Friday 21 March 2008

"Entre Nous"


You know something and let's keep it between us, there are things women tell each other, they would never tell you in your face...

It all comes very naturally, very matter of factly. We don't call each other and make an appointment to discuss some important issue...We just happen to meet and it flows, as part of the conversation, inserted in between stories on kids, politics, cooking, the latest diet, piece of advice, do it yourself, tips and ends...it is casually inserted as a joke, as a statement, as a truth...

A few days ago, I've been in such a situation where it was all naturally flowing...
and we were not best of friends either...

We were four Arab women, meeting for coffee after some exhibition...And inevitably and predictably so, the subject turned to men...

And I honestly don't know how it happened, but we started cracking jokes (maybe they were not jokes after all) about fantasies, libido, politicians and men in general...

The four of us agreed that Maliki, Sadr, Hakeem, Sistani, Nasrallah, Abdallah (both Saudi and Jordanian) Abbas, Olmert, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Qaddafi, Bashar, Putin, Mubarak, Ahmadinejad, Khameini -- I would personally add Blair and Sarkozy... were all anti-Eros as far as we were concerned.

In other words none of us women could really see ourselves in bed with them...

Politics, demeanor and sex appeal were all intermingled...It was really hard for us to separate one from the other.

Each time a name was thrown in as a joke, one of us would make faces and cringe.

We agreed that on the subject of "leaders", they all failed to tintillate and enthrall us.

So we moved on to singers and actors. One of the women was really hooked on George "Clowney."

I've never liked the guy myself, he reminds of Peter Pan-- Hollywood version.

Another was stuck on some Lebanese singer, whom I found too "common" and therefore
(de facto) predictable...Lots of disagreements ensued on who is really a turn on in that sphere...

Oddly enough, I've hardly had any fantasies about singers, actors and the rest...
I've had no sexual turn on idol that I carried forward in my adult years...

Maybe I've seen too many "leaders" from a very young age and that has had a dampening effect on me...

But I do remember two characters that I truly loved when I was 4. One of them was Zorro the Masked Man and the other was Roger Moore in the "Saint." This latter's novelty wore off when he started acting out his James Bond films...

Then I pondered on these two personas -- Zorro and the Saint.

One is a masked man and the other a saint....hahahahahahahaha. I don't need any Freud to explain that one to me. But then Freud did not live in the Arab World either...

But since am on the subject, I now remember that I had a terrible crush on the late Ahmad Zaki, the Egyptian actor, who has died since...God he was sexy.

And the sexy ones die young...except for Omar Sharif...but then he is no longer a true Egyptian in my eyes. He's been perverted by Julie Christie ever since he starred in Dr.Zhivago. Notice how he favored the blonde Julie to the brunette Geraldine Chaplin. What a terrible colonized mentality !

Back to our female conversation.

We agreed at the end of the day, that our libidos are on their way to extinction -- thanks to lack of true turn on men.

The politicians rendered us frigid, the actors were either dead, unreacheable, mythical or too old...That left us with "real life men"...

And since we considered ourselves "loyal" Arab women (to Arab men) we surveyed the men we knew and those we kept stored in our memory banks.

Am really sorry, but am suddenly developing a headache. Not tonight, OK ? Maybe tomorrow...

Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you about the rest of our conversation on Arab men, Arab female fantasies, libidos(???) and the instant cure for sudden headaches...


Painting : Iraqi artist, Shaker Al-Alussi.

Sunday 16 March 2008

An Eternal Living Legend...

She was, is and will remain the BEST ever...




Um Kulthum - Enta Omri.