A Day at Harvard

Yesterday I lectured at a Harvard class, Music  in Cross-Cultural Perspective, on 'Dance in the Middle East'. Imagine covering that vast topic and teaching students ten minutes of folk dance steps, in only 50 minutes, like PDQ Bach, or One-Minute Shakespeare. I took on the challenge, and with my powerpoint and video clips cued up and ready to go, I was off and running. While the students were very quiet during the lecture, they perked up for the dance part. I taught them a simple dabke line dance, a Kuwaiti bedouin cane dance, then a few minutes of Egyptian sha'abi popular dancing.

The Music Department gave me a free parking pass for the day, so I visited Widener Library, one of the world's great repositories of the written word, a modern day Library of Alexandria. Its Middle East collection is beyond dazzling. As a Harvard alum, I am allowed the privilege of visiting its stacks six times per year. With my updated annual pass in hand, I stepped into the massive Widener Stacks, one of my favorite places on earth, a true temple of wisdom. Each time I ride the elevators and pace its hallways, the wealth of the stacks overwhelms me. The sight and smell of its thousands of books (there's a particular smell to the stacks) calls to mind the effort and thought that went into producing them, as well as the many voices and ideas from so many ages held in its volumes.

I was looking for a particular book about Moroccan Sufi's and their relationship to the state. Happily, it was there, and many shelves of books on Sufism surrounded it. I pulled down several unexpected volumes and took notes for a couple of hours at a desk at the end of the Sufism aisle. Serendipitous library browsing is one of the most delightful aspects of novel research.

My research done for the afternoon, I bundled up and went out into Harvard Yard, where the leaves were blowing around at my feet. The weak November sun outlined the branches of its towering oaks.

I walked through Harvard Square to the Kennedy School to hear Prince Turki al-Faisal speak as part of the Harvard Arab Weekend sponsored by the Harvard Arab Alumni Association. He gave a thoughtful lecture on the various foreign policy issues facing the Kingdom. Then students lined up at the mikes and put him through his paces with their questions.

In all, it was a stimulating day, and it made me nostalgic for graduate school. I'm sure it's the only day in my life in which I give a lecture at Harvard in the morning and hear a prince speak in the afternoon!

Literary Lunch with Cape Cod Author Kate Whouley

Yesterday I had lunch with Kate Whouley, author of the much-loved memoir COTTAGE FOR SALE: MUST BE MOVED, which was a Book Sense Book-of-the-Year nominee and a popular selection with book clubs. Kate lives on Cape Cod, and I live south of Boston. So we met for lunch about half way, in Plymouth. We dined at the Indian restaurant, the Guru Grille,  known not only for its cuisine, but for the hard rock club in back. When we arrived, the rockers were apparently still sleeping in after a late night, so it was quiet. We had the place to ourselves and Kate brought me up to speed on her new book.

Kate's forthcoming memoir, written in her unique style and voice, is to be published by Beacon Press in 2011. The working title is REMEMBERING THE MUSIC. It focuses on her relationship with her mother, who passed away a few years ago. If you read COTTAGE FOR SALE, you'll remember Kate's mom as a collector of Santa figurines. But there is much more to her, as we will discover in the new book. Kate and her mom managed to get through one of life's most difficult journeys with more than a touch of ironic humor.

In case you don't know, Kate is an accomplished flute player. She is the principal flute in the Cape Cod Conservatory Concert Band. She also jams on jazz and American songbook with Harry (yes, one of the "Bog Boys" from COTTAGE - here is  Harry's blog), and even plays Middle Eastern music with Harry and me. Kate really can manage quarter tones on her flute. Not surprisingly, music plays a big part in the new book. 

So, COTTAGE fans, stay tuned for updates on Kate's book. Help spread the word too, that Kate's back with another fantastic story! 

Kate's website:  http://www.katewhouley.com/

Boston Book Festival

The Boston Book Festival, held yesterday (10/16/2010) in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, was another mind-expanding day of ideas and high spirits. Though it was breezy and chilly, the weather was vastly better than last year's odd tropical stormy mix.

