Art by occident

My British father possesses a book entitled Understanding Arabs. As a kid I always wondered whether it was presented to him upon his marriage to my Egyptian mother as part of some all inclusive package including a user’s guide to wasta and instructions on dealing with mothers-in-law, or whether he acquired it subsequently after years of the my world-your world cultural trysts created when east meets west. This often thorny relationship between the two is currently being explored in two independent exhibitions showing in Cairo.

Occidentalism, curated by Karim Francis, is a ten-day extravaganza featuring exhibits by nineteen Egyptian artists, open forum encounters with the artists and evenings of music. Collaborating artists were asked to create works of art in answer to the question “how do you see the West?” In a series of meetings with the curator and other participating artists which began in April 2006, they explored themes such as dialogues between the cultures of east and west, dualism and double-standards and hegemony and cultural identity which produced the paintings, installations and video art on display at the many-roomed Hotel Suisse.

Politics is inevitably a recurring theme in the exhibit. Khaled Hafez’s ‘Revolution’ (tagline: ‘Every revolution comes with a bag of unfulfilled promises’) is a video installation in which a split screen divided into the white, red and black of the Egyptian flag shows a military officer, a business man and a man in white ‘Islamist’ clothing. We see the officer turning a gun over in his hands while the businessman clasps a hammer and the Islamist languorously fondles a Barbie doll before decapitating it with a butcher’s knife. In the other screens meanwhile, the businessman uses his hammer to pound nails into wood before the officer turns his gun on both of them. The themes of military junta betrayal, market neo-colonialism and religious intolerance - while hardly subtle - are here given a witty, highly-stylised touch.

Commonalities between east and west is another prominent theme. Hoda Lotfi has constructed giant replicas of tongs used to handle sheesha pipes’ hot coals which are shaped in the form of two women, one eastern and one western. The objects are joined by a chain in order to represent the common ties which bind women together regardless of cultural differences. Mohamed Abla’s exhibit, Men In War explores the humanity which persists despite the barbarity of conflict. He juxtaposes 1950s film poster-style painting featuring soldiers, their sweethearts and heartfelt lines such as “my thoughts are ever with you” against a nightmarish grey wall mural depicting the hell of war. The work represents Abla’s complex relationship with the West: his self-professed admiration of its culture and technology sits alongside its “long history of pain and injustice.”

One of the most striking exhibits was Heba Farid’s Atlas of a Geneology, in which she presents migration as a phenomenon precluding the division of the world into separate and polarised entities. She uses her own family’s experience of migration in the 1960s and 70s to illustrate this, via a slide show of images from the family album taken in the United States, Canada and Egypt. The pictures are accompanied by music of the period and sound recordings - or ‘oral letters’ - made by members of her family at the time. While the work is innately personal, it also inevitably documents the history of Egyptian society. Watching the slightly orange images of early 1970s sparkling buildings, clean Downtown streets and empty bridges I experienced the usual jolt at seeing places which are so known and yet which look so strange: like passing through an area in daylight for the first time, having previously only seen it at night. In addition to documenting one family’s relationship with the west, the exhibit is a moving evocation of a lost Egypt.

While the overarching curatorial vision generally ensures a sense of continuity, there were nonetheless a few pieces which slipped through the net. Amal Kenawy asks the novel question ‘Mum? Do Angels Shit?’ and explores the issue in a video installation set in a bedroom complete with twin beds and wardrobe. In the short film we see a naked obese woman with a bag on her head, a model pig, toy jockeys on horses and briefly a child playing piano in a batman costume. All is set to the soundtrack of a slightly demonic variation on Three Blind Mice. This bewildered viewer failed to gain any insight into how the motley assortment sheds light onto the artist’s perception of the west, but this installation is an exception to what is an excellent exhibition.

Perceptions of the east-west relationship are explored through the photographic image at the Goethe Institute in Youssef Rakha’s exhibit Berlin-Cairo/Alexandria. Rakha explores what unites and separates these metropolises by juxtaposing similar images next to each other: the Egyptian staple of cigarettes, lighter and tea sits underneath its German counterpart of a bottle of wine and an ashtray, while in another image we see a night-image of a deserted Egyptian street, the pavement semi-unmade, what tiles there are broken and dirty. A shop-sign abastre and pharonic status [sic] can just be made out. In the German image above it we see the profile of a statue overlooking the perfectly laid out street, the immaculately clean cobbles mocking the poverty of their Egyptian cousins below.

The power of these images lies in the way in which Rakha combines them to create what appears to be a single photograph by for example, extending a single line from one image into the next. Thus in one photograph the edge of a pavement on which a German youth practises his BMX skills imperceptibly seeps into an Egyptian pavement on which sits a forlorn, aged shoe-shiner. In another the Mediterranean sea appears to be lapping against a wall in Germany against which a man reclines. The result is a collection of beautiful, often melancholy images which testify to the fact that neither wealth, chaos nor overcrowding can disguise the essential loneliness and desolation of all big cities.

Originally published in al Ahram Weekly

It's acceptable if it doesn't actually resemble a cow

MSN conversation this afternoon:

Umm Nakad: Hi ya gameel

Amnesiac: Hi

Umm Nakad: Teegy tekly goulash bel la7m el mafroum? Ana 3amelt seneyya to7fa ya benty [Do you want to come over and eat Goulash with minced meat? I made a really great dish.]

Amnesiac: Ana mabakolshi la7ma [I don't eat meat.]

Umm Nakad: Ah bass deih la7ma mafrouma [Yeah but this is minced meat.]

Amnesiac: ??

Umm Nakad: Bardou? [Still?]

Germane sneer

Being a half-breed and therefore neither here not there has always had the curious effect of inducing a longing to ‘fully’ belong to some(any)thing while simultaneously preventing me from signing up 100 percent blood and soul for anything. It is the Wizard of Oz effect: intimately belonging to two worlds somehow means that it is impossible to see the wonders of one without seeing the feet underneath the curtain of the other.

The quest for identity has taken me has taken me through some interesting scenery, including: a brief spell at the local Croydon mosque where I watched, baffled, the Qu’ran teacher bark orders at the kids in Bengali; my mother’s horrified reaction when I came home from school and proudly announced that I could recite the Lord’s prayer; being mildly taunted with the Bangles’ friggin ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ dance in the playground; being informed that I have inherited the English coldness; being the only kid with special dietary requirements in a school full of English northerner rednecks; being the only foreigner in a family full of Egyptians…and so on.

The above isn’t meant to be read with the sound of distant violins, I mean being half half is hardly like, only having one leg, or being forced by economic circumstances to appear on the Tyra Banks Show (every time, without exception, that I have the misfortune to stumble across that woman she is boring people with anecdotes about her weave.) But there are nonetheless times (1990 World Cup/upon being asked by Egyptians about the English/upon being asked by the English about Egyptians) when it would be nice to be able to back one horse without mild but nagging inner conflict and the feeling that I am either faking an identity or denying the existence of a parent. Oh and my spiritual life would undoubtedly be in a healthier state as well, as would my ability to fully endorse political and social movements and tick ethnic identity boxes on questionnaires (I resent ‘white – other.’ I am not a variety of wall paint.)

I pondered this the other night as I endured the mostly purgatory-level agonies of the Boussy production at the American University in Cairo, where for an hour and a half I listened to women complaining (the play is a take on the Vagina Monologues). To be fair, and to get it out of the way now so that I can go on to rail bitterly against it, Boussy does have some good moments, explores interesting themes and is undoubtedly something of a pioneer in the Egyptian context.

But bloody hell they didn’t half go on, those women, and about what! The good stuff which was presented was almost undone by two, particularly odious, scenes: in the first we are treated to a ten minute sigh by a furrowed-of-brow woman who, we understand, has been propositioned by a married colleague. This has apparently torn through her soul, heart and mind! And cheapened the meaning of love! And destroyed three lives! (how exactly given that the wife hasn’t found out I don’t know) And done away with all her trust in men and love and everything! And set back the race for a cure for cancer by ten years! And oh oh oh Mr D'arcy!

In the second, unbearable, scene during which I lamented the fact that I was ever born we were forced (the theatre was packed, I wouldn’t have been able to leave without making six seated people, and five people sitting in an impossible formation on the floor, get up) to listen to a furrowed-of-brow woman essentially moan about being dumped, in that whiny high-octave undulating voice reminiscent of a car alarm that devastated dumped women often assume: he was a bastard…but it was my fault too AND I LOVE HIM…and I don’t care that he sold my eyes for crack while I was asleep cos HE’S GOING THROUGH A TRANSITIONAL PHASEEEEEEE.”

While exploring the female condition fully is in theory acceptable, airing every single gripe possibly attributable to a male surely undermines the strength of the argument: it is rather like charging some despot with genocide, crimes against humanity and forgetting to put the toilet seat down. All I know is that I and at least two other women emerged out of that theatre wanting to smack sense into a woman, any woman, even each other. Or ourselves.

But then I have always had problems with the way in which the feminist argument is framed anyway, and for a long time thought that it might be due to the inability to sign up to anything described above. The problem is I think, that feminists are often accused of being humourless and frequently rightly so - or at least their public campaigning is just so serious.There is also the fact that many of my self-described feminist friends have a what I consider Where’s Waldo-type approach to female oppression, seeking to define anything and everything in gender terms. My wonderful friend the Thespian with whom I lived last summer banned me from using the words ‘tits’ in her house, not on the grounds that it was crude (fair enough, I have similar problems with the C word) but because it was ‘denigrating to women.’ She applied the same ban to the word ‘bird’ when used to describe a living creature which does not possess wings.

It was also suggested that I cannot empathise fully with the suffering depicted in Boussy because I am not an Egyptian woman who had a conservative Middle Eastern upbringing. To which I say I am not a 70-year old male retired army veteran, and I still cry at Platoon every time. And as a female but of course I have experienced sexual discrimination. One memorable occasion was during an English A-Level History class for adult learners at some dustbin of a college in Croydon. The teacher was a windsurfing enthusiast with a penchant for shell suits who, we girls noticed, never picked a female to answer questions. Eventually someone asked him why this was to which he casually responded, “d'ya know, I just never see girls’ arms when they go up!” I wondered silently whether he would see my arm as I pushed him off his windsurfing board into shark-infested waters.

