Wednesday 19 May 2010

No more Fiction

I've closed the fiction blog to the public again -- because people are way too stupid and can't differentiate reality from fiction...and I simply did not want to receive any more emails from psychos imagining me to be each and every fictional character....
Go read  cartoon books, it's the only thing you dumb fucks can actually comprehend.

This is Mine...

This is my personal blog, ok assholes ?!

This means I write whatever I fucking well like...this means I can reproduce your fucking ugly voices...the BBC, the Voice of America, Sawt al Sharq - the voice from the Orient...

This means I can imitate you, plagiarize you, copy you, mock you .... whichever way I fucking like...

Get it motherfuckers ?!

This is my territory, my land, my turf and no one can occupy it...no one !

This is my land, my garden, my space... this is where I breathe away from your fucking stinking smells...your odors of hypocrisy, of lies, of make believe, of double standards, of deceit...

This where I can expose you -- expose your crookedness, your filth, your moral depravity...

This is my little plot, my little garden, my own...this is mine...absolutely mine...that no motherfucker can take away -- not through tanks, not through bombs, not through guns, not through speeches, not through threats, not through sweet love words....

No one can take that little one from me...no one. This is mine.

Monday 17 May 2010

Nothing Short of a Miracle...

I was thinking about that the other day ---thinking about the amount and number of people I have met in the past years....like an overall view....I think I'll call it an audit of personal "human"  encounters...

Some were in reality , some were in the virtual...and like a good auditor I can say that in those past years, if I am to take stock of it all --- the people I have met can be easily considered  GARBAGE people...seriously....and they shall go in the ledger cards as just that...

Now there are different levels and kinds of garbage, subcategories -- but garbage remains garbage....

And another thing I noticed, all of these Garbage people had something to do with Iraq, somehow...

The question that poses itself  is why has Iraq drawn all this garbage to her ? And why has she become such dumping grounds for so much filth - moral and political filth.

The macro and the micro -- it's happening on both levels...very strange when I think about it, or maybe not so strange at all...

And as a good auditor, I can also tell that every screwed, morally depraved, cheap, twisted, whorish, sick, perverted, decadent, degenerate, ignorant, dumb, psychotic, sons and daughters of syphilitic bitches, have had something to say about Iraq....drawn to it like a magnet only to reveal their hideous warty insides, their diseases, their complexes, their perversions, their spite, their racism, their personal frustrations, their sexual hangups, their hatred....you name it they have it, they carry it like some national flag...a patriotic hymn...

To be honest, I feel all these visitors in both real and virtual life were all seeking to be fucked somehow, expecting to be fucked somewhere...like fucked hard and long enough to reach some climax -- a political, financial, moral, spiritual, sexual, personal climax....you know some sort of personal orgasm/gain that only they can determine when it is reached...if ever...

Maybe it's that Oriental Thing all over again....maybe it's never been but that Oriental Thing...and let's face it beggars don't go begging from other beggars...Iraq must be in possession of the real jewels...

And it could very well be that Iraq has really and truly fucked them in more ways than one (with one huge condom on, naturally)...making sure that they never fully reach it...leaving them gasping for more.. and somehow this is what Resistance is all about...

In any event, it's going to take one hell of a miracle to stop that "orgy" of paper tigers and bubonic mice and start attracting a different category of people -- CLEAN ones.

Friday 14 May 2010

Black Satin...

I am sorry,
really sorry...
a B52 missile has just struck my drawer.
in it,
I kept my black satin gloves
a few lines of poetry
a couple of love letters...
I am sorry,
really sorry
so sorry...
I would have loved to,
loved to...
but I need to collect
debris,
broken  glass,
shattered windows
wooden splinters...
right where my drawer was
right where my gloves slept
right where my love letters longed
right where my poetry lines
were carved...
on black satin.

On Architecture...

I was at a friend's place and saw a copy of Times special Edition or Newsweek, can't remember, since I never buy those magazines...

