Announcements: Synchronized Chaos Magazine will have a presence at the upcoming Association of Writing Programs conference this year in San Antonio, TX. We’re hosting a panel discussion with Kristen Caven, Terry Tierney, Martha Clark-Franks, Jessica Delgado and Kenneth Garcia on how shared reading experiences can spark societal conversations on how to live in a changing world. This takes place Thursday March 5th at 6pm in room 311 of Our Lady of the Lake University and will be followed by an open mic.
Also, we are putting out a request for information on paying venues that could publish nonfiction essays from our regular contributor Chimezie Ihekuna. He’s got a piece on his journey to become a writer and another on self-love and body image issues related to those with disabilities. He’s raising cash to order a computer to type up and publish another book.
According to Buddhist teacher Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, our bodies are like guest houses for our minds. We know that bodies are impermanent – we don’t stay alive forever and new creatures are always being born. On another level, our minds can be thought of as guest houses for various thoughts, ideas from the world around us or from within ourselves.
Several contributors grapple with ideas that enter our minds and how we process them.
Image by Claudio Parentela
Mark Young’s poems reflect the way we think. They begin with quotes from famous people and move to a free-association phase, with subsequent lines loosely reminiscent of the topic or style of the quote.
Chimezie Ihekuna’s relationship column conveys his resolve to practice chastity before marriage to prepare himself to have the discipline to respect the boundaries of his eventual relationship. He’s made a decision to accept and live by the teachings of his faith, for personal as well as religious reasons.
Abigail George offers up an emotional response to Sola Osofisan’s short story collection Blood Will Call. Her review draws out the visceral nature of his themes and the characters’ perseverance despite suffering, while asking the open question of why the global literary world hasn’t noticed the male Nigerian luminaries alongside the few women from the country who have become famous.
Elizabeth Hughes’ monthly Book Periscope column reviews five titles about heroic journeys undertaken in response to personal or societal crises: Elika Ansari’s Seacity Rising, Jason Barden’s The Spitting Post, Glenn Peterson’s The Girl from Copenhagen and Jodi Dee’s The Little Green Jacket and The Dirt Girl. In the last titles, the journeys are a bit more metaphorical with smaller personal stakes, yet the underlying issues, and underlying people, matter.
Federico Wardal elucidates the contributions to Egyptian and international society President Mubarak made during his time in office and how he was remembered at his funeral. We’re aware Mubarak was a controversial leader and encourage comments and a lively discussion of his legacy from the public!
In hotels, guests from all over can encounter one another for chance, serendipitous meetings. Several pieces reflect ‘encounters’ of this sort, connections among different people, groups, or ideas.
Image by Claudio Parentela
Norman J. Olson’s essay about his travels through Maui and London ends with a poetic call to bridge gaps among nations and peoples through travel. Many of Olson’s essays deal with appreciating art from centuries ago, so he’s also crossing divides of time as well as space.
Claudio Parentela’s artwork, which illustrates this editorial letter, depicts characters precariously balanced on wires or in unusual positions, as if between vastly different ideas.
Daniel DeCulla renders Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, about power struggles and becoming the bully one has defeated, into an illustrated fable. Humor here satirizes the unfair and absurd rather than entertaining readers, as he engages with writing from yesteryear.
Jaylan Salah’s poetry collection Workstation Bluesincorporates experiences and encounters from her administrative day-job, reflecting her determination to pursue her creative projects even on a tight schedule.
The death of President Mubarak: a story that interests us all.
by Federico Wardal
This is Federico Wardal’s perspective. We’re aware Mubarak was a controversial leader and encourage comments and a lively discussion of his legacy from the public!
——–
On February 25, the former President of the Arab Republic of Egypt Mohammed Hosni Mubarak died at the age of 91. “Commander of enormous value in the Egyptian Air Force and hero in the October war against Israel, he restored the dignity and pride of the Arab nation of Egypt. A three-day mourning period is proclaimed across the country starting on Wednesday 26 February “(from press release by the Presidency of the Arab Republic of Egypt).
