Arabs
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POETRY, MATH, AND MY DAD
My father loved poetry. Like so many Middle Easterners, he could quote Arabic and English poetry at just about any occasion for just about any reason, and he taught me how to memorize strange poems for class assignments, like “Tiger” by William Blake. He took pride in how much I liked to read, but it Continue reading
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Weather or not? Not Just Small Talk
I’ve been back in the US for a month now. And, just as it is for Fatima’s children in “The Night Counter,” weather seems the first thing people want to talk about, people who aren’t even estranged relatives who can’t think of anything else to say to me. Everyone–friend, foe and stranger–wants to talk about Continue reading
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LAUNDRY DAY FOOD FROM THE NIGHT COUNTER: MAJADERA
In The Night Counter, Amir promises his grandmother Fatima that for dinner he is not eating quiche, or gay pie, as he explains it to her, but rather majadera, a food with a whole lot less glamour to it than quiche and a whole lot more gas. But dress it down or dress it up, Continue reading
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Outlandish Landless LandMine by Sami Zarour
Most of what I post on this blog are about the upside of life in the Middle East because most people living outside the borders of the Middle East, whether physically or mentally, are unaware that there is an upside. Plus I don’t really know how to write about the tragedies of the region without Continue reading
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The Abu Dhabi Zoo Effect VS. Sex and the City
They missed the real Abu Dhabi in Sex and the City II, and in the real Abu Dhabi, tourists and Arabs wouldn’t notice Carrie and her gang–there are plenty of scantily designer-dressed Western women seeking really rich men walking around here. The women that get the head turns are the women you can’t really see. Continue reading
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Breaking News and Beauty Queens
I got two e-mails marked “Breaking News” from two Arab American organizations today. I’ve never gotten breaking news from Arab American organizations, not about terrorism and counter terrorism, not about racial profiling, not about civil rights, not about a great new film, book, or art exhibition. But today I got breaking news: An Arab American Continue reading
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A Palestinian Filmmaker in Israel
For years, my friend Hala Gabriel has been working on documentary about the destruction in 1948 of Tantura, her family’s picturesque village in what was then Palestine. For a Palestinian to even attempt such a project as hers is to face unfathomable odds, which she has. Finally, she was able to get to Tantura in Continue reading
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Busted on Possession of Zaatar
I just watched a news story from Australia in which a Lebanese Australian called the confiscation of his mother-in-law’s zaatar by Sydney airport customs officials “a tragedy” and “a disaster” and when he still couldn’t convince the officials to release the vacuum packed zaatar, he told them he wanted to speak to a member of Continue reading
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A DA VINCI CODE PARIS
As a writer, there is much about the Da Vinci Code that makes me cringe, but I have to say it was the first “work of art” I thought of at the Louvre this Tuesday, that being the day of the week the Louvre is closed to the public. But it wasn’t closed to our Continue reading
Alia Yunis 