occupational hazard

Speaking of schoolboys:

These people terrify me, but I am one of them. If they stab me in the back, then at least that is the judgment of my peers.

When translating Camus, obsess Freud-like with Meursault's maman

Translating the first line of Camus' "L'Etranger" makes for an interesting article in this week's New Yorker. The various variants run generally close to "Mom died today" and the magazine's focus on the familiarity and untranslatability of the French "maman" distracts from the other, to Me more-important, aspect of the French choice of auxiliary verbs.

Disarming the perfect detonator

There is a character in Joseph Conrad's "Secret Agent", that of anarchist-arsonist Karl Yundt who, in addition to giving out, by his own account, as much explosive as anyone wants to anyone who wants it (so long as he has just a bit for himself), goes around with a flask of explosive in a coat pocket, connected with a tube winding through shirtsleeves to a small rubber ball in his fist. Describing the arrangement to an associate in a seedy London pub, Yundt complains of the 20-second delay between closing his fist on the ball and triggering the explosive. He boasts about a work-in-progress perfect detonator that would reduce that lag to zero.

"... a detonator that would adjust itself to all conditions of actions, and even to unexpected changes of conditions. A variable and yet perfectly precise mechanism. A really intelligent detonator."

Year of the Dragon

"The year returns. History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I'm with you once again. Life, love voyage round your own little world. And now? Sad about her lame of course but must be on your guard to not feel too much pity. They take advantage."

sans contexte

无人知所去

愁倚两三松

- 李白

«Lorsque l'ardeur de ma parole persuasive
Retira de l'âbime obscur de l'erreur
Ton âme profondément déchue,
Et que, pleine d'une atroce douleur,
Tu me racontas tout ce
Qui s'était passé avant moi,
Et cachant ton visages dans tes mains,
Pleine d'horreur et de honte,
Soudain tu pleuras...»

 - N.A. Nekrasov

 

"So halt'ch's endlich denn in meinen Händen
"Und nenn' es in gewissem Sinne mein."

 - J.W. v. Goethe

Down There

Having gathered, the foam rose.
The lather spilling over, upon the stones:
slippery sheen gleaming; traitorous,
bewitching siren swept almost
silent; bewitching still, but farther down.

Hiatus

It may be no way to start off a year, but it is what it is.

Hiatus. N. \hī-ˈā-təs\ an interruption in time or continuity : break; especially : a period when something (as a program or activity) is suspended or interrupted.

Optimism may be the eighth cardinal sin; and if there may be only the Seven then it shall await the Elevation of Pride To pride of place... Wait.

2010 In Passing

It was a good year to be a Muneeb Pasha. There have been and will be better years, and there are no altogether bad years, not yet, no - but 2010 was a good year nonetheless.

TL;DR

"What is this thing called love?

It is nothing reliable,

not like this silk cravat"

      - John Beer, the Waste Land
 
What made 2010 such a good year to follow after the jump:

Pillow Talk

I. Immaculate Misconception

Too many people were hitler this year

so it was unsurprising to hear

from someone, maybe Jon Stewart

(because Jon is one clever J-Streeter),

that Hitler also is hitler.

Through Your Jalousies

I sat atop that hill there, see?

I reached and saw you descend

like that sequin for myself

I peeled off her dress.

Civilitas Draconis

Perhaps it was rooted in my fondness for dinosaurs in the pre-Jurassic Park period when they were still underground, or perhaps it was the unpalatable rudeness of an armor-clad St George stabbing his lance through the heart of a scaled, winged Teuton engaged in pathetic imitation of flight, or perhaps it was just the broader human psychological imperative to root for the underdog at play, but irrespective of the underlying cause, the result has always been and still is an overweening adoration of Dragonkin that borders on the fanatical but is grounded securely in reason.

Deprived

I was not used to being out of bed early; I stayed up most nights and slept only fitfully if at all, so the rising Sun, which I could not see from the pillow, but which launched its first faint rays reassuringly at the window was the welcome signal I awaited before hitting an indefinite snooze button on the broken alarm clock inside my head that kept rousing me intermittently of its own accord. [...]


I've withdrawn the story while I rewrite it, please email if you'd like to know when it's done. -MAP, July 13

Of Daisy-Cutters & Olive Oil

While watching a fan-made video (Youtube, same window) of Foster the People's Pumped Up Kicks I noticed that one of the stills in the montage used by its creator seemed vaguely familiar. Curiosity piqued, I asked, and was promptly informed that it was a still from Věra Chytilová's surrealist Sedmikrasky (En.Wiki): Czechoslovak, surrealist, and grittily modern; predictably enough - considering how many of those things no longer exist today and the absolute sucker I am for things long extinct - I picked up the movie (no, I pirated it really) and sat down to watch. Note: There are some spoilers after the jump, mixed in with my own impressions of the movie, not that it counts for much in a movie such as this.

