Zaytoun

Olives- A violent romance

Taking  a break from my usual passive-aggressive posts, and since amazon is being an ████I will take this opportunity to talk about a great gem I found by pure luck (maybe fate) in my living room two days ago! It was two thick piles of paper that dad brought home to work on despite being on leave, I noticed the writer name said Alexander McNabb, a great blogger I've been stalking* for quite a while, I quickly grabbed it like a fan-girl and flipped through it. I had the Abu Dhabi Art fair opening ceremony invitation in my bag, but nooo! my evening has been planned by fate!

To be honest, I thought it was going to be another biased story about a very touchy subject for me, naturally a part of my identity crisis, the mother land... and all the fancy emotional words I could come up with... in short, "Palestine".

The book Olives is a about a "brit" who's life is turned upside down when he's off to a wrong start upon moving to Jordan. He falls for a Palestinian-Jordanian beauty, Aisha, and becomes (or struggles to become) a part of her world trying to live with his doubts about her family's connections triggered by his own understanding of the middle east and other events he finds too close for comfort. We live the story through Paul Stoke's eyes, mind and heart as his belief and trust gets put to test.


What I expected was a typical taboo romance, riddled with misinformation, and prejudice towards Palestinians (knee-jerk reaction really, a common palestinian trait), a couple of self-righteous extremists and an "ajnabi" who saves the day.
One of the very few times I was glad to have been wrong. It provided a different experience for me as a reader, it's not the 5 minute euphoria of self-discovery, or 30 minutes of wall-of-reality-depression, for once it felt like I was reading a story like I was listening to a close friend's story with a good cup of coffee.  And I forgot by the end of the first chapter that I knew who the author was.

The plot is very clever and very intriguing, and I was reacting to every twist and fighting the urge to just jump to the final page, laughing and crying along with the every line, whenever someone interrupted me I felt like flailing my arms around in a teenage tantrum of LEAVE-ME-ALONE-ism.

It has the right mix of romance, intrigue, mystery, action, and information, and most importantly the humanity in every character.

The bad part? Finding that I have reached the last page.

In a Hyperbole or two? (and quote yours truly *adjusts monocle*):  "Wildest book-induced- emotional trip ever had!"



I'll give myself a medal for not posting any spoilers.

The book hopefully comes out on November 30th for us here in the middle east. BUT despair not! you can get it for kindle on Amazon (those jerkwads...) and smashwords.


* stalking: act of following online activity, it's completely okay when I do it, and I strongly advise you to not follow my steps.

KAFFIR! DEVIL! PANIC! and Persepolis

We all must've heard of Nessma TV's blunder of airing Persepolis.  I am appalled at the reaction which could have been more civil.

I have watched Persepolis, my dad works in media content monitoring, and I tell you this movie was not offensive to the point you have to break into the building and harass the staff about it!

And for the most part the scenes where "God" appears, are 3, all of which are crucial to the plot development and especially to the girl in some important stages of her life, and naturally blend into the story, especially when the first depiction appeared in the protagonist's dream as a child. I believe we all as kids imagined what God would have looked like one way or another!

And I can see the relation that Nessma Tv probably saw fit at the time to link the Iranian revolution and the Tunisian one that lead way to bigger things in the middle east. And it probably saw fit also that  it was in french and with Muslim issues.

It could have been avoided if Nessma simply bothered to freeze the screen at those scenes right before "God's" appearance, and just leave the voice. Leaving the task of finding the deleted scenes to the smart Tunisian public who CAN accept and interpret it artistically.

I believe most of the rage was due to the fact many people failed to understand that Persepolis is NOT (like many other animation) for kids. But I think it's a valuable addition to animations that you must see!

Then again, we are the same people who claimed Pokemon is Zionist (embarrassing era I tell you...) and accused everything coming from America to be a plot to kill our precious precious fertility.

