Two Thoughts in the Prado Museum, Madrid

May 9, 2008 – 8:36 am

I. Guards, sentries, guides, they stalk the halls like silent wraiths clad in their dead blue blazers and knee length skirts. To speak to them is to encounter monotony made woman: instructions enunciated with the indifference usually associated with divorcees.

The majority of them are aged, infirm, with bloated ankles, using the numerous rocking chairs provided to them out of the kindness of the administration. The presence of these women, if they can really be called this, in this palace of art, is anomalous. Their presence does not give affirmation to the things they so jealously guard.

They represent change, age, wrinkles, flaws, sweat, and disfiguration – imperfection. Some are, undoubtedly, beautiful – with fine Castillian features, small angular noses one would pay to trace with his tongue, the pert neck of a swan, curly hair springing with life. Still, their staid standoffish conservatism weighs against the dance, the mirth, the laughter, the flowers, the cherubs, the saints, lechery, hedonism, and lust on display in so many paintings.

In a place where so much is given over to celebrating the glorious sacrifice of Christ, the desensitized omniscience, the ossified haughtiness, the indolent emptiness of these women is a slap in the face. In comparison to the affirmation around them, their lifelessness gives the impression that beauty doesn’t exist today; that it is only a purview of bygone times.

I would like a museum to be dedicated to nurturing every kind of beauty; a place where the mix of divine and human perfection is not just on display upon walls – but found in a more perfect, timeless, eternal form among the living. Why does immortality only belong to the dead? Read More »

By Ali Eteraz | Posted in Arts & Literature, Columnist, Religion, beauty, christianity, creative nonfiction, islam, painting, women | Comments (42)

New Year’s Resolutions

January 1, 2008 – 2:30 am

In this Southern North American region, it is expected of the women to make impassioned New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and look younger. Some of us are sincere in our resolve, others make the proper noises because it is expected of them. Some of us make a plan of action, others just go buy a low-fat-low-carb-low-flavor cookbook and leave it out for people to notice. Society has trained us to believe we must behave so.

Then, I see on TV that Valerie Bertinelli has lost nearly all of her extra forty pounds (and she looks marvelous, too!), since she has done it already she won’t have to resolve to do it next year! She gets weepy and flaps her hand, and tells us all to sign up. I am happy for Valerie, because she’s happy enough to get teary-eyed and hand-flappy. I’m happy that she lost unwanted weight. Truthfully, though, ah…she really doesn’t look all that different. To me.

I do not intend to lose weight. I’ve tried, with varying degrees of commitment, to be rid of the fifty pounds that have been dogging me for the last six years. I have learned that the weight does not wish to be lost, and all the New Year’s promises to self that self will work out and eat spinach every day simply don’t work. My body is steadfastly determined to remain prepared for a famine, and all the salads and glasses of water won’t change that.

I also have a deep and abiding love affair with food. I absolutely love to eat, eat many and varied things, at all times of day. My latest discovery (I’d heard of them but didn’t know how to go about making them) are fish tacos. Oh dear Gussie. I used talapia, and a fresh lemony cabbage slaw and a horseradishy sauce….mmm. I had been told by people as far away as San Diego that fish tacos were a wonder, and yet I was dubious. No longer.

I also love Thai food, with it’s peppers and peanuts and vinegary sauces, and Ethiopean cuisine with its heat and nutty breads, a delicious rare steak with an Argentinean chimmichurri sauce, the list goes on. How on Earth am I to keep the required Southern White Lady resolution to lose weight if people keep introducing me to the pleasures of diverse cuisine?

So, I have decided to break with custom and forget the weight issue. I’m going to eat what I like, when I want, and however much I want. Begone guilt, pass me a doughnut. Instead, I am resolving something else. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Society, beauty, creative nonfiction, food, humor, north america, women | Comments (1)

The Sounds of Morning

December 2, 2007 – 3:10 am

I stepped outside for a few minutes about 6:15am. The sky was just beginning to lighten in the east, and the waning moon was high and bright in the west. There was a brilliant star (planet? I don’t know these things) just under the moon, and another one in the southeast, over the Willow Pond near the by-pass.

I’d stepped out with the intention of bellowing at Rosie, as she was being yappy and I can’t stand a yappy dog. The moon caught my attention and I stood there surrounded by the cool air, listening.

My neighbor to the west has a small building in her backyard. It has a little front porch, and dangling from the eaves is a windchime she made of old enamel dishes, small bowls and plates, with a few spoons thrown in. It was clattering softly in the breeze. I thought “good for you, Leisle, for having the courage to make something the entire rest of the world thinks is silly, and for being proud enough of it to grace everyone else’s morning with it’s dulcet chimes.” Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, creative nonfiction, family | Comments (0)

Thanksgiving, My Grace

November 22, 2007 – 3:54 am

I’ve been, naturally, thinking about the whole thankfulness concept, and what, in particular am I thankful/grateful for right now. I was reminded of the mess we went through with child #4 starting when he was about a year old. He had allergies, serious ones: to cats, cockroaches, and dust mites. When I say serious, I mean serious.

His skin was literally falling off in quarter and half-dollar sized chunks, like something out of an Austin Powers movie. In the creases of his knees and elbows the skin would crack and bleed. He itched ferociously, and we would wrap him in gauze to try and stop him from scratching. When I took him to the pediatrician, he (the Dr.) was so impressed by #4’s skin that he took photos of it to show at a convention (yay!… Not really, no).

