i am old news...

Just found out that a 7-minute documentary made by Jana Sintschnig and starring myself and my good friend Ayman Ramadan was screened last night at the Arab Film Festival in San Francisco. Pretty f-ing cool! And probably ok that you missed it since in most of the footage Jana used of interviews with me, I look like a drowned rat. I was all sweaty that day, having gone bike riding before meeting up with Jana. Still, such a well-edited piece by her, and awesome, really, in telling a small part of Ayman's story and of some thoughts I formed on contemporary art while working in Egypt from 2004-2005.

books on the middle east

So I'm going on this trip very soon and I'm very excited about it. It'll be my first time out of America since I got back from all that time I spent in Egypt and Lebanon and I'm heading to Lebanon, Syria and Turkey with my family for two and a half weeks. Great! Yay!

I will hang out with my family and go to the beach and eat amazing home-cooked meals in Lebanon. I will smell the jasmines and walk up and down Hamra and look out the window at the Mediterranean as we zip here and there. In Aleppo, I will go the Turkish baths and have all the dirt scrubbed off of me, I will let my father lead me to sites of historical significance, and I'll stock up on olive oil soap at the old market. In Istanbul, I will wander the markets and mosques, and I will read books in cafes. Ok, so carefree Middle East vacation, right? Well, yes...but I think it might be nice to know some more before I go, especially since the Middle East is a hotbed and such. So I asked a bunch of people I know--or wrote an email and bcc'ed a bunch of people I know who I thought might be of help--what books they might recommend. The subject of the email was "the quintessential middle east book?", a query that prompted one friend to respond:

"One book? To explain the past few years? In the whole ME? You craaaazy, man. You might want to narrow your scope a li'l..."

That made me send out an addendum, which said:

"it doesn't have to be one book about the whole thing...but one book
that captures something big about part of it...it could even be a
novel..."

And that initial crazy-calling friend has yet to respond.

Other replies I've received so far include:

"Per your request, I'd recommend Tom Segev's ONE PALESTINE, COMPLETE which is
about Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate. Though it's not about
recent events per se, the book, which is quite engagingly written (put out
by Metropolitan about seven years ago) takes a complex and sweeping look at
some of the roots of what's going on today in the region. Hell, it's so
sweeping I haven't even finished yet--but I'm planning to, soon."

"K and i suggest lonely planet. rough guide is probably the better
one to find though."

"hi, both are mainly about iraq. you should recall Ajami is a master stylist but can get tedious. he is also considered an apologist for the US, but i think he represents one pole of historical thought among shia (he is one). shia across history are the more imaginative, flexible among major islamic communtities. he's trying to tell the US audeince to get used to them and accept their potential for democracy in iraq, they are not part nor will they become, unless p[erhaps the US messes up, an adjunct of iran, but rather will put their imprint implacably on iraq which the others (kurds and sunnis) can and of necessity will have to accept the space made for them as second bananas. nasr on the other hand argues a more expansive shia revival, which ajami would strongly contest (i dont know how well nasr writes). i havent read either, so i could be missing the mark. you as a reader of nyrb should already be aware of more reflective personal writings in lebanese settings and elsewhere, im just trying to point out political stuff that largely tends away from the polemic.
1)The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq, by Fouad Ajami
2)The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future, by Vali Nasr"

"well a good book is
no god but god , i swear by that book
it talks about current events in the last 2 chapters i guess."

"i dont think i can think of the quintessential book. i dont read
many of these "sweep across the region" books i am afraid.

two i can recommend on palestine though:

ali abunimah's "one country" where he beautifully outlines his
argument for a one-state solution.

joseph massad's "the persistence of the palestinian question" which
is a collection of essays that trace the intellectual history of
zionism and its effects on both jews and palestinians.

i dont know if this helps. i know that neither of these are about
your destination spots. but still they are good. ali's book is a
short and readable. joseph's book is much denser but super smart in
both the arguments it makes and the range of material it draws on."

If anyone has additional thoughts, I'd love to hear them. I plan to get started just as soon as I can pull myself out from under this semester.

Pending post: the downfall of Grey's Anatomy (that doctor show on ABC), but before you have to pay for it, I urge you to check out this article in the NYT, which really hits the nail on the head about all that.