Mubarak has been a very important figure in our extremely complicated world history characterized by the growing speed and danger of events connected for better or worse also to the technological development of mass communication. After the 1973 war with Israel, Egypt is in constant economic growth, tourism is flourishing as well as trade, investment, construction, industry, culture, art. With Mubarak, the stability of the country and peace are guaranteed. This, however, is in conflict with ten-year foreign political plans in which Egypt enters as a victim. But the diplomatic ability of Mubarak and his staff with the great powers are genius and in addition to safeguarding Egypt they determine an action of world peace.
The country becomes a cornerstone of Human and Women’s and Children’s Rights thanks also to the courageous action of First Lady Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak who created new hospitals for children and also for this reason was called “Mubarak mother” from the Egyptians. Moushira Khattab, in the Mubarak government, has a strict law against Female Genital Mutilation promulgated.
With the reopening of the legendary Bibliotheca Alexandrina, where all human knowledge was kept, Egypt returns to being the world capital of culture, as it had been until the time of Queen Cleopatra VII ( 30 b.C. ) . On 16 October 2002 the enormous ultra-modern building of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (www.bibalex.org) was inaugurated in the presence of heads of state and royals from all over the planet and Mubarak and Mrs. Mubarak, who is its president, are acclaimed by all. Alexandria in Egypt returns to its former glory. Its universities flourish. Cultural, scientific and educational exchanges have a worldwide reach. Poetry is strongly promoted. Bibliotheca Alessandrina reaches millions of visitors per year, but there is one very important detail: the Aswan declaration that founded Bibliotheca Alexandrina has the support of all the countries of the world, including Israel and Palestine. Such a fact is unique in the history of world peace, dialogue, cooperation, development, civilization.
Mubarak establishes excellent relations with Israel. Despite all this, pre-established foreign political plans are progressing and as expected for a number of years on September 11, 2001 the tragedy happens in NYC and the whole Arab world is being put in a bad light. In reality, the global opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina had been scheduled in October of that same year and everything is canceled and postponed to the following year, as written. The black clouds of NYC are programmed to spread other tragedies around the world and especially in the Arab world. The NY tragedy is part of the “Arab Spring” program to be implemented over 10 years (2001-2011). Mubarak continues his peace policy.
He even acts with generosity towards members of the Egyptian aristocracy, often giving financial reimbursements for the assets confiscated from them during the 1952 revolution that brought about the fall of the Egyptian royal dynasty, dethroning King Farouk. ( As well as President El Sisi gave recently a diplomatic passport to the king Farouk son Fuad II of Egypt ) . In 2005, Mubarak, first among the presidents of Egypt, introduced Christian holidays for the benefit of millions of Egyptian Christians. But the “Arab Spring” program must be carried out and despite Mubarak’s action for total religious tolerance, many Christians are victims of terrorist attacks. And here in 2010 fall Tunis and its president and then Libya with Gaddafi. The plan calls for the fall of Mubarak and Egypt.
In 2011 there are presidential elections in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood is unleashed against Mubarak and the military who have ruled the country since the 1952 revolution. But without the military , peace is no longer guaranteed. The manipulation of information, especially via Face Book, ignites, propagates and feeds the revolution in the country. Mubarak resigns on 11 February 2011. The Muslim Brotherhood begins to kill everywhere in the country whose economy also collapses due to the sudden total disappearance of tourism. The shops previously full of all goods are empty. Egypt is isolated, immersed and surrounded by the neighboring and neighboring countries destroyed by the Arab Spring.
The nights of Cairo and Alexandria, always crowded, are now empty. Curfew reigns. Egypt loses its face. A permanent cordon of students defends Bibliotheca Alexandrina. But the Egyptians are beginning to realize that the Muslim Brotherhood are just killing mercenaries and people are shouting at them: “you are not Egyptians, you are not Muslims, go away!” A counter revolution in the revolution. Cairo is sacked and violence, intense as never seen before, explodes. Mubarak is imprisoned and his name removed everywhere. Mohammed Morsi proclaims himself president, but after a year of struggle, Egypt rises up against him, because he is aware of the game that leads to the total destruction of the country and unanimously proclaims Abdel Fattath El Sisi as president, military like Mubarak on 8 June 2014. El Sisi must rebuild Egypt and its economy and build a new arm of the Suez canal in just three months! An absolute record in history. Egypt, in less than a year from the total catastrophe, regains its face, but the Egyptians, shocked, do not realize it.
