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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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STILL COOL ENOUGH FOR SEVENTH GRADE
When my world of sophisticated urbanite and Mother Nature friends come to Dubai, there is an inevitable rolling of the ideas and what has become a cliché to my ears, “This place is all about the malls.” Like blatant consumerism and the globalization of American brands in an air conditioned utopia is a bad thing. 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
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THE OTHER WINNERS OF THE ZAYED UNIVERSITY FILM FESTIVAL
With several local celebrities on hand as well as, due to remarkably good timing, the brilliant American writer and actor Anna Deveare Smith, trophies were handed out yesterday to student filmmakers from Lebanon, Jordan, and Qatar, in the closing ceremony marking the end of the first annual Zayed University Film Festival. Twelve films from the Continue reading
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RED CARPET ADVENTURE: THE STUDENT OSCARS OF THE MIDDLE EAST
Much as I love film and much as it has been such a big part of my life, I don’t often watch the Academy Awards, even when I’m invited to Oscar parties at friends’ houses. Aside from crying along with the winners on the Miss USA pageant as a kid, I’m just not that interested Continue reading
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A New Mosque in an Old Thai Village
It’s pretty hard to find a person on Thailand’s resort island of Koh Samui that isn’t waiting to pounce on tourists, promising them even more paradise for a price, guaranteeing them his prices are “same, same” as the other guys. On my recent trip there, the only place that didn’t happen was in Ha Thanon, Continue reading
Alia Yunis 