¡¡Andale, andale!!

I am completely enchanted with the idea of the Biblioburro. Luis Soriano is a Colombian teacher who has started a private mobile library for the battered rural area around his hometown of La Gloria. He has a collection of 4,800 books, which he personally circulates by donkey every weekend. How cool is that?! To have books delivered by donkey!

There’s an excellent article about Luis y tus burros en el International Herald Tribune: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/20/america/colombia.php


Though a world apart from Colombia in terms of socio-economics and urban development (not to mention a world apart in terms of the actual world), Dubai also lacks library institutions. I recommend that we establish Ktab bil-Camel!

Please go away, Sarah Palin.

I can’t take it anymore. I’ve avoided blogging about politics until now but I am so offended by this election campaign that I have to write this.

Her rallying cry “you folks, you just get it!” summarizes everything wrong with the way McCain is allowing his campaign to be run. It is divisive, inflammatory, and intellectually deadening. It encourages people to cheer wildly in favor of their unexamined fears. It takes those fears, which are legitimate and deserve to be discussed openly and analyzed deeply, and encourages people to harden themselves around them. “You just get it!”means “hey people, you can claim to have moral and political conviction and you don’t even have to be able to explain what it is!” It is a rallying cry which encourages people to be complacent and self-righteous.

Elections are an invaluable opportunity for the country to engage in productive conversations that help us all think more sharply about where we stand on matters of critical domestic and foreign policy. How can we accept the nutritionless garbage we are being fed in this campaign? Why do we take seriously a candidate for the number 2 position in the country who stands up in the one and only vice presidential debate and says openly that she doesn’t want to give direct answers to the debate moderator’s questions?! Why are we wasting our time listening to irrational, McCarthyesque challenges about who is more “Pro-America”? We are squandering an important time to examine qualifications and policy plans, and it is our duty as voters to do so.

We are at a critical point in the history of the US. Our moral authority has crumbled, our military successes are patchy at best, and our economic dominance is severly eroded. We need the smartest minds of the century – on both sides of the party line – to guide us into a safe and productive future. I feel cheated by the offensively inadequate ticket the republicans have put to us, and I am baffled that 40% of the country finds it acceptable.

I am reminded of the anecdote my father tells to explain how the obnoxious pretensions of art school culture in New York in the 70s compelled him to drop out of Cooper Union. He said he was in class one day for a group critique. One of his classmates walked in the door, late, swaggered over to the board at the front of the room and pinned up a plastic baggie of feces. He said, “This is a crap I took this morning. It is art. Analyze it.” My father walked out.

This is the way I feel about the republican campaign in 2008, except I don't want to walk out -- I want them to walk out. A president is only as good as the people around him and, in my opinion, McCain has made an unforgivable mistake in appointing this bad joke to be his closest political associate. You can dress it up in lipstick and let it make some feminist-sounding comments about high heels and mom-power, but anyone who doesn’t recognize what’s been pinned up to the board is kidding themselves.

The only way I know it's Autumn

My pumpkin cravings are out of control.

I have 8 ramekins of pumpkin pie custard in my fridge today (basically the pie without the pie crust, due to a kitchen catastrophe last night in which my crust was destroyed), and that is after eating it for dinner and dessert last night and breakfast today.

Do you think I’ll turn orange?

Current Jogging Conditions

Yesterday I decided to hit the track. The worst of the infernal summer blaze is over so I figured it was time to end my summer's hiatus from outdoor exercise. I bounced out the door with a load of new gear: new socks, new hair band, new headphones, and a new playlist.

Current conditions are still pretty sticky though. And HAZY. As I jogged along, to one side, the sky and ocean fuzzed into a single blue-gray hue and, on the other side, the haze obscured all the towers, save the upper tip of the Burj Dubai which emerged about 500 meters up into the sky. Ahead of me, the bent arms of construction cranes on the Dubai Maritime City port were sunk into enough haze to resemble from afar an enormous slow-moving tarantula.

Another aspect of jogging conditions at the track on Russian Beach is that it remains an immensely popular hangout for all sorts of non-jogging people. Yesterday, cricket was the order of the day with the Indian men. There were 3 pick-up cricket games at different points along the track and, yes, I did almost get hit with a tennis ball at one point.

A Good Night in Dubai

A good night in Dubai starts with Mahbartender shaking some nice peachy drinks in our kitchen, before we swim across the street (summer humidity has kicked in) to the house of wonders that is the Capitol Hotel.

