Bouchercon 2010!

For those writers going to Bouchercon next week, I invite you to a Friday panel I'll be participating in:

INFERNO: Where will the next big idea come from?

I'm not sure about the connection between "inferno" and "next big idea" but I know with company like this, there'll be plenty to talk about:

Award-winning Swedish crime writers, Anders Roslund & Börge Hellström, Israeli playwright and author Joshua Sobol, and Iceland's queen of crime fiction, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir.

So come join us! The panel will be moderated by the fantastic Mr. Ali Karim. From all the work he's done in preparing us, I can tell you we'll be talking about the conceptual aspects of novel-writing: where do your ideas come from, how to figure out which ideas have enough meat for a novel, and how to combine all of your big ideas into a novel with simplicity and good storytelling.

Hope to see you there!

Everybody Draw What??

Here's a recent news article: Molly Norris, the cartoonist who started an "Everybody Draw Mohammed" day in support of free speech is now in hiding, at the suggestion of the FBI, after fatwas were issued against her.

First of all, everybody remember "Draw Mohammed"? Yes, I believe in free speech. But NO, I don't believe in antagonizing people's religious sensitivities. And I think certain people have amply demonstrated that this is a Highly. Sensitive. Topic. for them. Or maybe more like a nuclear-meltdown topic.

Second, whoever issued those fatwas: aren't you ashamed of yourself? No? Check again.

Finally, if somebody goes into hiding, isn't it supposed to be kind of, I don't know... secret? Not a news story big enough to make it into USA Today? Just sayin.

Apparently, Molly "distanced herself" from the whole thing once it got out of hand. But her original idea was that if enough people drew pictures of Mohammed, then obviously the imams couldn't kill them all, and it would make all those fatwas seem totally lame. But alas, it turns out that the opposite occurred: she went into hiding because of a fatwa.

So what was she thinking: let's end the violence by provoking more violence? If we stoke the fire enough, it'll just - poof - vanish? You poke a hibernating bear in the chest, chances are good it will wake up and kill you.

Lawrence Wright, in an interesting New Yorker article, points out that the whole cartoon stir was essentially fabricated by a few radical imams in Denmark. That before that, not a whole lot of Danish Muslims really gave a crap about the cartoons. (Yeah, but they certainly tapped into a lot of Muslim rage.)

So when you go around exhorting folks to Draw Mohammed, you're essentially stirring up a bunch of hostility, which is pretty much what the radical imams did. In my opinion, these are ALL people who want to go to war - that's you, Molly, and you, Imam Abu Laban. You're looking for it. It doesn't really matter what your reasons are - Muslim self-righteousness, free speech, whatever - because as far as I can tell there is a way to AVOID war and still have everyone be satisfied. It's called diplomacy.

So pardon me, don't use "free speech" as an excuse to stoke a cultural war.

Rice Pudding Cake

I guess it's predictable that my next post would be about food. I've decided to share my favorite recipe with you. And believe me when I say FAVORITE.

It was originally all that talk about milk shakes that put me in the mood for this. This rice pudding cake is rich and creamy. It's the nectar of the gods. Think about it: Rice pudding and cake. Together. Is anybody ever going to be smarter than the person who invented this? No.

Here's what you'll need:

For the rice pudding:
4 1/2 cups milk
1 cup rice (vialone, carnaroli or arborio)
3 strips lemon zest
pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
3 Tbs. butter
5 egg yolks
1 tsp. vanilla extract

For the cake:
14 Tbs. butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbs. baking powder
1 Tsp. grated lemon zest
5 egg whites

Start with the rice pudding. In a saucepan, bring the milk, rice, salt and lemon zest to a gentle boil. Slowly add the sugar. Simmer for 40 minutes, stirring it now and then. Don't let it get too well done, it should be a little gooey and runny.

Remove from heat, let cool.

Get to work on the cake. Mix butter with 1/2 cup sugar until light and foamy. Add lemon zest (grated). In a separate bowl, sift together flour and baking powder. Mix flour mixture with butter mixture. Don't worry if it gets weird and kind of hard and funky looking. Just don't overmix it.

Whip the egg whites to peaks, adding the remaining 1 cup sugar. Fold egg whites into cake mixture. And don't worry if this looks even funkier. It should be of a spreading consistency.