Nature of the Beast

Phillip did not mind waiting for women while they got ready, even if they missed their reservation by a half hour and had to look for an alternative venue, it was alright because he always made reservations at two different restaurants a half hour apart – just in case. 

I've withdrawn the story while I rewrite it, please email if you'd like to know when it's done. -MAP, July 13

For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise

It is a moment of luxurious self-indulgence when one kicks off the covers early on a Saturday morning; to shrug off the temptation to sleep that is so alluring during weekdays and jump out of bed filled with anticipation for an entire day with no claims on one's time except what one may choose to grant. The phone is silent, the city is asleep for a few hours yet, and the very air one breathes is pregnant with the promise of realizable contentment.

Alchemy

The way Rebbecca saw it, the popularity of Starbucks was a no-brainer. Even though she could not tell the difference between most of the flavors offered, and would never in all probability try the Pumpkin Spice Latté – except maybe just once to see what it was all about, she could nonetheless enjoy playing at being a coffee connoisseur for less than four dollars a pop. It was not a bad deal except that the sunny demeanor of the Baristas, or whatever it was they like to call themselves, was sometimes too much to deal with on her way back from work, or during the middle of the night when she could not sleep and did not want to stay in bed. At times such as these she did not want to see a smiley face, and she did not want to have to smile back. It was comforting to not have to pretend that life was anything but rough. Of course, she also preferred the smaller, family-owned coffee shops at the corner of every other street for a reason other than the aged, discourteous women who run such shops almost exclusively in the city: you could smoke there. Even after the several months since she had quit smoking she was still choosing places – perhaps by reflex – that had an ashtray at each table.

Sometimes the ashtray at her table would not be empty and the waitress who took her immutable order of "coffee. Black," would neglect to empty it. At other times there would be no ashtray at her table at all and the waitress, floating across the floor from table to table taking orders, cleaning up after patrons, and refilling drained cups of coffee would sweep one off the counter and place it absentmindedly in the center of her table, and sometimes this ashtray too would not be empty and the waitress would neglect to empty it. Of course, it did not matter to Rebbecca one way or another if there were an ashtray on her table or not, but she would remark its absence automatically as she sat down at the nearest vacant table when she entered and would notice as reflexively when the hole in the center of the table was filled.

Rebbecca liked to inspect the non-empty ashtrays and their contents in some detail. She sifted through the ash and cigarette butts with a toothpick or matchstick to turn them over and see what mark they bore, or separate them from one another and count how many there were, and of how many types. She would guess at how many people there had been, and how long they might have stayed and imagined the animated conversations they might have had over their coffee and cigarettes. She was delighted in particular when she found - somewhat rarely - a cigarette butt that bore the distinctive pair of golden-brown rings around a cigarette butt and she wondered if she shared more with the smoker than just taste in cigarettes; if they had the same taste in music and food and enjoyed the same kind of movies and read the same magazines. She would catch herself on these flights of fancy eventually and chuckle softly, chiding herself for daydreaming like a lovesick schoolgirl when she was neither.

She also liked to picture how the different cigarettes appeared to have been put out: that one was snuffed out half-smoked, like they left in a hurry and could not be bothered taking it along; these other ones had been rubbed out vigorously, perhaps angrily into the ashtray. How many were there? Three, no, five, five of these and only two of the others, but these two were also put out in the same deliberate manner. So this one did all the talking, eh? What had they talked about?

"More coffee?" She was forced out of her reverie by the automaton of a woman that ran the place and now stood looking down at her with dull, disinterested eyes. Rebbecca looked up at her and the steaming pot of coffee she held expectantly and took a few seconds to nod her reply. The old woman filled up her cup and plodded back to her seat behind the counter.