Like the best high-maintenance broads, You Tube cooperated eventually

The video of George which that cow You Tube refused to let me post immediately.

I resisted using the naughty Arabic B word!

Succumbing to hunger at 4.30 p.m., I just embarked on the preparation of the no.1 cooked meal of all single lazy people with no other foodstuff whatsoever in their fridge, the omelette.

It was all going swimmingly until I cracked open the second egg directly into the frying pan, and was horrified to be confronted with the partially-formed fossilised foetus of the shell-owner, a kaleidoscope of aubergine purple and black swimming in a viscous white liquid.

Mortified, I attempted to extract what I could of the baby bird’s solid messy mass while its albumen seeped into the good egg like an oil tanker spill painting an ocean.

Halfway through and I was hit by the most putrid, rotten smell I have ever encountered: a sharp mixture of dead dog and rotting corpses and gone-off fish and rancid milk turned adolescent cheese and French fromage and unwashed feet and tramp’s armpit and dark metropolitan alleys cum pissoirs. It was the smell of evil, and sent me dry-retching for the next five minutes such was its venom, before I summoned up the courage to look the beast in the face (while breathing through my mouth) and throw away the angry chick and its goo.

I have slightly OCDish tendencies about anything related to my phobia (or one of them), which is rubbish (‘garbage’ in American), but luckily urges to wash my hands 78 times are overpowered by an all conquering tendency towards extreme laziness.

I then lay down in a darkened room, my mind’s eye seeing nothing but eggs and zombie chicks as my stomach churned like that of a teenager's whose affair with her best friend’s boyfriend has just been discovered.

I will never eat eggs again.

Speaking of rotten eggs, time for a Stand Up Cairo update.

STAND UP CAIRO UPDATE

Our first auditions brought us the excellent George Azmy, part of whose act you can watch here, if You Tube has cooperated:

Surprise surprise, You Tube is being a bitch and won't cooperate unless I have dinner with her Ma. I'll post George in the next post if the cow lets me.

George is rather good doncha think, Arabic speakers? And English speakers: his body language is A1, no?

Many-stringed George also designed the Stand Up Cairo logo, as well as the posters, leading me to conclude that the whole malarkey should be renamed Stand Up George Cos You’re a Stand Up Guy.

We have had some mild press interest: a Daily Star article in which uncomfortable feeling words are inserted into my mouth and a two page spread in Egypt Today.

Even bad publicity is good publicity as the adage goes, but I think this is debatable in the case of a front cover headline of a magazine which reads thus:

WHEN STAND UP COMEDY FLOPS (p. 108)

As regular readers will know, I am unable to resist wordplay and have therefore inflicted many an excruciating title on you all, dear friends. I like to think however that my attempts to torture the English language until it confesses where the wit is, and occasionally take Arabic hostage as well, at least has some context. Which is why I resent this editor’s choice of headline: failure to uncover hordes of talent immediately within an art form which hasn’t been witnessed in Egypt for twenty years should not be dismissed as a flop, I don’t think. And what is most annoying is that the headline does not reflect the encouraging tone of the article – again confirming my suspicion that the person who came up with this annoying line 1. Didn’t read the article properly and, 2. has the same mania for wordplay as me.

The article itself, like I say, is positive. And I am possibly the last person who should complain about press coverage.

Ahem moving on.

Our two rounds of auditions have revealed that actually, monolingual Egyptians either don’t understand fully what stand up is, have dismissed us as a bunch of chancers or are too shy to audition, which is why we are currently debating going back to zero and introducing stand up comedy to Egypt before local comedians introduce their take on stand up to us. We concluded that it might be a good idea to invite Arab American comics over to host a workshop, or perform a show, and lo and behold this morning we received an unsolicited email from an Arab American comic expressing interest in bringing a bunch of Arab American comics to Cairo. A sign? Coincidence? A mirage in the desert sighted by a desperate thirsty man? Who knows!

In any case we shall see if this 101 in stand up bears tastier fruit than our attempt to plunge straight in with auditions. If anyone has thoughts, comments or advice I would most welcome it as long as it in no way makes mention of the ovum which comes out of chickens.

Songshine

The Chinese Gardens are a brief interlude in the Cairo International Conference Centre’s otherwise uncompromising concrete uniformity, offering sculptured lawns, shady copses and ponds. They were a fitting setting for the 4th SOS Music Festival, whose ‘let’s go original’ ethos is centred around providing an alternative to the mass-produced mediocrity of much of contemporary Egyptian mainstream music and, according to the SOS website (www.sosmusicfestival.com), aims to “promote originality and creativity” by encouraging musicians “to dig deep into their own culture and keep an open mind to experiment with different elements of music.” In keeping with this philosophy the seven acts (six Egyptian and one international) were therefore only allowed to perform original material.

The first acts onstage performed to an audience of feeble numbers - all the sensible people arrived later, just as the sun was putting on its coat and leaving, rather than risk sunstroke. Those that were there sought refuge underneath the trees – some 300 metres away from the stage – while a handful of hardcore fans sweltered and swayed in front of the stage. Idle Mind soldiered on through the virtually empty desert, belting out standard heavy metal compositions with a few nice melodic touches and startling everyone with their Megadeth-style roaring. Two-piece Arab Rap Family had to do battle with both a low turnout and technical problems, their backing track repeatedly and suddenly coming to an impromptu stop with a loud microwave-like beep. Their act was undoubtedly undermined by the billing, rapper MC Monadel urging the audience to approach the stage so that the band could “feel their energy.” His attempts to create momentum through the standard “when I say X, you say Y!” incantation also fell flat and would have undoubtedly worked better with a larger, less hot, crowd. The two rappers were accompanied by a female singer with an impressive vocal range but whose operatic-style falsetto warbling was contrived, if not baffling. Overall however, the group’s performance was an enjoyable enough Arabic language take on the Black Eyed Peas formula.

One of the highlights of the day was undoubtedly Basheer. Mohamed Basheer, a native of Aswan, combines the rhythm and heart of Upper Egypt with funk and soul sounds to create excellent and exciting music. He was joined by members of funk troupe Vybe on this occasion and the set, which included trumpet, synthesiser and Tabla, was fantastic: think Stevie Wonder meets Mohamed Mounir. Basheer will inevitably draw comparisons with Mounir because of their shared Aswan heritage and identical choice of haircut if nothing else, but while there is a certain and similar joyful rhythm to both singer’s music, Basheer nonetheless has a unique and distinctive sound.

Even after 5 p.m. it was still sweltering, prompting Basheer to urge members of the audience to retain their enthusiasm and not expire from the heat -“we’re all Egyptians and we all love the sun!” he declared, the veracity of which statement was directly challengeable by firstly, the presence of several distinctly un-Egyptian looking specimens and, secondly, the hordes of Egyptians still seeking refuge under the boughs miles away. This prompted me to think that the SOS organisers should have perhaps made some concession to the sun, by either starting and finishing later or reducing the number of acts if necessary.

Nagham Masry fuse eastern and western musical traditions together and top it off with lyrics drawn from Egypt’s best-loved popular poets (such as Amal Donkol and Salah Jaheen). The audience loved lead-singer Sherbini’s cheerful and upbeat delivery and were wowed by Ousso’s incredible guitar solos. Vybe followed shortly afterwards, preceded by their reputation for performing excellent renditions of funk, soul and R’n’B classics. Their own compositions were disappointing, and while lead singer Shady Mohamed Gamal El Din Hamza was in good voice, the music itself was humdrum and uninspiring and – according to audience members who have seen them before - their performance apparently lacked the energy they usually conjure up when doing covers.

The star of the night was incontestably Iraqi guitar virtuoso Elham el Madfai. El Madfai, who strongly resembles Winston Churchill without the jowls, performed with an insouciance which epitomes cool and which was undiminished by the fact that he was wearing a fishing hat. He seems to produce heavenly Segovia-quality ripples on his classical guitar without being conscious of actually doing so: while talking to the crowd, or looking back to issue instructions to his band. He and his group of superb musicians seamlessly turned out tune after great tune to the enraptured crowd, pausing only to affix an Iraqi flag given to him by a member of the audience to his guitar stand. He played for an hour and a half - outplaying half of the crowd itself which dutifully left to take sisters and girlfriends home once the clock approached midnight.

Music festivals are a rarity in Egypt, and SOS is therefore fulfilling a crucial function in giving a platform to music which would otherwise not be heard by people who would not otherwise hear it. While it is great that there was free entrance, the whole rigmarole surrounding actually acquiring tickets left much to be desired: it was necessary to complete an online questionnaire, including a question as to the applicant’s opinion about having to complete a questionnaire in order to obtain tickets - which called for much self-restraint. Successful applicants were then sent an email instructing them to go a cafe in distant Heliopolis in order to pick up the tickets. The SOS website claims that this system is designed to restrict access to “the right crowd, who want to be there for the music and the good time, and to prevent any misbehaviour.” While this may ostensibly be the case, I noted that the website, and the questionnaire, did not offer an Arabic language option. The SOS organisers would therefore seem to have (presumably unwittingly) employed an elitist audience selection policy which had the effect of excluding monolingual Egyptians.

Originally published in al Ahram Weekly

Dance of life

Until I came to Egypt I had been to a total of two weddings in my life, both of which I have no recollection (due to infancy rather than inebriation, mother). Despite having a relatively small social circle I have been to a total of five weddings in the last five years in Egypt, been invited to more I couldn’t attend, and am constantly aware of some friend of a friend about to tie the rope to his neck knot.

