Dreams from the Arab World: Deadly Play and the Chaos of Freedom

Kalila and Dimna, jackal tale scene: the crow king and his counselors by Arab painters around 1210

for those who lost their lives...

Dream of Youngest Female Nobel Prize Winner Tawakkul Abdel-Salam Karman

From her acceptance speech:

"We were able to efficiently and effectively maintain a peaceful revolution in spite of the fact that this great nation has more than 70 million firearms of various types. Here lies the philosophy of the revolution, which persuaded millions of people to leave their weapons at home and join the peaceful march against the state’s machine of murder and violence just with flowers and bare breasts, and filled with dreams, love and peace."

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Semi-circle monkey bars, rusty, old, they rise to a very high altitude at center.

I’m videotaping an expert at crossing the most dangerous part of this abandoned playground. I cross multiple times, as I go on and on, it becomes foggy and humid. At the center, there is an opening, where my mind goes blank because I feel it’s impossible to cross, but I cross

At the last crossing, when I reach the bottom, it feels as if I am in an abandoned, mechanical children’s playground in Egypt, and I remember an Egyptian girl who seems like my girlfriend…yet she is missing. I flash to a scene that looks like her parents, and local police. They are speaking in Arabic, searching for her. I flashback to being directly on top of the semi-circle monkey bars, my friend who I am videotaping reminds me that he’s gotten rid of my poetry books because they give evidence of the missing girl…I flash in my mind these poetry books, immaculately printed with full color photos of the girl and professionally written poetry…I go to a field, and a mass of people are reciting this poetry, it seems I am at a funeral.

Sunday, January 29