Rebbecca returned her attention to the ashtray. Even though she had already found everything there was of interest and knew it, she held out hope for her most prized catch of them all: a cigarette butt with a lipstick stain on it. She could always tell from the texture and the color and the way it had rubbed off onto the cigarette butt that it was lipstick and not some beverage. She was pleased even more when the lipstick stain was of a shade that she sometimes wore. Oftentimes the color of the stain was indistinguishable because of the ash but she made up the colors anyway. She wondered what they wore and when she imagined bejeweled fingers holding a cigarette between them she was seized with a passionate envy. Rebbecca had given up smoking for good reason, and she stood by her decision, but she could not stop sensing an gnawing emptiness in her hand that she had never felt before; that there was something missing. She was tempted to buy a pack just so she could comfort herself sometimes by holding the cigarette as she had used to but the way she reckoned it, that was just the first step on the slippery slope to starting again and she did not want to take that chance just yet. But try as she might to ignore the the gaping void, she could not help but miss the scrape of paper on the skin of her knuckles and the reassuring pressure between her fore and middle fingers, and feel keenly the loss of the poise and vitality it had lent to her gesticulations.

Rebbecca considered the women who smoked these cigarettes; wondered what they had worn when they sat here smoking them. So many people changed buses on the way to and from everywhere around this corner of the street that it could have been anyone. It might have been someone quite like herself; but was there any woman quite like herself who came to this coffee shop? Yes, she imagined there were several dozen who grabbed a cup of coffee while passing through here waiting for the bus, or who stopped here after work as she sometimes did, except that they were usually with friends and chatted and laughed loudly and she was always alone. Alone under her pale blue umbrella at the stand waiting for the bus, alone in the basement where she worked; ironing and folding sheets of linen, alone walking up or down the street to or from some place of no great importance, alone when she stopped at the hawker for dinner, alone when she ducked into the bar for a quick drink, alone when she left after an hour of toting a half-pint of lager idly and trying not to drink any because it was not good for the baby and she did not want to get fat, alone when she headed to the payphone to call her mother, and alone when no-one answered. But these other women whose cigarette butts she sought out desperately were not as alone. And if they had been faced with the same decision Rebbecca had made for herself three months ago, would they have chosen differently? Maybe they would have, they certainly had every conceivable reason to choose differently but they might have decided to keep it. Why shouldn't she have kept it? She wasn't asking for anyone to help or understand. She was alone and then she would not be alone anymore and that was that.

Summer 2010

The Motor-Scooter

He walked down the street in no great hurry but with definite purpose. The boy went from storefront to storefront, asking shopkeepers if they had what he wanted. He passed by groups of similar teenage boys standing huddled in the shadows, sharing cigarettes, telling jokes, and laughing desperately. There were women standing at the narrow entrances to their houses that opened on the narrow street, they spoke in hushed voices and this combined with their long headscarves - draped around their shoulders, over their hair and across much of their faces  - to lend them on that night a decidedly sinister aspect: co-conspirators deciding what to do with the body of the assassinated King in that moment before they realize there is no further need for discretion. There were children playing games of tag or hide and seek and being generally noisy unless someone barked at them and then they would shut up for a few seconds, only to start again a few feet farther up or down the street. Girls on shadowy balconies overlooking the street, or behind dark windows, played sappy love songs on their cellphones, and it was under these overhangs on the street that older, quieter boys stood conspicuously, heads angled to the side and heedless of the noise of vehicles trudging through the tangle of heat and dust and darkness and perspiration and badly-kept secrets that was this street and countless other streets all over this city and in other cities across the country.

An old man riding what appeared to be a cross between a scooter and a motorcycle put-put-putted past the boy; so close that he would have jumped had not his foot been caught under the front wheel of that contraption. The scooter-cycle moved on and the boy looked at the back of the old man, stopping himself from swearing loudly at his receding tufts of hair; he was sure he was an old man because of the white prayer-cap he wore at a time that was far gone for prayer, the white dress he wore and the walking cane he had stowed on the side of the scooter-cycle. The scooter-cycle slowed down and coasted to a stop a few feet farther down from where the boy had stood transfixed since it had passed over his foot. The put-put-putting noise of its engine died, and the tail light went out suddenly so the boy lost equally suddenly his object of focus and his gaze drifted in the darkness, readjusting and coming to rest on the old man, who was fidgeting with his scooter-cycle, attempting to restart it. The old man leaned to one side and lifted his leg to strike the pedal, he brought it down hard and the motor-scooter sput-sput-sputtered back into life. 

