Last night I, along with bloggers Ayesha Saldanhaand Deonna Kelli Sayed, was invited to participate in a special Elhamevent regarding the role of blogging in cultural development, with particular emphasis on the literary aspect of online writing. I read several of my posts and answered some very interesting questions from the attendees. This was my second Elham participation (I participated in the first Elham gathering in November of last year.) As usual, Deonna Kelli Sayed, Phoebe Boswell,Al Riwaq Galleryand of course Ali Al Saeed(who unfortunately couldn’t make it as he was abroad,) did a wonderful job of organizing it.

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.

Maalouf’sIn the Name of Identityis a book that makes you say “uh-ha!” quite a lot. Some gems: “So am I half French and half Lebanese? Of course not. Identity can’t be compartmentalized. You can’t divide it up into halves or thirds or any other separate segments. I haven’t got several identities: I’ve got just one, made up of many components in a mixture that is unique to me, just as other people’s identity is unique to them as individuals.