Lebanese food for infidels

I live with five other people in a house and tonight we had a potluck. We each invited a few friends. Only one of the five of us avoids eating animal products, and the potluck was entirely vegetarian and mostly even vegan. Of course this made our vegan (who doesn’t entirely like that word) very happy. And it made everyone else happy too, because it was some damn good food. Let’s see if I can list most of it: spicy Thai noodles with vegetables and tofu, fried tofu skins stuffed with rice, meatless sushi (mango, pickles, tofu, avocado, sweet potato), seaweed salad, tasty carrot/broccoli/and-lots-of-other-tasty-vegetables soup, braised golden beets, fake fried chicken in a teriyaki-like sauce, roasted vegetable ravioli with pesto and artichokes, amarinth with veggies…and I feel like there was something else, but I’m just not sure. Oh, amazing berry pie, all tart and gooey and purpley and sweet. And really rich chocolate cake. As everyone was getting their delicious creations in order, I laid out a few simple Lebanese-inspired appetizers to whet our palates. Below, you’ll find a photograph of the ingredients, the “before” picture, if you will:I went to Queen of Sheba market for the canned beans and the tahini when I was in the neighborhood yesterday and then stopped by a little place near my house, in the shadow of Safeway, called Golden Produce for, well, the produce. I had the labneh from a recent trip to Walnut Creek, purchased from the Afghani Market where my uncle and I stopped to pick up kebabs for dinner. The za’atar has been sitting in my cabinet for months, since I stole some from my cousin’s wife’s kitchen cabinet.

Whenever people ask me about cooking Lebanese food, I tell them to remember three basic ingredients: lemon, garlic, and olive oil. This is the simple triumvirate that will get you through any Lebanese meal. Those, and of course your beans, your starches. And there’s usually a pile of meat, too, but, truth be told, there are plenty of dishes to eat without it.

So I’ll start with the bread. Pita is brilliant because you can use it to eat with; it’s the ultimate edible utensil. I bought a bag of wheat pita that I warmed up and cut into halves just before dinner. And tonight, for an added crowd-pleaser, I made pita chips from a bag of white pita. For this, cut each pita loaf into six slices, like a pie and separate each slice into to triangles. Lay the slices flat on a cookie sheet, so that no pieces overlap. Dab each with some olive oil and sprinkle in za’atar. (Za’atar is a Middle Eastern spice mix that varies in its constitution by country; the Lebanese version has sesame seeds and thyme among its ingredients.) Bake until golden brown and cool before serving.

Next, labneh. This labneh was store-bought, like I said, and I just spread it into a bowl and drizzled with olive oil and za’atar and garnished with parsley and black olives. You can also make labneh at home by draining yogurt (skim, low-fat, or full fat) in a cheese cloth in the fridge for a few days.

Okay, hummus. I’ll never forget when I was living in New York after college and somehow I received the knowledge from my mother of how to make hummus and when I served it to friends they were all totally wowed by this dish that I didn’t even really like, that was super-simple to make. But then I started liking it more when and began to realize that the main thing with hummus is that you really have to get a feel for the proportioning the ingredients as you like them according to flavor and texture. I usually roughly go by the can of chic peas. For each can you use, drain about half the water and reserve the rest to dump in your bowl with the chic peas. Than add about a clove of garlic, a big pinch of salt and the juice of one small lemon or half a large one. Also add a big spoon of tahini. Blend until smooth. I just got a hand-blender for Christmas and it works all right and is super-convenient for clean up. Hummus is often traditionally garnished with radishes and paprika. Tonight, I used parsley, olive oil, and olives.

Now, baba ghanoush. This is exactly the same as the hummus, except you use eggplants instead of chic peas, which makes it entirely different. All I could find at Golden Produce were Chinese eggplants—skinny, light-colored little things. I prepared them as I always do, by roasting over the gas range, blackening the outsides as the insides soften. Then after they cool, I peel off the outside layer of skin. Today I had trouble roasting them all the way through, so I saved the hard parts, and threw them into a skillet with a little bit of oil to soften and cook them more. It all turned out pretty good. I had half of an onion I’d caramelized last night, which I threw in for flavor, along with a dash of crushed red pepper. I was using the last of a jar of tahini, so I let it sit in a few tablespoons of hot water a few minutes to get all the paste off the glass.

And, finally, foul. Foul, which just means fava beans, was a big part of my life in Egypt. Heck, it’s a big part of everyone’s lives there. But I still like the Lebanese version better, which is what I made tonight. Now of course with all these canned beans, you can really do it, and buy them dried and soak and boil them and all that, but of course I went for the easy way out and bought a big can of favas. I drained just a little bit of the water and saved the rest, dumping it all out into a pot. I added lemon, garlic, and salt and then heated the whole thing until simmering slightly. Then I turned off the fire, added minced parsley and tomatoes, and put it in bowls.

