I'm twittering random links, none of which have to do with the Middle East. I do have other interests (although reading Bolano's 2666 makes me think I need to write Gaza 2006 into this novel, along with Ain el-Hilweh 1982)
Food security in your town, by Bob Waldrop via Sharon Astyk.
You don't need a million to retire well.
Procrastination hack: (10+2)*5. I did this today, wrote 1,400 words or so (more, but I'm counting fiction only, not bitching, kvetching and moodling).
Fifty writing tools. The later ones look really good.
Not linked: Family storytelling night at my kid's public school. Hokey magic show, free pizza and raw veggies and juice, book giveaways. The kids were SO EXCITED. I really savor these simple down-home pleasures with the children at the public schools: the fall harvest festival with goofy games and costumes, the winter concerts with singing and poems, these family nights.
Writing group after storytelling (I didn't bring my kids, natch). We finished talking about Bolano's 2666, then read to each other from our latest work. Our host made a Mediterranean soup with feta cheese; others brought bread, salad, cheese and fruit. And CHOCOLATE. I am so fortunate.
One of my hasbara commenters urges me to log off and shut up, because I am not the Arab Everywoman. I am interested in this characterization. It never occurred to me to play the Arab Everywoman, since I consider myself an American first, and know that no Arab national would see me as entitled to claim such a role. However, the people who are flooding blog world with comments, argument, invective, fake concern, and veiled threats must see my blog as such a voice.
I am honored. When my father learned from an informant that the Anti-Defamation League had listed him in their database as a PLO member, he said he, too was honored. (This was in the 70s, before Palestinian militiamen attacked our village and killed my grandmother). He said he could not be a member of the PLO since he was a Lebanese, not a Palestinian, but if the ADL thought he was, then he was doing something right. What he was doing was going to meetings in Peoria, Illinois and speaking for the rights of the Palestinians.
Speaking the truth can be dangerous when it contradicts the lies of the powerful.
This blog does not matter that much in the scheme of things; but I think somebody is very scared if they are tracking the likes of me. The clock is ticking...
Hayan Charara, poet, translator, editor and teacher, just won a $25,000 creative writing grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Congratulations, Hayan, for this well-deserved award. You will put it to good use, since you have already produced an impressive body of work.
Read some of Hayan's poems linked in this old post here.
Hayan kindly sent me a copy of his excellent anthology of Arab-American poetry, Inclined to Speak, when it came out this spring. I was in chemo and while I read many poems, my mind was scattered and porous and retained nothing but an impression of Arab-American friends gathered together between the covers. This morning in the quiet hour before the children awoke, I picked up the book and read poems by Elmaz Abinader, Ziad Shlah, Eliot Khalil Wilson, Sharif Al-Musa; then the children got up and I promised myself to return, to read Deema Shehabi, Matthew Shenoda, Fady Joudah, Suheir Hammad, so many more.
From Ziad Shlah's Thirty-three Beads on a String:
17
I'll cut for you the last swath
of blue from the sky, sever my
hand if you'll let me
but for five minutes more
leave me to sleep without the
knowledge of war.
18
A qanoun weeps
near the funeral of music.
The grant will give Hayan time to write and access to more audiences. I hope it will also remind readers to buy and read Inclined to Speak, to hear the voices of Arab-American writers: multiplicitous, challenging, gorgeous, urgent, of this moment.
I wrote that my fiction about Lebanon and sectarian conflict is meant in part to reveal American fears of the Other and the fatal consequences of unchecked violence.
Then I started in on myth, ancestor stories, saints' tales, the voices of the dead. What did that reviewer say about Louise Erdrich? Because it applies to my work. Oh yes, Google is my friend:
Claire Massud writes in Blood Relations - The New York Review of Books:
...there is no such thing as "magical realism." There are, instead, culturally specific experiences of the real which, when rendered in fiction, produce different results.
So if you read my novel draft and wonder why there are miraculously blossoming olive branches, and dead people talking, and voices in the subway tunnels of New York, well, see Massud on Louise Erdrich. Simply a culturally specific experience of the real - one which I'm trying to reclaim amidst the insane "rationality" of this modern world.
Explain to me why a world in which saints heal babies is more crazy than this one where we destroy countries in order to save them from dictatorship, and give hundreds of billions to bankers to rescue them from their greedy mistakes.
Friday, September 19, 2008 7:00 PM
Books Inc.
Opera Plaza
601 Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94102
Hear excerpts from her debut novel, the critically acclaimed A Map of Home.
I'll be there with menfolks in tow, barring mishap or other family emergency.
Randa is a friend in real life whom I met through the internet. She blogs at Rockslinga; we sat on a panel together in 2005 in New York City at the Radius of Arab Writers, Inc. conference. She is a talented, many-times published translator and fiction writer who made a mark in Arab-American literature from a very tender age. She's still a young thing and she's done so much! Yay, Randa.It's been so darned hot here, for so many days, that our house has become quite intolerable in the evenings. Tonight I felt energetic and decided to inaugurate our newly repainted back deck by dragging out our Persian rugs, floor pillows, lanterns (thank you Julie and Naomi) and the brass coffee pot from Riyadh. My sons brought their favorite accessories - Jacob, with his sense of the theatrical, played his flute, and Joseph chose to do math sums in a workbook.
We lounged around on the pillows until well after dark, enjoying the cool of the evening. Our garden is surrounded by trees and a small stream runs through the back of the property. There was a quarter moon shining, the stars came out, the crickets cheeped. "This is really great," David said.
"This is perfect for Ramadan," I answered, and I told stories about iftar in Egypt and around the Muslim world. The deck is topped with a pergola, white pillars supporting brown beams that frame the stars, plum trees and sky. We lounged in the darkness, watching the stars emerge; my children snuggled into my arms on either side of me, my husband stretched crosswise, wrapping his legs over my feet. It was like camping out, being luxurious nomads lying on hand-knotted rugs under the night skies.
Ramadan Kareem to all of you celebrating this month. I wish you were here to break the fast on my back deck. It's truly Damascene with the low benches and cushions, almost like a mastaba, but with a craftsman-style wood pergola above.
Woops, a small earth tremor hit us just as I was typing. If the big one hits tonight, at least we know we'll be comfortable on the deck under the stars...
Deborah Madison: Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
Indispensable - I use it all the time, and give it as presents to brides, young people starting out, etc. Not for vegetarians only - hence the title - a great resource for anybody wanting delicious recipes for vegetables, grains and legumes. Great sauces and salads, too.
Claudia Roden: Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon
Excellent in-depth cultural and social essays on three major cuisines; the recipes include the standards as well as unusual dishes, and the photographs are gorgeous. A great gift book - the Dove asked for and got it for Christmas.