My grandmother died this week. I didn't know her well. This is the opening to a short piece I shared last night with my writing group. The rest is includes unflattering portraits of some family members, so I'll keep it off the internet for now.
Maman Mali Has Passed Away
The day Maman learned to press the button in the elevator, we celebrated. Never mind that eleven is written the same in both Farsi and English. What mattered was that she had made it from the lobby to our apartment on her own, her first and only American act. For a moment, we collectively imagined a world in which Maman could stay and live with us.
Perhaps Chinatown was a mistake. The Peking duck, though festive, was greasy and rich. And the rogue pyrotechnics of the lunar New Year drew fearful whimpers as we crossed the narrow streets, Maman gripping my hand ever more tightly. That is how we communicated: in squeezes and in sounds.
She stayed five months. She pinched my cheeks. At dinner, she drove her crooked finger into my back so that I would not slouch and end up hunched as she had. She knit me a red cardigan sweater with buttons and button holes that did not quite match up.
In the mornings, when only Maman and I were awake, I would perch on the bar of my father’s barbell and watch her bob up and down, pressing her forehead to a stone plucked from the seashell jar and surrounding our family’s names with melodic sounds. Leila fell between Daria and Soheil, night between ocean and star. Afterward, she toasted pita bread and filled the steaming pockets with butter and honey for our breakfast.
***
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Topics of sentimental value
I've been thinking lately about the lasting impact of topics of school projects from show and tell to masters theses. The following is a selection of subjects I feel connected to, years after sculpting a diorama, slaving over a research paper for one assignment or another.
Monarch butterflies
The Circle Line Ferry
Great horned owls
Possums
Iran
Traditional Kurdish dancing
The Iroquois Nation
The Hopi
Inconsistencies in the Qur'an
Winged disks/Zoroastrianism under Darius the Great
African American Muslim women
Amish women's clothing
What Palestinian women can learn from the experiences of Iranian women
Milošević
Communism in South Africa
Steve Biko and Black Consciousness
The Democratic Peace Theory and Kant's theory of perpetual peace
Early Islam
Islamic calligraphy
The Lover by Margeurite Duras
Solid waste management in New York City
Haitian newspaper coverage of the Haitian elections
Dracula
A Farewell to Arms
Slam poetry in France
Lebanon between the World Wars
The Kurdish Question
French international relations vocabulary
Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott
Brutus' speech to the people in Julius Caesar
Baudelaire's Recueillement
Monarch butterflies
The Circle Line Ferry
Great horned owls
Possums
Iran
Traditional Kurdish dancing
The Iroquois Nation
The Hopi
Inconsistencies in the Qur'an
Winged disks/Zoroastrianism under Darius the Great
African American Muslim women
Amish women's clothing
What Palestinian women can learn from the experiences of Iranian women
Milošević
Communism in South Africa
Steve Biko and Black Consciousness
The Democratic Peace Theory and Kant's theory of perpetual peace
Early Islam
Islamic calligraphy
The Lover by Margeurite Duras
Solid waste management in New York City
Haitian newspaper coverage of the Haitian elections
Dracula
A Farewell to Arms
Slam poetry in France
Lebanon between the World Wars
The Kurdish Question
French international relations vocabulary
Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott
Brutus' speech to the people in Julius Caesar
Baudelaire's Recueillement
Thursday, February 19, 2009
From the archives
According to me, 2005 kind of ruled. I don't know what I was thinking ranking The Gates as a top moment. Amazing year for film, though.