Back to the rice pudding: Remove lemon zest from pudding and stir in the butter, vanilla and egg yolks.

Grease and flour a 10-inch springform pan. Then spread the cake mixture into it, scraping it up against the sides of the pan and leaving a kind of well in the middle.

It almost looks like cake frosting, but it's heavier. Then add the rice pudding mixture to the pan:

See those cake bits hanging above the rice pudding? With a spatula, you're going to try to fold them over the rice pudding. It may be hard, and the whole thing may get goopy, but don't worry about it. No matter what you do to this cake, it's going to taste amazing.

Then bake at 300 degrees for 65 minutes. I suggest putting a cookie sheet beneath it, since sometimes it bubbles over. Once you take it out of the oven, let it cool for about 10 minutes before removing the sides of the springform pan. (If you leave them on too long, the cake will get hard.)

Then eat!

Food Fight

This article was making its rounds on Twitter recently. A Saudi man divorced his wife because she failed to put meat in his sambusas. She put cheese instead. According to the article, "he beat her up, divorced her and kicked her out."

I guess Emirates 24/7 was having a slow news day.

I hope you're not thinking that this is a culturally specific event. The only culturally distinguishing feature of that story is the cheese sambusa, because you know the Kentucky man who went postal over breakfast this week was eating eggs and hash browns. Instead of beat/divorce/eject, he grabbed a shotgun and blew his family to bits before turning the weapon on three innocent neighbors -- and then, predictably, himself. He killed five people total, which in my opinion qualifies as "news".

And there's no sense in arguing that THAT is a culturally specific event, because here is a Saudi man who -- distraught over marital problems -- went on a shooting rampage and killed 12 people. There's no telling what he had for breakfast.

The moral of the story? Be careful what you eat.

Milk Sheikh

Here is one incredible sheikh, Mr. Abdel Mohsen Obeikan, Saudi’s Vice Minister of Justice, who came out with new a ruling this summer: Women in Saudi Arabia should breastfeed their cab drivers.

Let me back up a minute and say that when people talk about “rulings” in Saudi, they generally mean fatwas, which technically fall into the category of suggestion, not law. Although certain fatwas can turn into law, or become so well accepted that they might as well BE law, they are still suggestions.

So here’s the back story. In the Hadith – the traditional collection of stories concerning the Prophet Mohammed – it is widely known that if a woman breastfeeds a child, she forms a maternal bond with the baby, whether or not it’s actually her own. This is more than just some fanciful spiritual commerce, this bond is practical. Let’s say a woman breastfeeds a young boy. Years later, when that boy is grown and technically no longer allowed to be in the company of women he’s not related to, he is still allowed to be around the women who breastfed him. She’s like his mother.

So this clever scholar, Mr. Obeikan, presumably advocating for women’s rights, suggested that women pump their breast milk and feed it to their cab drivers, or for that matter, to any man they might have to come into contact with. Think about it. This way women are allowed to interact with strange men! And no law is broken! No suggestion ignored! It works for everyone. The women are happy, and the men are... – can you just see some Filipino cab driver picking a woman up on a street corner, and she’s like: “Um, I’m sorry, I can’t get in your car until you drink my breast milk. I’ve got it right here in a little bottle. You can suck on it while we drive.”

The reaction was an appropriate lambast. A woman’s group who advocates for driving started using the slogan “Either let us drive or breastfeed foreigners.” Some women, aggravated with problems at work, have started threatening to breast-feed their male colleagues. The censors removed Milk Sheikh’s radio program, “Fatwas on Air”. And the Saudi government issued a statement saying only sheikhs approved by the King could issue fatwas from now on. In one way it’s too bad, because Milk was one of the staunchly anti-al-Qaeda guys.

The fiasco inspired this hilarious little poem that includes the word “pornistan.” 

A little iPad with that?

The coolest thing ever!

Anima = Soul

So Sunday morning is the church of music video around here. God bless YouTube.

This is one of the most soulful and evocative songs I've ever heard. After years and years of wondering what it meant I recently found the lyrics -- in the liner notes. Ha. I might as well be unconscious. Milton Nascimento, you are obviously NOT unconscious.




