Many of us have come across individuals that distance themselves from the truth so much so that it seems quite absurd. I wrote the following after encountering such an individual a few years ago. It was a bit long-winded, so I’ve revised it and cut it short. Read it if you will. As always, comments welcome. A most strange occurrence in societies treading the almost always painful path to freedom and self-determination is the constant presence of the reductionist.

The wind is warm, yet the overcast foretells of inevitable drizzle. Not rain, mind you. Just drizzle, the sort of rain that announces itself longer than the time it takes it to come down and be done with. Rejoice, car wash men, for sandy drops of water; mischievous as they are, will splatter on all, leaving no vehicle; however fancy and gemlike, unsoiled. And fall they do, for about half an hour.

No matter how far we have come, we always remember the first time. The only time at the time. The reason of being there and nowhere else. “Bring me happiness,” she says. “Bring me the glory of days gone by, the love we shared and the friends we had. Where have all those days gone? Are they forever no more, but to lay in our memories?” People, places and objects perish.

Kuwaiti writer/director Sulayman Al-Bassam, best known for his 2002 Edinburgh International Fringe Festival entry, The Al-Hamlet Summit, will present Baghdad Richard in the UK from 8 – 17 February 2007. From the RSC: Commissioned by the RSC for The Complete Works Festival, the internationally award-winning Kuwaiti writer/director Sulayman Al-Bassam presents an explosive, contemporary re-telling of Richard III. Shakespeare’s mesmerising portrait of human evil provides the doorway into the dark inner workings of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the mid 1980s, an era when the Iraqi tyrant was still regarded as a hero incarnate of both Arab and Western worlds alike.

Ever curious, people have brewed and smoked almost everything that protrudes in one form or another from the earth and then some. Coffee is, without a doubt, the most popular of these experiments.

The perfect brew follows the perfect roast. It’s a delightful play on our senses that begins with smell before sight. The smell primes us for an encounter with a dark, rich liquid. A liquid that promises to wake up our other senses as well as our body and mind. And that, it surely does.

The first sip quickly crescendos into the blend’s unique character. A rapid cascade follows. Traces of continents and countries and herdsmen amongst plantations meet, greet and dissipate. From Yemen to Brazil, and from Ethiopia to Sumatra, your everyday blend coffee is truly a multicultural experience in its own right. If you will pardon deficient nation labelling, coffee is developing countries in a cup.

Salar Abdohwrites a prescient piece on Iranian cinemafor Words Without Borders. Some gems include: …being Iranian today means, among other things, being associated with what the President of the United States has called the Axis of Evil. Evil suggests barbarity. So each time an Iranian film wins an award, each time a reviewer calls Iranian cinema “vibrant” and Iranian society “intellectually vital,” one feels vindicated. “We are not barbarians!” is that cry across continents that forces others to listen and take note.

Text or graphic, perhaps the subtelities of writing should not be sabotaged by blatant smile symbols. For what purpose does it serve other than to undermine finely crafted textual utterances? If the meaning of a sentence lends itself to a smile, is it necessary? The graphic smile is a pet peeve of mine (particularly when software writers assume that you would want all your textual smiles substituted automatically.) The text version; however, is something that harkens back to the early days of networks.

This infamousJapanese to English translation, or Engrish,from an early nineties video game might be synctactally challenged, yet it rings true of the frustration and befuddlement that an aggressor would possess. Unfortunately, a frustrated IDF means 1,000 Lebanese dead, most of whom are civilians. Israel? 157 soldiers and civilians by last count. Lebanon the country might be engaged in what seems like endless turmoil. Lebanon the spirit, the people; however, can never be denied.

It seems that in this day and age of fleeting electrons and words written at the speed of light everyone is a writer of sorts. From scribbles on McDonald’s napkins to short text messages, unceremonious writing is part and parcel of modern human nature. Published or not, paperback or napkin, fiction or non-fiction, good writing needs no ceremony as long as it rings true. Be it a blog, one of Grisham’stomes, a treatiseon the Fertile Crescent region or even the ubiquitous smiley 🙂 writing has and will remain our purest, most visceral form of expression.

There was a time when I thought I could be true to myself. Ironically, that time was when I could never be true to myself. I have found that in order for me to reach a point of realizing my potential as a human being, there has to be a point of countering the forces of society. To conquer the beckoning call of conformity and to seek solace in one’s own convictions.