A good night in Dubai continues when one discovers that behind the humble façade, the Capitol Hotel houses a restaurant that serves… BURRITOS! At last, after 2 and a half years of craving Mexican and finding only a few wilted restaurants with nary a Latin American in the kitchen, I found a decent burrito. It’s not amazing, mind you, but it is just across the street. This is a milestone of my life in Dubai.

But the best part is that this is no ordinary restaurant. This is “Savage Garden,” which is a perfect microcosm of Dubai’s gloriously weird side. It’s a small restaurant with ground and mezzanine floors, all decorated like an Amazonian version of the Tiki Room ride in DisneyWorld, with giant fake trees and vines protruding from the walls, interspersed with fake birds and animals and ethnic masks. It may or may not be named after the cheesy Australian pop duo. It has a fabulous live salsa band, comprised mostly of Philipinos and fronted by woman dressed much the same as the working ladies in the lobby. The dancefloor of Savage Garden is aswirl with Dubai’s tight clique of semi-professional salsa regulars, most of whom are Lebanese. And then there was my table of friends, a mélange of nationalities typical of any gathering in Dubai: 1 American, 2 Lebanese, 1 Egyptian, 1 half-Egyptian/half-Swiss, 1 Brit, 1 German, 2 Argentinians and 1 Dane.

A good night in Dubai continues on my favorite club, which is grungy, friendly to all shapes sizes and persuasions, spun by the best imported Lebanese DJs, and underground (literally underground – it’s built into the corner of a basement parking lot).



A good night in Dubai typically ends with some munchies (my fave is a cheese and zaatar mana’oushe), though last night I skipped that part and went straight to the part where I fall into bed with a big grin on my face.

My second hammam

Today I went to the spectacular Imar Spa. It’s in the middle of nowhere in a neighboring emirate, about an hour drive (or two hours, for a trio of chatty girls).

After stripping down to our disposable spa underwear, we were led one by one into a long, narrow marble room. I stood at the far end, tentatively clutching the metal rail on the wall, while a sturdy grandmother-ish Moroccan lady picked up a small fire hose and proceeded to hose me down from about 15 feet away. Back, arms up, front, side, arms down, kinda felt like I was doing the Macarena in a carwash.

Then they took us into the blue-tiled hammam room to cover us with a gritty henna mixture and leave us to steam for a while. There was much topless giggling.

Then they scoop cups of warm water from the fountain in the center of the room to wash off the henna before slathering us in something that they claimed is soap but looked more like brown Vaseline. Then they spread us out on the marble benches and started to scrub. Wow. I thought the scrubbing in my first hammam in Istanbul was intense, but this was a different league of loofah. When they say exfoliation (which is, of course, not what they say – they have some incomprehensible Moroccan word for it), they really mean it. She twisted me all around to get to unexplored angles – even my armpits were exfoliated! And the stuff that was sloughed off was incredible. About a dozen times through the course of the scrubbing, she would shake off the mitt and drop a little gray 3 inch worm of dead skin. Gross, yet fascinating.

Then they rinse us off, slather us up with some sweet-smelling, curry-colored clay, rinse it off, smooth us down with olive oil and send us on our way.

A Fine Choice of Occupation

I’m reading the riveting “The People’s History of the United States” over my lunch breaks and I came across an awesome list of middle-class jobs from the 18th century. It includes “Measurer of Coal Baskets” and “Fence Viewer.”

I am pleased with my relative career path.

Indiana Jones and the Last Lame Wobble

I saw the latest Indiana Jones and was not impressed.

I will admit first that there were a few good things about the movie. For one thing, the reappearance of Marion from first movie was a stroke of genius and nearly saved the movie. Secondly, the filmmakers make great use of the knowledge that the audience is there to relive their childhood fantasies. All they have to do is play the theme music and show the shadow of the hat to send shivers down our collective spines – and they do exactly that in the first scene Indy is in. And then they move on within the first 20 minutes to lob a very interesting question at us: what does it mean to be Indiana Jones in a different decade with a changing world order? After emerging from a refridgerator in which he survived an atomic test, Indy stands silhouetted against a violent sunset-coloured mushroom cloud, battered and bruised, holding the bullwhip, watching the might of a weapon he can’t possibly defeat with his typical gruff and sweaty, giddily hyper-intellectual feats of derring-do. I was wondering, what is our leather-clad hero thinking?

It was an interesting question which, unfortunately, they never got around to acknowledging. They were all too busy sparring terrible dialogue and CGI-ing their way through tedious, unending action sequences. On top of that, I really can’t forgive them the stale old plot and characters. We had 1 almost admirable villainess, who ends up undone by her own ambition as the ancient temple is crumbling. We had 1 man who might be a traitor, or maybe not, but is in any case undone by his own greed as the ancient temple is crumbling. And we had 1 newly discovered son who chafes under the nickname “junior.”