Anima

Polish, all my quest, drama
Polish what my heart
At its most inspired
Saw fit to name
In a cry: Soul

Recreate every beautiful moment
I've already lived too much
Cross the borders of dawn
Look calmly on

Soul go beyond all
That our world dares to perceive
A house full of courage, life
Clean the stain on my being
I want to see you. I want to see you.

Traveling, a constant search
To polish myself, this minute now
To recreate myself, to gratify myself
I search for you, Soul

In the open house where the master lives
The clay of light. Where time is to be found
Inventing color. And bringing love to life
Where peace forgets itself.

Religious Police Promotional Cartoon

Bet you didn't know the religious police had promotional videos. Found this thanks to Saudi Jeans on Twitter:



The two worst crimes of civilization? Unveiled women and beer, folks. Women and beer.

Beating the Crap out of the Police

Speaking of Straight Outta Compton:

There's never any shortage these days of news about religious police. Below is a story about a woman who beat the crap out of one after her boyfriend fainted. And here's another, also about a woman who started shooting at one.



(His assertion that women can’t divorce is just wrong. Two of my ex’s wives divorced him and left him with the kids - because their new husbands didn't want them - and my ex had no choice in the matter.) 

Qusai, Saudi rapper

I like rap in foreign languages. Italian is tricky, sometimes clunky, and French -- well, it's French, so I start to giggle. (Smeeth and Wes-son...old favorite, plus a pretty cool video). But Arabic rap puts them to shame. There's something both flowing and emphatic about Arabic that lends itself to rap, and I really like the way Qusai flows between English and Arabic.

There's something defiant about using sword dancers and whirling dervishes in the dance scene. Like yeah, we borrowed this from you, but we're sticking to our own. (Watch the MC Solaar video above for an interesting comparison.) And kudos for producing a hip hop video without using women as sex decor.

However, your video is about having a career and there are no women in it. Yeah, you have verisimilitude on your side. Sort of. But seriously, dude, not one woman? Not even one?

I think you missed an opportunity here. What would this video be like if it was about a woman? Then you could have included a chase by religious police, family scorn and shame, public humiliation, and possibly even a courtroom scene. Or what if it was about one of Saudi's impoverished "guest" workers? You could have a whole gangsta-rap-in-Riyadh thing. I guess Saudi isn't ready for Straight Outta Compton. 

Bestseller at Waterstone's!

From my British publisher Little, Brown. Coming in at number 8!

Caricature!

I got caricatured a second time!! Oh my God!! I LOVE it. AND I'm sitting next to Ian McEwan!! (Can I have a bite of your hamburger? Can I have your autograph? Just spit some ketchup on a napkin and I'll frame that.) This is from the weekend's Sunday Times in Britain:

I even get a little blue box like Stieg Larsson! I thought for sure you couldn't outdo the pink cat suit from last time -- but hello, IAN MCEWAN!

Times, you are AWESOME. Thank you thank you!!!

I have the feeling these are based on my British author pic - what Mike C calls my "Dame Ferraris" photo.

Hahaha!

This is brilliant, Times, thanks again!!

Me good. But not modest.

Um - holy CRAP!! The reviews are coming in! A Publisher's Weekly starred review called CITY OF VEILS my "stellar second novel"!

And the holy crap continues! In the UK, where the book is actually out in stores, there's a Sunday Times review (the most thrilling part of which is Peter Kemp remarking on my "tremendously described sandstorm." I kiss you, man!) And a beautiful Guardian review where Laura Wilson says it lives up to the first novel. Hooooo!!!!!!

<-- British cover, by the way. Totally beautiful, LB!

Meanwhile, there's Sarah Weinman's fantastic review on Salon.com. The novel also got a rec on DoubleX (thanks Helene for the heads-up) plus read Hanna Rosin's funny blog post about Sex and the City 2 and its completely awful take on Muslim men.

Now off to swoon.

The Religious Police Go Bowling

Really. Check out this LA Times blog post about the Religious Police trying to "spruce up their image."

Bowling is not the way I'd choose to go, but hey, they've forbidden movie theaters, dance clubs, bars, mixed restaurants, so.... I guess it's bowling, guys!