Some terrorist attacks against Christians and even Muslims, but heroically Egypt challenges everything and everyone and terrorism is severely repressed. Mubarak is released and the new generations begin to appreciate the absolute guarantee of peace obtained thanks to Mubarak for thirty years. Mubarak hasn’t changed. He always has the kindness, intelligence and determination that characterize him at every meeting. Mubarak above all loves his country more and more and helps him as he can, always making available his great experience.
The country continues its growth, despite the serious economic injuries and the development programs started with the Mubarak government are being implemented as the strengthening of the metropolitan networks of Cairo (22 million inhabitants) and the creation of the immense modern New Cairo in the area of new modern and huge international airport. But the great news will come in June and we will talk about it extensively. This is the opening of the majestic museum of Giza, in the area of the three pyramids and sphinx. A great contribution to this realization was given by the Egyptian archaeologist Zaki Hawass, living legend, of which we will speak soon. President El Sisi, proclaiming three days of national mourning for the death of former President Mubarak, surely and completely met the wishes of the Egyptian people. Mubarak smiles happily at his Egypt and the world.
January 10, 2020, was a Friday… we fly on employee passes… if you love to travel but do not have any
money, I suggest getting a job at an airline…
usually travel benefits are terrific while you are working and at most
airlines, 10 years on the job and achievement of a ripe old age can get you
retirement flight benefits for life…
often these retirement benefits are not quite as good as the flight
benefits of active employees, but they are still very good and can make travel
opportunities available far beyond what most people dream of… the downside is that you usually have to
travel last minute and you only go if there are empty seats, so, since the
airlines have gotten really good at filling every seat, it requires some flexibility
and willingness to dig to find routings that work to some destinations… the upside, besides cheap travel, is that
working for the airlines can be a lot of fun…
there are a lot of people there just for the travel benefits which makes
a fun and travel savvy set of coworkers… if you work on the ramp (where the
airplanes are parked) you get a lot of good exercise stacking and handling
bags, backing out planes, moving ground equipment, etc… and you get to work
outdoors which some people really like…
mostly it is cool to work around the planes… if you like machines, they are so big and
such amazing feats of engineering, that just to walk around them or climb into
the cargo bin, or stop your tug while a huge double deck airbus crosses your
path, is pretty much a gas…
I worked for the airlines, nights and weekends back in the
early 2000s while attending grad school (as an older nontraditional student)
and my wife worked for the airlines until her retirement a few years ago… so, we now have super cool retirement passes
for flying… I have worked lots of jobs
in my life but none that was as cool as loading bags for the airline… I never minded the cold or the rain and snow,
the exercise had me fit and the people I worked with were very special…
anyway, Mary and I learned at the end of last year that some
friends of ours would be in Maui for a week in January… they invited us to join them… so, we caught a
flight to Las Vegas on January 10…
Hawaii is not an easy place to get to during the winter, but we found a
routing through Vegas that had plenty of seats to Maui… so, we spent the weekend in Vegas doing our
usual, Mary gambled and I spent my time hanging out with my drawing board… we had free rooms at some nice Vegas hotels
due to Mary’s gambling exploits, so we ate some buffets and stayed in luxurious
rooms first looking out over the swimming pool and the Las Vegas Strip and then
looking out over a golf course… then, on
January 14, we caught an early morning flight to Maui… we were planning to meet our friends who were
coming in from the east coast via Dallas/Fort Worth… and our friend’s sister coming in from China
via Honolulu…
so, we were sitting in Starbucks which is the only
restaurant type place outside security in the Maui airport and Mary said, “see
that girl? I think that is the sister…”
we had never met the sister but Mary walked over and talked to her and
indeed it was the right person, so we had a nice visit waiting for the others
to arrive… when they got there, we had a
great reunion, since we had not seen them for a while, with lots of hugs, they
really are great friends…
they then rented a big SUV and we drove to Kehie where they
had reserved a lovely two bedroom condo for the week looking out on Kalama park
which is a narrow strip of grass and trees maybe a block wide that runs out to
a rocky beach… so we had a fine view of
the ocean and the spectacular Maui sunsets from our balcony… although the first night, we walked across
the street to the park and sat on a bench while the sky got all fiery and the
orange sun settled into the Pacific Ocean…
the next day we tried
to drive to Hana but it was raining and part of the southern road had washed
out so we turned back… Hana is entirely around the back side of Maui from the
only real city on the island which is Kahului…the 10,000 foot volcano Haleakala
is between Kahului and Hana and the road that runs around the base of the
mountain is rustic, one lane and not an easy drive…
the next day we went to Kaanapali beach, one of the premier
beaches in the world which was about an hour drive away… it was windy with intermittent rain but Mary
and I sat in some beach chairs under a palm tree and watched the young people
play in the surf and snorkel… the misty
rain did not seem to be much of a problem as the wind would blow the clouds
away and a warm sun would come out between mists… and we saw lots of the famous Hawaiian
rainbows!!
