PraiaGrande: November 2008

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Avraham Burg

The launching of the English edition of a controversial book, at the Pasha Room in the American Colony Hotel. This blogger of yours has read half the book already and keeps thinking "If only 51% of the Israeli electorate would share the insights of Mr Burg the prospects for Peace in the area would be brighter indeed".

Ibrahim Zegharia

The very best bartender East of the Jordan River and who does the most alcohol-efficient Gin & Tonics ever tasted by this blogger of Yours. A pillar of the American Colony Hotel, East Jerusalem

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Simon Sebag Montefiore

How a serious historian who has accumulated data - and published a good book or two about Stalin -one day decides he can't stand it anymore and let his novelist's persona come to the fore. Will he be taken seriously next time he writes Historiography? I doubt it.

Mohamed Hassanein Heikal

Hotel sign in Saladin Street in East Jerusalem

Made me thought of the legendary Cairo newspaper, and of the times of its formidable Editor-in-Chief, Mohamed Heikal, who performed a kind of double act with President Nasser in articulating the thoughts of the then new Egypt.

Jesus of Nazareth

Along the Via Dolorosa. The image of pilgrims bearing crosses is somewhat awkward and disneylands the whole thing.

Webster

Creative phonetical transcription of English words like "battery" and "mobile". One wonders about laughable mistakes we must be making all the time when trying to bring Arabic words into our texts...

Leonardo di Caprio

A post-modern side-effect of the Titanic craze. Off Saladin Street, East Jerusalem

Andreas Palladio

A "gathering" of Palestine refugees in South Lebanon. 'Gatherings' in UN slang are something in between aleatory shelter and a proper UNRWA-managed refugee camp. In the outskirts of Tyre. The housing was rather poor but the mosque was quite solid. "First things first" - said my neighbour when I pointed him the contrast between civil and religious architecture...

Arik Sharon

An narrow alley at the Shatila refugee camp in Beirute. One shivers...

Joseph Brody

"Aqua Alta" at the Burj el-Baraneh refugee camp in Beirute.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Max Fridman

Just finnished the fourth installment of Giardino's tetralogy on the Spanish Civil War. Darker, less romantic than his previous works. Full of the politically correct assumptions about Rojos and Nacionales.