RETIRE! RETIRE! Leave my childhood fantasies in peace.

the best book description i've ever read

From "Publisher's Weekly"

Eternal Pleasure, by Nina Bangs

In a series inaugural from Bangs ("One Bite Stand"), the Gods of the Night are incarnated for the first time in 65 million years, summoned to protect humanity from an all-encompassing evil that is coming in 2012, at the end of the Mayan calendar. While currently incarnated as deadly, handsome men, they have the ability to assume their prior forms- those of gigantic dinosaurs.

Bangs's skillful blend of vampirology, Mayan lore and extinct monoliths lays solid groundwork for the series- and almost makes it possible to wrap one's head around the idea of men with the souls of dinosaurs as sex objects.

A moment

I had a beautiful moment on my drive to work this morning. As I was waiting at a stand-still on Dhiyafa in the leftmost lane next to the grassy median, I noticed a bird very close to me. It was a small bird, brown and black with bright yellow rings around the eyes and a yellow beak and legs. It was quite a slick little bird… until it chirped, when it would puff up like a pufferfish with feathers fluffed up in all directions!

I watched him for a while, totally entranced, with my mind rather numbed by the previous night’s work on infrastructure asset operating models until 3am, with the window open in the mild morning heat, with the sun on my face, with Willie Nelson on the iPod.

I think that was one of the only times thattime stood still for a moment while the Dubai traffic stood still.

My brother, Tarzan

In the midst of his current deployment in Okinawa, Metro is out in a jungle training course for a few weeks. He called to give me an update on his recent activities, which include paintball combat simulation, fending off poisonous snakes, ... and swinging from vines. Now, at first I thought, "yeah, swinging from vines seems like the obvious thing to do in the jungle." Then I realized, I'm pretty sure I don't know anyone who has actually swung on a vine before. That's pretty cool. Like, Tarzan cool.

I'm impressed!

No support for female athletes

A sports bra, a sports bra, my kingdom for a sports bra!

I’ve been in Dubai now for over 2 years. This is of course 2 years of fairly regular exercising, though I’ve only recently started running again, thanks to the miraculous appearance of a real running track on Russian Beach (those of you who are non-Dubaians might not realize what an incredible thing this is for the municipality to create a non-profit generating thing which encourages bipedal activity, this in a city with no sidewalks). Anyway, this 2 years of athletic activity naturally indicates a time to upgrade various sportswear necessities.

New running sneakers? Check.
A few new comfy, stylish sports trousers? Check.
New sports bra? … ? … ? NEIN.

When I checked all the sporting goods stores (four of them, if memory serves) in Mall of The Emirates and did not find a single sports bra, I was annoyed.

When I checked all the sporting goods stores (another two of them) in Bur Juman and was directed to racks of stretchy spandex shirts, I was beginning to get offended.

When I checked all the sporting goods stores (another three of them) in Festival City and found two stores bereft of anything resembling a sports bra and one Nike store with an unwearably misogynistic range, 80% of which were sold out leaving only 32A and 40C (neither of which would suit my bosom anyway), I was indignant. I was incandescent. I was full of fury at their ignorance of what they are selling. How dare they expect to sell me their overpriced wares when they decorate their walls with motivational action shots of sweaty female athletes and fail to stock the basic necessary items for any form of rigorous exercise.

Argh.

But then when I checked a random sporting goods outlet store in Deira, and reduced the middle-aged, amply-moustached Indian store attendant to hysterical giggles with my explanation of what a sports bra is… well, I guess that was pretty funny.

But still, really, I need a new sports bra.

An unexpected treat at Ice Pack

Tonight after a long walk in Satwa, we stopped at the glass-fronted milkshake shop, Ice Pack, on the ground floor of our building. What stopped us was the rare sight of a large group of kids in dubai -- the benches were full of adorable kids in football uniforms emblazoned with ICEPACK on the back, all happily sucking on jumbo sized milkshakes and vaguely paying attention to a guy at the front of the room who looked like he was presenting a large round trophy.



We were quite content to sneak peaks and pics from around the corner when a young employee and an older Iranian woman ran up to me and started to get very excited about my scarf. Earlier in the evening, I grabbed my mom's old gold and neon green scarf to throw over my orange tank top (a yay-ish yet somewhat modest outfit suitable for Satwa, I figured). I was a bit perplexed at first, mildly annoyed that they might be protesting to my rather garish color combination, and concerned that they didn't like that we were taking pictures of their ice cream guzzling soccer boys.