Even as the boy watched, the old man lay on the street and the still sput-sput-sputtering machine lay on top of him. The engine was stoked and was proceeding into a progressively sharper and painful whine, spurred by some torturous mechanism. The old man waved his arms, his cries for help - if there were any - were swallowed by the rapacious din of the motor-scooter. The boy rushed to his side and attempted to lift the old man out from underneath the scooter-cycle. He grabbed the man under the arms, but the dampness there made him uncomfortable so he let go and wiped his palms on his pants while the old man stared into space, his face an amorphous mask of confusion and helplessness. He next tried to lift the still sput-sput-sputtering scooter-cycle, and in this was partially successful. The old man stayed flat on his back as the boy righted the bike and found the landing gear after much probing with his foot. He reached down to help the old man up, grabbing him around the waist this time and raising him slowly. The old man held out a hand and pointed at the ground where the boy struggled to spot the walking cane that had tumbled loose. He bent down to pick it up while the noise from the motor-scooter was cut off: the old man had switched off the ignition. The boy handed him his walking cane, the old man started hobbling towards his house - a few feet away on the other side of the street. His wife - or daughter, or daughter-in-law, the boy could not tell which - stood in the darkened doorway. She stood aside as a young man appeared in the doorway from inside the house. He walked past his father and took the motor-scooter and guided it across the street and into their home. 

The boy took the old man by the elbow: "Are you alright, sir?" The old man said nothing and waved his hand dismissively. "But you're limping, sir," the boy insisted. "Old injury. I'm fine" came the curt reply, and he shrugged off the boy's hand from his elbow. Hobbling, slow and pathetic, behind his son who had now disappeared with the front-half of the motorcycle into the dark doorway. The woman still stood outside, silhouetted against the light-colored paint of the front wall. The old man stopped a few feet from the entrance and said something the boy could not hear. The woman stepped inside and the old man followed his wife or daughter or daughter-in-law, hobbling over the raised doorstep and slamming the door shut.

Down the Delta

Eager to carry the word,
the shortness of breath crippling;
shouting against the flux -
Unaware, perhaps, or uncaring
of the leaden weights on each pulse.

Islamabad/Lahore

September 20, 2010

Edgar Allan Poe Revisited

I chanced upon a collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe at a second-hand bookstore earlier this year, and was transported back to fifth grade when our English Literature teacher included To Helen and some few lines from Israfel in our syllabus. I cannot pretend to have been too impressed with poetry of any kind back then, so it was very surprising to find that I remembered Helen word-for-word, some fifteen years later. Since that day in February I have spent many Sunday afternoons enjoying Poe's poetry, and, intrigued by the fastidiousness of his craft, read through a few biographical sketches and articles of this great American poet.

Poe had the misfortune of being derided and dismissed by his contemporaries and critics in his day, and generally ignored by the public. His own proclivities and erratic behavior did nothing to help him here: from his stillborn career in the Army to his sacking from an editorial position at a literary periodical to his elopement with a 13-year-old cousin; Poe was alleged to have made a thorough hash of everything he did. Oh, and: Yes, thirteen. Yes, cousin. Classy, classy guy. 

TS Eliot called Poe "meretricious," implying perhaps the more tawdry of the word's meanings. Emerson, deriding Poe's obsession with the scale and meter of his poems, referred to him as a "rhymester." I do not quite understand - not unexpectedly, for I am no poet - why a poet would be attacked for being poetic. James Russell Lowell was somewhat more measured in his criticism of Poe when he described him thus:

"He has written some things quite the best of their kind,

"But the heart seems all squeezed out by the mind."

It was not until long after his death that his work came into its own and Poe's reputation as a poet was not only rehabilitated but greatly embellished. Of course, Poe was not - not even in America nor indeed in his own time - the only literary figure to be attacked thus; just bait Hermann Melville with a giant white whale, although he might see that as vindication instead. In my reading of Poe's poetry, which is by no means either exhaustive or profound, I have failed to notice this lack of "heart" that Lowell deplores. Indeed, there is a certain nudity of emotion in some of his less macabre works that parallels that of the greatest Romantics.

The one poem of his that resonates most strongly with me in this context is Israfel. Grander and infinitely more coherent in whole than the few snippets we suffered through back in school. I view it as Poe's declaration of surrender, his admission of defeat, and his confession of a preposterous ambition and an apology for untamed arrogance. Poe views the Archangel Israfel as the true inspiration for his craft, wondering how monumental Israfel's song must be for it to bring an abrupt end to the Universe and revive all beings for the day of Judgment. Poe's hubris, typically, lies in seeking to identify with and be inspired by Israfel's perfection; more earthly standards of poetry having been judged and found wanting. The bitter taste of an over-reaching, impotent greed runs through the length of the poem, manifesting mid-way as a resigned acceptance of Poe's failure to do justice to his muse, whom he praises lavishly. Israfel ends on a conciliatory note, however, as Poe ascribes the Archangel's success and his own failure to the vast difference in their respective circumstances, realizing belatedly the sheer impossibility of his quest for Israfel's perfection. It is, in this view, a classic case of sour grapes and unrequited love, and Poe is quite the fox in salvaging some dignity. There is, however, a perplexing choice of a single word in the last line of verse. When Poe may reclaim his ambition by comparing his heavenly music to Israfel's favorably, he instead chooses to settle only for being better off than he is at present. In this Poe demonstrates a sensitivity and maturity one would never expect, and perhaps therein lies the root of his remonstrations.

