Prolific Immigrant

I am, at the moment, getting down to Gogol Bordello‘s:
Underdog World Strike
Illumination
Immigrant Punk
&
Wonderlust King

…as well as Man Man‘s:
Engrish Bwudd

Only download if you’re interested in a feast for your senses, please.

Comments closed. Now: Dance.

I wish to travel with the carnivàle, any carnivàle. Only, unfortunately, I’m not talented, so this is not at all a possibility. Instead, I can live vicariously through trips to random carnivàles, the world over.

Laura and I spent nearly six hours at the Carnivàle Lune Bleue, I coveting all who worked there and the undoubtedly sexy and hedonistic lives they (must!) live.

Everything about this particular Carnivàle is sensual, seduction dripping off of every costume, southern accent, musical instrument, and constant sense of freak-show danger and threat.

The first three people we met were a belly dancer, a little person (their language, not mine) and a woman atop stilts. The music was burlesque in flavor and floating past our taste buds were clouds of popcorn, cotton candy and candied apple sticky sweetness. I was immediately stoned on happy and couldn’t stop laughing the entire night through.

Our first stop was at Carnival Diablo, where we saw a woman jump over shards of glass, lay atop a bed of nails and be beheaded; where a man drank boiling water, pounded a nail through his nose, ran a hook through his (unusually large) tongue, hooked it to a mesh bucket of stones and raised the stones from the ground; where another man bent a steel rod with his teeth, had darts thrown at and tacked into his skin, sat in an electrical chair, placed his hand in a mousetrap, smashed a can of dog food over his finger (if ever there was a true fetishist, it is he…); and, where a third man swallowed swords (at which point, L started coughing in solidarity with) and fire.

Nikolai Diablo (the MC) was derangedly sweet, making me unsure as to whether I should cry or smile when he chose to focus on me while someone prepared something behind him. He pointed me out and then just stood at the edge of the stage and stared…and stared…and stared…before he stared a little more. He later came over and gave me the “head of the bottle” that he broke into pieces in preparation for the Countess who would walk through the glass. No surprise, he handed me the “head” from the crotch of his pants.

No matter that L and I laughed our way through that which didn’t make her gag, this is not a show for children, but one which I highly recommend to the rest of you.

Running out of Diablo, we rode the carousel and the old-fashioned ferris wheel before we skipped into the Cirque Maroc tent. While on the Ferris Wheel, I took this for you, so that you might join us on the ride:

…and while on the carousel, we attempted to take pictures. Have you ever tried to do this? It is, to say the least, tricky as you are never at level, hence this wonderful photo of L and I looking as though she is two storeys beneath me:

Cirque Maroc is a visual and auditory feast, with two MCs, one of whom I wanted to bring home and make my best friend (the slightly pudgy funnier, softer, cuter MC). It was, much in the spirit of Cirque du Soleil, an absolute wonder, with two women of particular note: one who plays with / slides up and down / contorts around a hanging rope, and another woman who creates majic when her body collides with a hamster wheel for humans. I know it’s not technically a ‘hamster wheel’, and it is in fact a ‘german wheel’, leave it to the Germans to come up with what is possibly a torture instrument or a fetishist’s fantasy a rather massive rolling wheel made for people.

L had her fortune read as I made fun of the cards (“…are those refugees crossing a river? Is that a British ‘bobby’? Is your fortune teller high? Do you believe this shit? I think he’s high…awesome…”) and sat in the bus. This bus. Which still runs. And is, in fact, the real bus from the Nightmare on Elm Street films:

We ate dinner beneath the tent, at The Cookhouse, L feasting on thick orange soup and I on Moroccan chicken while listening to The Unsettlers, whose music reminded me of the genius that is Polish punk band Gogol Bordello. I was mesmerized by the combination of their music, the cool air, the spicy food, the woman on stilts, the man playing with fire, thinking to myself that these people must be having sex with one another randomly and everywhere and all at once and what a strange and free and unusual and extremely seductive world that is the Carnivàle.

I loved it.

And to perfectly illustrate the strange weather one walks into at the Carnivàle Lune Bleue, watch and listen carefully, with particular attention paid at around the 56 second mark:

Two special shout outs to two of the carnis, first to the woman wearing a hat and glasses ushering us into the Cirque Maroc tent, you are hilarious and brilliant with your stuttering naivete, and I can’t help but wonder if you married your cousin who is also your mum’s uncle and best friend, and to the young gentleman who runs the shooting game, you are simply perfect at your job.

Two further recommendations: (1) go immediately; and, (2) then come again next year. I most definitely will.