Top Fives of Oh-Five
New York moments
1. The Gates
2. Losing the Olympic bid
3. Transit Strike ’05 (the picturesque scenes of New Yorkers walking home over the Brooklyn Bridge, not the labor dispute itself)
4. NYC acquires the High Line and designates it as public space
5. Right now
Books discovered
1. Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
2. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
3. Mountains Beyond Mountains : The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World By Tracy Kidder
4. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, A History of the Hip Hop Generation by Jeff Chang
5. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson
Movies seen in theatres
1. Head-On
2. Syriana
3. Turtles Can Fly
4. Good Night, and Good Luck
5. The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Movies Netflixed
1. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
2. Don’t Look Back
3. Gadjo Dilo
4. The Baxter
5. Murderball
Redeeming Moments for Man
1. General public's reponse to Hurricaine Katrina
2. Libby's resignation
3. Judith Miller's resignation
4. Bush's drop in the polls
5. Peaceful revolution in Kyrgyzstan/Indian coca farmer elected in Bolivia
Top Fives of Oh-Five
New York moments
1. The Gates
2. Losing the Olympic bid
3. Transit Strike ’05 (the picturesque scenes of New Yorkers walking home over the Brooklyn Bridge, not the labor dispute itself)
4. NYC acquires the High Line and designates it as public space
5. Right now
Books discovered
1. Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
2. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
3. Mountains Beyond Mountains : The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World By Tracy Kidder
4. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, A History of the Hip Hop Generation by Jeff Chang
5. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson
Movies seen in theatres
1. Head-On
2. Syriana
3. Turtles Can Fly
4. Good Night, and Good Luck
5. The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Movies Netflixed
1. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
2. Don’t Look Back
3. Gadjo Dilo
4. The Baxter
5. Murderball
Redeeming Moments for Man
1. General public's reponse to Hurricaine Katrina
2. Libby's resignation
3. Judith Miller's resignation
4. Bush's drop in the polls
5. Peaceful revolution in Kyrgyzstan/Indian coca farmer elected in Bolivia
Saturday, February 14, 2009
"Moi, je suis V.F."
I had trouble understanding Fabrice. He spoke half in verlan, the syllable-flipping pig latin invented by suburban teenyboppers.
By Spring, a few of us on the program had taken to spending every night of the week at a Brit Pop bar in the 11th, a readymade social scene of French 20-somethings who had taught themselves English listening to David Bowie and The Kinks.
Fabrice found me there on the dance floor one night and kept me company for the rest of my time in Paris. He had a bridge and tunnel tackiness to him that set him apart in that slick scene, a goofiness offset by the thuggish edge of growing up Arab in the unfashionable periphery.
“Moi, je suis V.F.,” he told me once—referring to the letters on a marquee that indicate a foreign film has been dubbed into French and meaning he wouldn’t watch anything subtitled.
Fabrice lived in a high-rise housing complex a world apart from my overpriced apartment in the Marais. There we would drink beers, have sex, play video games and, in the evening, stand wrapped in sheets in front of the untreated living room windows, gazing down at the tiny people crisscrossing the vast cement courtyard below.
Only specially marked Métros stopped at Fabrice’s, the rest operated on some sort of skip stop route I never quite figured out. The 1 and the 9 trains in New York used to follow a similar pattern until the city consolidated a few years ago, keeping just the 1. I think of Fabrice every time I see an old sign with a blacked out “9”.
By Spring, a few of us on the program had taken to spending every night of the week at a Brit Pop bar in the 11th, a readymade social scene of French 20-somethings who had taught themselves English listening to David Bowie and The Kinks.
Fabrice found me there on the dance floor one night and kept me company for the rest of my time in Paris. He had a bridge and tunnel tackiness to him that set him apart in that slick scene, a goofiness offset by the thuggish edge of growing up Arab in the unfashionable periphery.
“Moi, je suis V.F.,” he told me once—referring to the letters on a marquee that indicate a foreign film has been dubbed into French and meaning he wouldn’t watch anything subtitled.
Fabrice lived in a high-rise housing complex a world apart from my overpriced apartment in the Marais. There we would drink beers, have sex, play video games and, in the evening, stand wrapped in sheets in front of the untreated living room windows, gazing down at the tiny people crisscrossing the vast cement courtyard below.
Only specially marked Métros stopped at Fabrice’s, the rest operated on some sort of skip stop route I never quite figured out. The 1 and the 9 trains in New York used to follow a similar pattern until the city consolidated a few years ago, keeping just the 1. I think of Fabrice every time I see an old sign with a blacked out “9”.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Breastfeeding monkey
This is one of the stranger sites I've seen this year. Monkey parks are sad places. I feel a little guilty invading this duo's privacy by sharing this pic, but I don't think they'll ever see it and I find the bearded look coupled with the breastfeeding so weird I just had to pass it on.
sticky memories
My grandmother’s doctor describes dementia as black holes in the brain. You can have lengthy conversations and as long as none of the thoughts bouncing around in her head hits a black hole, everything seems normal. She can recall detailed stories from her childhood but gets frustrated by questions like did you go for a walk today.