Like everything else in Egypt the nature of one’s nuptials is determined by social status and spending power, but all weddings regardless of whether the groom was born in a silver spoon or a rusty ladle are variations on the same formula. I recently had a conversation with a young man who complained that while he would prefer to invest the extravagant amounts of money spent on this formula (hiring a hotel, feedings guests, DJ etc) in a house or a car, the idea was inconceivable to his family for whom the complete works with bells on is mandatory. Another example perhaps of the way in which individuality in Egypt is smothered by the rigidity of tradition, but luckily, this tradition is Egyptian weddings’ finest asset.

Last night I went to the wedding celebration of a woman I once worked with. Coming from a relatively modest economic background, she and her fiancé elected to hold the party in the club of the romantically named ‘public accounting authority.’ The club was on the Nile, and was the standard concrete patio with utilitarian tables and chairs overlooking what was at this time of night the intense blackness of the Nile. When Sharshar, Umm Nakad and I arrived the party was already in full swing, an enormous undulating crowd of people surrounding the throne on which the bride and groom were presumably sitting, the whole scene immersed in sha3by [popular] music played at a deafening volume, the DJ bellowing something incomprehensible about el 7ag Abaza.

We surveyed the scene from a dark corner, attempting to hide from the camera which would occasionally be taken round the seated guests and pointed at startled individuals like a gun. The dance floor was a heaving mass of bobbing heads and raised arms which resembled sunflowers swaying in a field. On the fringes were the obligatory small children zigzagging about like errant missiles. What was interesting about the scene was the unconscious gender segregation: one side was a sea of brightly coloured hegabs, the other a mass of hair lacquered heads. The bride and groom took their first steps in unison in the middle, aglow in the light of the camera.

At one point the shabka (gifts of gold for the bride) was brought round for inspection by the crowd, the camera following behind it, before the sharbat (a hideously sweet drink traditional at weddings) was filmed for about ten hours by said camera. Later, a group of young men performed an impressive and impromptu synchronised dance routine, Take That style, including Justin Timberlake foot moves.

Something should be said about the music. It is generally the case that the less affluent the wedding, the less ‘sophisticated’ the music – which is not meant in a condescending manner. The play list at rich, 5-star hotel weddings mixes Arab and western music, Arab music generally limited to the dulcet tones of Elissa, Fadl Shaker, Amr Diab and whichever respectable Egyptian singer is flavour of the month at the time. When people do dance to the odd sha3by song at these affairs, it is in a self-conscious, almost ironic manner, much in the same tongue in cheek way that English people dance to ‘Come On Eileen’ or ‘I Will Survive.’ Sharshar even told me that at the wedding of one of his best friends last week, the bride had threatened to walk out if just one sha3by song was played, prompting he and his mischievous friends to request that the DJ play sha3by song par excellence ‘el 3anab’ [grapes] by Saad el Soghayer, in which Mr el Soghayar compares women to fruit.

But put on a sha3by song at a wedding and the mood changes, because there is a sort of unrefined, raw, sexual energy in this music which has always fascinated me. Yesterday was a case in point. The dance floor was segregated as has already been noted, but in each section the shoulder shimmying and hip wriggling was breathtakingly and unabashedly sexy, as was the music which at times was limited to a tabla and guttural bass sound which gradually and rhythmically built up and up to its climax, interrupted sporadically by the DJ’s ‘aywa!’ I observed the crowd - which consisted of veiled girls in cling film tightness clothes, matronly women in galabeyyas, women in full neqab, bearded men and lads wearing open shirts and cheeky smiles - and wondered at this strange schism in Egyptian society as a result of which the beast of sex is locked in a dark basement and brought out in certain controlled conditions, but whose roar is constantly audible. As I watched the bride dance for her entranced groom, a stick held aloft over her head Saidi-style, I also wondered if a society at the core of which pulsates this fantastic, life-affirming rhythm would ever allow itself to be subjugated completely to the joyless dogma of extreme conservatism.

Hair-d it all before

This weekend was a musical frenzy, what with yesterday’s all day SOS extravaganza where I relived my Glastonbury and Reading festival days (only without alcoholic beverages or mud) and tonight yet another concert at the Sawy Cultural Wheel.

I will save a review of the bands who performed at SOS for my article, so that when I receive the weekly love letters from these ever so precious artistes and their handbags I will at least be comforted by the knowledge that I am getting paid for it.

One event of note which I shall not inflict on the English-language newspaper reading public but which shall be shared with you is that I saw FIT HANY FROM WUST EL BALAD. One minute I was enduring some band playing something vaguely oriental jazz, the next I had been descended on by a breathless N who, aware of my infatuation, informed me that Sir Hany of Hotness was standing in the crowd unguarded, like a normal bloke. Unbelievingly, I looked in the direction she indicated and there He was, all slow motion white teeth smiling, illuminated by a celestial ray of light from the heavens, and wearing a crappy beige t-shirt.

Naturally I sprinted over but did so in a crouching guerrilla soldier style, concerned that I might seem uncouth should I launch myself onto him and knock him over. It was therefore something of a circular beeline, reminiscent of the time a 17 year-old me and my friends positioned ourselves so we could giggle and gasp behind hooligan turned family man Liam Gallagher of Oasis as he did a peculiar hip wiggling dance during the support act at his concert. I ended up at the perfect promontory to observe all six foot plus of Hany in his beige t-shirt, and am absolutely devastated to report that without a stage his aura is dimmed, and considerably so. It could have something to do with his extreme hairiness: I like heavy-set features but Groucho Marx eyebrows caused by lax personal grooming is asking too much. Also, there are cool ‘fros, and there is geography teacher/Art Garfunkel-style hair miscreancy, of which difference hirsute Hany is apparently incognisant. After basking my eyes in him while trying not to appear like a psycho I returned to the group, another dream shattered slightly and all the world a bit beige. N and I nonetheless agreed that we would not chuck him out of bed for farting, which is South London for ‘he is rather attractive’.

SOS was otherwise largely uneventful, at least in blojjing terms, which is remarkable given the fact that I was there for like, a million hours. I put political considerations aside and hugged a dashing US marine in order to be able to check that box on life’s list. I saw the masterful Ilham el Madfai who was of course gamed ta7n [solid grinding]: anyone who plays classical guitar flamenco style so the instrument is somewhere near his nose while also wearing a fishing hat automatically gets my vote.

I saw Limouzine in the line of duty tonight, despite my policy against bands and individuals who keep it real dyslexia-style by replacing the letter S with a Z. I have a theory that these ridiculous and wilful misspellings will gradually become entrenched, and that eventually the English language will go back 360 degrees to Chaucer so weel awll bee riting englishe lek dis againe. People in polo necks term it language evolution when it is quite clearly banditry.

Limouzine play inoffensive, rather insipid, MOR guitar music of the Christian rock variety – rock in a shirt and tie which is polite to your mother. They actually did perform a song ‘dedicated to all mothers’ which featured the lyric ‘I love you mummy.’ As if this was not appalling enough, the song began with China Bells sound effects, which is that percussion instrument made up of metal rods which produces a sort of rippling sound beloved of love song composers and Disney. It also produces a feeling of nausea in me, particularly when introducing a song eulogising mothers written by teenagers who should be singing about glue sniffing or petty theft or something.

The music was in places a poor imitation of Wust el Balad, in others just a mixture of any old malarchy. One song featured a change in rhythm and style so sudden and so illogical that it was the musical equivalent of suddenly talking about earwax in dung beetles during a discussion of the Lithuanian stock exchange – I was literally startled out of my seat such was the change in tempo. Another queer thing was a percussion solo slot, during which the bongo player and then the drummer wowed the crowd in the style of 80s heavy metal sticks men with technically proficient but pointless banging. The bongo player himself actually physically resembled a bongo, being barrel shaped, bald and having a tan-coloured scalp.

Good points about the performance included the booklets containing the song words given out free to the audience (and which made me feel like I was once again in school general assembly singing We Are Climbing Jesus’ Ladder), and the lead guitarist. He was simply outstanding, but also tiny and adorable and made me want to make sure that he had tucked his vest in in case he caught cold. Instead of the arrogant posturing and weird face-pulling common to most guitarists, this kid went around his business with a sort of vaguely worried expression, becoming truly rabbit-in-headlights startled whenever he looked up from the frets in response to the audience’s applause. He also gave shy smiles to his fellow band members whenever they commended him on his digital dexterity which again just made me want to give him a kiss and a packet of sweets.

The evening was only marred by the post-concert trip to the Rip Off and Tea Leaf or whatever that godforsaken place on Abul Feda is called which, in contravention of all trade description acts, doesn’t actually serve tea. I requested a cup of tea with milk which resulted in a five minute bonkers conversation consisting of the cashier saying ‘Chai’ and me saying ‘shai! Shai!’ and him repeating ‘Chai?’ and me saying ‘TEA’ and wanting to deck him. Eventually he produced a small pot of what I can only describe as garden weeds with cardamom seeds which he alleged they sold and people drink, and in that moment I would have sold my right kidney for a Lipton teabag after setting light to the whole ridiculous chi-chi, or chai-chai, place.

Angling away from everlasting idiocies

I briefly took time out from winning hearts and minds in Cairo’s music community this week to quit my job on Wednesday – a decision which should have been taken two months ago I realised, as I tap-danced my way out of the office into the arms of the gardener. And semi-unemployment.

Tuesday was a public holiday because of May day and Forsooth and I profited by paying exorbitant amounts of money so I could sit by a hotel’s pool and create a glare visible from outer space with my whiteness. While eating a 50 LE nouvelle cuisine-sized portion of fish and chips in such a way so as to ensure that not even its aroma escaped consumption (but drawing the line at licking the plate) I read Orwell’s Coming Up for Air, and came across the passage below, in which the protagonist reminisces about his abandoned childhood love of fishing. It resonated with me hugely. And Seneferu, who requested a review of the book: it is wicked.

Fishing!
Here I’ll make a confession, or rather two. The first is that when I look back through my life I can’t honestly say that anything I’ve ever done has given me quite such a kick as fishing. Everything else has been a bit of a flop in comparison, even women. I don’t set up to be one of those men that don’t care about women. I’ve spent plenty of time chasing them, and I would even now if I had the chance. Still, if you gave me the choice of having any woman you care to name, but I mean any woman, or catching a ten-pound carp, the carp would win every time. And the other confession is that after sixteen I never fished again.

