I came to Alex (Alexandria for the uninitiated) "awol embarrahh" or day before yesterday with my cousin Mahmoud and his wife, who is the most cheerful, bubbly person I know that is also deeply devout. They both love to laugh! You can tell from looking at them because their faces fall into lines of smiles.
TV in Egypt is at once deathly dull and slightly fascinating to me. So far, it is dominated by talk shows--and their version of a talk show involves showing the interviewer, while the interviewee is speaking on the phone in floods of Arabic. The interviewer sits and looks deeply concerned, occasionally interjecting questions or comments which are met by more floods of talking. This is nearly completely in classical Arabic, which of course, no one speaks (but everyone more or less understands, as all schooling is in classical Arabic). This is interspersed by movies and series where everyone is in a constant state of hysteria, whether happy, angry or sad. Then there are the comedians. There's one right now who is annoying the government named Basam Youssef. He is a heart surgeon who pokes fun at the government--the President, the Muslim Brotherhood, and anyone else--every Friday night (in the Egyptian dialect, using a lot of slang). Last week, President Obama came under fire as he was in Israel and met with President Morsi. My family finds him completely hilarious! Even I think he's rather funny, although I understand only a small amount of it. It's kind of like a Jon Stewart or something. It is interspersed with clips from the recent news, much of it the president, other ministers and journalists. This week, he is having a field day with Qatar, which has a lot of money and is trying to buy up everything. My uncle says there was even a proposal that Qatar rent the monuments of Egypt for some number of years and run them as a money-making enterprise, which they could probably do better. Although I'd be worried they would want to improve them out of existence!
Then there's the English language TV. I do not know where they get this stuff. Really. It is the worst, strangest, most annoying and violent TV. Bad movies which I think maybe must be ones which went straight to DVD in the US. Yesterday we watched this one called Shortcut to Happiness with Alec Baldwin--I have no idea what they were thinking making that movie.
Yesterday we went to the new Alexandria Library. It is a lovely oval shaped building. The library is full of light and books and sitting areas and was occupied by many people studying and reading and talking. Additionally, they have a lot of museum space. There's a manuscript museum with some really old books, both Arabic and European (one from 900 AD), an antiquities museum and some space devoted to contemporary Egyptian art. I am really enjoying seeing contemporary art in Egypt.
TV in Egypt is at once deathly dull and slightly fascinating to me. So far, it is dominated by talk shows--and their version of a talk show involves showing the interviewer, while the interviewee is speaking on the phone in floods of Arabic. The interviewer sits and looks deeply concerned, occasionally interjecting questions or comments which are met by more floods of talking. This is nearly completely in classical Arabic, which of course, no one speaks (but everyone more or less understands, as all schooling is in classical Arabic). This is interspersed by movies and series where everyone is in a constant state of hysteria, whether happy, angry or sad. Then there are the comedians. There's one right now who is annoying the government named Basam Youssef. He is a heart surgeon who pokes fun at the government--the President, the Muslim Brotherhood, and anyone else--every Friday night (in the Egyptian dialect, using a lot of slang). Last week, President Obama came under fire as he was in Israel and met with President Morsi. My family finds him completely hilarious! Even I think he's rather funny, although I understand only a small amount of it. It's kind of like a Jon Stewart or something. It is interspersed with clips from the recent news, much of it the president, other ministers and journalists. This week, he is having a field day with Qatar, which has a lot of money and is trying to buy up everything. My uncle says there was even a proposal that Qatar rent the monuments of Egypt for some number of years and run them as a money-making enterprise, which they could probably do better. Although I'd be worried they would want to improve them out of existence!
Then there's the English language TV. I do not know where they get this stuff. Really. It is the worst, strangest, most annoying and violent TV. Bad movies which I think maybe must be ones which went straight to DVD in the US. Yesterday we watched this one called Shortcut to Happiness with Alec Baldwin--I have no idea what they were thinking making that movie.
Yesterday we went to the new Alexandria Library. It is a lovely oval shaped building. The library is full of light and books and sitting areas and was occupied by many people studying and reading and talking. Additionally, they have a lot of museum space. There's a manuscript museum with some really old books, both Arabic and European (one from 900 AD), an antiquities museum and some space devoted to contemporary Egyptian art. I am really enjoying seeing contemporary art in Egypt.
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