Denmark

Denmark, you rock! This is the cover for FINDING NOUF, aka Ørkenmanden ("Desert Man") in Danish.

I'd really like to know why the publishing company is called Mrs. Robinson. As in...Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you...Woo-woo-woo?

Goals

From Biyokulele: "Saudi members of the King's United football club train at a stadium in the Red Sea port of Jeddah on May 20, 2009, despite strict religious taboos in the desert kingdom." (And despite an actual BAN on women playing sports!)

From the AP: "Sheikh Abdul Karim al-Khudhair said in a statement Sunday that sports are 'corrupting' and 'satanic' for women. Instead, he urged women to stay home."

Here's something satanic, man. I think you've forgotten the purpose of religion:

"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life...Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?" Richard Dawkins

Wow, that reminds me of THIS: "The pursuit of knowledge is a divine commandment for every Muslim, male and female." The Prophet Muhammed (pbuh)

"To listen to the words of the learned, and to instill in others the lessons of science, is better than religious exercises." The Prophet Muhammed (pbuh)

Unveiled on KTVU

I am finally able to give full disclosure. If you've been reading my blog entries (here and here) about K, the son of a good friend of mine who has been imprisoned on charges of "being likely to commit a terrorist act" then you know the back story - and that I've been calling his father Mr. E.

His real name is Issa Fayad and his son, Tareq, is still in prison. I wish I could put the video here but you'll have to click the link - a KTVU news segment about the whole fiasco, revealing more detail than you've read here. It was originally recorded over a year ago.

Tareq is in a modern-day Japanese internment camp. People keep telling me that he isn't the only one being held on these charges on American soil. He'd have gotten more attention being at Guantanamo.

Edge of Arabia

Recently came across this fantastic exhibition of contemporary Saudi art: Edge of Arabia. A really cool site. From the looks of it, they started out displaying in London and Venice, but this year they're taking the show to Riyadh. I am deeply impressed, although I wonder if they're actually going to show any artwork involving female hair.

But look at "Tissues" by Ayman Daydban and tell me you don't see that blonde:

A Cover Song

FINDING NOUF from Croatia

Bet you didn't know I was published in Croatia! Well, I didn't either until this arrived in the mail. I thought I'd signed a contract with Romania. Yes I may think I know something or two about the world and then a thing like this happens and I'm just that kid who once thought that hummus was waste matter. 

When you grow up in the army, there's one thing you do know - yes, even back in the 80s - someday we were going to have to kick Muslim butt. It was no secret then, but today...um, who's kicking butt? Do you know? Please explain.

I love this cover. I love every cover but this one sings to me. It's beautiful, Ljevak Publishing. Thank you.


While we're in that general part of the world (geography gong), this cover got my friend Beth's vote for best HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL redux. From Russia with love:

FINDING NOUF in Russia

Apparently this is typical of their style and it resonates with readers. Da, publisheriskies. Da. Любовь всё преодолеет. 

AND here's a real song in case word play disappoints you.



Hahahahaha!!!! I mean, oops. Who let them in?

Guns n Roses

This twitter headline stopped me: Sufis succeeding in taking on al-Shabab, extremist group with al-Qaeda ties in Somalia.

Um...Sufis? As in these guys?

Who's their leader - Frau Farbissina? Let's just recap. Sufis are those who practice the mystical tradition of Islam by spinning in circles for hours and entering a trance state. Warring Somali factions are...

Al-Qaeda.
Those who commit genocide.
Those who drag the bodies of American soldiers through the streets and use unarmed women and children as defensive shields in a fire fight.

Sufis are the om crowd. They haven't become involved in Somalia's conflict for 20 years but now they're sick of it. When the Islamists murdered their leaders and burned down their mosques, the Sufis picked up their guns (decorated with roses) and declared their own jihad against much bigger militias. And they're WINNING.

Impassioned by righteous fervor, they're like the 500-odd Knights Templar who defeated 25,000 of Saladin's men during the battle of Montgisard. And that is sooooooo not politically correct but let's just hope the Somali Sufis don't go down that old road to corruption, hoarding, and centuries of military-mystical secrecy.

"Reason is the illusion of reality." - Sufi master Inayat Khan.

