I went for the first time yesterday and I loved it. It has this beautiful Kuwaiti energy all around it and unlike any of the other exhibitions I attended, all of the attending people are actually happy to be there. The attendants were from all age groups, old men and women on wheelchairs and walking sticks, and girls all in their best Eid attires.
The booths were all nicely set. Lots of creative ideas, and some not so creative ones. Lots of maids doing their backstage work.. well don’t get me wrong, lots and lots of booths were run by their Kuwaiti owners, but some of them were a joke, but they were little and far in between.
I’m proud of them. I couldn’t take many pictures coz there were lots of people on thursday and it was hard to take pictures.
1001Nights is a Kuwait blogger. She’s one of the first and best authors in the Kuwaiti blogosphere. She has written a new piece and she’s gonna share it for the first time ever with you guys on our blog!
So here is it and make sure to leave your comments and feedback.
Grief, Beauty, and Samri
She said she was in the mood for samri, and that it was strange for someone in her circumstance to be in the mood for samri. I sighed and, as I did, I took in her smell; she had clearly been exposed to some bukhoor before coming. The café, right before the asr prayer, was deserted; the waiters looked uninterested, the food on display near the counter looked like it had been sitting there for a long while, and it was dim and getting dimmer as the sun was no longer in its full glory. Her black veil and black abat, the eye liner that leaked down her cheek right by her nose, her voice, the tone of it, everything in that café, everything in our meeting was so full of gloom. And she said she was full of gloom too and that it was very strange. I asked her what was strange. She said it was strange that she was in the mood for samri. I asked her if she wanted to dance. I told her to cover her face with the abat as if it were a thob, I told her to disregard the waiters, they wouldn’t mind, I told her I’d sing for her and use the table as my ‘taar if only she wanted to dance. She chuckled and said that dancing samri wears her out when no one was watching. She said that she would tire dancing with few viewers and thrive when dancing in front of masses – dancing samri as well as she did was not just about dancing; it was an art, it was the epitome of womanliness, it was the pride of her country, it was a performance. I was just glad she chuckled. But soon after I was a little sad. I didn’t want to ask her if I weren’t enough, if my watching her wasn’t enough. But I did ask her, impulsively. The question rolled off my tongue before I had a chance to remind myself that this meeting wasn’t about me. But the words left my mouth and hung still in the air while she looked at me blankly. She smiled and said nothing. So I said I was just joking. And she stayed quiet. So I thought this would be her exit. She would leave soon if I didn’t say anything. So I told her she smelled great. I told her that despite the heaviness in the air and the sadness in this deserted place and despite the grief that she was feeling, her smelling so great made me feel like I was sitting at a wedding. I told her I could relish in this smell forever and never bore of it. And she said she was wearing her mother’s abat. Since she had died the day before yesterday she hadn’t taken it off. She wore it all day around the house and during the a’aza and when she went to bed she bunched it up near her pillow and hugged it and smelled it and wrapped herself in it until she was too weary to weep anymore and finally slept with her face in it. And after she told me this she sighed. She sighed and if I could I would have lifted her mother out of her grave and rested my own head there instead. Because she sighed. And because I knew that the dimple nestled in the middle of her chin didn’t quiver because she was about to burst into laughter. And because I knew that the red in her cheeks wasn’t there because she was blushing. And I knew that her eyes weren’t glistening because I had paid her a complement. I knew all of this and the weight of it struck me. And I knew too that men don’t cry. And I knew men definitely shouldn’t cry when their women need them. But I heard the quiver in her voice, the leftover dread beneath the soft tone, the hurried breathing, and I wanted to cry too. I wanted to weep like a child. But men don’t cry, I told myself and I could sense my eyes start to burn and instinctively I tried, really tried, to remember something funny like my friends on the playstation, or my nephew’s mispronunciation of the word soup in Arabic – “shairuba”- or even something she usually says with a lisp. She doesn’t have a lisp but there’s that one word she always says with a lisp. I never once corrected her. It was too amusing – not because I wanted to poke fun at her but because, for some reason, I found those little idiosyncrasies of hers so entrancing, so endearing, so incredibly captivating, that I wouldn’t dare try to change them. I got up and headed for the counter before she could notice my eyes welling up. I walked away from her as I asked her if she wanted anything. She said her stomach hurt all the time and that she hadn’t eaten because of the nausea, the nausea, she said, it wouldn’t go away. I bought myself a bottle of water and bought her a cheesecake. Chocolate. She liked everything chocolate. I cut a bite’s worth with my fork and took it to her mouth and she backed into her seat and refused to take it. I asked her how she would be so unkind as to refuse me like that. But I had lost her already. She was now gazing at something at the corner of that coffin-café without really looking at anything. Glassy eyes thinking of somewhere else, someone else, a memory of her mother that she wouldn’t share with me, a loss I couldn’t undo, a pain I couldn’t alleviate. She started shuffling her abat around her and I panicked again because I thought she was going to leave. I thought of something to say to keep her a little longer. I couldn’t think of anything so I just said gi’day. She said salat il asr was coming up soon and she wanted to be home before the athan sounded off so she could get down to the a’aza on time. I looked at my shoes and felt like I did when I was six years old and my mom said she was traveling and leaving us with my grandma. She turned away from me and headed towards the door, silky blackness trailing behind her, the cape of a disheartened queen, her natural sway, unexaggerated and full of both humble subtlety and unmistakable femininity. And more than anything I just wished I could watch her dancing samri.