This year I volunteered. I helped usher and did book-signings in Trinity Church, with a little side-duty in the big tent of Google, a sponsor of the festival. While I worked all day and couldn't go off on my own to sessions I might have picked, it was a great experience to hear many panels in one location. It's a good thing to learn about topics you normally wouldn't seek out. All but one event in the downstairs "Trinity Forum" room was full to capacity of 200 people. By the end of the day I was completely jazzed by the new ideas, the amazing authors and their books, as well as the enthusiasm of readers, presenters, organizers, and volunteers.

The last event I attended was the keynote speech by author Joyce Carol Oates. She read one of her latest short stories to a full audience in the massive Trinity Church Sanctuary. By the time they got to the Q&A, I started to fade, and headed home on the subway with a hot  tea in my hand, an exhausted smile on my face.

How lucky we are in Boston to have the people who think up and make this incredible event a reality. And it's FREE.

Review of Bedouin Weaving of Saudi Arabia and its Neighbors

by Joy Totah Hilden

In traditional Arabian Bedouin society, women wove and built the family shelter, tents made of goat hair, by hand, using wool from their own herds as well as materials available in the environment around them or nearby towns. Joy Totah Hilden’s sumptuous and substantive volume holds nothing back in its thorough and fascinating exploration of the art of Bedouin weaving and its practitioners. The author lived Saudi Arabia from 1982 until 1994, learning everything she could about Bedouin weavers and their art. On weekends she sought out weavers at Bedouin markets and villages. She befriended them and learned their spinning and weaving techniques. Being a weaver and weaving instructor herself, she knew what she needed to learn, and sought this knowledge with great determination, eventually covering every region of Saudi Arabia. Hilden stayed in touch with her favorite weavers over the years, noting how their art changed with the passage of time, and with their families’ integration into the modern economy. While few if any young women in Saudi Arabia practice the traditional craft today, Hilden notes that many cultural institutes in the region are trying to preserve it. Hilden shares the fruits of her research with great generosity. Her fascinating discussion of Bedouin life through the lens of weaving reveals the gentle harmony they kept with the desert environment. The thorough information about the weavings photographed in the book will help collectors and archivists. This book is also a precise and accurate capsule of knowledge for those who would like to make their own Bedouin weavings. It includes specific directions on the weaving patterns of the Bedouin, spinning and weaving techniques, and information on natural dyes. As the last Bedouins disappear, one hopes that the knowledge Hilden has gathered and shared here will inspire future weavers to keep these ancient techniques alive. 

The book is available at Amazon.com.

Jean Grant and her novel, "The Burning Veil"

Former Saudi Arabian resident and Arab News writer Jean Grant, recently had her first novel published. "The Burning Veil" is a fast-paced Saudi Arabian family saga, (96,000 words long for you novel writers out there - Mishmish Press, 2010).  Amazon link for The Burning Veil

Set in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom, where Jean lived and taught school (writing for the Arab News too), the story focuses on Sarah, an American doctor from Wisconsin, who marries Ibrahim - "Ib" - a Saudi engineer. Sarah struggles to find a place in her new home and culture, and most of all in the heart of her husband's family. She is particularly unlucky in that her brother-in-law happens to be a member of the so-called religious police, the CPVPV, aka the Mutawa'in, the vice squad, whose formal name is the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

The story takes place in the late 1990's and spans 9/11/2001 and the paroxysms that started to rock Saudi society after that event. Most westerners don't realize what a wake-up call 9/11 was to the Saudis - they realized that violent fanaticism had infiltrated thousands of young men's minds. Saudi society as a whole started to feel the deadly flames of fanaticism.

The climax of the book focuses on her fictionalized version of a national tragedy - a 2002 fire in a girls' school. Few western readers will have heard of the actual fire; but it, like 9/11, was a turning point for many in Saudi Arabia. Ever since, the Kingdom has been trying to unravel the spider web of what the Saudi government calls 'deviant' ideology.