Why? Because that’s how things happen. Because in this life we lead – I don’t mean human life in general, I mean life in this particular age and this particular country – we don’t do the things we want to do. It isn’t because we’re always working. Even a farm-hand or a Jew tailor isn’t always working. It’s because there’s some devil in us that drives us to and fro on everlasting idiocies. There’s time for everything except the things worth doing. Think of something you really care about. Then add hour to hour and calculate the fraction of your life that you’ve actually spent in doing it. And then calculate the time you’ve spent on things like shaving, riding to and fro on buses, waiting in railway junctions, swapping dirty stories, and reading the newspapers.

Drawn to music

Listening to incredibly loud music outdoors in a residential area is always intensely pleasurable, not only because music seems to sound better in the open but because of the staying-up-on-a-school-night-naughtiness of being allowed to deafen the neighbours within a half mile radius.

Dokki’s Goethe Institute was the stage for such splendid anti-social behaviour on Friday night, when it played host to the 100 Live electronic music festival which showcased artists signed to the Egyptian-based electronic music label, 100 Copies (so named because only one hundred copies of each release are available abroad). Live performances by individuals and groups such as Ramsi Lehner, Omar Kamel and Bikya were accompanied by visuals beamed onto three giant screens. The music, the visuals and copious amounts of alcohol were consumed by the festival’s punters as they reclined on the grass (grass! In Cairo!) in the Goethe’s gorgeous palm tree-filled garden.

I arrived after dark just before Bikya’s set, and in the interim the audience were entertained with visuals including jerky overhead images of taxis roaming the streets of Alexandria…close-ups on women’s posteriors as they walked forwards, and then backwards and then forwards again…a man sitting on a bench, pondering…a duck’s brisket, and so on. Aesthetically these images were mildly engaging in rather the same way that it is sometimes interesting to watch scenery change from a train window: in both cases it is pointless to ask what the meaning of anything is; best just to bathe your eyes in it all.

Meanwhile on the other side of the lawn another giant screen had been set up in front of an overhead projector and members of the audience invited to let their imaginations elope with a pen - with predictably erratic results. Watching them I was reminded of a 1980s British television show called ‘Rolf Harris’ Cartoon Time.’ Rolf, an Australian cartoonist, would draw a picture as we, the mesmerised kids at home, watched Daffy Duck or Tom or Jerry materialise before our very eyes. Rolf’s catchphrase was ‘can you see what it is yet..?’ and mostly at the Goethe alas I could not. At one point someone replaced doodling with a series of earnest questions such as, ‘what is an experience?...If “this” is an experience, does it matter? This maybe [sic] experimental art, a bridge between two points. Artists and experiences. Do you care?’ Indeed.

Ducks and doodling gave way for the no-nonsense excellence of Bikya, a three-piece ensemble composed of 100 Copies owner Mahmoud Refat on drums and electronics, Mahmoud Waly on bass and Maurice Louca on guitar, keyboard and a sampler reminiscent of an air raid siren. It is difficult to find a superlative adequate to describe the excellence of this group, who harness the intensity of electronic sound and combine it with soulful, melodious guitar to create really beautiful music – even the aforementioned air raid siren device was utilised to stunningly plaintive effect on their opening song ‘Betrayal.’ There is arguably a certain emotional inaccessibility about electronic music of this kind - at least for the uninitiated - which Bikya successfully avoid and then some: their compositions are soulful, fresh and haunting.

Bikya gave way to a brief interlude featuring Ramzy Lehner when I began to see the point of the visuals: the critical flaw in live electronic music is that there is almost zero audience interest in watching a man sitting behind his laptop nodding his head slightly. Turning back to the overhead projector the audience were offered a picture of a ship with ‘Titanic’ written above it before the pen was appropriated by a small child who spent the rest of the night drawing Superman. The idea of audience participation is commendable but unfortunately did not on this occasion draw (boom boom) many interesting results.

Omar Kamel, the evening’s final performer, played electronic with an oriental slant complete with qanoun and violin. The music was upbeat and the group gave a tight performance but the material did not add anything new to the beats/Arabic music formula – although the group of dancers in the audience who went from voguing to body popping to dabke during his performance clearly enjoyed it immensely. He was in any case forced to conclude his set early because the powers that be decided that it was past everyone’s bedtime. The group finished with a song of frenetic energy over which Kamel read aloud something vaguely political. He stated before starting that this was the first occasion on which he had tried this idea, and the general consensus within my immediate circle was that it would be best if it was the last.

From the electronic noise of the Goethe to the tranquillity of Zamalek’s Gallery Extra, currently exhibiting Said Abou Seada who uses a variety of media to explore the theme of depth. He uses alternatively broad and thin tightly-packed pencil strokes to form stunning three-dimensional shapes which almost appear to move and morph into each other as you look at them. His innovative use of glass stained yellow and red and combined with melted lead on leather create textually-rich images the vibrancy of whose colours contrast strikingly with the black and white images of the pencil drawings. I profited from Abou Seada’s presence in the gallery to ask him about one piece in particular, a stunning collage which uses newspaper clippings on a black background. The newspaper clippings refer to the public and private sectors – was this deliberate, I wondered. Abou Seada informed me that it wasn’t, and that the newspaper print happened to fit the particular aesthetic vision he had at the time he crafted the piece. How the observer interprets it however, he told me with a smile, is up to them.

Originally published in al Ahram Weekly

F is for forgotten

People disappear a little when they enter huge corporate buildings. Like small planes on juggernaut aircraft carriers they are swallowed up in the vastness and then eventually spat out. It is perhaps this immense physical scale of the structures in which they work which induces, or exacerbates, the feelings of a loss of identity in employees of big companies.

The offices of a state-owned corporation I went to this week typify this. The building is vast and, like a castle under siege, just manages to hold its own despite being situated on one of Cairo's main arteries and being under attack by bridges, traffic, people and other buildings. It is of course impossible for it to remain untouched by the frenzy of the street and, stepping inside the building, the blare of the traffic and car horns outside seems to transmute into a sort of palpable nervous tension which swirls around and surrounds the building's inhabitants like some sort of phantom.

In the lift on the way up, up and up people periodically rushed in and out clutching papers and dispensing a curt greeting to strangers and a hearty handshake to colleagues. I arrived early for my meeting, and was ushered into a small, narrow waiting room containing a prayer cubicle at one end and a wall lined from floor to ceiling with square wooden locker type things at the other. A man finished praying just as I went in and nodded at me as he sat opposite and put his shoes back on, laboriously doing his laces up with a studied exactitude. Above his head was a slightly weird blown-up photo of a silhouetted horse grazing by a tree at sunset in what looked like the American desert. The photo was presumably meant to convey a sense of harmony and freedom, but this was negated by the fact that the horse had been left with a bloody saddle on even during its coffee break, and as I watched the man below frowning at his shoes I suddenly truly understood the import of the phrase saddled with responsibility.

Waiting, I listened to the sounds of the corridors outside: footsteps approaching and disappearing, doors opening and closing, a recording of Qu'ran recitation, the ding dong which preceded the lift doors opening, one hundred phones ringing, the bass of a man ribbing a woman, the screeching violin of her response, glasses rattling on trays…The usual Egyptian office aviary.

A faraash periodically came in and opened one of the wooden lockers extracting various objects from it, all the while talking at the loudest volume to someone at least three rooms away.

Eventually I was taken through the corridors to a tiny cubicle office where I waited for the boss man. In the meantime his colleague and I chewed the fat as I watched the office outside through the glass door, people talking and drinking tea and laughing in silence like a fresco come alive. We discussed boss man, the organisation, boss man within the organisation and the unlikelihood that he would grant me the employment break I was seeking, as boss man’s colleague smoked cigarette after cigarette.

Boss man arrived, and we made our way through the anarchy of the corridors to the green zone of his sumptuous office, huge and awash in leather and polished wood. Boss man was neither huge, nor awash in leather thankfully, but he was polished as most successful corporation men usually are. He was most pleasant and accommodating, but in the way that business-class airplane travel is pleasant and accommodating - it only makes sense at high altitude. Once the plane hits the ground you’re suddenly struck by how cramped it in fact is, how artificial the attempts to dress everything up with champagne flutes and a choice of desserts - sending you screaming to the nearest grimy café for rude service and real food and something human.

Boss man and I took the usual brief saunter through the countryside of my professional life, compared notes on London as is compulsory, and then turned to the last thing I had written.

“I liked it,” he said, hesitantly, “but I thought the F word was a bit unnecessary.”

I looked blankly at him, wondering whether ‘the F word’ was a euphemism for something seemingly banal but taboo within these circles.

“Fucking,” he mumbled with obvious discomfort, while gesticulating with his hand as if trying to bat the disgraceful word away.

“Erm…But I don’t recall using…the F word.”

Boss man was briefly troubled by this mix-up, his eyes darting right and left as he pulled on his chin, but eventually acknowledged that he had, in fact, been thinking about someone else entirely. We moved on after this brief spell of turbulence as if nothing had happened at all, discussing the transitional phase the corporation is currently going through, the people ahead of me in the queue, financial constraints – the scenic route to Sorry No Can Do.

At the end of the meeting as he saw me to his office door boss man said, “we’re happy to have you with us,” which was hugely ironic given that the F word saga had revealed that he did not, in fact, know who I was. But then I wondered whether in fact he knows who he himself is anymore, and whether he reclaims his identity at the end of a working day as he would collect a coat from a cloakroom.

Airport reading ban

On Friday night someone told me that the last book he'd read was 'the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.'

If I hear 'the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' referred to just once more I will personally hunt down Stephen Covey and demonstrate to him how even highly ineffective people can give Chinese burns.

Self-help manuals are not books, they are a blended tasteless smoothie of Oprah, Tyra Banks and Rachel bloody Ray which fill stomachs without providing any kind of useful nutrition and make those who consume them burp codswallop.