from our condo, we had nice walks through the village of
Kehei which has lots of restaurants and coffee places… the houses on the ocean are huge multimillion
dollar mansions, and I believe that even the more modest houses a ways from the
ocean are quite valuable… but it was interesting to walk around the
neighborhoods and rest in the park while we watched the surf lessons going on
just out from the one sandy stretch of the beach in Kalama park… one day while we were sitting there watching
the surf lessons, a guy took a dog out on a surf board… the dog was wearing a doggy life vest, but
seemed perfectly at home on the surf board as the blond dude paddled out and
then expertly surfed in with the dog standing on the front of the board… on one of his trips in, he did a handstand for
those of us watching as he surfed in with the dog on the front of the
board… pretty cool to see a real life
Surfer Joe LOL…
so, the next day our friends decided to try the Hana Road
again because we had all heard about what a beautiful drive it was… so this time we went around the north side of
Haleakala which is rain forest jungle and true to form, it rained part of the
way… we stopped at one point at a tin
roofed shack that was selling bbq made there on a wood fire… it was delicious to eat sitting on a picnic
table while rain poured down on the tin roof…
and chickens were scratching in the mud at our feet… driving on, we stopped to walk in a park and
look at the towering white and multicolored trees and the flowering bushes… as we were following the path that ran along
a little mountain river, under the jungle of huge trees, a wild pig trotted out
to the path to have a look at us… found
that we were not very interesting and walked over to a rotted log by the river
where I think he was rooting for grubs…
we made it to Hana but did not linger as we wanted to get through
the challenging southern road around the mountain before dark… this road was badly damaged by an earthquake
a few years ago and in some places is little more than a path… but it was open, so we headed out… there is less jungle on that side of the
mountain, but we saw more gorgeous waterfalls, one multi-tiered with curtains
of water falling into the pool by the road… and then the road was high with
wide views of cliffs and the sea on our left and the vast slopes of the
mountain to the right… there were herds
of cattle wandering on the road and the slopes which seemed to be mostly
grassland… and thanks to the skill of our friend who drove and the fact that he
had the foresight to rent an all terrain truck type vehicle, we were able to
enjoy all of the wonderful scenery of the rugged Hana road without mishap… we came across a park on our way back to
Kehei dedicated to the important Chinese historical figure Sun Yat Sen… which our Chinese friends were very excited
to see and they told us all about Sun Yat Sen…
the next day, our friends had booked a snorkeling tour, so
we took the city bus to the port of Maalaea where we booked a whale watching
boat ride… this is the time of year when
gigantic humpback whales are plentiful in the waters all around Maui, so we did
the boat tour for a couple of hours before sunset… we saw many many enormous grey/black whales
breeching out of the water, diving with their vast flukes on display and
rolling around on the surface… we saw
mother whales with their babies… it was
all very cool to see with the cliffs of that part of Maui in the background and
at the end, another spectacular sunset… then we met up with our friends for a
great dinner at a sushi restaurant in Kahului…
on the 21st of January, we said goodbye to our friends when
they dropped us at the airport for a 4 pm flight to Seattle… we spent the night in Seattle and the next
morning flew home, back to the ice and snow of Minnesota winter… our overall impression of Maui was that it
had a very small town feel… Kahului is not a very big city and the other towns
on the island are all small… away from
towns, it is surprising how much of the island is rural, undeveloped farm
fields and on the north slope of Haleakala, jungle, on the south slope cattle
ranches… it was very relaxed and laid
back with wild chickens underfoot at any of the many open air restaurants and
bars…
so, we were home for a few days and decided to go to London
as we have done for several years now in January… we actually planned the trip
in two days and left on the nonstop from MSP to London Heathrow on the evening
of Saturday February 1… Mary loves the London
plays and I love the museums, so we saw a different West End musical every
evening and spent our days in art museums… although it is chilly and rainy in