But enough of ideology and politics. Grant's story is gripping and it draws you into an intimate Saudi family circle. Her Saudi characters are drawn with respect, and though having a mutawwa brother-in-law would be any expat woman's worst nightmare, Grant makes it work without stereotyping.

I particularly enjoyed a couple of aspects of the book. Grant sets some of her scenes in an a mysterious 'tell' - a hill with a spring-fed pool in the oasis town of Qatif, where only women are allowed to swim and enjoy the cool water unveiled, far from men's eyes. I visited Qatif many times, and heard of such pools, but never saw one. She also used zaghareed, the Arab woman's cry of high emotion (joy or grief) as a symbol that reoccurs throughout the book. As a musician/writer, I loved having an element of sound be a unifying and transforming element in the story.

Jean and I met briefly when we were both living in Saudi Arabia. We have recently found each other on-line. She was gracious enough to answer some of my questions about her book.

K - How did you come across the idea for the 'tell' - the women's pool - in Qatif?
J - I did visit such a tender spot, only once. It made a profound impression on me. It felt like Eden. I always intended to return, but somehow I never did.

K - Who was your favorite character?
J - Layla was always my favorite - from the very start. She is a 'salt of the earth' woman, full of admirable traits. I met several Saudi ladies who shared her enthusiasms for family and fashion, piety and nicotine.

K - How did the book evolve?
J - The book has an exceedingly long history. It all started one day on the teacher's bus I took every morning to the international school where I taught. I saw a colleague married to a Saudi who was weeping silent tears, and when I sought to comfort her, I learned that her sorrow was due to cross-cultural difficulties with her marriage. I started a novel called "The Tell" in 1985, whose main characters were Claire and Tarek. I set it aside. During the First Gulf War, I took another look at the manuscript and wrote a version which incorporated Saddam Hussein and Jude Osborne, an American spy for Iraq. I found an agent who flogged it, without success, and I dropped it. Shortly after 9/11, I returned to my original theme of love and the collision of cultures.

K - What are you writing now?
J - I'm working on a novel set in France and in Beirut during the early years of the Civil War.

Thank you, Jean for taking the time to talk about the book. And best of luck with your next one! I'm recommending The Burning Veil to my friends.

Mysterious Arab Music Instrumental - Raqsat Shanghai by Riad al-Sunbati

This semester I'm playing oud with the Tufts Takht, a student and community Arab music group at Tufts University. Kareem Roustom, a talented composer and oud player, is our conductor. We're working on some beautiful music this spring. Among the pieces is a short instrumental, Raqsat Shanghai, or Dance of Shanghai, by the late Egyptian composer, Riad al-Sunbati.

This is Sunbati, playing the oud.  

Sunbati is one of my favorite composers. His oud improvisations are always in a lower register, and some of my favorite compositions of his center themselves below middle D - and range more toward the A below it. But this piece, Dance of Shanghai, mystifies me. The main theme has a cheerful, almost syrupy pseudo-oriental sound to it. Then, he switches into three different sections, each in a different maqam. Usually, maqam transitions are done according to traditional aesthetics. But these sound harsh and unnatural.

There's got to be a reason. So I went to the source - Kareem, our conductor. He did his Master's thesis on Sunbati, so he ought to know. It turns out that much of Sunbati's instrumental pieces were lost, that few survive. He is most well-known for his Longa, a challenging and virtuosic instrumental piece in the maqam of farahfaza. But Raqsat Shanghai? Kareem said that little is known about it. Sunbati was involved in radio, so perhaps it was used for a radio show, or maybe even the theater. But it's a mystery. The more we play it, the more I like it. It's almost like advertising copy, where every word counts. Each section is pared down and minimal, each note deliberate. Kind of like an opening theme song for a television comedy. But, that said, if you rush through it, you miss it. Now, if we can just polish it up and keep from racing through it.

Below you can link to a video of the Arabesque Music Ensemble playing Raqsat Shanghai on their 2006 tour. What do you think of this piece?