Only her stickiest memories remain. When I visit she tells the same stories over and over, bridging every conversation back to the same cluster of past events. One is that when she and her sister were seven and six their father—a beret-sporting writer and all around eccentric—decided to move from New York back to his native Hungary. It was hard. They didn’t speak much Hungarian and could barely understand what was going on around them. But what my grandmother remembers most about that year is that when they started at their new school, her sister put her head down on her desk went to sleep.
She didn’t even try. She was always so spoiled, my grandmother repeats whenever I visit. She tells me this in special confidence, from one big sister to another. I am the oldest daughter of her oldest daughter and she will forget my name and everything else about me before she forgets this. I nod, wondering what, in her eighties, my sister will mutter to her granddaughter about me.
Only her stickiest memories remain. When I visit she tells the same stories over and over, bridging every conversation back to the same cluster of past events. One is that when she and her sister were seven and six their father—a beret-sporting writer and all around eccentric—decided to move from New York back to his native Hungary. It was hard. They didn’t speak much Hungarian and could barely understand what was going on around them. But what my grandmother remembers most about that year is that when they started at their new school, her sister put her head down on her desk went to sleep.
She didn’t even try. She was always so spoiled, my grandmother repeats whenever I visit. She tells me this in special confidence, from one big sister to another. I am the oldest daughter of her oldest daughter and she will forget my name and everything else about me before she forgets this. I nod, wondering what, in her eighties, my sister will mutter to her granddaughter about me.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
S-A-M
The flirty toddler in my lap,
dark lashed and huge eyed,
stairs at me through thick bangs
and gurgles "saaahhmm"
when I ask him his name.
S-A-M his mother tells me.
Because Americans can pronounce it
and for the Shahnameh,
the names of the kings,
a thick book of myths and legends
not found in this home.
Saam, grandfather of Rustam
and father of a little boy born
with white hair. A little boy
Saam took to the mountains
and left to die.
Saam, the guilt-ridden and confused
who later in the story---
when his son returned or when he
returned for his son (I forget),
accepted him, finally, white hair and all.
Saam, Saam, Saam, Saam, Sam.
dark lashed and huge eyed,
stairs at me through thick bangs
and gurgles "saaahhmm"
when I ask him his name.
S-A-M his mother tells me.
Because Americans can pronounce it
and for the Shahnameh,
the names of the kings,
a thick book of myths and legends
not found in this home.
Saam, grandfather of Rustam
and father of a little boy born
with white hair. A little boy
Saam took to the mountains
and left to die.
Saam, the guilt-ridden and confused
who later in the story---
when his son returned or when he
returned for his son (I forget),
accepted him, finally, white hair and all.
Saam, Saam, Saam, Saam, Sam.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Kurdish squats
Get rich quick scheme #1 (don't steal!!!):
Step one: Invent some sort of "ancient Persian" stretching exercise.
Step two: Open a studio in Brooklyn.
Step three: Create a spin-off version for mothers and babies.
Step four: Design a complimentary line of kudish pants* made out of jersey.**
*In case you are unfamiliar with Kurdish traditional dress, the ancient predecessor to Hammer pants, I ripped the above image from some kid's Myspace. When I was nine my parents split up and my dad moved to a nearby Jersey suburb where he set up a Persian bachelor pad of sorts, the most memerable feature of which was a huge portrait of Dr. Mossadegh. He kept a drawer full of Kurdish pants for friends to change into (Mr. Roger's style) when they came over to chill out, crack walnuts, play endless rounds of backgammon and recite old poetry. Actually, my dad did most of the poetry reading. His buddies came over mostly to escape their quotidien lives and bask in the old school flavor of our bootleg cultural center.
**Stay tuned for a future rant on the unscaling of jersey, a fabric previously reserved for maternity and sports wear now more commmonly used for overpriced boutique dresses. I'm all for comfy formal wear, not the absurd mark up.
This post was inspired by a bulletin board announcement in my neighborhood for some sort of class to "swing your baby".
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Elly Wamala
My friend Patricia is the daughter of the late Elly Wamala, the "Louis Armstrong of Uganda". Despite a couple half-hearted attempts to track down an old record and hearing a couple covers of songs he made famous at a club in Kampala, I had never really listened to his music until today when my friend Paul came to visit and told me how to spell his name. The internet, man. What a thing. Also, I LOVE this album cover. Boda boda are moped taxis in Uganda. I think boda boda refers to the price. Regardless, they're an essential and harrowing part of getting around Kampala. I kind of want a blow up of this image as a poster.
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