London at that time of year, it is warm compared to Minnesota and the weather
seems to keep the crowds down a bit… in
summer, central London can get so crowded that it is really not much fun… we stayed in an area we had not stayed in
before, at a small hotel on Seven Sisters Road across from Finsbury Park… I wanted to try the hotel because it was said
to have a great full English breakfast, comfortable beds and was only a block
from the Piccadilly line subway, which runs 24/7 every few minutes to Leicester
Square where the theaters are and which is a few blocks from the national
gallery… and also on the Victoria line
which goes to Pimlico, a few blocks from the Tate… we spent two days in the National Gallery
focusing on Bronzino’s amazing Allegory, a long time favorite of mine and of
course, looking at the Leonardo, Titian and Raphael paintings… which make me wonder how presumptuous it is
for me to even pick up a brush when I see the miracles those guys made with
paint on a surface… I also spent a lot
of time looking at landscapes which have been occupying my own work somewhat of
late…
at the Tate, I looked at the Francis Bacon “three studies
for figures at the base of a crucifixion”…
Bacon was a wonderful painter and his style of spontaneous rapid
execution is a technical wonder to me…
plus I love his odd iconography, one of the few twentieth century
painters I really care about… and of
course, I looked at my favorite pre-Raphaelites in the Victorian room… which include a gorgeous Rossetti (Proserpine,
a lovely portrait of his girlfriend, Mrs. Jane Morris) which is unfortunately
hung so high and at such a bad angle to the light that you cannot see it except
from entirely across the room and from that distance, the subtlety of the
detail that I love to see is all lost…
we wandered around St. Paul’s Cathederal one day and went to the
Guildhall gallery to see another Rossetti which is perfectly hung and so, I
could study every detail… we spent one day
making a quick train trip to Oxford to see the pre-Raphaelite murals in the Old
Library… these murals were painted
directly on a surface that was not properly prepared (the pre-Raphaelites were
not muralists) so they deteriorated rapidly and now, although they have been
restored, there is not a lot that can be seen…
still, the painting of these murals, especially by Rossetti, Burne Jones
and William Morris as well as some lesser artists was a vital chapter in pre-Raphaelite
history and I have read so much about the event that I wanted to try and see
the murals… so, we went to the main
Oxford University art museum, the Ashmolean to see their collection of
pre-Raphaelite art and there I asked for directions to the Oxford Union which I
had read was now known as the Old Library…
the information guy had never heard of it, but looked on line and found
directions… I had looked and looked but
had not been able to find directions on line…
so, we followed his directions which brought us to a wall with a wrought
iron gate with a coded lock… a sign said the Old Library was on the other side
of the gate… so we waited until a
student punched in the code and followed the student through the gate… when we got to the Old Library, we found that
nonstudents could indeed go in and look at the murals, but would have to pay
three pounds (about four dollars) each, so we paid up and went in… the building is three stories tall with a
narrow balcony running around one story up…
its footprint is maybe thirty by sixty feet… the walls are all shelves with floor to
ceiling books… at the top of the second story is a slanting wall up to an
arched ceiling… the slanting wall is
where the murals are and the arched ceiling is covered with a leaf design by
William Morris… it was so cool to see
the actual paintings and to think of all the stories I have read about how this
was where Rossetti first met Jane Burden who became the love of his life, his
favorite model and part of his ménage a trois with William Morris… where Burne Jones and Rossetti cemented their
friendship doing work funded by John Ruskin…
well… at the time of our visit, the
Old Library was full of students sitting in easy chairs and at tables on the
ground floor reading and studying… so,
it is a space still in use… from the balcony, I had a close up look at the
bottom of the murals so could see exactly what was going on technically…
another day, we walked through St. James park to Buckingham
Palace… we stopped at the ornate gate
and looked through the bars at the famous guards with their big hats… although, there were also real guards with
machine guns by the entry gate… where
VIPs came and went… St. James park has a
