Song of the Day

Last Flowers - Radiohead.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

شو غريب الشكل باياك

- طب وشو قالت أمك؟
- ولا شئ... راحت اشترت حجاب وما بدها تلبس كم قصير
- شو عم تحكى؟
- تعرف شو كمان قال؟ قال المسرح حرام... والسينما حرام... والروك أن رول موسيقى خلاعية.
- شو يعنى خلاعية؟
- يعنى السيكس. وموسيقى السيكس من عمل الشيطان. خد بقى.
- هلا بول أنكا صار عميل للشيطان؟ شو غريب الشكل باياك... طب شو قال عن الموسيقى العربية؟
- قاللى أم كلثوم معلهش.
- أم كلثوم؟؟ ما أم كلثوم ما بتغنى الا السيكس.... عن جد، شو غريب الشكل باياك.

Friday, February 27, 2009

The place we can be alone.

It’s bloody simple really. Never own a wardrobe nor a fancy big mirror in your house and you`ll never have trouble. Don`t spend any money on hanging posters on the four-walled white room and do not… I repeat, DO NOT… hang your clothes properly after you come back dead and tired after a long day. It can be a lot easier, if you stop thinking about owning a dog or a cat or an endangered family of Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing Butterfly… and of course, don`t even consider plants. Always remember that things that run on electricity are better than those which need fire, and those that only need your hands are even better. Don`t cook a meal you don`t want to wash the utensils for. Don`t cook at all, I mean, what`s really better than food that you bring from a third party that only needs you to throw away some bags and cartoon paper after you`re done – kindly forget about the associated environmental guilt. Remember that every few months; you will be invited to a place with full fridges and some fancy almond-fudge-and-rosemary-hinted dip for your movie crackers… never get comfortable. Don’t feel uncertain about inviting people over, only if they don`t come from a full-fridge background – and trust me, most people do. On second thought, invite whoever. Do not envy them. Do not whine. Do not compare.

Kindly note that clothes are recyclable – as you buy new ones, remember you did so because there are old ones that you do not need – and there is someone who does whom you can give them to and can gain you extra points on whatever religious/moral schema you`re following. This makes you pack a lighter bag. This makes you move easier and faster. Do not own a bar, only a bottle or two if you need cocktail them together – I mean, how would you feel if you threw away most of them, or even worse if you had to carry them? However, never make your place void of wine. Red Wine. Dark clothes. A lot of dark clothes. Bleak colors, which match anything and everything. Remember that fashion does not determine which clothes to wear, but rather how tolerable and match-able they are – what good will an orange brown-polka-dotted chiffon scarf do you if you need to wash it every time you wear it?

Friends are recyclable too. Friends are determined by a few dimensions – space, time and money. Don`t get over too intimate with people, because if you lack one of the previously mentioned elements, this intimacy will not be maintained. Thus, don`t feel bad about it and don`t re-evaluate your metrics and standards of whom you should trust or whom you shouldn`t. Everyone is a passer-by and it`s never proven otherwise.

Remember that you are in a position that everyone else wants to be in but they can`t. Think that way. Think that way with a lot of Nutella and the previously mentioned red wine. Whatever you think, just never feel home.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Adagio For Time.

"Dear Mother: I have written to tell you my worrying secret. Now don’t cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now, without any nonsense. To begin with I was not meant to be an athlete. I was meant to be a composer, and will be I’m sure. I’ll ask you one more thing — Don’t ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football. —Please—Sometimes I’ve been worrying about this so much that it makes me mad (not very)."

Samuel Barber - (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981)

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Hell is not hot.


Save all your efforts. It makes me feel more paralyzed seeing you squirm in front of my eyes, trying and failing and repeating. Everything I fake, I fake it for you. I don`t mind doing it, but I mind you believing it. It makes me feel as if I am acting – which I probably am doing, but I don`t feel it till I am believed. Kindly lie down next to me, let`s watch the stars and hear each other breathe. Let`s pretend we are interested in what we tell each other, it`s ok – we can nod too. I`ll lend you one of my speakers and I`ll let you think now you know what I am all about. Let me lie to you and tell you how I`ve never met anybody who makes me feel like you do. I can linger on about how my life was in its particular normal time frame before you came. Please don`t ask me if I ever smile though, I haven`t memorized those lines yet. Forgive me if I pause for a few seconds before I return your emotional revealing, sometimes I just need to – recollect. I am only here because I have nowhere else to go. You can do all you wish, I am the puppet in your realm that shall not object. But whatever you do, kindly only believe me when I reveal that… I am as ugly as I seem.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Cat Blues.

