Directorial Debut
Though I do not read much political or historical fictions, I chanced upon Paul Bowles' The Spider's House1. The book was a compelling read2 with its memorable characters and setting of Fez, Morocco circa 1950's; Morocco gained independence from France in 1955. As I read the book, I could not help but play casting agent for the main characters in my fantasy book-to-movie directorial debut:
On with our featured presentation ...
I must have been very good last year, as Papa Noel surprised me with a present early this week: I now have a bike! I got a call from the Peace Corps/Morocco office telling me to go to the maHatta dyal tobisat [bus station] and sign for a package; there was no additional details and I did not think to ask. On arrival, I told the guy at the CTM7 counter that I was expecting a package. After showing my passport, he signaled me to come into the storage room. I was thrilled to have received my bike (and helmet8) because I wanted to explore more of the town but was limited due to the size of the town (a big site is not a bad thing, mind you).
As I road outside of town, I noticed the red- and pink-coloured9 homes on the outskirt of Khemisset. I had not noticed this until now; my attention was probably focused elsewhere. I want to wander this neighborhood some other time.
Riding not too far outside of Khemisset's medina [city center], I came upon a graveyard. This is possibly a non-Moslem graveyard, as some of the headstones had non-Moslem names; however, all inscriptions were in both Arabic scripts and Roman letters.
A bike affords more freedom to see more of my site and the surrounding areas. Biking due east on a major road, I came upon a magnificent view of the Middle Atlas mountains; I decided to have a picnic of Sidi Ali-brand10 l'mar [water], khobz [bread] and zitoon [olives].
1. This is not a book report; I enjoy doing book reports as much as squeezing lemons on paper-cuts. English-language books are rare in Morocco; thus, they circulate within the volunteer community with gusto.
2. Parts of the book reads like a cheesy, poorly-written Danielle Steel romantic novel as it hints at the attraction between Stenham and Burroughs-Veyron. Take these excerpts for examples:
4. Moss is a male character in the book, but is not necessary for my movie.
5. I can see Kidman delivering this line - oh wait, wasn't this the line that caused the divorce from Tom?
6. Rumour has it that the Jolie-Pitt love-child is on its way.
7. CTM is a government-run bus and shipping system within Morocco. Though the CTM bus does not pick up people in my town, there is a service counter for shipping and receiving goods.
8. Wearing a helmet while on a bike is mandatory; a matter of fact, this is one of six policies that can get a volunteer sent home if not observed. For the record, I choose neither the colour of the bike nor helm. Since wearing the helm is mandatory, I stand out like a sore thumb when biking around town (I have yet to come across anyone, except a Peace Corps Volunteer, using a helmet in Morocco); at least the hot pepper coloured bike draws fire away from the fact that I am wearing the teal-coloured helm; the colour of the helm matches the colour of the handle-bars, at least someone at the Peace Corps/Morocco office has a sense of style. The helm is really not fashionable, but is needed in a town where cars, mopeds/scooters, grand/petite taxis, intercity/village/souk buses, donkeys, horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians share the roads; I have yet to see camels in Khemisset.
9. My site covers a large area, and I can be outside of the main town and still have not broken the "Out-of-Site" policy. This is neither a trickery of Photoshop nor the effects of the long-shadowed winter sun.
10. Not that anyone care, but I found out recently that Pepsi bottles and markets this water.
- John Stenham (British expat novelist living in Fez with a questionable past): Denzel Washington, Rupert Everett, Tom Hanks, David Duchovny
Amar (intelligent, but illiterate, impressionable Moroccan youth): Frankie Muniz3
Polly "Lee" Burroughs-Veyron (American expat with a link to the Communist Party living in Paris, "sight-seeing" Morocco): Halle Berry, Drew Barrymore, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman, Selma Blair
Moss (eccentric American expat entrepreneur who downplays having a vast fortune)4: Anthony Hopkins, Whoopi Goldberg, Burt Reynolds, Robin Williams, Kathy Bates, Michael Douglas, Jack Nicholson
- "Even the smallest measure of time is greater than the greatest measure of space."
- "'But suppose you were sick .. and your wife had to go out and get medicine or help for you?' 'At night, alone? Never!' 'But if she did?' 'Then she would run the risk of being killed, and it would serve her right.'" [conversation between Stenham and a local]
- "'They say you can't tell any man that you don't find him sexually attractive, that a woman's whole success in life is based on the principle of making every man feel that given the right circumstances she'd rush to bed with him. But I think there must be a few men bright enough to hear the news without going into a fit of depression. Don't you think so?'"5
- "'Your venom isn't really insulting, you know,' she told him. 'It has no focus. If you really want to be really nasty, at least you've got to be conscious of the other person.'"
- "For Polly Burroughs had the makings of a good journalist. She believed that, assuming one had open eyes and an open mind, one needed only to be on the spot in order to capture the truth. If anyone had discussed it with her, she would have maintained that a photograph was nearer to reality than a painting, because it was objective."
- "The intellect is the soul's pimp."
- "Moroccans were much like anyone else, and very little of value would be lost in the destruction of their present culture, because its design would be worth less than the sum of the individuals who composed it -- the same as in any Western country."
- "He [Amar] could not choose sides because the part of his consciousness which dealt with the choosing of sides had long ago been paralyzed by having chosen that which was designed to suspend all possibility of choice. And that was perhaps fortunate, he told himself, because it enabled him to remain at a distance from both evils, and thus to keep in mind the fact of the evil."
