Terror in Bangalore

July 26, 2008 – 9:19 am

I wasn’t born in Bangalore. I don’t live there now. But ever since I was a child, it’s been the seat of my family.

I’ve smelled the jasmine and diesel in the air. I’ve seen the elections of civic-minded criminals, and heard the hurly-burly cry of Commercial Street for years. In short, I claim Bangalore as my own.

Eight explosions erupted across my city like weeping lesions yesterday.

According to all the news sources I can tap, the prime suspects in this matter are either the members of a banned student organization, the Students Islamic Movement of India, or the militant organization, Lashkar-e-Toiba. I don’t know enough about the nature or history of either group to even offer an opinion. And honestly, I can’t say that I care who eventually will claim the credit for all of this. Whoever it was, they’re no different than any other breed of savage.

Every time I go to Bangalore, I visit the Church of the Infant Jesus. It’s near the center of the city, a shy palace of stone and stained marble. Shall I tell you why it’s wonderful? Because, despite the name, it’s a shrine for every person of any faith. Read More »

By Joe Sapien | Posted in Columnist, Current Affairs, south asia, terrorism | Comments (0)

Amusement From Insipid Places

June 18, 2008 – 10:47 am

When I was younger I would ask people the following question: If you could be immortal and all you had to do was chop off the head of the person you most love, would you do it?

Most people would look aghast look and scream: No!

I, however, would laugh at them and tell them that I would happily take off my beloved’s head in exchange for immortality. My reasoning would be that my beloved would love me so much that she’d want me to live forever and give myself to every generation after hers.

I stopped asking this question when I grew older. I realized that no one would love me that much.

I’m kidding. That’s not why.

I stopped asking this question because as each day I grew closer to death, I was less inclined to desire immortality.

This can only mean that while I fear death, I fear life more.

*

When I say to the world that men and women are the same, I do not understand why everyone points to their private parts.

*

Around the time that Muhammad was singing the praises of Allah, there was Muzahim al-Uqaili, singing lamentations to Allah. He wrote about love. Says the poet: Read More »

By Ali Eteraz | Posted in Arts & Literature, Entertainment, essays, love, poetry | Comments (7)

“Lost”: Sublime Transcendence and… Hey Sawyer, Take That Shirt Off!

February 10, 2008 – 5:58 am

A lot of my intellectual friends (the sort of people who, with a dignified cough, announce that they do not “indulge in mass media entertainment,” and other, less extreme types) repeatedly ask me why on earth is it that I watch “Lost.”

They talk to me like one would talk to an otherwise normal girl who, for some unfathomable reason, decided to date the biggest loser in one’s zipcode - complete with police record, regular stint in mom’s basement, and the miasma of unwashed socks.

“Why, Natalia? Why do you put yourself through that?” *deep sigh* “If you need help you know where to find me.”

I’m not one of those people who’ll threaten to chain you to the couch, tape your eyes open, and force you to watch every single episode while humming “Shambala” and cackling maniacally. If you don’t like “Lost,” you’re free to tell me that you think it sucks (or, as one esteemed blogger put it, that it’s better to “take a large amount of peyote and watch Gilligan’s Island” instead).

I’m all for television democracy, because, let’s face it, I never liked “Seinfeld,” I don’t watch “The Wire,” and “The Sopranos” just succeeded in making me feel that the world is a horrible place (perhaps rightfully so).

However, I do feel compelled to explain why is it that I love “Lost.” Now that the fourth season is upon us, the doubters have come out like zombies after dark:

“Three more seasons of that crap?” “It doesn’t even make sense!”

Well, you’re right, it doesn’t. But that’s not the point. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in Columnist, TV, humor | Comments (2)

Soundtrack: An iPod Epic

January 29, 2008 – 2:43 am

This is where this particular story starts: I was listening to my iPod, and I had set it to shuffle.

I don’t necessarily like the shuffle function. I resort to it. Some folks enjoy the surprise of what’s coming next; I simply cannot choose one band over another.

I have about eleven gigs of music, and I find the variety paralyzing. Finally, I’ll choose one of the three artists that I always choose, and disgust myself with my own predictability. It’s a small, silent drama that gets played out to an audience of just one, and I prefer to skip it. So I shuffle.

The particular sequence of “random” songs I am about to relate seemed to tell a unique story. As I listened to it, I became absolutely positive that not only had my iPod gained some sort of terrifying self-awareness, but that it was playing tricks on me.

Or, here’s a simpler, more arrogant explanation: the universe was sending me a message, because I’m so important and handsome. Either way, this particular sequence of songs reminded me more than anything of the night I met a guy that I will refer to as Rafferty.

And so the story turned into a music retrospective, and an odyssey of me and Rafferty. It’s sad, creepy, and beautiful. Enjoy.