And if anyone mentions 'He's Just Not That Into You' in my presence, I will drop-kick them. Emily Davison did not get flattened for you to spend your lives discussing men and their intentions. Here's an easy to use tip: if you spend more time talking to your guuurlfriends about a bloke that you do actually talking to the bloke himself, chances are you wont be waking up in his t-shirt any time soon.

God dammit, and they put that in 100 plus pages and sold it for cash money!

She freed a carload of caftans*

In a workshop today a man’s mobile rang, filling the room with the loudest, most cacophonous, aural riot of a ringtone you could ever imagine. The man was wearing a bottle green blazer, stripy shirt and was working the taxi driver look: slightly longer hair at the nape of the neck – the beginnings of a mullet. Moustache by default, sir, yes sir!

The first time the phone rang the man sitting next to him – who was wearing a beret, and was about 8 foot tall – closed his eyes.

The second time it rang - and while the mobile owner and was looking in the other direction - beret man for the briefest of seconds bared his teeth and snarled at him. Snarled at a stranger! With grrr sound effects! Life surely cannot get better than that.

But hold your bets, because a couple of days ago my father told me about my mother’s recent discovery of Ebay. The background to this is that my intelligent but technophobe mother learnt to operate a mouse in approximately 2002 when she grasped the idea that one can allow the mouse to break contact with the table surface, and that in fact one must do so in order to navigate a computer successfully: until then I would walk in and find her facedown on the table with her right arm completely outstretched before her as if she was doing front crawl, waiting for someone to manoeuvre the cursor away from the edge of the screen (backwards mousing was another level altogether of course).

Once she conquered the mouse there was no stopping her, and apart from the occasional lapse when I would find her about to inadvertently marry a Romanian in a chatroom she thought was the Marks and Spencer online shopping page, it was plain sailing.

She recently decided that she wants to purchase a Mexican-style caftan folk dress like the one that she bought in Los Angeles in 1984 while we were there for an uncle’s wedding. My father was apparently insistent that she wear it to the wedding celebrations themselves because he had ‘put good money into it’ – by which logic we should all sleep in our oak wood coffins before we die in order to get our money’s worth. I vaguely recall the dress - I always thought it was just a galabeyya. In any case she successfully placed a bid which represents a monumental step forward. The problems only came later. She was the sole, and therefore highest bidder, but when prompted by the automatically generated Ebay email to place a higher bid and ensure success, she apparently almost did so – effectively trying to outbid herself. My father managed to prevent this but was unfortunately not around all the time...

She has somehow managed to bid for and buy, not one, but three Mexican-style caftan folk dresses.

She has no idea how this happened, and one can only hope that Croydon stages a fancy dress Frida Kahlo retrospective or my mother is invited to the Mexican Ambassador’s residence (three times) or I decide to have a Mexican-themed wedding or funeral, in order to ensure she gets her money's worth.

*There is an extremely poor standard wordplay joke in this title, for which I apologise. I simply cannot resist these urges.

A7aly*

While I was sitting in the deserted office today talking on the phone, a small boy of a variety Charles Dickens would have described as a street urchin - such was his angelic poverty - suddenly materialised in the doorway. He was roughly about nine years-old, dressed in torn clothing and with unidentifiable detritus decorating his hair like confetti. He marched in without hesitation and saluted me army style, mouthing salaam 3alaykoo before heading to the two rubbish bins whose contents – two pieces of paper - he extracted, and then once again saluted me and disappeared. I watched all this open-mouthed, wondering whether he wasn’t part of some scam involving a similarly diminutive partner behind me busily and silently stealing the ideas out of my head to sell for noss gineeh [a million pounds] in the Friday market.

After ending the phone call I went out to investigate and saw Osama Twist just as he was leaving the office, hauling on top of him the giant grey sack these rubbish collectors of Herculean strength carry on their backs which give them the appearance of bipod snails.

The kid reminded me of a boy I had seen last week from my balcony while hanging laundry. As part of the decoration for her garden birthday party, Cousin Gombaz had elected to have a black, white and red theme in honour of el watan. She had hung tricolour balloons at various locations which the mostly AUCian party-goers enjoyed looking at as they wondered why they weren’t on a beach if today was the anniversary of the liberation of Sinai, and therefore a public holiday. While most of the balloons had been freed or popped the evening of the party, three lonely stragglers remained tied to the top of the garden’s entrance gate the day after. As I was looking in their direction I suddenly saw the gate shake as a filthy-looking kid hauled himself up in order to untie the balloons. He did so frenetically, clearly desperately afraid of getting caught, and in his haste inadvertently sent the balloons flying up into the sky one after another, his eyes sadly rising with them as the black, the white and finally the red floated away. He then spotted another balloon or some other discarded item worth investigating inside the garden and, cautiously opening the gate, slunk in silently - at which point I made my presence known rather than have him discovered by someone else possibly less forgiving. He froze immediately like a cat, before turning on his heel and scarpering.

I recalled the balloons and the boy tonight as I watched Ahly get hammered by Barcelona in Cairo, in a friendly exhibition game memorable for goalie al Hagary’s ability to chew gum and explode with fury simultaneously – he is surely destined to be the next Man U manager. Yes it’s only a friendly and of course it’s only football, but I found the whole thing sadly humiliating somehow, watching Ronaldinho et al dance circles round Ahly like Dads playing in the park with their 3 year-olds, only perma-smile Abu Trika redeeming Ahly in any way. It’s the same old song: if only sports (education/hospitals/anything) in Egypt were better funded, and players better paid, and a few big foreign stars attracted to the game, and the abundant home grown natural talent nurtured and Egypt’s immense potential capitalised on. So infuriatingly simple, and yet all this promise is allowed to float away.

On a brighter note, today I stood in a sun-soaked balcony and listened to birds sing, before smelling water sprayed on hot dusty tarmac - which is one of the official smells of summer. And then while I was in a taxi two men on a motorbike went past, the young and dashing driver wearing flip flops, his short-sleeved shirt flapping in the wind . The horn was apparently not working so in between talking to his mate he was instead shouting ‘7AAAAAASEB’ [look out] but with such carefree happiness, gusto and smiling joy that there was really no where else other than Egypt I wanted to be today. I mean other than locked in a Lindt chocolate factory with Dr. Christian Troy but that goes without saying obviously.

* No offence intended, Ahlawy readers!

Because last time I used 123.greetings for Mother's Day the card included surprise porn pop-ups

Happy birthday Dad

Keep on heading those invisible footballs

A word with the headmaster

"Oh Amnesiac! You're so witty and I'm newly divorced!"

Any excuse to publish Hany's picture

The doctor vs. gardener saga took a new twist on Thursday when the very understanding boss called me in to his office for part two of the ‘talk’ began two days ago, in which I resisted the urge to tell him that through no fault of his, or his organisation, my job makes me want to shred a paper effigy of myself and instead told him that I wasn’t feeling passionate about the role. On Thursday afternoon he rested his chin on his knuckles and said, “so…” which usually indicates that someone is about to: tell you that it was great but sayonara and can he have his CDs back; suggest that you examine issues relating to your childhood and/or change your prescription, or; tell you something suggesting that it might be a good idea to clear your internet history so that your replacement doesn’t discover the inordinate amount of time you spent googling your colleagues.

Boss reminded me that he is travelling for two weeks, and that this is an opportunity to reflect on what I want to do while completing the half-arsed colouring-in project I have to do until Daddy gets back and does it properly. He also reminded me that the next two months are going to be super challenging for the organisation and for the human rights community generally and that it might be a good idea to consider before this time whether I am ready to give a hundred percent rather than being a slacker and that he'd be sad to lose me but he wants me to do what makes me happy and don’t worry about leaving and creating problems for the organisation Amnesiac since your absence will make no perceptible difference and also the money used for your salary hasn’t technically arrived and basically it was all a very nice (and I mean that genuinely) piss off.

I am starting to think that I should leave if for no other reason than that the low-level silent rage against my job has started to manifest itself in the form of occult happenings in my presence. Over the course of three days one window blew shut and the pane broke, another window suddenly blew open and banged into an idiotically positioned shelf causing a perfectly formed half circle of glass to be magically cut out of the pane and a water filter fell off the top of the fridge and shattered when I closed the door. It’s all very Exorcist and surely indicates the presence of an unsettled soul.

I took his advice to heart and have scheduled time for reflection next week at some point, possibly while waiting for water to boil for tea. In the meantime I went to see Wust el Balad and specifically lead-singer Hany Adel perform a concert. Like many other thousands of females with beating hearts, the vision of Hany and his underwear catalogue physique and rhythmic head-nodding revives the teenage obsessive fan I thought I’d left behind with Tom Selleck and Andre Agassi. I recently engaged in a discussion about attractiveness and popularity, in which it was posited that Hany is the bait which brings in the girls, hence why blokes and true music connoisseurs think that the band is otherwise a bag of balls. I remembered that conversation last night because it was it the first time (of the three times that I have seen them) that I have seen Wust el Balad sober, and I was slightly troubled on more than one occasion by Hany’s guitar solos, which I have never before remarked on, and which reminded me slightly of John C. Reilly’s guitar playing on ‘You’ve got the look’ in Boogie Nights.

Still, Adham’s mawwals make up for it, as do the ninety-two other string-instrument maestros which make up their number, and of course Hany’s voice is great. And if nothing else hunky Hany’s existence serves the function of confirming that one is still alive. His presence, and the faux Spanish rhythms the band employs, do however have the negative effect of compelling women to simulate playfully coy flamenco dancers, which is always painful to witness and frankly made me want to bitch-slap someone.

*It has been drawn to my attention that this post seems to be implying that somehow the organisation I work for might be the source of my current work dilemma. I would like to point out that nothing could be further from the truth, and that indeed it is because the organisation and my colleagues are so fantastic that my dilemma is made doubly harder: if the organisation, my boss and my colleagues weren't so great there wouldn't have been a dilemma in the first place. What I meant by a 'very nice piss off' was just that: the boss is doing everything he can to make my decision easier but he has of course got to think of the interests of his organisation too, and is basically giving me a limited amount of time to think. Which is excellent of him.

