Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Film: "Egypt: The Story Behind the Revolution"


Egypt: the story behind the revolution " Trailer 2" from Khaled Sayed on Vimeo.
Filmmaker Khaled Sayed showed his film "Egypt: The Story Behind the Revolution" at Alwan.  Seeing these activists recount their own experiences was valuable as was seeing original and reproduced clips from news agencies.  There was the reminder that  middle class students who started the uprisings were joined by the masses a few days later, a tearful reminiscence from a protester who claimed she had no expectation at first they would be able to remove Mubarak, and all interviewed voiced a continuous refrain that people from all classes and religions were brought together as a unified voice of Egypt, one longing for dignity.  Most of the audience members who asked questions after the screening were primarily interested in hearing themselves talk (assumed repression of the woman's voice, religious strife, and other Orientalist reductions), but Sayed graciously managed to get in some original information about more recent ongoings, such as his disappointment with political tactics of the Muslim Brotherhood who, according to him, stooped to the campaign tricks of the ousted predecessors.  A film definitely worth seeing.  

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Reading Tonight at the West


Just in case you didn't see the post a couple of days ago, I'm reading tonight. Other writer friends, submit! It's a low key, neighborhood-y occasion.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

I ♥ the Athenian Corner

Last week's road trip to Boston ended so quickly! Thank you to Najmat for taking the lovely photos (stunningly beautiful and too big to load :( ) and to the band, Costas, George, and Mike, and my forever favoritest club owner, T. 

Reading at The West on March 18

Mae West born in Williamsburg
Join my beautiful friend Wah Ming Chang and me, among readers in a Works in Progress series organized by Douglas C. Turner (Curator of Consciousness) in my own neighborhood at the West in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  (The place is named for Mae West, born in B'Burg)  The event is at 7 on Sunday. I'll read an excerpt from my novel, very much in progress, about a belly dancer caught up in Patriot Act policies.  WMC, what will you read?

Details:
Douglas C. Turner's Works-in-Progress Reading Series
March 18, 7 p.m.
at the West, 379 Union Avenue, Williamsburg. 
(off the Lorimer stop on the L train)
WMC, born out of Nowhere

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Elena Lentini this Weekend (and the Athenian Corner)

I'm so excited to return to my old Boston area and dance at the Elena Lentini workshop organized by Amy Smith and others!  I'm also dancing at the Athenian Corner in Lowell on Friday, an old haunt.....for information on the workshop which takes place on Saturday and Sunday:
http://www.facebook.com/events/113947918718831/
The Athenian Corner is in Lowell at 207 Market Street.
http://www.atheniancorner.com.  Come by on Friday night.....

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Zaina's "Stories of a Traveling Belly Dancer"

Zaina
My friend Zaina just published her e-book!  Zaina's traveled and danced all over the Middle East.  We hung out together in Cairo in the summer of 2007.  Today she's off to Morocco today for a new dance stint.  Hopefully, that means there will be a "Stories of a Traveling Belly Dancer "Volume 2.  I've read bits and pieces of this book as it was in the makings.....for a sneak preview, go to Gilded Serpent's excerpt: "Touching the Clouds: Impossible Bridge in Yemen" , gaze at her beautiful author photo, and then buy the whole book a Amazon for $2.99.  Yes, three bucks Buy it here:
Stories of a Traveling Belly Dancer.