A Happier Sheikh

Sheikh Mohammed, his wife Princess Haya, and Truly Royal

Sometimes I hear an inner voice, and yesterday it said “Maktoum.”

The Maktoums are the royal family of Dubai, and apparently they have transformed horse racing in the past 40 years – for better or worse is a subject of debate. So despite being really busy, I found an hour to sit at the Keeneland library and browse through their considerable collection of articles about the Maktoums.

One thing jumped out. A quote by Sheikh Mohammed, current ruler of Dubai and owner of Godolphin Farms: 

Best movie EVER

“Don’t forget that horses have been bred for centuries by Arabic tribes. They were used for hunting and fighting and they symbolize our history. Horse riding is more than merely sitting on a horse’s back. It is nobility and chivalry.” 

I like that. Except... it looks like 300 years of Europeans and Americans breeding thoroughbreds is kind of a blip on the Arabian radar. The Sheikh comes to Lexington every year, spends millions on the best horses, then ships a lot of them back to Dubai. There's even a billboard in Dubai that says: Godolphin, Bringing the Racehorse Home. Just wondering at what point a horse becomes a Kentuckian...?

Nobility, chivalry, cultural preeminence. Then you have the regular folks, like this guy and his horse. I mean, poodle. (Is that a baseball base?) The footage is beautiful, although it makes me kinda nervous. Maybe it's the whole romping-with-a-thousand-pound-animal thing. 

Bull Sheikh

Dear Anwar,

I read the recent NY Times article about you - well, the "you" who inspired the 9/11 hijackers and who is the only American on the government’s “go ahead and kill the guy” terrorism list.

Don’t think I forgot you were born in New Mexico, you grew up in Nebraska and Minnesota, and went to college in Denver. Let’s face it, you’re a corn-fed American boy who happens to have weird cousins. Everybody knows when you put the words “Yemeni” and “tribal” together you have some serious fringe.

Your whole life you’ve had one foot in both worlds. Which might explain that whole phase you went through being imam of the San Diego mosque. You were so devout you wouldn’t shake women’s hands, but you got arrested twice for soliciting prostitutes. Couldn’t make up your mind.

Well it sounds like you finally did. Mr. Peaceful Muslim Cleric (“We came here to build, not to destroy” – remember saying that?) and now you’re pretty much al-Qaeda’s number 2.

The big question the NY Times article didn’t quite answer is: What made up your mind?

That’s a rhetorical question. I see straight through you. It’s maddening to live with a split identity. Maddening. You may think you know who you are, but years and years of trying to conform to two different value systems will wear you down.

In your own words, “I could not be ‘Mohammed’ in the morning and ‘Mo’ in the evening.”

Then comes the break. Maybe old friend psychosis, maybe depression, rage. And there you lie on a desert floor, on a starless night of the black moon, terrified of what will become of you. When you reach that point you have only one option: you have to wait. IF you act in the darkness, it will only be compensation. You’re acting out of panic, not because you see the light.

Your dark moon happened in a prison in Yemen. So you panicked. Whenever you do that, you seize the thing that’s most comforting. You decided to radicalize. Why is that easy? Because now you have answers. It can be overwhelming to make decisions all the time. Fat or low fat? Blow up the Twin Towers or coach the soccer team? Virgin or whore? Ahhh, but think how comforting it is to spill into that pillowed realm of RULES. Where everyone agrees that this is wrong and that is right. No fat. Blow it up. 70 Virgins. End of story. Now all of your actions come with blessings from a high, holy place and you can rest assured. 

Things get dark for me, too. And when they do, I always do the same damn thing: I run away. Facing down the abyss? Watch how fast I can get my ass to Memphis. You can romanticize it and call me a gypsy, but when I’m running, I’m a coward.

I recognize the panic in your running. But Anwar, it’s not the answer. I say this to you as someone who has recently realized the truth and is determined not to run away anymore. (She says.) I know it’s hard. Okay, it’s impossible. But you have to try. Me? I’m just some writer. But YOU have the power to influence millions. What you’re doing now is only compensation. To find the right answer, you have to lie still and wait out the darkness until you really see the light. 

Zoe

The Universal Symbol for...

