Castrating Simba

One of the wool rugs was missing from the long marble corridor leading to my bedroom.

"He's pissing everywhere, now! The rug's drying on the balcony. Emily washed it, and it's hanging outside," Mama Hiam complained, crunching through a heart of raw lettuce. "He meows at night, all night, outside my door. I'm castrating him. Tomorrow. We have an appointment at 9am with the doctor, and we're going to castrate him."

Simba is a spoiled and reticent Turkish angora. He takes his meals in the kitchen but drinks only--ONLY--from the crystal ashtray that Hiam fills periodically throughout the day. Every morning, after a cup of Nescafe and half a red apple, she puts on a hospital mask and brushes Simba inside out, working his body like he was a rag doll. He's surprisingly okay with all the maneuvering, and it's only when she gets to his tail does he begin to resist.

It was Hiam's daughter who managed to coax her to getting a cat shortly after the war last summer. At first, Hiam rejected the idea altogether, I think in a stubborn effort to assert her self-sufficiency and comfort in solitude. She didn't need a cat, she wasn't lonely. Eventually, she caved in to the suggestion, and the rest is history.

She seemed disappointed when she returned from the veterinarian that morning. She was in the kitchen making kibbeh with Emily, and I overheard the dialogue from the living room.

"He didn't castrate him. Simba has psychology. You know what is psychology?"
"Yes, Madame."
"He says he keep Simba to examine him. But he did not castrate him. He did the echo, but no castrating him."

Cheney undergoes heart treatment

english.aljazeera.net

Dick Cheney, the US vice president, has been treated with electric shock treatment for an irregular heartbeat discovered during a doctor's visit. Cheney who was sedated for the procedure on Monday, later returned home and will resume his normal schedule at the White House on Tuesday, his office said.

"An electrical impulse was used to restore the upper chambers to normal rhythm," the statement said. "The procedure went smoothly and without complication."

Cheney, who had gone to see doctors because of a lingering cough from a cold, was found to have "atrial fibrillation, an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of the heart," Megan Mitchell, his spokeswoman, said earlier on Monday.

History of problems

He went to the hospital later in the day for the outpatient procedure. Atrial fibrillation is a disorder becoming increasingly common. The heart's two small upper chambers quiver instead of beating effectively and blood is not pumped out completely, so it may pool and clot, putting the person at risk of a stroke.

Cheney, a close aide to George Bush, the US president, has had a history of heart problems. He survived four heart attacks before he became vice president. The last one, shortly after the November 2000 election, was considered mild. More recently he was treated for a blood clot in his leg that was discovered after a trip to Asia and the Middle East. He underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 1988 and he has also had angioplasty to reopen a partially blocked artery.

...
Gosh darn it, working for peace is stressful!

3ajami

No, life here was very nice. Let me tell you why.
Wafic was a guy who loved life. I mean, for one, he never liked staying at home, and, two, he'd call me from the office: 'Get dressed. I'm picking you up.'

Five-thirty, we'd go to a house party. Then, there'd be a cocktail, so we'd go to the cocktail. We'd come back home. He'd change and then say to me, 'Get some sleep.'
'Why sleep? I just got back from the cocktail party, why sleep now?'
'I have to meet my buddy at Cape des Rois, then we're meeting some friends at the Mocombo around eleven, twelve, one.'
'We're going together.'
We were a Lebanese group, and we always went out together.
At the end of the night, there's this place called 3ajami, in the Souq el Taweeleh, on a paved street, a really narrow lane, half the width of a bedroom. The best stores were in Souq el Taweeleh. On both sides there were shops, and at the end a tiny little spot called 3ajami. They sold drinks, food, fool emdemmas, akel libanais.

It was in Centre Ville. Now, il n'existe plus. It's nothing now. They destroyed it, built it up again, put in a road, I don't know. There's nothing left of 3ajami.

De l'Orient le Jour, 24 novembre 2007

Upping the Anty on Internet Censorship: Ma3 al Salameh, Fbook

They blocked Facebook.

Gone are the days of profile updates, wall messages, and poking. 
Farewell to clicking "Not Attending" for events in America. 
Adieu Scrabulous.

Just two months ago, my friend O and I were chatting about Facebook as a public sphere.  We were saying how it was one of the only--if not the only--public spaces for free association.  Sure, the bodies and the language are digital; nonetheless, it is a revolutionary public sphere where individuals can assemble into groups and express their thoughts in an open forum.