The 2010 Arabic Music Retreat - Getting in Gear

It's a sure sign of spring when the brochures and posters for the Arabic Music Retreat are ready to go. The brochures just came back from the printer today, and the posters, which came in last week, look great.

This year will undoubtedly be another exceptional week of intense learning, out-of-this-world music-making and fellowship. We are on Facebook too - join us. If you have questions about the Retreat, e-mail me at: kaycam@aol.com.

You can download a PDF of the poster and find registration materials too at  http://www.simonshaheen.com/. 

Letting Magic Happen

This month's Cabin Life Magazine has a short essay I wrote about entertaining guests at our little cabin in the north Maine woods. You can link to it in the title of this post, or link to it here. We are having an early spring here in Massachusetts. The big snowstorms of late February gave us only rain. The robins are singing at dawn and the bulbs are sprouting in earnest. So often we get one last snowstorm in March, as if Mother Nature is saying, "Don't forget, I'm still in charge." It doesn't feel like that will happen this year, but we'll see.

Call to Prayer in Jeddah's Old District

A dear friend from Jeddah days, Anne Marie Weiss-Armush, sent me a lovely YouTube clip. It is an excerpt from a BBC documentary entitled The Frankincense Trail  by UK journalist Kate Humble. She goes to the roof of an ancient mansion in the heart of Jeddah's old city at prayer time, with a gentleman named Sami. My novel, A CARAVAN OF BRIDES, has an important scene on the roof of one of these houses. Click on the title of this post to watch. You'll get the sense of the old neighborhood and the overwhelming sound of the call to prayer (the Adhaan). Enjoy!

PS - if you liked that, here is a link to a trailer for the documentary. Hope it's showing in the U.S. sometime soon!
Trailer for The Frankincense Trail

Bedouin Weaving of Saudi Arabia and its Neighbours - Joy Totah Hilden

Joy Totah Hilden, author of the soon-to-be-published BEDOUIN WEAVING OF SAUDI ARABIA AND ITS NEIGHBOURS took a few minutes to discuss her new book. Joy lived in Saudi Arabia from 1982 until 1994, and while living there, she became fascinated with the women weavers of Arabia. She traveled all over the Kingdom to interview and photograph them and their work. She amassed a great deal of knowledge of the craft as well as an excellent collection of weavings. I first met Joy in 2004 at a conference on bedouin culture in Ithaca, New York, where she taught an engaging and thorough all-day workshop on bedouin weaving. I'm thrilled that her book will soon be out so that western readers will be able to appreciate her extensive knowledge. Joy's website: http://www.beduinweaving.com/.

KHC:  Were you involved in weaving before you moved to Saudi Arabia?
JTH:   Yes. I started with tapestry, then spinning, then with the use of a floor loom and then more variety.

KHC: What was it like to live in Saudi Arabia?
JTH:  I found Saudi Arabia fascinating, as well as rich in culture and the varieties of its people and lifestyles. I thoroughly enjoyed my travels and research there. I was particularly fascinated by the little-known coastal and mountain regions in the Hijaz which I describe in the book.

KHC: How did you structure the book?
JTH:  It covers historic background of the bedouin and how weaving is integral to their lifestyle. Types of weavings that they produce are described, as well as the role of tribal marks in the culture and their appearance in weavings. A long chapter is devoted to portraits of some of the weavers I interviewed and their communities. A chapter on the techniques of spinning, weaving and dyeing describes the processes in detail, with diagrams, drawings and instructions. The chapter on Bedouin weaving of other Arab countries compares relevant information with Saudi Arabaia according to 1) regional contiguity; 2) geographical convergence; 3) survival of nomadic status; 4) impact of politial change and upheaval; and 5) diversified textile production.
KHC: Wow, it sounds fantastic. I'm looking forward to the weavers' portraits.