This just cracks me up. Muslim country signage, what are you saying? The best I can figure, going clockwise from 0700 is:

No smoking
No men in capes
No couples holding hands
No pacemakers (Or perhaps: no t-shirts with big red circles and a slash on them? Oh, all right...no t-shirts.)
No cleavage
No touching women's asses
and in the center: no beer!!

If we had a sign like this on a street in America, I'm thinking it wouldn't be that different. It would say: No smoking. No nudity. No dogs. No dog shit. No parking. No touching women's asses. And no alcohol in open containers. And of course:

Old School Fairuz

Fairuz is the Middle Eastern equivalent of -- well, no one. Roll up Madonna with Celine and Britney Spears, triple their discographies, and add a little bit of Cher. That's Fairuz. She’s been singing since the 40s.

This song is super old school, but it's one of the most beautiful songs in the Arabic language. And sadly, this video is the best YouTube has to offer. It's called “Ishar”. According to my brother-in-law, that doesn't just mean "stay", it means "stay the night", and Hans Wehr concurs. I love that Arabic has a specific word for that. Sahira. It also means to watch over something. An evening vigil.
Following I've added my own very rough translation.

Stay


Stay the night
And again, stay
It will help you find your way
[repeat]
The neighbors are here
They'll leave in a while
And we'll have all the sweetness
Of the moon in our house
And the flowers and poet's tales
So just stay, stay
[repeat]
The night won't let you go back
Your house is too far
And we are the most worthy
Of your company
[repeat]
I open the doors
And call to my friends
I say the moon is here
And the world will snow
News of your return
Just stay, stay the night
[refrain]
And sleep,
who wants it but the children?
Their holidays are sleep
As long as you are here
A dream that fills the universe
What does it matter if the night flies away
And you lose just one day?
Just stay, stay. 

Derby Day and Secretariat

Yesterday was Derby day. At one point, a man in a mud suit stood in front of me and said: Would you look at this? One man in mud, one woman in white. You and me are polar opposites of the Derby experience right here! There was so much mud on his body that even the pouring rain didn’t wash it off. He begged me to take a poncho.

Weirdly, it was the mud folks who were standing around drinking juleps and smoking cigars (in between rolling on the ground in a very amy winehouse kind of way). All the well-dressed folks were hiding out under giant plastic bags and trying not to spill their nacho cheese. :)

But somebody REALLY enjoyed the mud:

a nice story here

A horse named Super Saver won the Derby. In case you’re wondering, the rule about horse naming is no repeats. 

Diane Lane was there, probably to plug the new Disney movie about Secretariat, based on an “impossible true story” (love it!) You can watch the trailer here, but I like the unofficial one better. The end of the Belmont just kills me. I really hope Disney manages to capture the magic of this video:

Habeas Torpor

In an earlier blog post I mentioned the plight of K, the son of a Saudi friend of mine who was stopped at the airport on his arrival in San Francisco because his laptop was carrying images of the wars in Chechnya and Palestine. K was arrested that day, and for the past three and a half years has been held in a California prison on the charges of “being likely to commit a terrorist act.” Their main evidence? About a decade ago, he donated the equivalent of $1.90 to a mosque in Palestine, which was later taken over by Hamas. So he has “officially” admitted to sponsoring terrorism.

After years of wrestling in the bureaucratic mud pit, K’s father, Mr. E, finally threw up his hands and said: okay, fine, just send my poor boy back to the Middle East. PLEASE! Just send him back. Get him out of that prison. The government agreed, although it took them a few months to discover that they could not arrange a visa for him. Now that K has been held in an American prison on terrorism charges, no country will take him, thank you very much. You keep your terrorists.

The last option? Habeas corpus. I had to look it up in Wiki because Latin words befuddle me:

“a summons with the force of a court order, addressed to the custodian (e.g. a prison official) demanding that a prisoner be taken before the court, and with proof of authority allowing the court to determine if that custodian has lawful authority to detain the person; if not, the person shall be released from custody.”

Okay, so in other words, put your cards on the table, hoss! Let’s see what you've got! In order to do this, Mr. E has had to go to the 9th Circuit court (which, because of a slight accent, he pronounces “9th Circus court”) and yes, it has taken them 2 months now to “open” the case officially, because the government had to “approve” it first. 

