Thursday, August 2, 2007

This and that.

Who wants to be a millionaire poet? - Fascinating news from the Arab world.

"Instead of love ballads sung by scantily clad singers, the contestants offered the rhyme and rhythm of a flowery style of the Bedouin poetry known as Nabatipopular in the Gulf but largely forgotten in much of the rest of the Arab world.

"You traitor of the tribe, my punishment to you is that I am sitting on this dark chair," began one contestant in a poem dedicated to Iraq. The audience roared and hooted as he continued. "You want to see me, but I have not yet settled the score."

The cultural rise of the Gulf is analogous to that of the U.S. South in recent decades, as country singers and Southern cooking have become part of broader pop culture. Much like the Southern drawl, the Gulf accent has fast entered the mainstream."

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Luna Park - a new blog devoted to reviews of little magazines. Here they put together a list of all the mags they could find in a week. Maybe someone should tell them about Dappled Things; they might review it.

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