 

Why can't we get over these thing and start looking where it REALLY matters?
Like rationally answering religion-related questions without condemning the inquisitive one to hell... Kids grow up with double standards out there (I admit I am guilty of some of that too), they pay attention to stupidest of things and pretend to not acknowledge the big misconceptions created for society's convenience.

Or teaching our kids it's OKAY to be of different genders, and that eventually you'll have to live with the opposite gender and have offspring with them, therefore you have to start right and learn to accept and respect them. (I'm looking at you, male-kind!) And not segregate them like some kind of contagious disease.

I paaaainted! And entered a competition in less than 24 hours..

Now why don't help me out?... please?...please..?
You can just..you know.. click HERE!!


on a not so different note.. I finished my first painting!!..See? I can be an artist.. in a way.. sometimes.. when I'm not too.. you know.. distorted..or maybe I am more artistic when I AM..sheesh..I don't know anymore :|

Overload: Me, Us, Them, Who?

Image: Moirade on Deviantart

Sipping my coffee, I decided to get a few things off my chest. It all started when I got new tools to dig through information as a part of my job, it sure made me feel important at the moment, soon the euphoria of my new toy diminished into humility seeing tremendous amounts to dig through. But what distressed me the most was the lack of pure content that isn't not from a news agency, no one is ready to assume the responsibility of what they write or share (I'm no angel, neither would I as far as I know).

Until today I stayed away from politics despite living in the middle of it, raised by it, and live it through the media in my almost every waking moment.Honestly, I just wanted to become an artist, a spiritual nomad if you will, but I am much too curious to stay away from human nature for too long, and too much of an introvert to delve into the sea of people.

I try to blame my age for my contradicting feelings and desires, I try to blame my upbringing, I try to blame the world around me, and of course I blame myself for not being "good enough".

While the opposite is yet to be brought to my attention,what amazes\amuses me is how we have a different perception of "self-confidence"as a concept. Egoism?Self-awareness?Being self-centered? Pride?
Back in the day only people of great achievements, and rulers were celebrated. The society perhaps was more group-oriented rather than focusing on oneself, which is why in the Arab culture many self-praising poets are fondly remembered, if they were not warriors or peacemakers, they were at least great talkers.

Now this self confidence can come from self-righteousness, and on that term alone many an elaboration can be made, and most likely to breed those people who go against the system (both in the negative and positive perspective). Activists, anarchist, cyber terrorists, you name it...

At some point, everybody seems right, and everybody seems wrong, the wonderful contradictions of the human nature... is the violent fervent action a desperate attempt to not become one of the crowds, but doesn't that place you into a different type? maybe you're okay as long as you're not the norm (at least not the norm in your opinion). I am not mocking anybody's battle, believe me, everyone is entitled to his cry.

I ask, do I want to be one of them? want to be me? what are we seeking by all this? so much information, so much influence that you don't know who to listen to, or who to follow or what to follow.

Maybe we're trivializing important matters and blowing unnecessary things out of proportion? a fine example would be Aldous Huxley and George Orwell's comparison

and

 

 For the full printable elaborate cartoon's pdf click here

Big players, conspiracy, big brother, Illuminati...etc. Those are much larger concepts than my brain can actually compute, yet I can skillfully pretend to know what any of it is, maybe I do know but would rather lock it up in my brain and wonder myself about it to sleep.

Between the "me" and what I want, and the "Us" that I want to belong to, and the "Them"  who control it, what is it that really matters? Should I remain passive, and amuse myself with the delusion that I'm actually thinking? 

Where is the human nature in all this?

What is religion now?

Who rules? 

Does it matter?

This essay has been written off my head without a second read, so any contradictions that appear are only because I was thinking as I type. 

now my last drop of coffee has been sipped, back to reality...wonder what's for lunch?..

Conveniently numb

This is probably one of my less cheerful posts, but I feel we all relate to this idea.(of course heavily inspired by one of my favorite songs "comfortably numb".