Sounds Guantanamo. Over the past few years, the Supreme Court, circuit and federal appeals courts, and Potus have all asserted the right of habeas corpus for enemy combatants. So can we take K out of his orange jumpsuit now, pull his Quran out of the toilet and let him go? Because they’ve investigated him all over the Middle East and found nothing.

NUH-THING. No summer camps in Pakistan. No unexplained flying lessons. No briefcase with blueprints of Candlestick Park. That’s old school terror. Everyone who knows about this case thinks that K must be much scarier than some Mohammed Atta knock-off: K is a computer geek. Maybe he came here to finish his Masters so he could, I don’t know…disable the federal government with the click of a button?

Guantanamo is a schande but look at some of the nasties they’re holding – like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mr. Honk if You Like War Crimes Against Civilians. Um, tell us again why you need 50 aliases? Actually, his record is so long you have to wonder if he’s not Sheikh Walter Mitty. Meanwhile, K remains in prison on American soil and they can’t come up with more than $1.90? 

Cold Comfort

"Malinconia"

Sometimes life just wants to snatch your purse, but for some dumb reason you fight back and wind up in a stretcher in the cosmic ER. Other times it comes at you, execution style. Soul-wrenching agony when the universe explodes and you’re one step beyond the event horizon, being pulled into a dark eternity.

But there’s one thing I can rely on in a crisis: that someone will tell me: this is important for your writing. It’s happening for a reason. Put this in your next book. Make sure you speak from this pain….

Wait, you mean share THIS with the world? Why the hell would they want it?

Yes, characters have to go through conflict and suffering, otherwise they’re boring. But do you have to experience schizophrenia to comprehend how horrible and destructive it can be? No, you do not. You are a writer because you have imagination and empathy and insight. Because you’re paying attention to how things run. Because you’ve seen a lot of shit and you took notes. 

In fact, you like manipulating stories and making things happen to other people. (My sister always jokes that JK Rowling is a sadist. Who else would kill one of the Weasley twins?) The point is, those bad things aren’t happening to you, puppet master. For once, you get to pull the strings. And maybe your nightmares hide for a while. Huzzah. Then again, maybe they don't.

Let's say your husband dies in a tragic hunting accident. Is anyone going to say: think what this will do for your sex life! Yeah, they might think it, but let's hope they're not graceless.

Nobody cares what a writer’s motives are. People are readers. They feel an inner call, too, and it has something to do with whether they can get to the end of your book – and still want more. So folks, next time your writer crashes into their dark side, don’t tell them it’s going to authenticate their art. Tell them to make sure it doesn’t ruin their plans.

Ibn Arabi, Pentecostals, and the lovely Mr. Khan

Oh no, you’re saying. Not another obsolete medieval Muslim poet!!!

Yes, I’m afraid. Yes. But afterwards we can have snack and recess. Ibn Arabi rocks for one big reason: he taught that even though God is “out there,” he is also IN YOU. Each person is a piece of God.

This makes me think of the earth as a big brain, and every person as a kind of neuron. If you put it all together, you get a big fat consciousness somewhere. Now being irreverent: what if that consciousness isn’t fully “conscious” yet? But trying to be?

I think this is what most mystics believe: that by giving up material concerns and meditating on the “oneness of being”, they will elevate the consciousness of the world. The preferred way of doing this is by getting into a trance state. Like meditation. Or Gnawa music. Or whirling in a circle for hours. In fact, one word: PENTECOSTALS!!!

Anyway, this morning’s way of doing it is by listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

 

This song just BEGS you to jump up, clap your hands, and spin in circles in your living room!

So what's the point of trance? The Sufis say that, like sex, you have to experience it in order to understand it. NOT an answer! But both things can have something in common.

Wonder,
A garden among the flames!


My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'aba for the circling pilgrim,
Tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.


My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief, 
My faith.


- Ibn Arabi

Saudi Flasher

People often ask if that flasher scene in FINDING NOUF could possibly be real. And yes, I've had a number of people tell me they were flashed by women in Saudi Arabia. These are people not inclined to exaggeration either. Think about it: it makes sense that even the most modest of women might someday start wanting to get out from under that big black abaaya. Everyone's got their own tolerance level. I know that when I left Saudi -- well let's just say it's what the CIA refers to as "blowback."