small pond with ducks, some odd looking geese and lots of people strolling
along the asphalt path… it was very
pleasant to sit for a while in the slightly warm sun and people watch…
in the evening, we would go to a play… Mary loves musical theater, so we saw lots of
musicals including The Waitress, 9 to 5, School of Rock, Come From
Away, and &Juliet all of
which were within walking distance of Leicester square… we would have a nice dinner someplace before
the play… we worked up a good appetite
walking all day and were ready to sit someplace and eat before the play… London used to be a place where decent food
was virtually impossible to find but that has changed much since our first
visit in 1972 and now there is great food of every kind everywhere… we had an especially memorable meal in a
Greek restaurant on The Strand just a block from one of our theaters… we did not know what everything was, but it
was all delicious… the plays were all
fun and interesting… for School of Rock, we wound up with tickets
in the very front row and during the performance of one of the rock numbers,
the “rock star” character, dressed like Axel Rose, came on his knees and sang
the sexy part of his song to Mary which was fun and funny, especially when he
winked and cocked his finger at her before jumping up and getting on with the
act… one day we had a nice walk in Finbury park and another day we walked along
the Thames from Millbank to the Houses of Parliament… at night after he plays, we would walk from
the theater to the nearest tube stop…
London is a great city for walking around as there is old and
interesting architecture everywhere and lots of interesting shops to look at… we also rode some buses to some of our
destinations and so got to see various London neighborhoods we passed through…
On Saturday, February 8, we took the Victoria line to the
Victoria Station stop, got a bus at Victoria Coach station at about ten am and
headed for Amsterdam… after being
shuttled through the tunnel under the Channel with only minimal boarder checks,
we were in France… it was a rainy day so the flat fields of Flanders were
lovely and misty with neat farm houses and small towns… from Calais, we headed north passing Ghent in
the afternoon and Antwerp in the evening… by the time we got to Rotterdam it
was dark and we rolled into Amsterdam Sloterdijk station at about ten pm… we
figured out their fully automated station and got a train for Schiphol
Airport… I had found a really nice hotel
with a shuttle, so we spent the night in style in a suite looking over the
airport and the next morning took the shuttle back to Schiphol… we then caught a direct flight to MSP… and home…
we got home on February 9,
and left again on February 12, for a visit to our daughter in Southern
California… for our grandson’s birthday… we watched an archery meet, soccer games and
volleyball games featuring our wonderful grandkids and enjoyed spending time
with our daughter and her husband… Mary has gotten to enjoy being away from
Minnesota during some of our long cold winter, so she stayed in California for
another week of sunshine and grandkids…
I love visiting the kids and grandkids and really have enjoyed all the
travel, but was really glad to get home a couple days ago to get my snow shovel
out and get some things done around the house that I just have not had time for
this year so far… so, on Tuesday,
February 18, I caught the Metrolink train in Rialto, made it to Union Station
and then on the Flyaway bus to LAX… it
was evening, and the traffic was light, so the bus ride from Union Station to
the airport was relatively quick, about 35 minutes… from the bus down the 110,
it is always interesting to see the lights of Los Angeles, the buildings of USC,
the wide rivers of automobiles at all hours of the night and day on the
freeways of central Los Angeles, the high bridge over several layers of freeway
where the 110 meets the 105 and after the residential area of Inglewood, the
vast and busy runways of LAX.. I caught
the red eye at midnight and was on the ground in Minnesota Tuesday morning to
catch the bus from MSP home at about 6 am…
it had been a great series of travels from the warm misty rain of Maui
to the glorious art museums and rainy streets of London and then the warm sun
of Southern California… but actually
Tuesday morning, it felt good to have my snow shovel back in my hands and to
get the snow cleared from my driveway and walk to my exacting standards… LOL… future travel plans??? well,
we have a wedding in March in Puerto Vallarta, but other than that nothing
planned… although there are some really
good interline rates on cruises with the corona virus scare, so who knows???