We read miles and miles of papers about how some people just let go of their dreams to regret and reminiscence about them in the later years, but deep down inside, didn't they just do it willingly because they were somehow afraid of success and the devotion it would require? Not to mention try and take pride in the current achievements (that are mostly natural results for the lifestyle took up?). The bitterness will linger, because they will see the life that they ended up taking is the reason why they gave up on what they could have become.

Others managed to block the negative thoughts out completely, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing... They block emotions and passions that were once the reason they got up in the morning, they turn into zombies, living the same day over and over, talk about the same topics, complain of the same things, heavens forbid you don't want to stand out! No matter how human will that make you!


It sickens me how we're all enslaved to convenience. It's not even that comfortable!


I don't even know how this even came to my mind... you can move along now!

Paloma Faith!...and my birthday..and stuff..

So I made it to the Womad 2011 and I got to see Paloma Faith LIVE <3

Her entrance was quiet, yet remarkable!

It was cute that she passed those helium balloons to a security guy and told him to pass it around, I naturally jumped right in the middle and snatched one that is laying flat in my room, I'll wait a little before I write the date with a marker on it. But what Got to me was how passive everybody was!!
Don't you hate when you're the only enthusiastic voice in a whole lotta people? You know.. Going "Woo!" when you know a favorite song is coming up? Eh.. I really wanted an autograph! >_<

I still think she put some remarkable outfits out there!!

 She's also fast O_o I mean she just ran backstage somewhere and...

I absolutely loved the arm accessories on this one!! 

And ran back out in this!<3
I love how her attitude reflects the same energy coming from her songs!

All in all I am glad I went there, hopefully I'll successfully cling next time and get an autograph.



Also ... My 25th birthday was yesterday, not cool....

OMG PALOMA FAITH IN AD!!!!!!!

There aren't nearly enough exclamation marks in the title to show my enthusiasm!! Thanks to the Womad 2011 on the A.D Cornish, Paloma Faith will (hopefully) be performing April 7th at 10:30 PM (I highly doubt the timing, but I still hope its remotely close- judging by the number of people "attending" on Paloma Faith @ Womad 2011 facebook page (just me and another guy so far).

Ladies and gentlemen, Paloma Faith<3

In case I didn't make it clear yet.... I LOVE THIS GIRL!! She's my idea of a perfect feminine powerful classy beautiful jazzy....etc etc..woman! Like a realistic version of Jessica rabbit with the same seduction factor.
I got introduced to this wonderful eargasmic candy through my buddy Ross Caughers  who's also taken some lovely pictures of Paloma at other concerts check out his Deviantart account!

She even pulls off eccentric outfits onstage (unlike a certain meat-dress wearer I know ..and loathe). point is DAMN I am so going!!


Note: picture belongs to Ross Caughers, you steal, you deal with him...

Hallo Ich bin ein Grammar Nazi!

 Looking randomly for something to mindlessly read while I have my coffee, I came across "spelling" contests. It makes me wonder, how come we never had this in school? I mean surely enough I always loathed dictation, in Arabic, English AND French. But now I think we hardly spelled enough, call me a sadist but I will make sure my kids will get plenty of dictation contests....

I mean did anybody else notice how the only reason the proper usage (not necessarily proper spelling) of English is on the rise solely because of mbc4, mbc2 and the likes? They are re-learning English from movies...

Our new source for "Anglish", double negation, and other linguistic impediments.

 And let's be honest, are they only watching movies that promote proper English? I guess Oprah (which long over back in the US but we're still re-running it...) is the closest they ever are getting to proper spoken English.
This mess of a learning process is quite a bad idea when combined with literal translation from Arabic.
 Allow me to demonstrate:
"Open the light", "Are you angry from me?". Well maybe this was the old problem  non-english English speakers had (not necessarily aware of having them...), now it's been replace with "I kno im gud thx y r u nt cumming over no more? I dowanna u t b angry on me" or something equally frustrating that sets my Grammar Nazi radar through the roof. I am not and-never-was perfect at spelling but I was sure as heck very attentive to the mistakes I make.