I threw together the video below somewhat quickly as a tribute to Edgar A Poe. The Raven remains a very readable poem, even though one may hear Ramadan-fatigue dripping from my voice.

Enjoy, and you're welcome.

Ba'athing in the Euphrates

Perhaps the most simultaneously heartening and distressing piece of news in the interim has been the announcement of cessation of combat operations by US forces in Iraq. The drawdown leaves behind some fifty thousand troops for training Iraqi security forces ("advise and assist"),   deterring the various internal security threats plaguing that country, and securing key US interests across Iraq. American media and the US administration have routinely used the word “withdrawal” to describe the change in force levels, signifying the start of an irrevocable process by which to arrive at an agreeable conclusion to that deplorable misadventure. Iraq is one of the two Wars inherited from the previous administration, and bringing it to a swift and – insomuch as it is possible – painless conclusion has been one of Obama's key priorities and campaign promises (WP); Obama has to ensure that the withdrawal is carried out – irrespective of the security situation in Iraq and the implied strategic failure of the Surge – to limit the political fallout from Vietraq come 2012.

Iraq herself is likely to be destabilized further as the deterrent represented by US forces is diminished and fragmentation of the population along ethnic and sectarian lines continues: a process frozen in place by the Surge in 2007. President Obama's recent speech marking the end of designated combat operations sidestepped the important issue of a longterm American footprint in Iraq. How will the administration respond if requested by the Iraqi government to extend the tenure of US forces in Iraq or expand the scope of their mission? Such a request would be entirely rational given the security challenges facing that country.

The other, perhaps more dreaded specter of an Iranian Iraq is also a lot closer to reality than in 2003. The Iranians have, through sponsorship political parties and support of Shiite militias and resistance groups, gained a strong political foothold in Iraq. As this Foreign Policy article points out: the political gains made by Moqtada Al-Sadr in the recent elections and subsequent horse-trading have placed Iran in a powerful position to influence Iraqi politics. In the absence of a strong US military presence in Iraq – under a clear mandate to deter and rollback the various militias, from which potential antagonists derive much of their hard-power – the role of Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, and hence and his Iranian backers, will continue to increase.

The fact, however, is that none of the minority groups opposed to Iranian influence in Iraq – the Kurds for example – is capable, even when acting in concert, which they are unlikely to do, to acquire a decisive proportion of political power in the Iraqi government. The US-made new constitution of Iraq seems to have made effective governance only possible when a broad consensus is shared. In the absence of this consensus, Iraqi political factions reserve the right – and preserve the ability – to revert to armed warfare, a nightmare scenario the lawmakers perhaps did not foresee in 2003. Indeed, the various political parties and factions in Iraq find common ground mainly in their antagonism toward one another: a common occurrence wherever democratic systems are paired with politics of fear-mongering and ethnic sensationalism.

Iraq's increasing tilt towards Tehran will have repercussions for more than Iraq herself. The strategy for limiting and countering Iranian influence in the Middle East has thus far revolved around containment. It was to this end that various Arab governments sided with Iraq in her eight-year war with Iran; this same policy guided the Saudi government in 1991 to lobbying to limit the outcome of the First Gulf War to expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait and not threatening Saddam Hussein's regime itself. Saudi Support for the 2003 invasion was limited and given only reluctantly, when it became clear that the Bush administration would not be swayed from the warpath. Iranian gains in Iraq and Lebanon (via Hezbollah) are cause for as much concern in Riyadh and Tel Aviv as in Washington, and may catalyze attempts by regional players to influence events in Iraq. Indeed, absent US assurances - backed up by a hundred thousand pairs of boots on the ground in Iraq - to contain and curtail Iranian influence in Iraq, other players may be left with no choice but to get their hands dirty. Whichever way such a contest may turn, it does not bode well for Iraq.

It is perhaps too early, and ultimately irrelevant, to talk of winning and losing in the Iraq War. Posterity will be judge how the War changes the balance of power in the region and how it affects the development of US policy, and revise whatever inferences we may draw today. The one thing  that is certain, however, is that abandoning Iraq to her fate will close the lid on what appears at present to be a decisive strategic victory for Iran; made all the more impressive because no-one realized they were even in the running to begin with.