He's always censored

This is an interview with theater professor Dr. Mahmoud El Lozy on his early theater journey and on his opinions about AUC and AUC students

BBC documentary

This is an interesting documentary on two refugees in London, their link was a memento, a keepsake of their former lives that gives them hope to hold on through their exile.

The 22.1 min documentary "memento", presented by Vera Frankl told capitvating accounts of these two lives. It started with melancholic background music that accompanied soundbytes of these two refugees talking about their precious objects.

The documentary started off smoothly, introducing Fungayi, a Zimbabwean political activist and musian, who goes every saturday to protest against his countrie's regime infront of the Zimbawean embassy in London. A natsound of people singing and playing african tunes is heard, which is very lively and colorful.

Then a long interview was conducted with Funagyi, which was captivating because of his voice. Although it was long, Fungayi's storytelling technique made the story flow easily.

Then introducing the next subject, there was an awkward transition in the middle, and then Caty from Uganda was introduced, whose only remains of her former life is a picture of her two daughters that she hasn't seen in a long while. Here the documentary started to drag on. It felt too long and I lost concentartaion several times, her story was nonetheless very interesting and moving. Her voice trembled a bit in the middle, which gave life and images to the sound.

I would suggest that the documentary should be divided in two parts. I know, that the whole documentary was a part two of another one, but I would've suggested that they made several documentaries, sort of like a series.

Other than the length, I think it lacked natsound. It started off beautifully, with music and natsounds but throughout the end, there was only interview, which is one of the reasons I felt that it dragged too much.

Overall, it was very good. Descriptive and poignant, with lots of different anecdotes that gave the subjects a face and a soul.

Languages and Identity crises

Today's podcast is about on my mini identity crisis on how I find it much easier to write in english than in arabic and how much this frustrates me

Pretentious artlovers

This has been on my mind for a while.
How can you make sure that someone's art is genuine?
I guess you don't.
What I can know is whether I like something or not.
Pearls Before Breakfast is the 2007 Pulizer Prize winning feature article and I also believe it is one of the best articles I've read in my life, because not only is it well written but its idea is also very innovative.
It's basically about this world famous violinist, Joshua Bell, who performed on a subway wearing clothes that would hide his identity. Very few people actually took a moment to listen to him, while everyone else was hurrying towards his job.
When I read the article I thought of those many people who would attend a concert by Joshua Bell, because that would sound sophisticated, yet might pass him by on the street without noticing.

There are so many works that are considered works of art that I didn't really like and was ashamed of it for while. I thought that I wasn't smart enough or something, but just recently I realized how much it doesn't matter and that I should only like what I understand and what touches me in a way.

here's to pretentious people everywhere:



This is one the most brilliant scenes ever

People's stupidity never fails to surprise me

According to an article quranic verses are magically appearing on this boy's body.

"The TV channel reported that Ali was first diagnosed with "ischemic heart disease of the second degree" and "infantile cerebral paralysis" in the maternity clinic. However, after the inexplicable events began happening, he was examined again and found healthy. The incident has been drawing hundreds of Dagestani Muslims to Ali's home everyday, prompting local authorities to guard the house round-the-clock," according to press tv.

The strangest thing about it is not the story itself but the comments.
I can't believe that some people would be so stupid to believe something like this.
The comments are actually funny:

"how some peoples dare to say it is tatto ,or mahandi PLZ MR MIKE READ QURAN . THEN YOU CAN JUDGE ABOUT THIS BABY. can u ask yourself, why ISLAm is gowing fast in EDUCATED PEOPLES , who force them to convert ?? plz mr mike i advise u to read QURAN"

"The power, might and glory of The Almighty, The One, is written over, in and out of every thing. This is only a more visual confirmation. Of that truth for the children of Adam (humans) and The children of Jaan (jiins) who NEED to be litteraly taught that too obvious truth. Allah knows better than anyone. May The Almighty increase his prosperity, peace and strengh on his faithful servants , the blesserd followers of Muhammad The last Messenger and Hope of The worlds."

This reminds me of another news item I read a while ago about a woman, who sued an egyptian hotel because her daughter got pregnant by swimming in their pool.
Yeah right! I'm sure that sperms just float around in pools and just penetrate our swimming suits go inside the vagina and miracoulsly a baby is formed. That's too much work for the sperm don't you think?