**********

Find the official Carnivàle Lune Bleue site here, please.
All photos from L & I’s adventure found here.
Carnival Diablo
Cirque Maroc
The Unsettlers (they are brilliant and I can not stop listening to their cd)

Alright. In the spirit of Ramadan, you’d think that what I am about to write will be soft and kind and gentle and all things forgiving. But it’s not. In fact, it’s quite the opposite of all things gentle. It shall also be very short because you need to know that the entry I wrote about forgiving someone who hasn’t asked for your forgiveness isn’t for everyone. This entry still generates a flurry of emails weekly; it is not for everyone, specifically neither the forgiver nor the forgivee.

It’s not even for me, at all times.

It’s how to behave in an elevated manner, and quite frankly and specifically to me, when I see the asshattery around me, I have no desire to always be ‘elevated’. I retain the right to be a machete when facing any lying, cheating, thieving, oppressing, passive aggressive, eye-rolling abusive fuck-up. And so should you.

There is a fine line between being elevated and being a moron when it comes to letting people get away with shit in your life. You want to be a degenerate pushover?, be my guest; just don’t play the martyr of elevated and enlightened behaviour, and instead make sure to own it and suck it up like a real wo/man.

The bottom line is: there are some people that you will never forgive, whether it’s because you don’t feel like you can actually get past it / they deserve it, or because you can’t be bothered to repeatedly expend the copious amounts of energy required to forgive the actions of someone who never acknowledged or owned the act of lying, cheating, thieving, oppressing, abusing you and your trust all the while, paper-cutting you to death with their passive aggression.

Just make sure that the anger sits in a silo labelled ‘so-and-so’, and it doesn’t spill over on to how you treat anyone else. I expect to be held accountable for my own actions, not that of others. Extend that courtesy to those around you, at least…

**********
Footnote: Yes. Even the ones we choose not to forgive aren’t born to hurt us. And just because you choose not to forgive someone, it doesn’t mean you’re labelling them ‘evil’.

P.S. Clearly, this is in response to all of the other emails whose sole focus is men / women in a relationship. Just so we’re clear – we do know that people need forgiveness, and people perform fantastical feats of shittiness even beyond the confines of dating, right?

“…and nearest among them in love to the believers wilt thou find those who say, “We are Christians”: because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant.”
-Qur’an 5:82b

O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for God, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety; and fear God.
- Qur’an 5:8

I hope your first day of fasting was as rewarding as intended.

May this month bring you much peace into your hearts and much self reflection, and may all of your prayers be accepted.

(And during this month of humility, please take the time to listen to this exceptional khutbah by Hamza Yusuf; arrogance (at the centre of ignorance) and God consciousness. It is for each of us to remember these words when we believe we are better than others. It is as much a reminder to you, as it is to myself.

Note: he begins with a little Muslim prayer, in Arabic, but the khutbah itself is in English, starting about a minute into the mp3.)

Comments closed.

.1. An earwig melts if you spray it with Lysol.
I have been spraying and running; this is how I know.

Last night, I watched one earwig die and melt in on itself.

If there were a Criminal Court of Insects, I would be tried for the illegal use of chemical warfare.

.2. I tried a Vanilla Bean Frappuccino from Starbucks the other day and nearly peed myself out of sheer pleasure. I recommend you give this beverage a go and request the whip cream, as well.

If they don’t recognise the name “Vanilla Bean Frappuccino”, try asking for a “Fat Ass In A Cup”.

Let me know how that works out for you.

.3. Conversation at a restaurant / bar.

Man: “Hi, how are you?”
Maha: “Good thanks.”
Man: “I’m good too, thanks.”
Maha: “Cool!”
Man: “I’m (insert name). Would you like to join me and my table for a drink?”
Maha (looks over at table and sees three other men in suits and some randoms; men are noticeable because they’re the only ones in the joint wearing suits): “No, but thank you. I’m here with my own friends.”
Man: “They can join us too, if you’d like.”
Maha: “Not really. But thank you. I should get back to…”
Man: “I’m with the (insert name of Native Nation or something like that).”
Maha: “O. Okay. Well. I’m a Palestinian. I really have to go, thanks. BYE.”
Man: “You’re a Palestinian?”
Maha (leaving and returning to my table): “Yeah. Awesome, right? Most people never guess. BYE.”

When I returned to my table, I told my friends that I had met someone who told me to which Native nation he belonged; that it sounded kind of Native, but I really wasn’t certain that it was. My friends informed me that it was not the name of his Native tribe (e.g. like ‘Sioux’), but was rather the name of the sports team to which he belonged.

Now re-read the last four lines of the conversation to understand what kind of a clueless fool your WebMomma truly is.

Hello – I am home and looking forward to sharing both stories and pictures soon enough.

First, please find my last article, published while I was away: Gender Violence is Everyone’s Responsibility, about honor killings.

Second, thank you to each and every one of you for your lovely well wishes while I was travelling. Tunisia is stunning and being in Carthage was an other-worldly experience. I look forward to returning there someday.

I will be responding to all emails in the coming weeks…xo