I reviewed the Velvet Cup a while ago and thought it was one of the best if not THE best red velvet I’ve tried so far. I didn’t know she was interviewed till today.
They’ve just introduced a new service, where you get an an MMS’s every week that includes their latest movies in a video clip, almost like the movie trailer. It’s for 500 fils a week.
Avatar producer, Jon Landau told MTV that director James Cameron is going to write an avatar prequel. The prequel won’t necessarily be transformed into a movie, but rather be a full fledged novel that’ll go into each character’s history in depth. In a way, James Cameron is trying to lay a foundation for the movie. Or maybe a foundation for sequels to come?
Jon Landau interview:
“Jim is going to write a novel himself, not a novelization – and there is a distinction. A novelization basically retells the story of the movie. Jim wants to write a novel that is a big, epic story that fills in a lot of things. [We] won’t have time to do [these stories] in the movie, or maybe in sequels, so the novel will give a foundation for the world. It would be something that would lead up to telling the story of the movie, but it would go into much more depth about all the stories that we didn’t have time to deal with – like the schoolhouse and Sigourney [Weaver's character] teaching at the schoolhouse; Jake on Earth and his backstory and how he came here; [the death of] Tommy, Jake’s brother; and Colonel Quaritch, how he ended up there and all that. I don’t think Jim has ever written a novel before, but his first step of writing a script is often in a novella format, so this is just expanding that, and I think that he’ll be very adept at it.”
Some cool guys from Al-iPhone came up with this really cool idea, They made some of best clips with some of the famous songs available on iTunes, Kuwait’s store only.
The charity single ‘everybody hurts’ By REM was rerecorded to raise funds for the victims of Haiti earthquake, and it features Mariah Carey, Rod Stewart, Michael Buble, James Blunt, Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, Susan Boyle, Leona Lewis and many others.
“The estimated release date is 7 February, with proceeds going to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and there’s already talk this could become one of the biggest selling singles of all time.” – BBC
I didn’t know there was a different ending to the Titanic movie. I just saw it and thank God the director, James Cameron, decided not to go with it, coz it would’ve ended the movie on a totally different note.
It was announced that Avatar is now the top grossing movie of all time, right? Well it isn’t.
The above list is of the real top grossing movies of all time. Why is it different? Because it takes the inflation factor into account and re-stacks the the movies according to that. [interesting link]
Although Avatar is not updated into the list yet, it was reported that it just passed Titanic, and you can clearly see where Titanic rank on the list above. So yeah, it’s got a long way to go before it topples Gone with the Wind; the real top grossing movie of all time.
This guy is my favorite late show entertainer. Ironically he’s been taken off the air and replaced by Jay Leno because the ratings sucked and he wasn’t pulling in the numbers, yet his final show pulled in a record breaking numbers. Do you think people watched his final show coz they knew they’re gonna miss him? or to gloat and watch him take his last breath on NBC’s late night shows.
Either way, He’ll be back soon, hopefully! Yep I’m a fan of his.
One of my favorite horror movies, Nightmare on Elm Street, will have a new movie out soon. This one looks like its going to be a prequel. The people behind this movie are showing us the for the first time exactly what happened prior to Freddy Krueger’s death.
