multi-award winning film, Ashik Kerib, based on a story by Mikhail Lermontov. It is the story of a wandering minstrel set in the Azeri culture. Parajanov dedicated the film to his close friend Andrei Tarkovsky and "to all the children from the world".

Parajanov then immersed himself in a project that ultimately proved too monumental to withstand his failing health. He died of cancer in Yerevan, Armenia, on July 20, 1990, aged 66, leaving his final masterpiece, The Confession unfinished. It survives in its original negative as Parajanov: The Last Spring, assembled by his close friend Mikhail Vartanov in 1992. He left behind a book of memoirs, also titled "The Confession". Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra, Francesco Rosi, Alberto Moravia, Giulietta Masina, Marcello Mastroianni and Bernardo Bertolucci were among those who publicly mourned his death.^[6] A telegram that came to Russia read^[who?] "The world of cinema has lost a magician".^[6] Parajanov-Vartanov Institute was established in Hollywood in 2010 to study, preserve and promote the artistic legacies of Sergei Parajanov (1924–1990) and Mikhail Vartanov (1937–2009).^[9]

Influences and legacy[link]

Despite having studied film at the VGIK, he discovered his artistic path only after seeing Andrei Tarkovsky's dreamlike first film Ivan's Childhood. Parajanov had many admirers of his art but, as in the case of Orson Welles (another unique artist) his vision did not attract many followers. "Whoever tries to imitate me is lost", he reportedly said once. However there are directors like Theo Angelopoulos, Béla Tarr and Mohsen Makhmalbaf who share Parajanov's approach to film as a visual medium opposed to a narrative tool like literature.^[10]

Filmography[link]

Screenplays[link]

Produced and partially produced screenplays[link]

• Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Тіні забутих предків, 1964, co-written with Ivan Chendei, based on the novelette by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky)
• Kyiv Frescoes (Киевские фрески, 1965)
• Sayat Nova (Саят-Нова, 1968, production screenplay of The Color of Pomegranates)
• The Confession (Исповедь, 1969–1989)
• Studies about Vrubel (Этюды о Врубеле, 1989, depiction of Mikhail Vrubel's Kiev period, co-written and directed by Leonid Osyka)
• Swan Lake: The Zone (Лебединое озеро. Зона, 1989, filmed in 1990, directed by Yuri Ilyenko, cinematographer of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors)

Unproduced screenplays and projects[link]

• The Dormant Palace (Дремлющий дворец, 1969, based on Pushkin's poem The Fountain of Bakhchisaray)
• Intermezzo (1972, based on Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky's short story)
• Icarus (Икар, 1972)
• The Golden Edge (Золотой обрез, 1972)
• Ara the Beautiful (Ара Прекрасный, 1972, based on the poem by 20th century Armenian poet Nairi Zaryan about Ara the Beautiful)
• Demon (Демон, 1972, based on Lermontov's eponymous poem)
• The Miracle of Odense (Чудо в Оденсе, 1973, loosely based on the life and works of Hans Christian Andersen)
• David of Sasun (Давид Сасунский, mid-1980s, based on Armenian epic poem David of Sasun)
• The Martyrdom of Shushanik (Мученичество Шушаник, 1987, based on Georgian chronicle by Iakob Tsurtaveli)
• The Treasures of Mount Ararat (Сокровища у горы Арарат)

Among his projects, there also were plans for adapting Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Goethe's Faust, the Old East Slavic poem The Tale of Igor's Campaign, but film scripts for these were never completed.

See also[link]

• Art film
• Asteroid 3963 Paradzhanov
• Cinema of Armenia
• Cinema of Georgia
• Cinema of the Soviet Union
• Cinema of Ukraine
• Sergey Parajanov Museum

References in popular culture[link]

Parajanov's life story provides (quite loosely) the basis for the 2006 novel Stet by the American author James Chapman.

References[link]

1. ^ "Awards for Sergei Parajanov". IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0660886/awards. 
2. ^ Sergei Parajanov, Biography at IMDB
3. ^ Segodnya.ua
4. ^ RGALI (Russian State Archive of Art and Literature), Goskino production and censorship files: f. 2944, op. 4, d. 280.
5. ^ ^{a b c} Sergei Parajanov – Interview with Ron Holloway, 1988
6. ^ ^{a b c} Parajanov.com
7. ^ ^{a b c} Осужден за изнасилование члена КПСС (in Russian), Moskovskiy Komsomolets, 2004
8. ^ Frieze Magazine, Paradjanov the Magnificent
9. ^ Parajanov-Vartanov Institute
10. ^ Parajanov Influence

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sergei Parajanov (Armenian Wikiquote)

• Official Site (Parajanov.com)
• Sergej Parajanov Museum
• Sergei Parajanov at the Internet Movie Database
• ENCI.com
• The Parajanov Case, March 1982
• Sergei Parajanov's 75th birthday
• The Cinemaseekers Honor Roll
• Interview with Ron Holloway
• Film about Parajanov Museum in Yerevan
• Actress Sofiko Chiaureli and many others about him
• Arts: Armenian Rhapsody
• Excerpted from “Paradjanov’s Films on Soviet Folklore” by Jonathan Rosenbaum
• For those who want to know more about Parajanov
• Sayat Nova at YouTube
• TV channel in Los Angeles on Sergei Parajanov
• Evening Moscow Newspaper Spouses of Sergei Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov received awards in Hollywood