Given that the Assad regime isn't so fond of free association/assembly and of unregulated expression in general, it doesn't really surprise me that the government has blocked Facebook.  However, I am shocked that they were perceptive enough to realize what a major role it plays in everyday life here.

The government has knocked my-facebook-self into a coma.

Wikipedia writes,

"A notable ancillary effect of social networking websites, particularly Facebook, is the ability for participants to mourn publicly for a deceased individual. On Facebook, students often leave messages of sadness, grief, or hope on the individual's page, transforming it into a sort of public book of condolences. This particular phenomenon has been documented at a number of schools. Previously, Facebook had stated that its official policy on the matter was to remove the profile of the deceased one month after he or she has died,preventing the profile from being used for communal mourning, citing privacy concerns. Due to user response, Facebook amended its policy. Its new policy is to place deceased members' profiles in a "memorialization state".

Additional usage of Facebook as a tool of remembrance is expressed in group memberships on the site. Now that groups are community-wide and available among all networks, many users create Facebook groups to remember not only a deceased friend or individual, but also as a source of support in response to an occurrence such as 9/11 or the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007."

How will Facebook respond to all of us comatose Syrians?
Our profiles are now memorials.  Does that mean we're dead?

Fondly, from opera-syria.org

Welcome to Dar Al-Assad for Culture Culture and Arts

Scouring through hundreds of websites

You visited us

To let our friendship start here

How?

By being with us in our free creations

To let our friendship start

For

Culture is the spirit of civilization

&

Art is the expression of its rise

We create love & peace

We follow the profession of happiness

Surpassing frontiers & races

Yet

Our Syrian human being is looking for world's human beings

You're welcome again

You're with us & we're with you

The Sword

I envision my death when I walk to the theatre.

Dar al Assad, the National Theatre, sits on Sahat el Oumayeen, a giant roundabout a la Paris's Place de l'Etoile. Instead of the Arc de Triomphe, there is a wide fountain with dozens of jets that glimmer neon blue at night. It's far from majestic, but you can't help but giggle when you see that much water shooting into the desert air.

A concrete monolith accented by a sliver of windows, the Assad library and Syria's equivalent of the Pentagon hold the fort on the Eastern flank of the Sahat. To the West lies another concrete monolith, the Sheraton Hotel...although it's more of a modernist ruin than anything else.

One of the few memories I have from my trip to Damascus fifteen years ago is indulging in a banana split at the Sheraton pool. It still hosts a chic crowd during the summer (the prostitutes go to Le Meridien). The 80s glam of the sunbathers juxtaposes with the heinous architecture reminiscent of ammunition igloos at Fort Dix. Southwest, you've got a nondescript Ministry barricaded by a colonnade, and due South is Dar al Assad which is a perfectly shaven, concrete rectangular prism. Literally.

Charming as the fountains may be, the real axis of this space is the towering seven-story sword (probably the Assad Sword), whose pseudo-stained glass facade lights up at night. Rooted off-center in a concrete island near the Dar al Assad, it reminds all cars and pedestrians that--make no mistake--this phallus lays down the law of the land.

Approaching the Sahat is like stepping into a vortex of nationalism, totalitarian authoritarianism, and patriarchy...and concrete. Time after time, I'm floored by how boldly the architecture and geometry of this cityspace embody a politics of monism. And, time after time, I pass a row of kalishnikovs aimed at my liver as I stroll past the Ministry of Defense. There's an exasperated soldier hanging out every twenty meters or so. He's got his gun draped perpendicular to his torso and directed right at the passers-by.

I know these guns are probably not even loaded. And I doubt that these guys are even conscious of where their guns are pointed. And even though kalashnikovs and tanks were ubiquitous in Cairo and Beirut, I can't quite get used to walking past a barrel aimed straight at my body. Without fail, as I'm approaching the target range of these guns, I think to myself, "This is it. It's going to shoot accidentally. Something's going to happen, and it's going to shoot. This is it. I'm going to be shot. I'm going to be killed. And I'm going to collapse dead at the feet of a towering polychromatic phallus in Damascus, Syria."