KHC:  Do you have a favorite weaving in the book?
JTH:   My favorite weaving (photo at left) is on the back jacket as well as inside. It's a small tent divider that I bought at the Nuayriyyah market a couple of hours north of Dhahran in Eastern Saudi Arabia. It was a sprawling outdoor desert market where bedouin sell and buy all kinds of commodities, from tents and animals to rendered butter and spindles. I bargained for it, and was chagrined later when I realized how reluctant the weaver was to part with it at that price, or perhaps at any price. I wouldn't want to part with it! I love its vivid oranges and reds, the beautiful 'sahah' or 'shajarah' patterns in black and white, and the carefully made Cru Coast braids on both fringes.

KHC:  Are you planning any appearances in conjunction with the book's launch?
JTH:   I hope to give readings and slide shows in bookstores, libraries, organizations and schools and at conferences. I will post events on my website, www.beduinweaving.com.

KHC:  When will the book be out?
JTH:   Later this year. I am very happy with my publisher at Arabian Publishing, Ltd., of London. U.S. distribution is being handled by The David Brown Company, www.oxbowbooks.com.  UK and European distribution is by Gazelle, www.gazellebookservices.co.uk.

KHC:  Are the weaving arts in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf being preserved?
JTH:   As my Epilogue states, there are some programs in effect, which tend to adapt the techniques to modern uses. Efforts to maintain traditional techniques and styles are in effect in Kuwait's Sadu House, in Jordan at the Bani Hamida Project, in Israel at the Lakia project near Beersheba. Efforts in Saudi Arabia seem to be made by women's charity organizations organized by women of privilege. The government does not appear to be doing anything at this time. I would like to see them make the effort. There are still women in the region weaving, many of them using synthetic yarns and making smaller pieces than were traditionally made. Since the nomadic lifestyle is disappearing, and commercial products are available, more women are turning to these new ways of working. My personal preference is for weavings made with sheepswool and goat hair and spun in the traditional ways. I prefer the look and feel of them, as well as the color quality. However, it is very hard work, and I can see why it might not fit into the modern, electronic age.

KHC:  Thank you, Joy, for sharing the news of the book; we look forward to reading it and wish you luck with the launch!

Very January

It's sunny and cold - about 20 degrees. With high winds from the north, the windchill dips to 0 and below. This is a vintage January day, without which winter would not be winter. In my mind, January has to feature at least some frozen gales that seem to blow in from the nether reaches of northern Canada. They rattle the tree branches and whoosh around the corner of the house. If you're in Manhattan, you face the arctic blasts full-on, as the wind races itself through the high-rise canyons. Outside of Boston, a dusting of light, dry snow fell as the cold arrived yesterday. This morning, delicate treadmarks criss-crossed the snow in the driveway, as if made by miniature one-treaded tanks. The gales made them. As they flew around the side of the garage, they had rolled pinecones from our big white pines around on the driveway. I'm astounded; in my many years of New England winters, I've never seen this before.

Amy MacKinnon Discusses TETHERED at AAUW

Last week our local Hingham Area Branch of AAUW hosted author Amy MacKinnon, a resident of nearby Marshfield, at a discussion of her debut novel, TETHERED. It was a fascinating evening. There were about 25 in attendance. Nearly everyone seemed to have read the book twice. I certainly did; it's that kind of book. There is so much happening on several levels, that once you know the ending, you need to work back and see how it all went down. Her writing is tautly understated, which adds to the tension and mystery of the characters. The book is set in Brockton and Whitman, old towns south of Boston. While Amy has carefully drawn them with a sad grittiness, she also captured the last traces old-fashioned gentility and the fragile web of community and caring that holds on through the years and generations. During the discussion, Amy shared many facets of her writing process with us. It's clear that her reporter's experience has brought her face-to-face with unusual characters and troubling social issues. It reminded me of how Charles Dickens was exposed to the gritty underside of London and went on to write about it brilliantly. Amy does the same thing. And though the book is set near Boston, its themes are universal. TETHERED has struck a chord with readers around the world. As of now, it has been translated into ten languages. I look forward to Amy's second novel, and have no doubt it will be even more intriguing.