Brighton Rock (5:09) – Queen

I was ambushed. Expecting the standard lyrical, pop-genius that Queen has always provided, I was literally punched in my rat-eating face when the happy carnival intro morphed into complex progressions, power chords, and a guitar solo that would probably cause Mother Teresa to fling her bra onto the stage.

Freddie Mercury does his thing as well as ever, which makes this song evidence that he could also have been a great front man for Judas Priest. This is a song from my past that made a startling, happy reappearance; it would also be a fantastic tune to burn down a building to.

And so it goes that it was a summer between college semesters. I had ended up at a party, tagging along with a friend. And at this same party, I met this guy I had known from the third grade. I met Rafferty. And Rafferty had changed.

A lot.

Gone were the glasses, the tucked-in polo shirt, the short stature that had forced him to squint up at people. Present-day Rafferty had shoulder-length stoner hair. He seemed like the kind of guy that solved the problem of boredom by going out with a bat to set off car alarms. Apparently, he had been living on a diet of vodka and bovine growth hormone. He was huge, lively, cheerful, visibly wasted, and urging me to much of the same. I had an old new friend, and he was about to rock my face off.

Hey Mama (4:20) – Kanye West

When Kanye West forgets about how wonderful Kanye West feels Kanye West is, he really is one of the greats. And this song is a perfect example: Read More »

By Joe Sapien | Posted in Arts & Literature, Science & Technology, college, humor, music, sex | Comments (6)

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)

Our Culture

December 26, 2007 – 2:30 am

I don’t know if it’s human tendency or just human laziness to sum up a socio-cultural period in a few basic concepts, which may or may not represent the whole. But it sure as hell is human something. We do it, and I doubt our kids will be any different.

In America, a relatively new country, we have had our share of major recent events; it has been quite a chapter in our collective history. Like every other generation, ours has been both battered and lifted up by the tides of time. It’s really quite a story, when you think about it. But that’s for the history books. When my kids look back at my generation, what will they see? Will they see a tattered, burning, but remarkably intact banner flapping in the high winds of the past?

Nope.

When we look at previous generations, we consider a few things: how they dressed, how they talked, what was cool, and what they liked. And usually, we laugh about it. Will our children laugh, do you think? Will they fail to understand our times and circumstances, and remember only the silly things?

Nope, again. They’ll probably get it right, and still find us freaking hilarious. Or, at least, yours will. The first time my kids give me some lip, I’m putting all their toys in a box in the front yard. The box will say: “Joseph Jr.’s Free Stuff! Please Take and Enjoy!” I’ll also only refer to my children as “Mouth to Feed” or “Tax Write-off” until they bring me the pelt of a lion they’ve slain with their bare hands. I want to set high standards.

But that isn’t really my point. My point is, what will future generations remember about this particular decade?

How we dress: From what I can tell – which might not be very much – there are two schools of fashion right now. There’s the Retro camp, where you wear clothes that seem to say “I jumped Marty McFly, stole the De Lorian, and drove it to a dumpster from the early 1980’s”: Read More »

By Joe Sapien | Posted in Entertainment, humor | Comments (1)

Looking Back At Us

December 22, 2007 – 3:21 am

For Kaouther

Arms brighter than the light of a long summer day,
breasts and hair to the taste of Hannibal,
ginger, hale, and supple.

“Has she no part in you, your mother?” I used to wonder aloud.

“Only where you cannot see it,” she would reply dryly while adding: “I do not wear her on the outside.”*

We would then kiss. Or rather Kaouther would kiss me. I, turning deftly, would offer the other cheek to suffer osculation.

Then she would sit and wait in silence. “O, Fool, enough! She is waiting. But what for?” I used to ask myself.

Until one day, Kaouther decided to love me while whispering in my left ear: “You must honor my offer, otherwise. . . .” A gesture, intimate and unthinking, that sealed our fate for the summer. I savored her offer then and there, but only for a brief moment, for I desperately wanted to prolong the pleasure of her visits to my house. Then, on a breezy summer afternoon when everyone was having a siesta, I sensed her arriving. Sweet and wholesome as a carrot, Kaouther bloomed out of a crowd, her nearness, like a miner’s light, going before her. Precocious mistress of the idiom of the Berber language. Virgil thought love a native of the rocks. Or did he? I, however, speak of love, not Eros, born in innocence among the tiny pearls of couscous Kaouther’s mother and the other women made for my family each summer in the High Atlas, while Kaouther and I, even we, shared events, confidences, and embraces, half-undoing months of absence. And from that day we grew up. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, poetry | 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)

The Demise of Logic, Sanity, and Innocence: Part II

October 22, 2007 – 3:06 pm

The degeneration of logic, sanity and innocence has caused enormous chasms in the configuration of normal life and in this chapter we cite three more logic-deficient frustrations which American society appears unwilling or unable to cope with: the conflict in Iraq, the issue of gun regulations, and the growing threat to our environment. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Broken News | Comments (0)