Memory of the Road to
Hana, January 2020
brown cows on a green
volcanic slope down to
cliffs
and the impossibly blue
Pacific ocean
sparkling in the sun…
learning some history of
the great
and beautiful
people of China, and hoping
the big Ford does
not get stuck in the mud
or fall into
a ravine…
and yes, the waterfalls are
like misty eyed angels
dancing on the rocks…
London 2020
we walk
with our warm jackets
through the new entry to
the National Gallery where
the security guard
decides I am not
a threat… we walk
into rooms of walls covered
with painted images that
I learned to love
as a child looking at
pictures in a book…
my eyes are dazzled by
Bronzino’s twisty allegory
with a blue
like the sky over
Haleakala on
a sunny day…
Travel
travelling has taught me
the simple truth that
people are my brothers and
sisters
everywhere…
we all have our loves and our babies,
our frailty, our
strength and our mortality…
technology, religion, nationalism, money or politics
“Workstation Blues” is a collection of tales from the cubicle that would resonate with white-collar dreamers worldwide as they struggle to pass the time between meetings, in front of laptop screens, or trying not to lose their minds in the bathrooms. These poems from the dark mind of an Egyptian national, feminist, and workaholic blur the lines between career-driven and passionate, resembling an old folklore song where monsters are replaced by monitors, flame-throwers by LED lights and swords by client comments. 50% of all proceeds from the sale of this book go to PoetsIN, the creative mental health charity. Please visit PoetsIN.com/aboutus for more information.
Here I interview author Jaylan Salah:
What do you find ‘literary’ about office work? How did you find something worthy of literary inspiration in a cubicle?
This was a tough year. I had just started my content writing career and I was abandoning the writer’s boho “journey” to embark on a fulltime job as a content writer. I didn’t connect with any of my colleagues at first. It was a tough job, I worked 9 hours a day (sometimes more), 6 days a week. In between moments of scheduling meetings and submitting tasks, I interacted with an odd group of human beings. The feelings of isolation, depression, and exploration that I went through resulted in a daily writing routine and the culmination was the book at hand.
What might people elsewhere find interesting or surprising about office work in Egypt? (Or is it pretty much the same anywhere?)
Pretty much the same, although the casual flings and flirtation have to be under the radar. We’re a conservative environment. But the back-stabbing, toxic, dehumanizing environment is the same everywhere. This is exactly the reason I had to write this book. I wanted to connect with people who work long hours in the office from countries I’ve never been to and cultures that have no resemblance to my own.
Do you feel that your day-job enhances your creativity?
I believe that work enhances creativity. Not the actual tasks at hand but the daily interaction with people who come from different social, financial and familial backgrounds. Tensions arise, people get emotionally and sexually attracted to each other. Work is the driver of this generation [in Egypt] and I have found my most creative self while working full-time jobs.
How do you balance writing with having to put in time at a day job?
It’s always tough but I have a daily routine post office log out time. I try to reward myself when I stick to it because I’m tired almost forever and I cheat a lot. Some works of art are difficult to grasp whenever you feel like it. Others are immersive and you find yourself almost entirely invested in; even while doing something else.
Why did you choose to write Workstation Blues as short stories rather than as a novel?
When
is a hotel like a circus? And when is a circus like a hotel?
Both
are dreamy places of encounter and chaos where strangers tangle in embrace and
flight and our fates are in our hands briefly before they journey on to other
lands, and everything is apparently controlled but anything can happen at any
time; where lovers meet and lovers part, fortunes are made and fortunes are
lost, but only Fortune rules; where the daring young man on the flying trapeze
is suddenly an ancient porter bowing for a tip, or the master of ceremonies
becomes a harassed maître d’, or a junior maid suddenly saves the show.
