“Turcos” mostly Arab Levantine Christians in LA. Earlier, ran into these guys waiting for another wedding to start…

11 Dec

The groom’s buddies (this is another wedding I just stumbled on not the one I just attended tonight) outside church of San Pedro Claver in old city Cartagena. “Turcos” meaning Levantine Arab in South America, Maronites, the bride’s Colombian Catholic so it’s an easy step from one to the other,

Asked them where Rum “Turcos” go to church in Cartagena, they said they didn’t know, but that there IS an Arab-language Orthodox church in Barranaquilla. Would love to know more about these communities! Does anyone know a good monograph? Arabs in Latin America? Christian Arabs in LA?

Got some friendly Twitter responses below:

@jaddeyekabir

There are some interesting chapters in this book https://google.co.uk/books/edition/Arab_and_Jewish_Immigrants_in_Latin_Amer/peRSAQAAQBAJ?hl=en

If my memory serves me right, there are some theses on the ‘Turcos’ of Latin America

books.google.com

Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin America

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Colombian women

11 Dec

You don’t want to believe it because it sounds like a cliché or exaggeration (and you don’t want to say it too much because Colombians, men and women, are already so full of themselves) but Colombia really has some of the most spectacular women on the planet. And ⁦@hannibulk, I wonder if some of it is Amazigh. Below left my sis-in-law Johanna and on right bride at tonight’s wedding, Maria from Medellín. For those not in the know, Amazigh is Berber/North African.

@hannibulk can you find any comparable Tunisian, Algerian, Moroccan female types?

Guys, follow@hannibulk on Twitter for Berber Central info and anything else on MENA Mediterranean history you could ever think of. Also, major Carthage and Phoenician history geek. And potential unit.

This has to be one of the most religiously, socially, culturally and ethically damning maps I’ve ever seen

9 Dec

And the inevitable addendum: those from the northwest quadrant who have slightly larger whatever the trio of things the men were looking for in The Wizard of Oz get inevitably pulled to the southeast, and vice versa.

New Kitchen Wall Art: Belgrade, Gavrilo Princip, Vladimir Mayakovsy

6 Dec

Map of Belgrade, 20th century but not exactly sure (This is for P and S and M and all Dorćol buddies and kafana-dwellers):

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GAVRILO PRINCIP, Serbian “revolutionary” or really short, skiny, poor kid from Herzegovina, who shot Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 and supposedly started WWI, though that’s just anti-Serbian prop on part of Western powers who had all been itching…

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…for a heroic, “cleansing”, “purifying” war for decades. See the final chapter of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain for a gut punch on wasted lives like Kastorp’s and Princip’s and how the war ended up for them.

VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY, great hero of mine; though I don’t understand or particularly like his poetry, he’s a model for me of a man’s life well-lived, expansive, Jupiterian, Leonine in a funky, happening Moscow, loving with all his heart and guts and knowing when to check out…

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…and even fucking his suicide up for maximum and lengthy agony. Based. His French: “All women are clingy and presumptuous. All men are worthless.” (Correct translation?)

My response to the Holy Kingdom of Croatia…

6 Dec

It was actually really convenient all along, my response to the Holy Kingdom of Croatia would have been these two images 👇, whether they won or lost:

No I’m not joking or kidding or exaggerating: when the world finally calls Croats on their shit they way it gangs up on Serbs given any chance, then I’ll start joking or kidding or exaggerating. 👇

“I LOST my dashBOARD in the kaFAAAANA, and it was black as my soul and as my very HEAAAAART… zašto da živim za tebe sad sam, senka iz prošlosti sto uzalud te moli.”

6 Dec

“Interesting response to this poll. People hate Instagram…

6 Dec

“Interesting response to this poll. People hate Instagram— and rightly so because it’s a dying app. But there is currently no other place that can host a gallery of original photos that’s better than it. I likely will make one anyway.”

Nicholas Bakos (aka Nick Νίκο Hикола Коля)

@jaddeyekabir

I hate being dicked round and round and round and round on this issue of what social media is best for what and the stupidity and snobbery that accrues around it.

And email dates you and Facebook dates you and NOBODY blogs anymore and Instagram dates you and find me on Whatsapp because I don’t EVER check my email anymore and of course I NEVER answer my phone, and no, can we just stick to Whatsapp, and no, can we just stick to SMS and…

…Βρε άιντε πηδηχθήτε όλοι σας ve haydi siktir y vayan todos a la verga и идите на хуй. And now that it’s sooooo easy to communicate I have to leave 5 different kinds of notification to get in touch with anybody while golums like Zuckerberg and Musk are making billions…

…over playing into your pathetic snobbery as they just make your life more confusing and time-consuming.

And there I just put that on my IG and my blog and Twitter and an email so that I can be an equal opportunity Savonarola to all you vain, narcissistic pricks and to myself.

Varvara St. Barbara’s Day

4 Dec

Today is the feat of St. Barbara on the Gregorian (New) Calendar. In Lebanon, at least, if not the rest of the Levant, people make an ashura-like pudding called Varvara…

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…which, like Asure in Turkey is distributed to neighbors and especially the poor. See recipe here:

cookpad.com

Varvara (wheat berry pudding)

“It’s a dessert that has religious roots, it is made on the eve of St. Barbara and offered to the neighbours for the good health of the children of the house but also in honour to the saint that it is…“

It’s obviously related to Greek-Serbian-Russian koljiva, the wheat berries or other seeds are offerings to the dead, the ancestors, a right and good offering since seeds bring life and the dead need that.

In Greek and Slavic Orthodox countries it’s often made during Lent, because it’s vegan and suits Lenten diet suggestions. Muslims make it all year round because of that moving all round the year calendar they have that no one has ever been able to explain to me.

But I don’t know why Levantine Christians make it on St. Barbara’s day because if she has any connotations of memorializing the dead I wouldn’t know what they are.

So honor your dead and eat your pudding, but first eat your meat, because “How can you have pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?!”

youtube.com

Pink Floyd – another brick in the wall

Patagonia, me, L and P

4 Dec

Always put the Patagonia video on my gym’s treadmill because the fantasy of two of my favorite Twitter crushes running bodyguards on either side really motivates me. Honestly, I could lead running tour of Patagonia myself at this point.

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Nietzche: dangerous women, dangerous men

4 Dec

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