Cairo Rhapsody

Cairo undergoes a character transformation in the mercurial spring weather, cautiously emerging from its winter cave only to be pummelled by sudden and intense attacks of wind, sand and downpours, during which the collective gasp of its inhabitants – human, animal and struggling mechanical – is virtually audible. The schizophrenic, inclement weather which battered Cairo this week was a particularly appropriate backdrop for Armenian-Egyptian painter Anna Boghiguian’s chaotic images of the city, in her exhibition at the Safar Khan Gallery.

Boghiguian’s bleeding of colours into each other, the depressing drabness of some of these colours and the naivety of the buildings, objects and figures represented combine to create paintings which, while they are messy, chaotic and dark, pulsate with energy and movement – and which therefore pretty much capture the soul of the city.

One composition, ‘Cairo at night,’ is particularly apposite, given the Big Brother nature of recent Constitutional changes. Boghiguian presents a maze of roundabouts and streets swarming with cars which encircle, and threaten to choke, the houses in their midst, all of which is topped off with a menacing thunderous-looking sky. In the bottom right hand corner stands what appears to be a grey giant wearing a toga, his arms raised above his head. Next to him, written in Arabic, is the word ‘Egypt’ and before him stand two miniscule figures, entirely dwarfed by the chaos of their surroundings and the monstrous apparition looming over them. Another particularly touching image shows an old man against a backdrop of his life in the form of symbolic images: the Ka’ba, a football team, “I love you” scrawled in English, a wedding photo…Like Cairo, Boghiguian’s paintings are not immediately aesthetically pleasing but, also like Cairo, interest and beauty lies in the details.

On the other side of Brazil Street Egyptian life is presented in an altogether different form in the Zamalek Gallery, which is, incidentally, the best-smelling art gallery in the world. Alexandrian artist Rabab Nimr’s ink drawings of fishermen, fellaheen and fishes are beautifully rendered, her use of black and white to create shadows making the images seem three-dimensional. The figures themselves are almost cartoon-like, with disproportionately huge hands, identical square faces and richly-textured Don King-style hair. Creatures, fish especially, are a constant theme, as are playing cards and boats. In one especially striking image, seven heads rendered in metallic grey, black and brown are shown against a white backdrop, all inexplicably with birds perched on their heads, something like Mount Rushmore meets Dr Seuss. The recurring themes and colours in these images and the identical and inscrutable expressions of the figures shown, create an exhibition of elegant unity.

From unity to unison at the Sawy Culture Wheel, where on Friday I kept it real with an evening of Arab rap, courtesy of Palestinian duo Jaffa Phonix, and Asfalt, an Egyptian ensemble. Rap music is arguably one of America’s most successful exports after Coca-Cola and wars of liberation, offering one-size-fits-all clothes, attitude and lingo, adaptable to any culture. The black empowerment message associated with it has also been appropriated and adapted to local causes by rap adherents globally, as is the case with Jaffa Phonix, refugees living in Egypt who use their compositions to call for justice for Palestine.

They delivered a startlingly enthusiastic performance, at times jumping so high vertically that I feared they would do themselves a mischief involving their heads and the 26th July bridge. Members of the tiny audience were encouraged ‘not to smoke if they want to be rap stars!’ and ordered to ‘put their hands up!’ (in the Puff Daddy rather than LAPD sense) which they obligingly did, swaying side to side in their ‘Allah’ bling and giant trousers. Jaffa Phonix made way for Asfalt who, I am happy to report, perform in matching t-shirts bearing their name, a la George Michael & co. in Live Aid. Their repertoire consists of a mixture of social commentary (‘Unemployed Generation’, ‘Stay Strong Country’) and teenage boy angst (‘Give Me a Chance’) accompanied by a live band. Their performances was polished and enthusiastic, and generally fun to watch. Periodic guest appearances were also made by a rapper from another band, Arabian Knights, who (once microphone distribution had been sorted) rapped very fast, and very fluidly indeed.

Seeing them all up there gazed upon by the small but committed group of bandana-sporting devotees made me wonder whether a rap scene has already, or is in the process of, emerging in Egypt, and whether in fact rap really works in Arabic: Palestinian Arabic’s mellifluous languidness (“waaahed, ithnaaan, taleteee”) is perhaps just too nice for rap - the aural equivalent of a cuddly grandmother trying to hit you over the head with numchucks.

Originally published in al Ahram Weekly

Tante Amnesiac

Cousin Mildred has engaged the services of one Captain Mohamed to equip three year-old daughter Elvis and her friends with the essential life skills of karate, chess and Qu'ran. He is an excellent pedagogue, managing to maintain the elusive equilibrium between discipline and fun without the kids either fearing him or feigning the need to pee in order to sneak out and steal cars.

Last week was a chess session and since I firstly, have forgotten how to play chess, and secondly, like to watch small people interacting (they limit their conversation to stuff which can be perceived by one of the five senses), I went to observe.

Elvis was in fine form as usual, and was so caught up in the chess that she resisted asking me repeatedly whether I can smell either poo or pee – currently and bafflingly the most pressing item on her agenda. I sat on the sidelines and ate, and also amused myself with Elvis' brother Boosa who, being too little to understand the concept that karate must not be used on cats, was exiled to the sitting room harem with the mothers, and banged on the glass door shouting my name. I tuned in back to Captain Mohamed & co. just in time to hear him saying 'the kids are all watching tante eating her dinner.' Looking round to see who this tante was, I was horrified to discover that he was in fact referring to me.

This reminded me of a high school friend who came in one day and told us that her mother had experienced a rather unfortunate incident the previous evening. She had been browsing in the lingerie department of our local Marks & Spencer wearing a Dr Clouseau style detective Mac coat thingie with the belt dangling loose. Upon attempting to leave the store she was accosted by a security guard who informed her that unbeknownst to her, a thong on a plastic hanger had somehow attached itself to her Mac’s belt, possibly as part of some ancient sartorial mating ritual.

Being referred to as tante, and therefore being placed in a certain age bracket bewilders me in the same way I imagine my friend’s mother must have felt upon discovering that her Mac was abducting a thong. I have never feared aging: my problem is that I still feel, and conduct myself, like a teenager. Thus when the world outside says hello grown-up I genuinely wonder what the buggeration it’s going on about.

The knowledge that I am intensely juvenile is something I am particularly conscious of lately whenever I stop break dancing alone in my room long enough to consider like, my career, and like, the future. Regular readers of this nonsense will know that I started a new job some months ago. On paper this job is perfect: my field, plenty of opportunities for travel and career development, great colleagues, fun boss, toilet paper in the clean bathroom - which is something I haven’t experienced in a professional context before...

The problem is that when I wake up in the mornings it feels like someone has dressed me in concrete pyjamas overnight. The thought of having to go to work manifests itself in a huge feeling of lethargy which can only be dispelled with the thought of ten minutes of reading in the taxi on the way to work, or eating Rolos, or both simultaneously. And the work itself, while it is important, and worthwhile, and varied, and interesting, just…isn’t me. Which is unfortunate given that I’ve just dedicated a year to getting a masters in the bloody subject. But the thought of the office routine for the next two months or twenty years fills me with dread: office life is something I've never adapted to. But yet if I give up my current job I am effectively barring myself from the field, perhaps forever.

The best analogy I can make is to a woman who marries a charming, intelligent, kind doctor, and for want of passion finds herself sneaking out to the gardener for a quick bonk. The gardener in my case is writing, and I am now faced with the decision whether I should stay married to the doctor while cavorting with the gardener, live dangerously with the gardener and give up the doctor entirely or stick it out with the doctor and wonder what could have been with the gardener.

People of Egypt

...the Stand Up Cairo auditions are tomorrow. Funny people please come. Unfunny people please tell your funny friends to come.

Note that these are closed auditions i.e. no audience.

The rules:
Individual acts only
Performances shouldn't exceed 5 minutes
Only Arabic and English performances please
Come prepared
Bring a picture
First come first served

What: Stand Up Cairo auditions
When: 15/16 April 2007 from 6-10pm
Where: CiC (Contemporary Image Collective)20 Safeya Zaghloul St. off Kasr El Aini St., Mounira
Contact: standupcairo@gmail.com
http://standupcairo.blogspot.com

Love lift me up where I belong

Today I danced with a man over 300 feet above my head, which gives new meaning to the term flirting from a distance.

The day had started badly however when, looking at the internet even before I got out of bed, I consulted Facebook and was informed that “[cousin] has added ‘doughnuts’ to her interests,” which briefly made me lose the will to live.

This evening however a different cousin, Gombaz, celebrated her 22nd birthday in fine style by transforming the patch of concrete at the bottom of our building into a Miami style party. She went all out and included: a DJ, disco lighting effects, high stools and tables and a drunk girl crying about a bloke on the stairs - which is of course mandatory at any party. Proceedings began early, so while the kids downstairs listened to variations on an alarm clock synchronised with a drum machine, Amnesiac the old hag debated whether the party was worth wasting a two quid pair of disposable contact lenses on. Things have reached the point where I assess whether or not to use a pair of lenses using a cost/benefit differential involving number of hours and book reading men presence as factors.

In case you are wondering, I lived dangerously and went with the lenses, which turned out to the be the right decision, but only because my glasses would have got steamed up with the smoke machine.

The proximity of the party to her domicile meant that even cousin Mildred made a brief surprise appearance, and revelled in the fact that she can still turn heads despite having produced two kids. Her jeans did indeed seem to have a hypnotising effect, as did the intense Baba Ghanoug smell she emitted each time she spoke until I informed her in no uncertain terms that if she uttered another syllable, I would pass out.

Midpoint through the party two ladies of an uncertain currency arrived, both dressed in super short daisy dukes, one all in pink the other in denim. Pink lady was wearing what appeared to be a blond platinum wig. Denim woman was brunette. Their arrival and installation next to the buffet caused quite a sensation, and I have never seen so many men suddenly develop such a ferocious hunger. I am ashamed to say that my feminism briefly left me and I made many references to money, but can you really blame me when they were dancing hand in hand and chest to chest, mouthing lyrics to each other, while men skidded around on their own saliva? Sharshar - whilst ogling their thighs - remarked that there is something wrong that minxes such as these are allowed through police checkpoints and are left to roam the country.

