Pedestrian

By now, the world cup has come and gone and the real victor, aside from Spain and Coca Cola … was Paul the Octopus.

I’m sure you’ve all heard and read extensively on Paul, so I will not waste your time talking about this awesome Octopus.

What I do want to talk about is the awesome owner of the facebook page, “Hazrat-e Okhtapus” (His Excellency the Octopus).

His Excellency the Octopus claims to “not be political”. But he’s really a euphemism for the Supreme Leader of Iran. He posts about 4 to 5 messages everyday, sometimes accompnaied by pictures (the above picture was released yesterday, with the message “the flag of his excellency’s holy establishment was released today.”) The messages always refer to a famous quote by Khamenei or his rift with Mousavi et al or his relationship with Ahmadinejad. They are extremely witty, smart and lmao funny.

This is another photo with the title “viva his excellency! note: his excellency wearing a local costume on one of his provincial visits.”

And another titled: “a warm meeting with the people near the Persian Gulf after the inauguration of  Jamaran [a neighborhood norht of Tehran where Ayatollah Khomeini lived] battleship. A Devotee of his excellency is congratulating him.”

This image was uploaded by a fan. The creature’s arms are labeled “Hamas”, “IRGC”, “Hezbollah”, etc, etc.

Another cartoon uploaded to the page is by renowned Iranian cartoonist Mana Neyestani as he chronicles the story of the Darghir family. The octopus is shown in the middle. The right tank is labeled “people”. The left tank is labeled “leaders of the coup d’etat”. The catch is that the left tank also has a juice carton inside – it is jokingly (and sometimes seriously) said that Ahmadinejad woos people into the streets promising them free food and juice.

I am not able to really capture the humor in these English translations. So if you can read Persian, head on to his facebook page, read his notes … and enjoy!

You can also reach his excellency at: hazrat.okhtapous@gmail.com‬