INGULFED
In ShanghaiArchive for Speaking before thinking
Grocery List: Abu Dhabi
One head lettuce: 5.3 dirham / $1.44
4 carrots: 3.45 dirham / 94¢
4 tiny limes: 0.6 dirham / 16¢
0.065 kg Indian chilis: 0.65 dirham / 18¢
1 loaf boring brown bread: 1.5 dirham / 41¢
3 Chinese golden apples: 3.35 dirham / 91¢
1 white onion: 1.7 dirham / 46¢
4 cashew ice cream bars: 7.8 dirham / $2.12
2 pistachio kulfi bars: 1.9 dirham / 52¢
3 small cucumbers: 0.65 dirham / 18¢
3 lemons: 2 dirham / 54¢
6 small tomatoes: 1.6 dirham / 44¢
3 giant figs: 6.45 dirham / $1.76
1 red repper: 3.75 dirham / $1.02
4 black plums: 3.30 dirham / 90¢
3 red onions: 0.65 dirham / 18¢
Total: 44.65 dirham / $12.16
$رأس من الخس (1) : 5.3 درهم / 1،44
جزر (4) : 3.45 درهم / ¢94
ليمون صغيرة (4) : 0.6 درهم / ¢16
تشيليز الهندي (0،065 كلغ) : 0.65 درهم / ¢18
رغيف خبز ممل أسمر (1) : 1.5 درهم / ¢41
تفاحات ذهبية صينية (3) : 3.35 درهم / ¢91
بصل أبيض (1) : 1.7 درهم / ¢46
$قضبان الآيس كريم الكاجو (4) : 7.8 درهم / 2،12
قضبان القلفي فستق (2) : 1.9 درهم / ¢52
خيار صغير (3) : 0.65 درهم / ¢18
ليمون خضراء (3) : 2 درهم / ¢54
طماطم صغيرة (6) : 1.6 درهم / ¢44
تين ضخمة (3) : 6.45 درهم / 1،76$
فلفل رومي أحمر (1) : 3.75 درهم / 1،02$
برقوق سوداء (4) : 3.30 درهم / ¢90
بصل أحمر (3) : 0.65 درهم / ¢18
$المجموع : 44.65 درهم / 12،16
Off the Cuff
There is something distinctly comforting about the lack of possibility. To be entirely unable to do something, to be barred from success by the laws of physics or nature or immigration — this is a kind of freedom that relieves us of the stress of trying.
If, say, I had to be on Mars by 2 p.m. today to polish the wheels of the Rover, I just couldn’t do it. Relax. It’s impossible. But even the faintest whiff of the minutest possibility that something cool is out there or somewhere cool is visitable and that the time and the tides are right — this is the pea under my mattress. And this princess has a lot to do in the morning.
Recently, the Vice-Consul of the Embassy of the largest democracy in the world, which will remain nameless (rhymes with Joo-dan), rejected my application (delivered by a Sudanese friend — Americans cannot apply directly from Abu Dhabi) because my last name revealed a deal-breaker: that I was Jewish. In Saudi Arabia, a country I want to visit out of the kind of curiosity that sends a couple of young kids to drop by Boo Radley’s house, I have also been stymied. No tourist visas, and no 2-day transit visas for men traveling alone (without a wife or family).
Their proximity, and the fact that I once thought I could go to these places, has made me unable to give up. There must be some way. Once the possibility switch is flipped, it may be impossible to flip back. Or maybe there is some way to let go — to realize that some things just cannot happen, or aren’t worth forcing, or, or, or…
When I run out of time, I can decide whether to regret defeat or to be satisfied by the attempt.
For now, I guess I’ll keep trying.
My Day at Osama Bin Laden’s House — رحلتي الى بيت أسامة بن لادن
Very long story short: it seemed like the right time to go. Once, in the romantic glory days when Osama had just been killed and we all saw the world through rose-colored sniper scopes, daytrippers from the capital or from Lahore would come in to Abbottabad (EPP-ta-bad) to pose for pictures in front of the ex-warlord’s house. It is not as big as it looks on TV. Now, men in camouflage weave through the grass holding rifles and eyeballing everything that moves. Dozens of cellphones have been smashed, and, on the first day I was supposed to drive north to Abbottabad, five “CIA Informants” were arrested by the Pakistani government for cooperating with Americans. Still, it’s a very pretty town. Nice hills.
[My apologies, this story has been submitted elsewhere and cannot honorably be published here. Until we can give up on “honor”, I can offer only the poor summary above. To read the full story about my tea party with Osama and the long games of bridge we played while I waited for Seal Team 6 to do the honors (maybe — you’ll have to find out!): send an email with a sentence including the words “Boca”, “curry”, and “fuckface” to INGULFED at GMAIL dot COM]
More pictures from pakistan here.
Osama and Me — انا و اسامة
I don’t appreciate what Osama Bin Laden did yesterday.
Everyone has someone with whom they agree to disagree. You live your respective lives at peace with the fact that there exists someone who you cannot change, whose every fiber contradicts the principles woven into your DNA. Think of your neighbor Geoff who you don’t speak to anymore and who has stopped poisoning your gardenias to flex for you, ad infinitum, his forbearing cold shoulder. Osama and I were like that — or at least I was — and just like you would for Geoff, I lived my life hoping nothing I did would ever make him happy and I cheered and high-fived people when I heard he was, as your other neighbor Lorenzo would say, swimming with the fishes.
Yesterday though, Bin Laden’s voice was given a sounding board from the bottom of the sea, and with it he praised the valiant struggle of citizens across the Middle East and North Africa — the struggle known as the “Arab Spring,” which is (curse him) valiant.
The equilibrium I struck that allowed me to stress less in his existence was balanced on the expectation that we would disagree on everything, just as we’d promised. To hear any semblance of reason from a sworn enemy of good sense was to come face to face with the fragile foundation of my inner status quo. The quo until yesterday was one in which I was more comfortable ignoring, more secure behind a wall of cultural insolation built from lazier bits of my own personality.
This is certainly a window into the other side that the reasonable can analyze for clues into the psyche of bad people with bad opinions that are wrong. It is perhaps an opportunity to come to terms with our absolutism and to engage more deeply with nemeses and the Other.
We may even humanize the world’s devils as we allow that there may be overlap — the reasonable — between our minds and theirs.
Meh, fuck it. And Osama. And screw your neighbor Geoff, too.
Berlin Alexanderplatz LiveBlog
On Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 9:00 a.m. in the timezone called SAMT (Samara Time, named for a town in southern Russia on the Volga River), INGULFED will host its first ever LiveBlog.
The subject: Rainer Wener Fassbinder’s controversial epic, Berlin Alexanderplatz. All are invited to watch and follow along with the commentary, which will document the relentless struggle of one man to watch the entirety of a film about the relentless struggle of one man. It will take 940 minutes.
The event has ended. Click the Saint Pauli girl to read the replay.
Click here to hear a ukelele reading of some subtitles (to get a feel for the film).