The Dr. and I decided on a shotgun treatment: throw everything we can think of at the allergy in hopes that something works. That didn’t quite do the trick. When #4 was two, we were referred to a pediatric dermatologist in Atlanta. He was also sent to a pediatric allergist in Montgomery- a 70 yr old Southun Gentleman wearing a bowtie and in possession of a pocket full of suckers. Between the salves and other remedies prescribed by the dermatologist, not to mention the series of allergy shots (normally not started on a two-year old, but he was really, really in need of them), by the time #4 was five, his skin was clearing up. When we moved to Statesboro, we located another allergist, who tested him again and said his allergies were gone, the shots worked.

So… Medical Science… It’s a good thing. My son still has scars on the backs of his knees, where the skin cracked open, but the rashes, the horrible bleeding raw spots, the crying all night from itching, are over. What I have now is a happy, clear-skinned, long-legged eight-year old boy, who doesn’t remember the misery, puts his underpants on backwards, and dumps too much Ovaltine in his milk. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Society, creative nonfiction, family, north america | Comments (0)

Living Las Vegas

November 17, 2007 – 8:19 am

Las Vegas only makes an impression if you don’t look past the illusion. Peek beyond the veil that the corporations have cast and its nothing more than a series of asphalt lanes and bus routes. For a tourist it bears the promise of endless pleasure, salivating strippers, heaving hedonism.

For a resident, on the other hand, Las Vegas is the fat black guy with dreads who spends his day time in the bookstore discussing politics (with a guy carrying a briefcase too big for his body) and at night moves to the 24 hour café; playing chess against the bespectacled white guy called “The Tutor” who makes his living hanging out in the university library, getting hired by students to do their homework.

The real Las Vegas is the stripper named “Ana” who came from Texas three years ago because her parents are dead and she is putting her sister through college.

Read More »

By Ali Eteraz | Posted in Columnist, creative nonfiction, north america, sex, travel, women | Comments (12)

Notes from the Exurbs

October 7, 2007 – 3:23 pm

Life inside Boston’s easternmost ring road, west of its massive suburban mosaic, is more than the meets the eye of Google earth.

This outer ring of habitation, tucked inside the burly bark of the interstate, is the next woody circle out from suburbia - exurbia – an as-yet unsung layer in the tree rings of the great trunk of metropolitan American life. Here, west of Boston and east of Worcester, tumbled grey stone walls still trace roads without sidewalks and the big yellow school buses lumber picturesquely past the odd apple orchard. Here is where middle-class New England families hunt acreage and the faded fantasy of small town community. Let me sing you the song of this exurban ring – some notes soar and others plummet. As Julie Andrews taught us, when you sing you begin with do re mi . . . . Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, Society, creative nonfiction, family, north america | Comments (0)

A Southern Autumn

October 1, 2007 – 3:27 pm

I’ve lived in Georgia and Alabama since 1974. I was nine when we moved here during Christmas break. I want to describe life here, so people who don’t live here won’t think we’re all uneducated hicks…then again maybe you will, but if you do, I can tell you with certainty that we don’t care.

I’ve lived in both large and small towns. The large towns are, for the most part, pretty much like any other large town in other parts of the country. There’s ethnic, racial and economic diversity, opportunity for employment, even lemongrass in the grocery store sometimes! Small towns have diversity as well; it’s just usually not culinary diversity. That’s another topic, though.

One thing this town does right, and I mean that in all sincerity, is the Parade. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Society, creative nonfiction, humor, north america | Comments (0)

Three Sprinkles of Spice

January 23, 2007 – 9:28 pm

(This article was first published in Living Well magazine of Jordan in December 2006)

Yet again, I disappoint my ever forbearing editor. Contrary to my promise – and despite her friendly instructions to turn off the serious tone, if only for the merry season – I find myself compulsively tapping the wrong buttons on the keyboard. Despite my solemn pledge to don a white beard and write a joyous Christmas carol, my hands have declared mutiny and are disobeying orders from the central command of my better judgment.

Santa is nowhere to be found. To make matters worse, the alphabets have joined the revolt, pulling my fingertips towards sentences that can’t wait to be written. As I surrender to their gravity, I find myself itching to tell this story, I even feel it’s my responsibility to do so. To tell you the truth, the historic document I’m about to share with you has restored my faith in the basic goodness of the human race, the mere thought of which brings warmth to my heart, more joy than any Father Christmas could muster. Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in Columnist, Current Affairs, creative nonfiction, middle east | Comments (0)

Petitcodiac: The Town That Grew Up With Me

August 16, 2006 – 5:14 pm

I looked at the spot where there stood an active train station fifty years ago. Today, this spot boasts a fence and a small park. How this town has changed, I thought silently. Even though I grew up in this town, I had never before noticed the subtle changes that were occurring around me.

Even though the train station was before my time, I still marvel at the thought of what it must have been like to see Petitcodiac as it was in another time. But I all I have to do, is look at it now because I am looking at it in another time. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, Columnist, creative nonfiction | Comments (0)

The Perfect Sunset Spot – In a Region That Doesn’t Even Make New Brunswick’s Map

July 27, 2006 – 6:23 pm

“If I don’t pull over, I’m going to end up in the ditch , ” I thought to myself. The sunset in the distance was so captivating that focusing on the road was difficult. Being on a budget, I couldn’t afford a luxurious day at the spa. Finances called for a more practical way to unwind. With no particular destination in mind, I set off. A sunset drive ought to take away the mental fog. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, Society, creative nonfiction, north america, travel | Comments (0)