All of us have grown hearing to all stories about victims. Black people are victims of a go-way-back history of racism. Women are victims of violence, harassment, sexual exploitation and a bunch of big-worded titles that I am not interested in recalling. Palestinians are victims of… of basically everything you can think of. The result behind living such a childhood full of such Utilitarian slavery, is that I am simply not moved anymore. It gets really awkward sometimes, when people are all sympathizing around me and everything, and I can’t help control the muscles of my grin. Furthermore, what’s even worse, is that I get really tense when I find people around me still get “surprised” by things. I don’t think anything in this world is neither surprising nor original. All things have been said and done before so recurrently – like those stories of victims – to the extent that even paying attention to any happening scenario sounds just silly – let alone, indulging in any so devotedly.

Apparently, that’s not the case in the other side of the world…

Now call me a racist, but I am sure all of you have noticed how Americans living in Egypt get all hype, excited and enthusiastic about the dumbest things. I don’t get to deal much with any really, but on the short occasions that I do, I let my friends do the talking. However, last night I was sitting with an American on my right and an Eastern-European on my left. None of who was hot, to at least take away from their unjustified excitement about everything. I was asked if I like cats. I told the truth – “No, I don`t really like them, but I happen to be one.” The American twisted in his chair to look at me as the Eastern European asked how that was possible. I declared that I firmly believe I have cat genes and all, that I carry the whole cat-like attitude and manners in addition to physical traits like my eyes switching color according to mood and light. They were all so impressed and I was suddenly surrounded by gasps and no-ways and wows and all. I tell you, it filled me with goose bumps. So I fought back by simply continuing to hold my serious face and controlling my grin’s muscles on a very rare occasion… and I said with question marks all over my cat-like hair… “I am not so sure whether it was my dad or my mom who decided to sleep with a cat though.”

Their wows and no-ways faded into a very awkward situation that their waves of sudden silence could not mop away. That’s it. Nobody laughed. Nobody found humor in what I was saying. So I just kept my serious face and turned the whole thing into a really serious wondering business of who my cat male and/or female ancestor might be. I tell you, it’s a rough rough world out there.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

It`s not April.

A friend of mine just sent me those. Mo was having a smoke outside his corporate premises when he stumbled over those couple in heat.. It`s not even April and lust is in the air..




I absolutely heart them.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Vitiligo.

Bleak white paint can fall off any building in Cairo – it`s not particularly the least polluted place in the world. It falls off buildings in chunks and has a random vitiligo sort of look. However, there is this particular building in Heliopolis that faces one of Cairo`s most classy most expensive sporting clubs. It also happens to face the residence of our president. The second floor’s balcony is the only balcony of the building that has its paint off – in a random vitiligo sort of front. Now that’s not a very important thing for anyone to notice really - not the people going inside the club on wheels costing hundreds of thousands of pounds and not to the people standing in public transport buses waiting wrathfully for the parade of black cars to pass by as the First Lady goes out to do some shopping. It is a noticeable fact to tree counters, but that`s another story.

That other sunny morning there was a woman standing in that balcony. She seemed quite pissed. She was shouting at the top of her lungs, her hair seemed rough and has probably been uncombed for years. There was this vibe that she has been beaten up… psychologically as well as physically. It was quite awkward, for I tried to see what or who she was shouting at there was only the sporting club, the presidential residence, two lanes to allow herds to come and go in addition to the famous Heliopolis railway. It was too theatrical, for she was using her four limbs to let out her what-seemed-to-be endless recurring state of wrath. I could feel it… I mean, she seemed quite pissed. There was nobody staring at her but me. I was there for ten minutes, during which she only went inside the flat only once to only come out and resume more dramatically her fight-against-nobody-in-particular. It has occurred to me that her only wish was to locate a physical target – and only then perhaps, her verbal monologue of anger can turn into a physical bloody orgasm of violence.

It has also occurred to me the paint has fallen off her vitiligo balcony by her years-long persistence scratching of the walls. I mean, she seemed like she had gruff nails and all.