They
are little worlds both, where we can be whatever we pretend to be, put on
glamour and tinsel when we make our entrance to the grand lobby or the big tent,
and for a beguiling moment take on the substance of a dream.
In
Berkeley over a recent weekend, Montreal’s Cirque Éloize revealed just how much
poetry, humor, fantasy, imagination and grace can be mined from these parallels,
in Hotel, brought to the Bay Area by Cal Performances, and the company’s
15th original creation, premiered in 2018 to celebrate their 25th anniversary.
Cirque
Éloize has been called Cirque de Soleil’s (also headquartered in Montreal)
“slimmer, sexier sister,” which is not far off. But what Cirque Éloize is in
itself is what counts here: a compact, inventive, multi-talented troupe (they are
all, at one point or other, equally skilled acrobats and dancers, actors and impressionists,
contortionists and musicians) who can give the impression of a small army of véritables
artistes with a distinctly French Canadian aesthetic: alternately sadly tender,
old worldly nostalgic, sharply witty, bravely romantic, and robustly pratfally,
sometimes within the same few gestures.
I’ll
admit that, at the afternoon show I attended, there was a moment near the beginning
when I wasn’t sure if there was a bit of scene that wasn’t working out, or a
technical glitch, and a couple of minutes passed (an eternity on stage) when
the troupe seemed to flounder as bits of pumped-in music whispered and died
several times before sounding with complete security. But this was the sole hitch
in an otherwise tight performance.
The
setting was a hotel lobby with a peripatetic entrance door (moved about on
wheels and proving a prop of many uses) and a long bar cum counter at
the back under a diamond-shaped alcove and triangles of neon tracing bright
lines above the stage. The lobby morphed through a collection of glittering identities:
from a 1920s Grand Hotel, to a 1940s lounge for a Gilda-like torch singer, to a
disco-fever ballroom from the 70s, to an 80s Jane Fonda gymnasium, before
flipping back to its Art Deco roots, with, trooping through it, a cavalcade of
archetypes of the modern caravanserai: the swooning lovers, the attentive groom
and his glamorous bride, the hotel’s jack-of-all-trades handyman, the
mischievous maid, the shady, “chameleon” figure who lurks in all such places
where strangers mingle, a pair of twins who confuse everyone, and a maître d’
who imagines himself in control of things no matter how often fate instructs
him otherwise.
The
meat of the show was series of acts, by turns acrobatically controlled and comically
chaotic, building to a series of climaxes, each bettering the last, until the
audience was heated to a compound of clapping, whistling, hooting, stamping celebration.
Several
moments bear special mention: Cory Marsh’s work on the Cyr wheel (a large hoop,
like an over-sized hula hoop, worked from the inside; an act not strictly
original, but I haven’t seen it quite so imaginatively choreographed and
performed); Vanessa Aviles’ graceful work on “tissu tension,” long rope-like
scarves hung from the flies; Jérémy Vitupier’s death-defying (and
head-endangering) acrobatics and miming with a piece of luggage at least one person
in the audience won’t soon forget; Una Bennett’s wittily risqué work on aerial
rope, inspired (and well-timed) trumpet riffs, and a Metropolis-reminding
spinning of multiple hula hoops from neck down to shins, commanding a scene
where hula hoops reigned, indeed rained; and, helping bind the whole, sizzling
vocals by Éléonore Lagacé, especially near the rapturous conclusion, when she
commanded as much with guitar as with a voice that surprised the house with an unpredictable
(unless one remembers the old phrase: “chaotic, like a Spanish inn”), highly
theatrical, deep voiced, and deeply satisfying, swathe of flamenco vocals, sung
con mucho duende.
The
creative team was led by Cirque Éloize’s president and creative director
Jeannot Painchaud and director Emmanual Guillaume, and the atmospheric musical
accompaniment, both live and piped in, was composed, arranged, and compiled
(including a magical performance, by Antonin Wicky, of one of Chopin’s most
exquisite and moving nocturnes) by Éloi Painchaud.
____
Christopher
Bernard is co-editor and poetry editor of the webzine Caveat Lector. His new novel, Meditations
on Love and Catastrophe at The Liars’ Café, appeared in January 2020.