You know what else gets to me? when you type in txt lingo while using a normal keyboard through a website that perfectly allows you to send messages that are "infinity characters"* long! Am I the only young adult who still uses coherent sentences in mobile messages?! Or is it just my tolerance to bad spelling is rapidly decreasing?... "Hi H R U?" is enough to drive me up the wall, I don't care how nice this person is, how much trouble he went through his life, how much he had to strive through his\her "Edjukayshun". Spelling, like hygiene, is not exclusive to a certain class or financial situation. 

We don't pay enough attention to our kids, and now they are becoming what kids in the west probably were 10 years ago. While the west is combating their decades-old mistake we are rushing to pick up their trash and filter through it for some recyclable stuff that we can poison our kids and young adults with.

Talking in broken multilingual fragments to your kids is definitely gonna teach them the language...NOT!  NO! IT WON'T WORK! Teach them PHRASES...Grammatically CORRECT phrases! Kids will pick up the right usage, even if they don't get how the grammar works, they will still be able to distinguish the flaws phonetically! And eventually (provided you've shown enough devotion and didn't rely solely on school) They will THINK in that language.

And maybe years later, they will be able to write actual correspondences, resumes, motivation letters without relying on spell check! And most importantly they might ..just might  integrate proper spelling and grammar into their daily lives! 

Now that I put my two cents...or two fils.. or balsa.. or any other copper-plated coined currency of your choice...Back to our regular schedule.

Happy spelling!


*by "infinity characters" I mean Enough to write one long fully-spelled coherent sentence. 

Skype: It's like you're with me..for our wedding?

So as I was having my morning coffee and doing my work (which consists of skimming through online articles related to the UAE), some irrelevant news manage to interest me.
like this particular article on  The Huffington Post.

The first couple is quite understandable, they were together and couldn't fly back home for their wedding, the second couple however, left me skeptical. So the guy is in the hospital with lung infection, and his bride to be miss Oh (maybe short for"Oh what have I done?") but yeah maybe its just me, but I guess lots of people in the US will do it for media coverage.

Naturally a Skype wedding with the bride and groom apart is bound to be more celebrated than if bride simply flew to his hospital in California (assuming she absolutely couldn't wait for him to recover), I mean, how fatal is lung infection compared to a dying cancer patient, in terms of attracting media attention?

When I skype I barely care about my upper half. I could be wearing a potato sack for pants for all I care.. Maybe the bride opted for financial efficiency and skipped the bag and shoes.
Did the all the bridesmaids fit into the camera frame? Did the priest Skype from the local Church as well?

I don't know about you guys but if I show this to my gran in Algeria she'll say something like "pfft..May God block that cave you crawled out from!" الله يسد الغار إللي جيتي منه. Pearls of wisdom indeed. I love my grandma, too bad she's in the advanced stage of Alzheimer's now.

What was I getting at is, life gives us precious moments, let's stop ruining them for convenience's sake!

Another day another nail

I have been cursed with the inability to ignore stressful events, instead I have this amazing ability to find things to constantly worry about, of course with great powers comes a great responsibility which is to ruin my fingernails! (HA! Bet you don't have this superpower..!neenerneneeener!)

okay.. so my hands look hideous, and I wish I can go and buy some nailpolish, like...bright colorful ones! Eh.. as you can see from exhibit A (below), any attempt to apply bright colors on such length (and circular shape) will result in an uncanny resemblance to m&ms and fails to have the same appetizing appeal. 

Exhibit A (or U for UGLY!)

 What I really want is to go to a nail salon and have my miserable nails done! With nail art.. I secretly loathed it because I couldn't do it! *deep sigh*
As you can notice Exhibit B (above...lol gotcha..! *avoids shoe*)

Exhibit B (yup..beautiful T_T)

Motivations? What about big events you ask? ( I'll still assume you did...) so I went to Nails salon in Abu Dhabi Mall and booked an appointment one day before my sister's wedding! Yup, fake nails, I gotta admit they were appealing, and made my hands almost look normal!
I didn't feel too adventurous and was already patting myself on the back for making such a drastic move so I skipped the nail art.
Feast your eyes on exhibit C!