But it turns out that the woman who owns the shop was desperately looking for something to wear as a headscarf. Ice Pack is an Tehranian franchise and there were camera men there who wanted to interview her and take photographs for distribution back in Iran, which is possible of course only if she were dressed to Iranian norms. This is what we found out while waiting and chatting to the older woman, who was the owner's mother, and was also at the Googoosh concert (and nearly kissed my hand when I mentioned that I listen to Googoosh CDs in the car all the time), and was intent on showering us with free milkshakes.

So. There you go. Two mothers, 1 bright green and gold scarf, distribution in the Iranian press, and loads of milkshakes. It was a good end to a good night.

a little thought

When I'm driving down a palm tree-lined street, past the villa walls overflowing with bourganville, listening to hindi music on the radio, I am really quite happy.

Googoosh Live in Dubai!

Last week I went a massive, chaotic, and wonderful concert by Googoosh, the biggest Iranian singing/acting diva. She's a smoking hot 57-year-old with an enormous voice and a decades-long discography.

I went expecting to have a good time because I like her music (and damn can she belt it out live), but I did not expect the added benefit of cultural observation, getting immersed in a 4-5,000-strong crowd of excited Iranians. Definitely the most Iranians I've ever been around. And I was definitely the only non-bleached blonde in the arena.

I was with Mahboyfriend and my Iranian friend, Sara, who promised me as we walked in that, in a crowd that size, we would get to see "the best and worst" of Iran.

My observations:

(1) Shimmery metallic shirts and rhinestone-studded clothing are a passion, perhaps even a wardrobe necessity. For men and women.
(2) Iranians do not like to stand in a queue. Rather like Indians, they tend to move like a river, flooding all available space around a gateway / ticket counter / etc., piling partly on top of one another, and then spilling out backwards. It was immensely chaotic.
(3) There is a striking diversity of complexion and facial features.
(4) The middle-aged women in headscarves tend to be rectangular in shape.

Here's a clip from the concert. I hope the sound quality is good enough to hear the grown men wailing along with her:

A Subprime Primer

This link is amazing: http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true


I feel smarter already.

No love from Saudi this year

I was kind of shocked to learn that Valentine’s Day has been banned on 90% of the land mass of the peninsula on which I reside. Apparently, all symbols of the holiday are banned, punishable by arrest.

Surely this is a gesture of defiance against the western commercialization of sexuality, which seems pretty clear on an abstract level but I find it difficult to articulate exactly what they object to on a tangible level. Is it the sale of chocolate? I think that is generally allowed in Saudi. Ditto the sale of sentimental greeting cards. And they can’t possibly be objecting to the principle of buying gifts for one’s wife/wives (what a revolt there would be if GCC women weren’t having diamonds, mahnolos, and solid gold bricks lavished on them). So is it the imagery of fleshy cupids? Is it the possibility of flirting via candy hearts between 2 unmarried, unrelated people? Is it the vestigial prefix “Saint”?

I’m hoping it’s one of the above. Otherwise my only conclusion is that the same town leaders who banned dancing and rock music in Footloose moved to Riyadh and joined forces with the Grinch to steal Valentine’s Day. Boo.

And on a more serious note, what does this mean to ban symbols of something?? Is this not a terrible can of legal worms to open? It's easy enough to say "red roses = valentine's day, so no red roses allowed" but doesn't this pave the way for next year's rule to be "anything red is a symbol of a red rose, so no red allowed" or "you're wearing a pink shirt which means you must be thinking about valentine's day, so i will arrest you" or "you're considered a social dissident so i will find something in your house that symbolically refers to a heart, a piece of chocolate, a greeting card, the color red, or the color pink, so i will arrest you." ?? Slippery slope...

pittar, patter - part two

This is what happens when it rains for 3 days in Dubai.

pitter, patter

I arrived back from New York late last night and awoke this morning to a surreal Dubai (even more surreal than normal).

There are epic traffic jams due to security sweeps of certain areas in preparation for George Bush's visit tomorrow and it was just announced that 4 major roads will be closed entirely tomorrow. This essentially cripples the city so most companies are declaring it a day off. Kind of like a snow day. Thanks Dubya, I guess?

In addition to that, it's raining cats and dogs.

So, I'm sitting on the balcony, enjoying the rain's pitter patter on the pool, feeling a little sorry for the palm trees which look quite confused and a little embarrassed to be so wet, and wondering if I'll go to work tomorrow anyway...