Thank God for the greedy people at Hollywood! Transforming cartoons to movies, making sequels, trilogies, and even remakes of our old favorites.
I just hope this one doesn’t disappoint. I would’ve preferred Wes Craven to be the director since he’s the one behind the good sequels, but so far, and excluding Freddy’s ridiculous face, I like what I’ve seen in the trailer.
My friends over at Football Directa gave me the honors of exclusively viewing their new totally revamped website, and let me tell all of you Football fans.. you’re in for a BIG surprise!
I knew they were doing a whole new website, I also knew they worked hard and spent lots of time trying to make it the best it could be, so I was expecting to see something great, yet when I viewed it, I was blown away. It has everything a football fan would want and all in one place! Breaking news, Live scores and results, All of the leagues news, articles, schedules, gossip columns and exclusive pictures!
Their new design and logo rocks by the way. Everything is set in a great layout with lots of drop-down menus for easy navigation. The picture above is not the whole thing, the main page is much longer with so much more information.
Oh, and it’s in both English and Arabic. I think this website is going to be HUGE!
The site will be launching tomorrow. They worked hard so make sure you let them know what you think!
I got this in an email and I just find this so interesting and want to share it with you guys. For those who can’t read arabic, I’m so sorry, I can’t translate the poem, and without the poem this post is meaningless to you guys.
You know the famous saying “ely yabeena 3ayat ilnafs tab’3eeh, wily nabeeh 3ayah albakhat layejeebah” ? I always thought it was just that, a famous saying, that has been used in songs, I didn’t know it was a verse in a poem, and that there was a story behind the poem. Here is the story:
There was a woman named Nora AlHoshan, who was married to Abod bin Suwalim. Nora and Abod had children together, but things went wrong and they ended up divorced. It was said that even after the divorce she still loved him dearly and longed for him, and that was the reason why she kept refusing the many suitors that came afterwards and did not accept any of the proposals.
One day, as she was walking with her kids near her Ex Husband’s farm, she saw him, and let her children go to their father to greet and talk to him while she stood far away waitingn. The kids came back shortly afterwards and they all walked away from the farm. Thats when she wrote her masterpiece of a poem.
We saw Paranormal Activity yesterday. We were 4 guys at the shalaih watching the movie and we couldn’t take our eyes off the tv (it was tense and spooky). The movie is about a couple who start hearing things: whispers and thuds in their living room and bedroom. They buy a video camera and start filming and waiting in hopes for things to happen so they could get them on video.
Things do happen. The whole movie is shot using this handheld camera technique which gives it a nice edge, and makes it kinda real.
Loved the suspense throughout the movie and the minimal affects. Disappointing ending though.
I didn’t know they were working on a sequel! I loved the first movie (I was skeptic and didn’t bother to watch it at first, but then when I did, I enjoyed it a lot). Iron Man 2 is to be released on May 7th of 2010 and I look forward to seeing it!
We, along with other blogs, got an e-mail with the video above from an asipiring Kuwaiti film maker, He wants us to share this video so you could watch it and give your opinion about their work at it’s early stages.
His email:
I’m one of the people who are working on a Kuwaiti film, and we would love to post the trailer on your blog so we can get feedback from the viewers before we move to the next step of production. We are a group of Kuwaiti youth who are interested in Film-making and cinema. We are trying to make serious Kuwaiti films, but since we are doing it ourselves and without any form of support, we need all the help that we can get.
Please watch the video above and tell us what you think.
This is the trailer for the movie “Precious” and It’s a movie about a heavy black girl who got pregnant twice by her father and suffered abuse throughout her life. The movie is already critically acclaimed and is getting heavy oscar buzz.
Mariah is playing a supporting role in this one as a social worker, Mrs Weiss. She’s been getting raving reviews and big praises from the critics. She already received an award for the “breakthrough performance” from the Palm Springs Film Festival.
I didn’t expect her to go forward with her career as an actress after the mess that was Glitter, but apparently she found a way to change people’s minds. Entertainment weekly wrote that she might be nominated for an oscar for best supporting actress.
Oprah Winfrey is backing this movie up and is an executive manager. Be on the lookout for this movie. I hope it gets released in Kuwait soon.