Apart from amusing myself (and only myself) by wearing two conical party hats in a devil style, I ventured to the toilet in order to procure chilled beverages from the bath, which meant waiting for people to finish throwing up or snogging or even urinating. On one of these occasions I was set upon by an intoxicated gentleman who claimed he was called ‘Solo.’ I of course objected to this since he was not carrying a light sabre, at which point he conceded that his name was Mohamed, which made me think of Bono and his boring real name, so I buggered off tout de suite.

Back in the garden I remarked that a silhouetted man in a suit in the block of flats opposite was dancing in the window in a conspicuous manner, like a grounded child watching his friends play outside. I proceeded to do the arm movements which resemble those of the lollipop men who guide taxiing aircraft, and which I call dancing, and was delighted when Window Man copied me hundreds of feet away. This continued for some time until blood circulation to my hands was compromised by their continued elevation, and until I realised that Window Man lives opposite me, or at least visits there, and may expect the YMCA routine every time our respective window opening coincides.

Shortly after that the soundtrack switched to Salsa, which is guaranteed to kill any party with a less than 90 per cent South American quotient. I left at the point, surprised that none of the neighbours had called the police, and armed with the empirical knowledge that any party at which you have been watched sporadically by your cat on a balcony, and in which you have only danced with a shadow, is unlikely to be the best.

Art with a heart

In the extended family of Cairo’s districts, Mohandiseen is the glamorous high-rolling cousin who pretends that her illegitimate children do not exist: cross certain invisible dividing lines and giant concrete skyscrapers, sprawling neon highways and estival Arab tourists disappear suddenly to be replaced by Bantustans of donkeys and tuk-tuk filled poverty. The contrast is as striking, and as immediate, as Cinderella’s midnight.

Take the bridge at the Sudan Street end of Gamaat el Dowal and you will suddenly find yourself suddenly in one such area. Ard el Lewa is a maze of criss-crossing streets and tightly-packed grey concrete blocs whose poverty is obvious not so much by what is visible, but by what is missing: the streets are noticeably cleaner than in other areas of Cairo, but unmade; the children playing boisterously are seemingly happy, but barefoot.

Tucked away in these streets is Artellewa, a visual arts space created three months ago by artist Hamdy Reda, himself a son of Ard el Lewa, and German Verena Liebel. The converted 2.5 m² workshop open to the street serves as the exhibition area on the ground floor. It is currently showing ‘Human Being,’ a collection of photographs by Hany el Gowely. While I enjoyed the exhibition, I was more intrigued by the Artellewa project itself, particularly why its creators would choose to locate it so far from the traditional haunt of Cairo’s independent art scene, Downtown, and in this isolation risk condemning it to obscurity.

Reda says that the location was a deliberate choice: Artellewa’s creators wanted to avoid the Downtown and Zamalek areas already saturated with galleries and cultural centres, and instead serve a different audience, the residents of Ard el Lewa for whom art is a luxury. The space is a vehicle for cultural education offering – in addition to art exhibitions - lectures and film screenings on the topic of the exhibition showing, ‘meet the artist’ opportunities, independent Arab and foreign film screenings on Artellewa’s rooftop space and jamming sessions bringing together professional and amateur musicians. Support and training is given to burgeoning local artists in the form of Egyptian and foreign artist-led workshops where Ard el Lewa’s children and young people are taught photography, film making, video animation and painting. An open atelier is offered to young artists during the summer break, and every year one young Egyptian artist is given the opportunity to hold a first exhibition in the space. Musicians perform at each opening.

Artellewa is clearly driven by a passion for art and commitment to widening the artistic horizons of the Ard el Lewa community, and succeeds in fulfilling both objectives without compromising on either. Viewing art in the tiny exhibition area as the sounds of the street float in from outside is a unique if odd experience, which gives a sense of connection with the local community. The Artellewa office/flat in which Reda lives is in itself worth a visit in order to see his own amazing artwork which lines the walls.

It would be unfortunate if Artellewa’s relatively out of the way location has the effect of deterring potential visitors unwilling to make the trek through Ard el Lewa’s labyrinthine streets. One can only hope that as its reputation grows, more visitors are prepared to cross the divide, and visit what is an excellent project.

Why, in a city full of music and young people, are there so few bands performing original material? The question posed itself yet again on Friday evening when I found myself watching 4 Stix in action at the Sawy Cultural Wheel, in an audience composed almost exclusively of the AUC graduating class of 2012.

The band itself delivered a workaday if enthusiastic performance distinguished only by lead singer Waleed Mansour’s strong vocals. The set was predictably eclectic and drawn mostly from the play list of a traditional British pub band, including the mandatory No Woman No Cry complete with backing singers swaying in a synchronised Rita Marley manner. T-shirts and other goodies were dispensed to the crowd who were in raptures, but it was altogether a disconcerting experience to watch Armani-clad pre-pubescent youngsters rocking out to Blue Suede Shoes. While it is clear that there exists both a strong interest in rock/pop music and talented individuals with the musical ability to knock out covers, something appears to go wrong in the creative process when it comes to original music. As a result the music ‘scene’ is limited to bands such as the dormant Track 6 and the omnipresent Westelbalad, both of which perform original material, and a plethora of cover bands who ensure that Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Dire Straits will live on and on and on in Cairo.

I have no idea about copyright, but my father's incessant doom-filled warnings of court cases, apoplectic editors and being cast out of the Egyptian journalistic community five minutes after 'arriving' compel me to mention that the above was published in al Ahram Weekly. No trumpet blowing intended.

Sham el naseem

On my way to Heliopolis by taxi today, the driver came off the 6th October Bridge at Abbassiya and we were confronted by a man lying spread-eagled on his back in the middle of the road, which is unusual even by Egypt’s standards.

It was sham el naseem, and the roads were relatively (and mercifully) quiet, but there was still enough traffic to create a minor queue as drivers navigated round the star-shaped apparition lying unconscious, asleep or dead in their path. Their apparent unwillingness to get out of their cars and help the man prompted the driver of the taxi I was in to do so, and I followed rapidly behind him.

It was the contrived position that the man was in which first made it clear that this was a automaton rather than automotive incident: the perfect symmetry of his limbs, the palms turned upwards to the sky, the feet splayed outwards. His blue shirt and cream-coloured trousers were dishevelled, but only slightly, and above all his face was perfectly composed and entirely at peace.

The driver’s taps failed to elicit a response prompting him to attempt to lift him at which point I assisted him. The man, still unresponsive, allowed himself to be picked up and dragged to the concrete strip separating traffic coming off the bridge from the road running parallel to it. It is hard to say whether the man had been unconscious or simply willingly absent while he was lying on the road, but once seated he suddenly came to and, head in hands said, “I want to die.”

The driver, a paternalistic and practical sort of man, patted the young man on his shoulder and extorted him to have faith in God. “My family have ruined everything. I want to die” the man repeated. His expression betrayed a sort of wild confusion, but the deliberate certainness with which he spoke made me conclude that this confusion might in fact have been caused by the interruption of his suicide attempt rather than the blows that life, and his family, were inflicting. The one thing I was sure of was that this man was not delusional, nor drunk, nor insane. He was simply broken.

After asking the man whether he could help him in any way and failing to get a response, the driver said, ‘have faith and go home, son’ and we resumed our journey. The driver and I naturally started talking, and naturally the conversation turned to Egypt and the myriad ways in which it tortures its children, prompting the driver to tell me this story:

‘There was once a boy who said to his father, ‘I bet I can rule a country better than how it’s being ruled now.’ His father laughed scornfully and said ‘you think it’s that easy, do you? I’ll set you a challenge: look after these fifty birds and make sure they don’t escape. And if you succeed, then I’ll agree that you would be a good ruler.’ So the boy took the cage and the fifty birds in it and lovingly watered and fed them. He then opened the cage’s door and they all flew away.

The father then himself got a cage, also filled with fifty birds, and said to the boy ‘watch and learn.’ He immediately set about pummelling and torturing the birds in indescribable ways and, when he opened the cage’s door, not one of them moved.’

I had looked behind me when I got back in the taxi and saw the man get up, walk across the road and, without a moment’s hesitation, lie down in the middle of the road opposite as the traffic sped towards him. Reflecting on this, and the driver’s story, I later remembered a television programme I had seen years ago about birds raised in battery farms who, driven mad by the torture of their confinement and the conditions in which they are kept, attack themselves viciously. I wondered about the hell in the man’s head, and the hell of existence – his family, life itself – as he perceived it, and wondered at what point the world outside had started mirroring the despair inside his head to such an extent that he had simply given up.

Court in the act

Not having enough funds to join Cairo’s beautiful people in Sinai and Sa7el, I did the next best thing and diverted myself by attending a court hearing this morning.

I had never previously set foot in a courtroom anywhere in the world, despite possessing two virtually unused law degrees in pristine condition, which are available to the highest bidder. (This is, I admit, rather like being a bank robber who has never been to a bank: in my defence I saw the light early on and realised that I would rather pickle myself alive than qualify to be a solicitor, instead gravitating towards the decidedly courtroom-free human rights.)

The State Council (magliss al dowla) has all the requisite features of a legal institution, including: a vestibule with an enormously high ceiling useful for instilling awe of the law, Rocky-style steps useful for hosting protests and a couple of riot vans parked opposite useful for quashing nuisance over-ebullient protestors. On entering I was immediately struck by the fact that the building has an identical feel to that of that bastion to torturous bureaucracy, the mogama3 in Tahrir Square. Both institutions are characterised by a sort of silent hum of energy and movement which feels something like watching leaves dancing in the wind through a window: chaotic, busy and distant.