Anyways, in it was a list of the most influential people and one of them was Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi architect. She is known world wide, has received many prizes, and a simple google of her name will give you more information on her designs and the concepts behind them...

I am no architect, but I love architecture...and Zaha Hadid, in spite, despite her "brilliance", is not on my favorites list..

Even though she claims to be influenced by Islamic architecture and its fluidity, she calls herself a
''deconstructivist", in a landscape of urban oppression, she likes to think of her designs as bringing form...

Frankly -- for me, her designs are too futuristic, too modern, too divorced from the Spirit of Fluidity...this does not mean that they are not outstanding in themselves...but they remind me too much of a Lost Modernity in search of a Soul....and Zaha is still searching....

I am -- what would one call that in architectural language ? -- no clue. Maybe I am a traditionalist, when it comes to architecture...meaning I am very strongly inclined towards roundness, domes, arcades, patios --- more of  the Feminine elements, Feminine aspects....of "Creation"

Anything that is too modern I find terribly cold and oppressive...whether it is in interior design or actual architectural designs....

I can't stand modern furniture, modern insides, minimalists.... they feel like a grave, a tomb to me...they feel sterile, oppressive, antisepticized, devoid of life...devoid of  paradoxes...of opposites, of contrasts, of duality...

I don't like this futuristic vision, maybe because I feel that people have not grappled with either their past or their present...so they project themselves into a future where they hope to breathe...

I am a fanatic of Islamic architecture -- well this is what they call it...don't get allergies now.

I am absolutely wondrous at the interplay of light and shade, of roundness and verticality, at the way the designs ensure a flow of air and energy...

I am allergic to skyscrapers, tall buildings, metal and chrome - I feel they are all an insult to God...like a huge Phallus pointing to the sky...

This is ONE of the reasons I detested New York. I felt oppressed, suffocated, with all these erected buildings...buildings of human might and power, human power that a tiny microscopic virus, bacteria can finish off....I like that image of a tiny minuscule living organism finishing off a giant...

If I really have to choose between a Zaha Hadid and a Hassan Fathy, or one of his contemporaries,  I would opt for the latter any time...

Conclusion : Zaha Hadid has NOT influenced me one bit...besides, her designing the Iraqi Embassy in DC, post 2003, post invasion, will leave a bad taste in my mouth for ever....

Now that's what I call being politically correct !

Tuesday 11 May 2010

On Writing...

I have just re-opened my "fiction" blog. I will not publish all the stories I have written since I closed down that blog -- about a year ago,  but those that appear to the public...and fiction IS fiction...

I feel great when I write...and I don't really care how "good" it is...

I feel exhilarated, as opposed to exiled...

Writing forms of fiction is difficult...very difficult...I realized that fiction is more dangerous than politics...and more dangerous than any regular essay...because in fiction there is the illusion of Freedom...and when characters are invented, they are so free in themselves...they are who they are...yet they still belong to the milieu from where they come,  in which they are born...

So fiction is more difficult, because the characters eventually come alive...and they have a message, each one has a message...it could be a message of freedom, of rebellion, of longing and wishes, of deep desires and secret places...the characters become heroes setting examples, either by their actions or by their silence, pointing to unsaid stories, half truths, partial realities, that the reader must complete...and in a society of taboos, this is dangerous...it is dangerous because the reader must appeal to his/her imagination and that is the free realm, that is the Freedom, that is out of control, that cannot be controlled by the "higher authorities"...

There are danger zones in Eastern societies and the major ones are : SEX and CULTURE  to which one can add POLITICS...And fiction that revolves around sexual politics and culture are the most lethal form of fiction...

The difficulty also arises from the inner censor, the fear, the shyness, the timidity, the thousand voices that tell you -- be careful...be careful how you phrase it, be careful how you describe it... allude, beat around the bush, train your reader to read in between your lines, just as you write in between the lines, be subtle...careful, careful, careful...

