RANDA JARRAR

Maggie Morgan went to see Soueif speak at AUC last week, and had this to report:

She began her talk by discussing the evolution of her own reception as an Egyptian in Britain. Initially, she encountered questions like, “Do you go to school on camels?” This gave way to “Tell us how oppressed the women are” and, later, “What are the censorship obstacles that you had to face as a writer?” and “Tell us about the conflict of identity you feel, are you an Arab or a Westerner?” Nowadays, she is expected to be the emblematic Muslim woman, invited to photo-shoots to represent “creative Muslim women”. She sees herself as continuously trying to fit “under the lines of a grid”…. More significant, though, than the obvious content of Soueif’s talk was her attitude. As I understood it, she was re-drawing the lines of her persona. In her introduction, Ghazoul described Soueif as a “linguist, author, critic, translator and activist”. The “activist” is relatively recent. At last Thursday’s talk Soueif demonstrated how she has crossed over from being a critic and a novelist to becoming an activist — not to say that the notions are mutually exclusive. She was more ironic and more involved than I have ever heard her before. But she also made more generalisations, more “us” and “them” statements. She simplified to make a point as activists often must; in order to critique racist imagery she resorted to a polemic based in absolute binaries.

Read the rest here.

I wasn’t there, but this seems somewhat unfair to me: to imagine we live in a world where there is no “us” and no “them” is naive. The whole idea of a mezzaterra implies that there is a land there and a land here, and that some are citizens of (t)here, no? I don’t know if that’s an “absolute binary,” only that seperation does occur when you are both one thing and another, and attempting to stand for something. I’ll just leave it at that.

Many people are astonished by a heterosexual man’s ability to draw lesbians, and women characters in general, so generously and accurately. When asked how he does it, Jaime Hernandez taps his foot against the floor– an endearing nervous tic– and says that, to him, his characters are always “people first.”

Jaime was in Austin yesterday to kick off the fourth annual celebration of Latino culture, ¡A Viva Voz! He spoke to a few dozen new and old school fans at UT’s Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection.

About Maggie, the character he’s been drawing and following for 25 years, he says, “I wanted to create a female character I could do anything with: I could put her on Mars, I could put her on a ranch, I could make her a superhero.”

Most readers love Love & Rockets for its versatility and its magical sense of storytelling, others because it holds up a mirror to them, and gives them a voice. This is appropriate, since it stemmed from a dearth of images or representations of Hoppers (Oxnard, CA, where Jaime is from) and punk rockers. Seeing early images of punks pulling blades on people in super-hero comics always prompted Jaime to think: “I never met a punk like that in my life.” It made him want to draw them, represent them right.

Jaime’s influences include Dennis the Menace and random old comics, and he loved the dialogue, “the back and forth” between Alice and the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, which he re-read compulsively. But the comic which he declares had the most influence on him was Archie: “Every summer my mom would pull out a huge sack of Archie comics,” he says, and mimics his mother carrying a sack. He says he hoped that Maggie and Hopey would someday be their own Betty and Veronica. At this, a few people cheer.

He displays a keen sensitivity to his characters. He explains that the purpose of the 6 pages he added to “100 Rooms” was to clarify that Maggie hadn’t been raped. He’d heard someone say something about Maggie’s rape, and he freaked out, since he’d never intended her to be raped, or for anyone to think she was. After all the clarifications, he found out that the person who’d misconstrued the event as a rape was none other than his sister-in-law.

The only time a bookstore refused to carry L&R was when a drawing of a naked gay man appeared in its pages. “Of course– we’d been showing naked lesbians for years,” he says, and laughs. He says the more people become angry or raise eyebrows at his work, the more he wants to provoke them.

A female audience member mentions how happy she is that he’d “let Maggie get fat” over the years. He says he chose to do so because the more he drew her, the more he wanted to add curves, and the bigger he drew her, the more he liked her. He said she truly blossomed as a character (“No pun intended”) when she expanded in size. And he tells us he got the most response from male readers: “they didn’t want fat chicks in their comics.” It was the only truly negative response he’d ever received, and it excited him, and, of course, made him want to keep going. And thank god for that.

This article cracked me up a little. I love how the word pussy/kis is replaced with the words “[a word often used by Beirut taxi drivers]“.
Recently I visited my friend Khaled Mattawa’s Arab American lit class at U of M, Ann Arbor. They had just read two of my stories. The last words I said to them were, “I mean, hymen reconstruction? That’s just silly.” Very eloquent, no? Anyway, vaginas. Yeah.

because I’d totally blow him for this.

Will Youmans writes about Diwan, the conference that brought together writers, visual artists, comedians, and more, at the Arab-American National Museum a couple of weeks ago:

The Museum served as the perfect location for this event, which many felt was a historic one – a national gathering of Arab-American artists. As a testament to this growing community and its achievements, it facilitated the sense the artists had of being part of something greater. Some of the artists from far-off places felt they toiled away in relative isolation, but seeing the Museum, and fellow artists, made them feel part of something bigger.

Read the rest here.

Dude. Wow.

I got back yesterday from a gambling weekend. My best friend is getting married and we all drove out to Lake Charles in Louisiana to help her celebrate by gambling our April money away. My friend M made tons of money playing craps and roulette and slots. It was awesome to watch, almost like the feeling you get when there’s a cool twist in a book.

I am exhausted and trying to kick the flu’s ass. I caught the flu in the junkie motel I stayed at in Michigan last week. And the constant travelling hasn’t helped. I keep trying to find something good to read, but instead I am reading the newest A.M. Homes book, which is like the US Weekly of literature and is really fun to read.

# of $10 BLTs purchased and eaten: 1
# of times I said, “Mmm” while eating $10 BLT: 4
# of bookstores persused: 4
# of bad cups of coffee consumed: 1
# of ugly clothing stores walked by: 9
# of hot black men spied: 5
# of hot Arab men spied: 2
# of hot Arab women spied: 1
# of hot white guys spied: 0
# of hot Jewish guys spied: 1
# of indy movie theaters: 2
# of times I felt guilty: 1 (The chick at the motel front desk said she’s been living in Ann Arbor for 24 years and never went to college because she couldn’t afford to. And here I am hesitating about going to school when they’re throwing money at me.)

Storysouth has announced the top ten stories of 2005:

“Light at the End of the Tunnel” by John J. Clayton (Agni)
“The Rules of Urban Living” by Kara Janeczko (Anderbo)
“Two Lives” by Michael Croley (Blackbird)
“Down and Out in Brentwood” by Neal Marks (Crime Scene Scotland)
“Diamonds and Lemons” by Omar Beer (Fiction Warehouse)
“The Black Tongue” by Anjana Basu (Gowanus Books)
“Nang Fah Jam Laeng: Angels in Disguise” by Cynthia Gralla (Mississippi Review)
“Wedad’s Cavalry” by Mohja Kahf (MWU: Muslim Wake Up)
“Famous Fathers” by Pia Z. Ehrhardt (Narrative Magazine)
“There’s a Hole in the City” by Richard Bowes (SCIFICTION)

Go vote for your favorite now!!!

As if Springing Forward wasn’t a big enough event to knock me on my ass this morning, the NYT online went and changed its format. I just finished wiping away my tears. Why do people have to fuck with a good thing? Why? I am in a state of despair.