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
Albert Einstein

PSA (HCV campaign)

The secrets of Mole

Picture taken by Shannon Young

October 10 2009
Mexico
The secrets of Mole is a 6:20 long feature by Shannon Young on World Vision report. Mole is a type f mexican sauce that consists of different spices, nuts and chocolate among other ingredients, which was very intersting to me seing how this combination is not very familiar or easy to imagine.

In this report Shannon young visits Rosalba Ramos, a Mole maker, at her home to watch the process of Mole making. The whole family is involved in the proceess and the secret recipe is passed down from one generation to the next.
The report is rich with nat sounds, I could almost picture them cooking. I liked how vibrant the report is and how engaged Shannon Young is with her subjects, she even coughs when they add some spices.

Not only is she physically engaged, she also seems to have gained Rosalba's trust since she was asked not to publish the secret recipe.
The report ends with a mexican song La Cumbia del Mole (English Version) by Lila Downs, which seemed very relevant to the topic and created the perfect ending.
There was also a slideshow with the report that gave the story some additional visuals.

NPR vs. BBC

I couldn't get her name that's how I heard it and I repeated it several times:
Lak shmi sin (4:46 min) from NPR
NPR reported on the gay rights demonstration and Obama's speech adressing the issue of openly gays not being allowed in th military, it also reported on the assault on Pakistanis, a plane crash, Hilary Clinton' visit to Ireland and Edgar Allan Poe's much belated funeral.
The report was good and selected a wide range of topics but it lacked nat sounds, even though it adressed some live reports. The anchor's voice was clear and vibrant.

Sue Diamond from BBC news also reported on the gay rights demonstartion, the Pakistani assault, Afghanistan's election, normalization between Armenia and Turkey, on Hilary Clinton's declaration that Pakistani Taliban poses a threat, Baghdad suicide attack, palestian children not supplied with textbooks and school supplies and the death of the member of british boyband Boyzone.
The BBCnews report was much more thorough and detailed, it also included two soundbites, one by Hamid Kerzai, Afghanistan's president and the other one by Hilary Clinton. Sue Diamond's voice was clear but it was also hurried, which made me lose track in the middle.

What I liked more about the NPR newscast is the fact that it was concise and only gave out the news headline, whereas the BBC one was more thorough, which might be good for print journalism but not for radio. However, I think th BBC report incorporaed more stories, one of which had feature elements (the palestinan school kids one) and I liked that.

Languages I never knew existed

My grandfather's driver at the office drives me to university sometimes. We never really talked, until yesterday. One the way to uni he got a call and then I found him uttering words that I culdn't comprehend. A language I've never heard or known before. When he hung up I just couldn't stay silent, curiousty was getting the better of me. "What's the language that you were just talking?" I asked. "It's kenzy," he replied "that's our language in el Nouba where I come from" (el nouba is a place in upper Egypt). "So is that language common?" he told me that it wasn't and that different tribes have different language "Not all Nubians understand themselves"
He started recounting stories from his childhood on how kids made fun of him when he talked, he thought everyone understood that language. He told me he was living at the borders of Sudan, his family had to move after the high dam was built. "The new generation do not know the language," he said "My children don't know how to speak the language. When I talk to my wife infront of them they ask us to talk arabic."

And here I am thinking that alll egyptians talk arabic. Naturally! It's so great to see how diverse people are even within your own borders.I always knew there were tribes and I also knew that not all egyptians are like the cairenes (not that all cairenes are alike), but I had no idea that there's a completely different language here. Not a dialact.

Nat Sound Assignment

Doinjg this assignment I realized that there are lots of sounds that I've missed because I wasn't carrying the recorder with me all the time.

Sounds that I wanted to capture:
1-kickboxing training, the sound of punching the sandbags and Rocky music in the background
2-At deals on the day of the match between Egypt and France, people cheering and a lot of noise
3-the sound of a harley bike
4- the sound of a wedding on the street ( i actually had a recorder with me but there was a man shouting "what are you doing?" so it interefered with the sound of the wedding.

Sounds I've actually captured:
-A girls' basketball practise at the gezira club (7 sec)
-the sound of honking cars (9 sec)
-the sound of the car being washed (8 sec)
-the sound of MSN and typing (10 sec)
-the sound of the TV show 'how I met your mother' (9 sec)
-the sound of the muezzin at the fajr prayer (13 sec)
-the sound of the alarm clock (11 sec)