Exhibit C (And I fell in love with my fingers)

Isn't it efficient? Isn't it beautiful? Well, I wish someone told me they're heavy. I mean it didn't stop me from my regular bathing and showering, problem is they came off three weeks later. (The beautician did tell me to be careful with hot water and stuff...but my Algerian side knows better than to take cold showers-but that's for another post!)
I then gave up.. I managed to grow them for a while, then come examination period. Hurray! An actual reason to stress out! I chomped through them like pacman would wakawaka his way across the maze.

Maybe...I'll start again.

Religious Hoaxes:They still make (and believe) those?

So as I was peacefully doing my work I somehow ended up surfing one of those many many many arab Forums...

You know..The ones with one HUGE font post and loads of  pictures that are a repost of a repost of a reposted repost? The ones with a single starter post and the rest of the replies are merely variations of "مشـــــــــكــــــــووووووووووووووووووووووووووور على المساهمة!" followed by an even bigger signature usually containing some passive-aggressive statement of how everybody is gonna die for not loving the post writer, and loads of glitter graphic that puts myspace profiles to shame....

In case you didn't notice,I never liked these forums, don't get me wrong, I do go on some of them and I find some good useful info (*cough*still a repost..*cough*). This is all fine and dandy! BUT! What I hate the most is religious hoaxes, whether it's by anti-muslims, Arab athiests or the followers of great jumping god schmockarumba....It remains a darned hoax! Stop reposting it..stop being amazed at it and most importantly stop bashing those who revoke it!  

The one with the Quoran bashing girl-turned-ape-, or the one with the Djinn in a cave, or the friggin' apple with "Allah" on it...well...took them long enough to realize it was a hoax...
Now the post I came accross this morning went something like this ..

قطة تموت وهي محتضنة القرآن

أنهت السيدة أم طارق قراءة القرآن ثم ذهبت إلي المطبخ‏,‏ وحين عادت لتستكمل ما بدأته وجدت قطتها من النوع الشيرازي نائمة محتضنة المصحف الشريف‏,‏ فأبت السيدة أن توقظها وتركتها لتستيقظ وقتما تشاء‏,ثم أخذت تشغل وقتها بترتيب المنزل وعادت بعد أكثر من ساعة لتوقظ قطتها من سباتها العميق‏,‏ وكانت المفاجأة أن القطة ماتت علي شكلها المبين بالصورة‏,‏ فتعجب أفراد الأسرة مما حدث وزاد تعجبهم أكثر حينما أخذوا بالقطة إلي أحد الأطباء البيطريين الذي قام بدوره بالكشف عليها‏,‏مؤكدا أن الوفاة حدثت بشكل طبيعي‏ ..!!

The story in short is, "This cat died embracing the Quoran!" And it states how the cat died of natural cause...etc etc. Does this look like a picture you'd take of a dead cat? Unless you have some sick fetish, you wouldn't grab a camera and take this picture at such a photogenic angle!

This certainly made me feel sick, and embarrassed. most likely this is a picture taken by an artist on Deviantart of his\her own pet.

يا أخي لا تفولوا بالشر على القطة المعترة! 

Now that I have gotten this off my chest... feel free to move on. 

If you're still sipping your coffee, care to share your experiences with similar stories?

Epic first post of an epic first blog

Well, woohoo! 

I just added one more blog the already-flooded world wide web! Will it be any more informative, entertaining, provoking, or even interesting than those already out there? I cannot guarantee that. I can, however, guarantee that it's definitely  written 100% by me,  expresses100% my own opinion! And adds 200% to your daily dose of "bleh?"

I have chosen to start a blog because I needed a bigger diary, one I can show to everybody else. Call it a cry for attention, or just self-gratification, I feel on a daily basis I accumulate tons of good ideas or just thoughts that disappear by the end of the day, I may have even found the meaning to life I tell you!!! 

So...yeah!