How to maintain a free flow of creativity in such a "careful" atmosphere ? This is where imagination comes in...and it better be very fertile...unless one wishes to become some Eastern version of a Barbara Cartland...(hahahaha)

An Arab female writer is very exposed when she writes...in particular fiction...it is hell for Arab female writers...the walls, both inner and outer an Arab female writer has to overcome are endless....she must be able to daringly jump high, high enough over many barriers...a bit like an expert horse riding jockey..

And the risks for any horse jockey is the fall...

And by the way - I love horses - untamed ones...

Monday 10 May 2010

Gorgeous Day...

Gorgeous day...
The world's and people's deceit and lies do not drag me down...I say my truth calmly, knowing it's my truth...and just walk away...
They are and will be dragged down by their own deeds, by their own actions....this is the promise. God does not lie...the laws of the Universe don't lie...Truth does not lie.
As for me, I am having an absolutely gorgeous day, full of wonder and new possibilities. New possibilities can only show up when you shed the old...the old skin, the old stories, the old characters stuck in their own little boxes, in their tunnels, and they love to keep you there, in that dark tunnel with them...
Why chose to keep crawling like a worm when you can become a butterfly ? Why allow your wings to be clipped when you can soar ?
I am responsible to set myself free, and all the Universe will conspire with me in doing so...
Yes It's a gorgeous day...

A Soulful Song

Am glad to report that I have lifted the embargo/ban on English songs...
This is how it happened -- I have an mp3 that I don't know how to use...so I was fiddling around with it and fell on this song - it was being played on some radio station - seems my mp3 has radio too.

This is one of my old time favorites - it is a soulful song, like a prayer...



Another version by Wynonna Judd is nice too - with a country twinge to it.

The Maria Carey version on the other hand, sucks big time. She destroyed that song.

Sunday 9 May 2010

The Madonna and the Whore

Frankly the MOST fucked up societies when it comes to GENDER - Male/ Female relations are to be found in the East ---by the East I mean the whole of the East....and in PARTICULAR the Arab world.

Since I have not lived in places like India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and the like...and I can only imagine the state of the fuckedupness (ok I just invented yet another word), I will concentrate on THE fucked up place of gender relations and that is the Arab East...

There is nothing you can do about it...EVERY Eastern man (most likely Western men too maybe to a lesser extent) is a schizophrenic. Seriously am not joking....

The schizophrenia of the Eastern man is something else...it is not only a psychological personality split, oh no...it is social, cultural, religious, political, you name it....he has it...

For someone who is not part of this world, it is very difficult to understand the multi layered personality dissonance of the Eastern man...whether he is Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Jewish...these men are frankly totally screwed....and badly so..

I believe there is something a priori - de facto - in the male psyche that predisposes to that state of schizophrenia when it comes to gender relations, but I also believe that on top of that, there are other layers made of culture, religion, psychology, you name it...he has it...the guy is sick...no seriously I mean it...he's fucking sick...

He is a mass of contradictions, paradoxes, double standards, incoherence, in-congruence, un-cohesiveness, complexes, insecurities, frustrations, defeats, unconsciousness...add whatever you like...

If you are looking for a WHOLE,  WELL INTEGRATED,  for a GESTALT in any Eastern man - forget it....Seriously FORGET IT.

There is only ONE way for this dissonant, dichotomous, split, fucked up entity called Eastern men...only one way...

The minute you get to that reality, that truth, you are fine...provided you live with the consequences of either choice you make...

And that truth is very simple, very down to earth, not complicated whatsoever...but it must be kept at the back of your mind at all times if you deal with these fucked up specimens

In the Eastern male mind there are ONLY two kinds of women --- the Madonna and the Whore...

I told you it is simple...

Anything in between, anything that is not black nor white, anything that is difficult to categorize, is immediately relegated to the whore side...