B aided me by very skillfully cutting up a cucumber into small, round slices to serve as a refresher and a dipping alternative to the pita chips. Yum. Here is the “after.”

And I didn’t take the “after after,” but it would have been a picture of a bunch of very satisfied looking people, sitting slumped in a haphazard ring of chairs in our living room with smiles on their faces, and my Lebanese mezzas were an essential precursor to that bliss.

Orientalism in English Class

So I have this friend, A, who just moved here from Egypt, where I met him, right? And he's going to school and of course he has to take English, since they need to assimilate him into the system and he needs to get by in this country, or whatever. Well, from all he's told me, his teacher is an idiot and super hands-off and doesn't take much time to help and explain how our insane language works, and does odd things like taking the class to a park near school and says, "Well, now you're here, it's a beautiful place, a beautiful day, no homeless people around, go have fun," and then he leaves. And he makes them write papers without going too deep into how a paper works, doesn't even give them the dreaded five-paragraph essay model, or anything. Instead, he pushes A to go to something called the writing lab where there are people who will supposedly help him.

Okay, moving on. A is writing a paper about Dahab, this beautiful, somewhat forgotten outpost on the middle of the eastern coast of the Sinai, frequented not by out-of-country tourists but moreso by Egyptians and expats living in Egypt and a few Israelis. Dahab's got little hotels on the beach with tents and carpets set up right by the water. It's relaxing...and incredible. Amazing fresh fish dinners to be had on those carpets. There's also snorkeling and horseriding and bedouin treks into the inland desert. It's paradise and it's cheap. You should go. But back to A. Tonight, I was helping him with his final draft since he's ailing in bed and I take a look at what the guy at the writing lab did, which was basically just add a few commas and some sort of fancy sentences, but really miss a lot of other pretty basic grammar stuff and A tells me that his teacher read only the first few broken sentences of his first draft and then the guy went off on how he wants to see! and feel! and hear! and smell! and taste! the place! How he doesn't even care if it exists like that, how he wants a picture of this foreign paradise. So, I'm like, damn, A, let's give this guy his Orientalist wet dream. And we do. We give him bedouin boys on horses and camels frolicking in the sand and men smoking sheeshas under palm trees and the calm waters of the Red Sea. And all those things exist in Dahab...but so many other things exist in Dahab, too. Oh well. Maybe A can write something more interesting and true for his next story. I hope he gets a good grade.

A Perfect Day

Yesterday was a great day. You know the kind...? When everything goes right and the rhythm of it flows so it just feels good. In the middle of it, I went for a walk with A and B to Buena Vista Park. A didn't know where we were going, and he insisted it didn't matter, but as we walked up Haight Street and things started going uphill, he began to complain. And...as we reached the park and began to climb upwards on paths and steps, he insisted we take breaks. But we made it to the top and it was gorgeous. I mean, of course, seeing most cities from above is nice, particularly a city like San Francisco. But it was also...nice to be there so high up and listen to the crows.

Here's a picture of A and B from behind as we were walking down, light shooting at us through the trees.

Before the park, I made lunch at home and we listened to Egyptian music. (Egypt's where I know A from. We worked at the same gallery in downtown Cairo when I was in Egypt for nine months between 2004 and 2005. He was born in a town outside Cairo and just moved here two months ago now, his first time outside Egypt.) I listen to Arabic music alone pretty often but rarely with other Arabs, so it was nice to sit and talk about the lyrics--what they mean, whether they are poetry or dialect. This is the sort of conversation you have when you listen to Om Kalthoum. Most of her recorded music is in very long operatic songs, beautiful, moving, painful, even if you don't know Arabic. You can listen to some of them here. The two that I know well are Al-Atlal (The Ruins) and El Hobb Keda (Love is Like This (or That?)). Both highly recommended. We also got in some Fairouz. She goes very well with sweet, dark tea.

A also reminded me about this crazy video:

A very tongue-in-cheek production out of his home country and my temporarily adopted home country. Awesome.

And then after the park it got cold and I biked west alone and then east again with T to a lovely gathering in honor of dessert. Creme brulee, ginger snaps, fruit salad, whipped cream, strawberry-crowned cupcakes, macaroons, mojitos. I'm not a sugar person, but damn was that a nice sugar high.