Recently I came across this crazy photo which seems to sum it all up for me.

Let's not share that

People are forever analyzing my failed marriage this way: you two had nothing in common. My ex was a Muslim, part-Saudi, part-Palestinian Bedouin who grew up in Jeddah. I was a white, all-American, Christian who grew up on an army base in San Francisco. But actually we had more in common than you’d think.

For example, we were both accustomed to “calls” ringing out a few times a day. For him, the Muslim call to prayer. For me, taps and reveille. In each case, you had to stop what you were doing and turn toward something – Mecca or the central flagpole. And in each case, neither one of us turned.

In Saudi, one of the concepts behind men wearing white and women wearing black is that the uniformity is a great social “leveler”. You’re all the same in front of Allah. The military, too, has a passion for leveling, sticking the heart surgeons in the same quarters as the accountants. And of course they love uniforms.

And aren’t army brats nomads of a sort?

Not to mention that we both came from cities where men liked to hold hands:

I will admit that there were a couple of things we didn’t have in common: a rejection of BLTs and miniskirts, and an abiding fondness for polygamy. But we did agree on one thing: anti-Semitism sucks.

In fact, my ex was so concerned about it, that he once came to a screeching halt on the NY Thruway to assist some stranded travelers who happened to be Hasidic Jews. (I believe to this day that this was his sole motivation because, despite being an auto mechanic, he never stopped for anyone.) After determining that their car was unfixable, he loaded them into the backseat of ours and sped off to deliver them safely to their uncle’s house in Albany, 20 miles out of our way.

The befuddled travelers had some difficulty with my ex’s enthusiasm. (“Brothers, we all come from the same God! We should learn to share the land he gave us!”) But when his words of comfort failed to stop them from squirming, my ex turned to me and whispered: “Maybe you should cover your hair.”

I reluctantly agreed. Sure enough, once I was covered, the men smiled at my ex and seemed to relax. Well, would you look at that? You guys do have something in common after all.

Mazel tov. And sayonara.

NOT hilarious

From a Pizza Hut in Jeddah

Polygamy: the other white meat

Talking with all kinds of people in Kentucky, I notice a trend: they like the wealthy sheikhs from Saudi Arabia and Dubai who own horse farms here. They respect their abiding passion for horses. Arab hospitality is something to love. But then they’ll pull you aside and quietly admit: there’s just one thing they don’t like – all that polygamy.

I can’t disagree with that. And no need to whisper. Saudis have the same kind of “my, what a disgrace” attitude on the subject of Americans eating pork.

One of the few times I’ve written a scene taken directly from a real life event is in the upcoming City of Veils. A police officer, Osama, answers a call to a scene of domestic violence. Officially it’s off the record because women are fighting and male police officers aren’t allowed to intervene in female domestic disputes. But Osama is a hero. He arrives on the scene and discovers that some co-wives are trying to kill each other. Their husband is unable to intervene. He’s just one poor guy against three murderous women.

The personal stories I hear about polygamy are not very pretty. A friend of mine in Saudi married three women. (Technically, four, although one was living in a foreign country.) The wives hated each other and wound up divorcing him. He was a drug addict himself, which is remarkable in Saudi, where the punishment for possession is something like “three strikes and you’re dead.” But eventually he quit using only to reveal – ta-da! – an underlying disorder. Nymphomania.

No longer self-medicating with illegal substances, he went to a family doctor for help. The doctor said there was nothing he could do and he asked my friend: “But you’re a Muslim, right?” Yes, he was a Muslim. “Then marry four wives – problem solved!” My friend blew up. He leapt out of his chair, shouting: “I already DID that! You don’t know what it did to me! I can never do it AGAIN!”

His complaints? One of his wives wants sex for breakfast, the other for lunch, the third one for dinner. And according to the Quran, he is obliged to treat them all equally. It’s not really about love anymore, he said, it’s about who’s sexier. His wives were constantly trying to outdo each other. He always had to act impressed. The truth was they cared less about him than about their own structures of power. Not to mention the COST of it all....

Can’t say I feel sorry for the guy, but heck, just a view from the other side.