The Eastern male mind when it comes to gender and sex  likes expediency, clarity, no ambiguity and no controversy....you are either a MADONNA or a WHORE.

If you are a Madonna --- very unlikely...since NO woman is. And if she is then she is not fuck-able, or only fuck-able enough to bear his progeny...but in either case you are to observe VERY strict rules , even if the guy in front of you is the man you are about to marry...no joke am serious...if you veil yourself, in any way possible, that is even better...never mind if you played "the whore" before that...in any event, whatever you do, you should NEVER be yourself...NEVER. And if you insist on being yourself, then for God's sake, veil that too....

Veil as in symbolic cloth not actual,...but if you can go for the actual one, please do so...as this will facilitate your life even more...you will become, definitely a MADONNA.

Now if you have chosen to play "the whore", bear in mind that anything that is short of a Madonna is one...ok I repeat --- anything short of a Madonna is a Whore in the Eastern male mind...I am not exaggerating, I know how the psyche of this mass of complexes functions...trust me on this one...

So basically what the Eastern man is telling you, without telling you in so many words is  -- become a manipulative bitch...a liar, full of double standards and deceit...only then, will that insecure, schizophrenic  son of a bitch feel secure enough around you....

Thursday 6 May 2010

Thoughts After Midnight...


ESTRANGEMENT IN LONELY WORLD...

I often go into their world...I change clothes, put on different shoes, choose a new hat, pull out a mask from my drawer...change my accent, appear interested, open my ears, listen well, nod, exclaim, pat them on the back, or touch their hand...I try to understand...I put myself in their shoes...I try to see the world from their perspective...I hear their stories...mundane stories...the normal stuff life is made of...kids went to school, parent fell ill, need to lose extra pounds, the latest acquisition, the gossip from last night's party, the sneaky mother in law, the tight budgets, the new idea for a project, the latest book they've read, who gave birth, who divorced, who got married, who fell in love, who had an argument with their spouse, who passed away....

Normal stuff from a normal life...

No one comes into my world though...they don't knock on my door, and they don't see who inhabits my house...their births are special and their deaths are special...but mine go unnoticed...no one attends my funerals, no one congratulates me on my weddings, no one nods or exclaims...they don't change their shoes, nor their clothes and they have no mask to pull out of some drawer...

The world belongs to them...those who don't listen, the world belongs to them...those who don't care to know, the world belongs to them...those who are obsessed with their own petty lives, the world belongs to them...those who don't open their eyes, the world belongs to them...those who talk non stop, the world belongs to them...those who can't leave their own skin, the world belongs to them...

Imbued with self and self-importance...

A world of babble, of chatter, of endless noise...each believes his story is unique...each believes his burden is unique, each believes his place is unique...oh you are all such a very special people with such unique characteristics...you shit, you piss, you fart, you fuck, you eat, like no one else does...you are all so very special...so very distinct, so very original...so very...

But frankly, I don't give a fuck...I don't care who sees what, how and when...I don't care if they notice my mask, my hat, my shoes, or the clothes specially worn for the occasion...I don't care about their punctuations about me, nor do I care about how they perceive me...I don't care if they see me as pretty, ugly, old, young, thin, fat, stylish, not stylish....I don't give a fuck one bit...

There is one thing I have they don't...I can be whomsoever I want to be...with my different shoes, different hats, different clothes and different masks...while they are just stuck with themselves...


BELONGING...

It is so clear to me I don't belong here...
I remember once watching some crap American film, a long Hollywood version of Bewitched with Nicole Kidman who looked like Mephisto with her latest botox injections....
Botox aside...she whined to her father played by Michael Cain -- I don't know where home is, she said.
And Michael Cain replied - home is where you felt the happiest...

One Percent - 1%

I remember a discussion I had some time ago with a friend. She said to me that I am hoping for the 1 % to show up. I gave her a flat - Yes.
So she continued -- it does not exist.
I said - - does 100 exist ?
- yes of course.
- does 99 exist ?
- sure it does
- so what does it take to complete 99% ?
- obviously 1 %  -- she replied rather irritated
- so the 1% does exist and it will show up to complete the 99. 
 