Text from a Placemat in La Casa in Abu Rummaneh, Damascus, Syria

When was the last time you had Asian?

of the ginseng herb

Cleansing the body of stress.
Ginseng has a long history of helping increase libido or sexual energy and desire.
Ginseng is considered one of the only safe natural herbs for sexual health.

www.visitlacasa.com

Under my Umbrella

I nearly exploded when I heard the rain.  I was in the shower when it started, and so it probably took me a while to perceive the relatively soft pattering outside.

Yesterday, in the car on the road to Beirut, the woman squeezed to my right relayed the news of the rain.  I thought she was pleasant at first.  After we veered off the Chtoura highway forty minutes deep into the belly of the Lebanon Mountains to the end of the road (literally) of the village Shbiah, I was ready to shove her out of the Chevy.

Mama Hiam gave me a giant aquamarine umbrella, and I hurried off to the Goethe Institute to attend a conference.  The service dropped me off just after the AUB on Bliss, and I walked the rest in the downpour.  Past Snack Faysal--it sits at the base of a civil war ruin, one of the few on Bliss that hasn't been replaced with a concrete atrocity or a fast-food workshop.  Past Siniora's house, past Salon Khalil Mike, and past Heo's doctor's office, who, it turns out, is a distant relative of mine.  It was Sunday.  The streets were empty, which was lucky because my umbrella proved to be too big for the sidewalks, so I took to the road.

But, actually, come to think of it I never really walk on sidewalks anymore.  My walk this afternoon was exceptional because of the umbrella, that's all.

Hot Hands

I am writing a message in a bottle.  I used to be able to sit at one of the few snobby cafes in my neighborhood and surf the net without any restrictions, but that is not the case anymore.  Yesterday, I ordered a cappuccino at In-House Cafe and stationed myself in a corner expecting to pour some thoughts into this forum, but, lo and behold, ACCESS FORBIDDEN!  It's now virtually impossible to visit major blogging sites, such as blogspot, from any place in Damascus.  Gone is the narcissistic pleasure of reading my own blurbs.

However, as the very presence of these words indicates, it is still possible to post via email.  And I ought to continue.

The wind is violent today, and patches of clouds cross through the sky.  Evenings are cool and dry--sweater and scarf weather.

When I was in the Istanbul airport about ten days ago, I stumbled upon a cache of memories from elementary school at Woodward Academy, and ever since I've been working actively to excavate these images and stories and what not because I'm so afraid of losing them.  Also, I have a new penpal (we were peers at Woodward), and I think our correspondences have also contributed to this surge of interest in the WA days.

Generally, "Lower School" was a horrible and miserable experience, peppered with moments of gratification.  Like the time I won $50 in Bingo on the fourth grade trip to Savannah, Georgia (I kept that fifty dollar bill clenched in my fist under my pillow that night), or the time that I won second place and a check for $750 in the National Invention Convention for "Hot Hands."

Three of us from the fifth grade were among the top sixteen young American entrepreneurs invited to Kansas City (which, I learned, straddles the border of Kansas and Missouri...which, I learned, is pronounced MissourAH).  We were driven around in Limousines and stayed at the Ritz Carlton (for free!), and I had to buy a bulky, gray Eddie Bauer sweater because it was so damn cold.

My invention was "Hot Hands," a pair of gloves which heated up when you shook them.  On my tri-fold poster board, there was a picture of my brother--sporting a pair of shit-brown Hot Hands.  His head was turned to the right, and he was looking at his (warm) hand with an expression of incredulous shock.  Underneath, the caption read, "The Glove Fits!"  Probably in the font, Impact.

I didn't come up with "The Glove Fits!"  My mother did.  The OJ Trial was still fresh on everyone's mind, and so the photo + caption indicated that I qua entrepreneur not only had a grasp of current events but also a biting sense of humor.

We had to make a commercial, too.  Like the tri-fold poster board, this item also featured my brother.  We stood in a harshly lit corner, and there was a tree behind us that, if you squinted hard enough, resembled a palm.  Donning our recently purchased neon ski jackets, my brother sang a specially-crafted rendition of Bobby McFarrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy!" while my father whistled the melody from behind the camera lens.

My role in the commercial was to fill the half-note rest between "Don't Worry" and "Be Happy."  Flashing my jazz-hands to the camera in rhythm, I interjected, "Hot Hands!  Hot Hands!" just off-rhythm.

We thought it was clever.

When it played on the giant screen in the dining room of the Ritz Carlton in Kansas City on that fateful March evening, we knew: it was a gem, and, boy, were we happy.