On my way upstairs I caught a glimpse of an empty courtroom whose door had been left ajar, and sad to say but the sight of the polished wood made my chest contract with excitement in the way it does when I receive emails from attractive book-reading men whose acquaintance I have just made. The effect is as if someone has just injected a liquid dose of possibility into my left ventricle.

Waiting for the case to be heard was inevitably far duller, and the tedium was only made bearable by watching the apprehensive tête-à-têtes of the black-gowned defence lawyers who all appeared to be smoking three cigarettes at the same time. The tedium was broken abruptly by a small man bellowing MA7KAMAAAAA [equivalent of all rise] with a ferocity which made me hope that the poor love doesn’t have any as yet undiscovered hernias. After some minor commotion at the bench it was announced that the case I had come to see would be heard an hour later.

Back an hour later and we discovered a scrum of approximately fifty persons surrounding the bench, at the centre of which were the barely audible lawyers battling it out. It is at times like these that I curse my luck at being born short, not only because I couldn’t hear a bloody word, but because my face is at armpit level, forcing me to imbibe a rich pot pourri with emphasis on the pourri.

The case itself (which has been extensively reported elsewhere) can be summarised in the style of a man in a pub as follows: this judge bloke, he decides to write a book on blogging in the Arab world which is dead good innit, but unfortunately he allegedly ahem goes and nicks fifty pages from a report written by one of them human rights non governmental thingies, and when they say ere knock it off guv, he goes and accuses them of defamation and raises a case accusing them and twenty-one other websites of defaming him, and insulting religion and the president and whatnot, and accuses them of having suitcases of dollars cos they’re all spies innit, and basically the case is against the government because he wants the government to shutdown these websites in case he is tempted to steal from them again because they are the devil’s spawn. And would you like some sour grapes with your steak and kidney pie?

One of the best arguments was ironically put forward by the government lawyer, who pointed out the impossibility of blocking sites given the existence of proxy servers, meaning that in order to effectively block these sites the government would have to take the unthinkable step of completely shutting down access to the entire internet (kill me now). More exchanges followed which ended as abruptly as the session had begun, and five minutes later it was announced that the case would be yet again adjourned to the 5th May. It can only be hoped that the judges realise the stupidity of attempting to silence the internet.

Stand Up Cairo

A group of us all separately thought that it would be a marvellous idea to put on a stand up comedy show in Cairo, but unfortunately never actually got off our arses and did anything about it. Then fate brought us together at that party where I wore very high-waisted jeans and Forsooth told me off, and I met lovely Hair, who has the biggest best hair in the world, and her very tall fella Two Names Kay. Hair and Two Names Kay are like Cairo's Brad and Anjelina, with marvellous contacts in the worlds of culture, entertainment and coffee shobs, and we gave each other high fives and then simultaneously pointed at each other with both hands and said 'let's get this show on the road!'

That last detail was made up unfortunately.

Together with Huge Tool and the Pig we managed to put it all together - despite there being about 68 cooks in the kitchen and lengthy 'discussions' about the name taking place - and we are proud to announce that Stand Up Cairo/Karkara fow2 el neel is officially habbening. Details below.

**Please could anyone with a blog/a notice board/friends be a love and help to publicise this? We can provide you with posters to stick to your friends - email us. Ta, and if you're in Cairo in May, please come**

Cairo is a comedy cow and we’re milking it.

Stand Up Cairo is reviving the lost art of Egyptian stand up comedy. We will be holding auditions on the 15/16 April from 6-10 pm during which talented individual performers will be invited to perform a two - five minute skit of original material in Arabic or English. We are talking here about classic stand up: one (wo)man and a mic. We are not interested in theatre troupes, nor do we want re-enactments of 1960s monologues. We are looking for the accountants, students, waiters and doctors who can find the comedy in Cairo’s craziness.

What: Stand Up Cairo auditions
When: 15/16 April 2007 from 6-10pm
Where: CiC (Contemporary Image Collective)
20 Safeya Zaghloul St. off Kasr El Aini St., Mounira
Contact: standupcairo@gmail.com
Tel: 02 - 3377535
Website: http://standupcairo.blogspot.com/

Streets apart

Some sort of secret pact seems to have been signed between the worlds of Egyptian Bohemia and car mechanics, with the result that independent art and cultural centres sprout in Cairo’s Downtown auto mechanics’ areas like fungus on trees. While the incongruity of these centres’ settings is palpable each time one passes from the grimy caustic chaos of exhaust pipes and engines into their airy sedateness, there is nonetheless a certain logic in the location and the urban vigour and vitality which is perhaps lacking from the gentrified order of Cairo’s wealthier suburbs.

As a blonde female in jeans I experienced this vitality at least three times as I battled my way through Maarouf Street and its super-friendly mechanics en route to ‘Cairo Talking Heads: the City as a Soundscape,’ an experimental blog project which promised to address issues such as ‘cultural hybridity’, ‘intranslatability’ and other concepts unknown to Microsoft Word’s spell checker, using a technique described as ‘speech imitation’.

In the event I and the other bemused attendees found ourselves listening to recordings of two non-Arabic speaking Swiss men speaking Arabic with an excruciating accent, sometimes against a backdrop of the sounds of an Egyptian street. The duo - a writer and a Liam Neeson lookalike musician who call themselves Teeth and Tongue - explained that the point of the project was to listen to the sounds of Cairo and the language of its inhabitants without making value judgements, by having Egyptians send them voice recordings of things said in Arabic, which Teeth or Tongue would then repeat, without understanding a word. They also recorded snatches of conversation overheard in the public space, on streets and in the recent downtown demonstrations.

As a Cairene it was an entirely odd experience to have to listen in reverential silence to the city’s unremarkable everyday sounds, and the process was only made odder by the addition of the sound of Teeth and Liam Nee-Tongue mangling Arabic in their weird Yoda-like voices. This exoticisation of the ordinary I found vaguely troubling, because in asking us to join them in their wonderment at the new and unusual sounds they have discovered, Teeth and Tongue demonstrate an indifference to the culture which supposedly forms the object of their study, but which in the process is reduced to the servant bringing tea to the master doing his bizarre vocal exercises.

The collision of two worlds was given a very different, and arguably more successful treatment at the Townhouse, which on Sunday launched On the Street, its exhibition of paintings by street children. The project originally began in the late nineties, when artist Huda Lutfi was invited to a drop-in centre for street children run by Kamal Fahmy. There she discovered the children drawing “the pyramids, the sun and the Egyptian flag,” and asked them to instead use their own experiences for inspiration. These weekly encounters produced art which was displayed at the British Council, the French Cultural Centre and the Townhouse, until the drop-in centre was closed by the Ministry of Social Affairs in 2001 and all the paintings were lost - but not before some had been scanned and saved.

I have a low tolerance for children’s art, and generally prefer that the little darlings’ efforts be confined to their parents’ fridges, but many of the images on display at the Townhouse are deeply affecting, and the sadness and terror conveyed jar uncomfortably with the crude naivety of the compositions’ form. The emotional impact of the paintings is made even more intense by the description, in the children’s own words, of the experiences which drove them to homelessness and how the opportunity to paint has affected their lives, related in the book accompanying the exhibition. Fourteen year-old Rami describes the effect that seeing his paintings appreciated by others had on him by saying, “when I see the foreigners looking at them, and the Arabs looking at them, saying they are beautiful, I feel a strong happiness. I sit aside alone and think, why do they say it’s beautiful? Why did they bring them here?”

Accompanying On the Street is a photographic exhibit by Hesham Labib. Cut Short, a collection of portraits of five street children, is inspired by Tahani Rached’s 2006 documentary film ‘al banat dowl’ which presented a harrowing glimpse into the world of Cairo’s street children. Despite their vulnerability and the misery of their circumstances, Rached’s homeless girls demonstrate a proud resilience which defies pity, and it is similarly this which defines Labib’s photographs: the cinematic quality of these images, their pared down simplicity and above all their subjects combine to make beautiful images. Even the infuriating and presumably deliberate absence of any kind of background information about the photographs and their subjects only contributed to their enigma.

I left Cut Short impressed and moved only to be depressed and confused by the exhibit in the Factory space downstairs. Being decidedly lowbrow and dense when it comes to installation art, it was only the presence of a sign explaining what the bloody hell was going on that stopped me mistaking it for e.g. a building site. Monument X, by Tarek Zaki consists of concrete blocks and other objects identifiable as pieces of a dismantled monument, all laid out on the ground like giant grey Lego.

The objects themselves are devoid of any kind of beauty or, dare I say, interest, so I sought recourse to the blurb which told me that the replacement of the ‘traditional vertical apprehension of a monument’ by a ‘new horizontal perspective’ makes for ‘a puzzle which only the viewer’s imagination can solve and complete.’ None the wiser, my imagination and I took our leave.

Originally published in al Ahram Weekly.

Revenge is a dish best served from My Queen

"Wa7ed kofta law sama7t"

The Pig and Amnesiac are in the cinema watching the moving men’s underwear catalogue which is 300. Both are entranced, the Pig by the decapitation and sword action, Amnesiac by the thighs and thong-tha-thong-thong-thongssss.

The film has reached the climax of its penultimate scene: King Ridiculous Beard has finally realised that his attempt to take on Persia using a battalion of 300 men wearing thongs and capes was possibly slightly misguided, and has thus decided to make the best of a bad situation by fighting to his inevitable death in a deluge of Persian arrows and bloodied glory, thereby ensuring that his memory lives on, on imdb.com.

Before he expires, King Ridiculous Beard’s thoughts inevitably turn to her indoors, the missus. He is of course unaware that her Highness has had it away with the fit bloke out of Something New while her man was busy chopping Persian heads off (she did it for Sparta however, so that’s alright). He is consumed with anguished love for el madame and, arms aloft, bellows:

King Ridiculous Beard: MY LOVE!!!!!!!…MY QUEENNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

Amnesiac: [whispering noisily and breathing popcorn breath all over the Pig] Howa ga3aan wala feih aih?

The Pig: [Closes eyes and adopts the expression of a man with haemorrhoid problems.]

* An eating establishment (that is, a trailer) in Mohandiseen.