Wednesday 5 May 2010

Like, Liking....

In an age where too much emphasis is on --- falling in love, romance, chemistry, lust, fatal attractions, physical appeal, hormonal imbalances...an important word has slowly but surely slipped out of the back door --- and that word is LIKE.

I thought of that word today ---like, liking, looking a-like, thinking like-wise...why has the verb TO LIKE disappeared from our vocabulary, our perception, our cognition of the world around us ?

Like has disappeared to be replaced with "love" and its opposite" hate ", and with a categorical Yes and its opposite a categorical No...

Like -- on the other hand says -- it feels right, it resonates, why not, it's possible, I get good vibes, I'll take it a step further, it's worth knowing....Like is open to -- like-wise,  a-like...

It may not feel hot, or may not feel cold...it may feel just warm...warm enough to start a new fire...

Monday 3 May 2010

The Rights of Muslim Women.

I had a strange dream the other day...I am not sure if it was a dream or a vision or what exactly...I was half awake, or maybe fully awake...I cannot remember exactly...
But what I do remember is that I woke up thinking of "milk". I am not a milk drinker myself...so I was not needing milk so to speak...

I thought of milk, I saw milk, and by association I thought of the millions of cows that produce this nourishment daily...I thought how many tons of milk are produced worldwide each day, and how many cows it takes to produce this milk...then I thought of the millions of cows that are slaughtered/sacrificed daily to give even more nourishment, in terms of meat...then of course my thoughts took me to the hamburger chains and the amount of reconstiuted beef they sell daily...

All these cows and all this milk and all this meat...

So I shared this vision/thought with a friend of mine and he said --see how much human beings take for granted what is generously provided for them by God ?!

Even though the answer was sort of satisfactory, it did not satiate me...

So I read Surat Al-Baqara (The Cow) from the Holy Koran. It is the second Surat, right after the Fatiha. I read it in Arabic and I read about 5 English translations of it  (this is a good Koranic website by the way for those who are interested, it has different translations into English and transliterations as well)

I must read it again and again...for it is a known fact that each time, a different meaning or a different level of understanding will be manifested...

In any case, when I finished reading that Surat - Al -Baqara, the Cow, I was left with this bitter feeling that there was/is a strong abuse/violation of Muslim Women's rights, due to a) an outdated, limited literal interpretation of the text  b) male theologians who seem to collectively hate/fear women or should I say the Feminine c) by Muslim men themselves and the societies they rule and d) last but not least by the women themselves...

What comes out from that first overall reading of this Surat are the concepts of (and in no chronological order)

- sincerity
- honesty/truthfulness
- equity
- goodness
- fairness
- justice
- kindness
- generosity
- compassion
- charity
- humility
- purity/cleanliness
- protection/self-defense

And what is clearly admonished against are

- concealment
- untruthfulness/lies/dishonesty
- inequity
- arrogance/haughtiness
- gratuitous aggression
- transgression
- cheating
- unfairness
- oppression
- corruption
and more ....since I don't know this Surat by heart...

And what has become transparent for me is that the context in which this Surat was revealed -- its aim was/is to re-establish what is Right...or what was forgotten, ignored, deformed...or concealed...

And I realized that the context has not changed much since that first revelation...

But then that same Surat tackles that too...when God says to the effect -- and many say that they are believers but they believe not...

Saturday 1 May 2010

Meek...

I don't like meek people...they are not appealing...

Love overcomes Fear...when you love something, someone, you fight tooth and nail...you become a tigress, a lioness, (or a tiger, a lion), you don't let go...you give it 150%, you give it your very best shots, you hold on come what may...provided your love is based on, in, Truth...

Then, and only then, are you guaranteed Victory.