Teaser Tuesday - 31 May

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The ma'alim whose class Haweya and I now had to attend on Saturdays used to shriek out the taboos and restrictions, the rules to obey, spitting sometimes with the excitement of it: "You will go to Hell! And YOU will go to Hell! And You, and YOU--UNLESS!..."
Hell in the Quran has seven gates

Another extract from Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel
Gosh, 22 postings, so far, this month - that's the most since June last year

Teaser Tuesday - 24 May

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

I did know that sex was bad. Sometimes in the evenings, when I tramped with Ma through the neighborhood searching for Mahad, listeniong to her never ending complaints about the foul odor of sukumawiki, we came across people making out in alleyways.

(sukumawiki - clearly the smells of cooking). A no-nonense teaser and a no-nonsense book - Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel my life growing up in a tradition Muslim environment in Somalia and all that happened afterwards - our book group book of the month.

Teaser Tuesday - 2 November

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Even with their homemade weapons the guerrillas were virtually invulnerable when laying an ambush. The soldiers were everywhere, disguised as goatherds, the Kalashikov hidden under the goat's belly.

These are the Mujahedeen in the Afghanistan occupied by the Russians as described in The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad and exercise in getting inside the mind of a different culture - and I seem to be reading yet another book on the Middle East! I see (if you follow the above link) that the book is currently the subject of legal action by the book-seller, a court has found against Seierstad and we're now in an appeal. From the corrections to that article the sensitivity of the whole subject is obvious!

A Prophet

We saw Jacques Audiard's A Prophet at the SilkScreen on Wednesday. I was prepared not to like it, billed as violent..., but I really enjoyed it (if that's the right word!). Summoning up the claustrophobia of prison from the start it tells of vulnerable young man 'graduating' from a juvenile offenders to an adult prison and his struggle for safety and an education. Yes there's pretty up-front violence but what I will remember are the silences, the points where the sound track virtually disappeared, the moments when you see through Malik's eyes.

And then there's the playing out to Mack the Knife, maybe open ended but, to my mind the intent is clear. Recommended!

Teaser Tuesday - 22 Dec

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

During the night, sympathisers hung a banner from one of the buildings at the University of Tehran. It showed Jamileh as a strong goddess with a rifle slung over her shoulder.

My reading is still a little patchy what with my daily commute having stopped so I'm still in Kader Abdolah's My Father's Notebook (keep on trying to type Netbook here!) - I quoted from it last week nearly complete, I thought it was an interesting read - not least for the Iranian history.

Horrific anti-gay violence

(not that there's much violence which isn't horrific!).
We don't normally get the Observer but this weekend, being away, we did I was glad (if that's the right word), appalled is probably a more fitting word to read this article on the systematic murder of gays in Iraq. If you don't think that anti-gay sentiment in religion is a problem, read this and see where it takes you.

The killings are brutal, with victims ritually tortured. Azhar al-Saeed's son was one. "He didn't follow what Islamic doctrine tells but he was a good son," she said. "Three days after his kidnapping, I found a note on my door with blood spread over it and a message saying it was my son's purified blood and telling me where to find his body."

Afghanistan and Iran follow ups!

Last week I quoted from Rory Stewart's The Places in Between - a walk through the wilds of Afghanistan, one of the commenters, gautami tripathy, referred me to her review which I've just - now! - got around to reading, well worthwhile a visit and here's the link.

The Places in Between uncovers and revels in the diversity, strains and struggles of the people, their land and culture. It is a fascinating journey into a place as diverse as Afghanistan. A man’s walk brings all of it alive for us. We get a very good glimpse into a world wholly unknown to us.

In Iran, following the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Shah Pliable writes a piece about the changes and non-changes especially viewed though the eyes of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. He also covers the present state of Iranian music:

He quotes wikipedia:

'In 2007, Keyvan Yahya, young mathematician and musician that has done many works on mathematical foundations of music theory and his special field image processing, established a symphony orchestra named Satrap Philharmonic Orchestra,this orchestra performs some classical and modern music by western composer and also concerns Persian symphonic pieces in its repertoire.

It is excellent news that contemporary music is now being programed in Iran. However, 30 years after the revolution, the cultural climate in the country remains fragile.

We went to see Persepolis back at the end of 2007.