- "Any kind of change in their rhythm disoriented the people, because their lives were entirely a matter of rhythmic repetition, and failure to observe a prescribed ritual brought its own terrible psychological consequences, for then the people felt they were no longer in Allah's grace, and if they felt that, very little mattered to them -- they would do whatever was suggested to them."
- "The concept of independence was easily confused with that of social equity."
On with our featured presentation ...
I must have been very good last year, as Papa Noel surprised me with a present early this week: I now have a bike! I got a call from the Peace Corps/Morocco office telling me to go to the maHatta dyal tobisat [bus station] and sign for a package; there was no additional details and I did not think to ask. On arrival, I told the guy at the CTM7 counter that I was expecting a package. After showing my passport, he signaled me to come into the storage room. I was thrilled to have received my bike (and helmet8) because I wanted to explore more of the town but was limited due to the size of the town (a big site is not a bad thing, mind you).
As I road outside of town, I noticed the red- and pink-coloured9 homes on the outskirt of Khemisset. I had not noticed this until now; my attention was probably focused elsewhere. I want to wander this neighborhood some other time.
Riding not too far outside of Khemisset's medina [city center], I came upon a graveyard. This is possibly a non-Moslem graveyard, as some of the headstones had non-Moslem names; however, all inscriptions were in both Arabic scripts and Roman letters.
A bike affords more freedom to see more of my site and the surrounding areas. Biking due east on a major road, I came upon a magnificent view of the Middle Atlas mountains; I decided to have a picnic of Sidi Ali-brand10 l'mar [water], khobz [bread] and zitoon [olives].
1. This is not a book report; I enjoy doing book reports as much as squeezing lemons on paper-cuts. English-language books are rare in Morocco; thus, they circulate within the volunteer community with gusto.
2. Parts of the book reads like a cheesy, poorly-written Danielle Steel romantic novel as it hints at the attraction between Stenham and Burroughs-Veyron. Take these excerpts for examples:
- "Even in the half-light, they were visible, the smears of red paints that whores and Nazarene women used on their lips, and the flower smell came up in a heavy invisible cloud from the bed."
"And now, when she saw his smile, she knew in a flash what had changed; she knew that even though she still thought that smile faintly fatuous, it did not repel her. With her gesture of hostility she had brought herself within his orbit."
"And anyway, she thought, as she felt his hands moving softly along her flesh (as if she were a tree and they were the tendrils of a creeping parasitic plant), what sort of man was it who would take such a blatantly unfair advantage?"
"It was as if the night, in her death agony, were making a final, desperate effort to assert herself by creating as much darkness as she could."
4. Moss is a male character in the book, but is not necessary for my movie.
5. I can see Kidman delivering this line - oh wait, wasn't this the line that caused the divorce from Tom?
6. Rumour has it that the Jolie-Pitt love-child is on its way.
7. CTM is a government-run bus and shipping system within Morocco. Though the CTM bus does not pick up people in my town, there is a service counter for shipping and receiving goods.
8. Wearing a helmet while on a bike is mandatory; a matter of fact, this is one of six policies that can get a volunteer sent home if not observed. For the record, I choose neither the colour of the bike nor helm. Since wearing the helm is mandatory, I stand out like a sore thumb when biking around town (I have yet to come across anyone, except a Peace Corps Volunteer, using a helmet in Morocco); at least the hot pepper coloured bike draws fire away from the fact that I am wearing the teal-coloured helm; the colour of the helm matches the colour of the handle-bars, at least someone at the Peace Corps/Morocco office has a sense of style. The helm is really not fashionable, but is needed in a town where cars, mopeds/scooters, grand/petite taxis, intercity/village/souk buses, donkeys, horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians share the roads; I have yet to see camels in Khemisset.
9. My site covers a large area, and I can be outside of the main town and still have not broken the "Out-of-Site" policy. This is neither a trickery of Photoshop nor the effects of the long-shadowed winter sun.
10. Not that anyone care, but I found out recently that Pepsi bottles and markets this water.
tags: peace corps.africa.morocco
another point of view ...
hey nam - careful not to crash your bike into a PARKED car like you did a few years ago in golden gate park! though your pride was injured, i thought it was very good of you to have a good laugh over the whole thing.
Nice bike! Mine was stolen 2 weeks ago *cry* [bikenapping is the #1 crime in holland].
I agree, "the intellect is the soul's pimp" - that also means a great number of bloggers [since the doorway of intelligence is partly through writing] have been pimping each other, haha!
Will email you later okay.
CHRISTOPHER: i can't believe you would bring that up, that was so long ago. only you would remember something like that!
THE DUTCHED PINAY: well, at least the #1 crime in holland isn't violent! all serious aside, stealing is just bad -- shows there's no respect for other's belongings. i hope you get a new one soon. i remember walking around amsterdam and seeing all the bike lanes. it would be sad if you could not see more of your town, or the beautiful country-side, for lack of a bicycle.
i'm still not sure about the whole blogging thing - i continue to just do it as part of my "service" to the peace corps - i'll expand another time. and, looking forward to your email!
I got my bike stolen while I was a Peace Corps volunteer, too. It was a very sad day. I wrote a haiku about it, which helped.
Enjoy!
I read "The Spider's House" a few years ago and always wanted to go to Morocco, but never made the time. Reading your blog makes me want to plan for a trip. Good luck in '06! - Stacey (you better know who this this)
SCOTT: oh, sorry to hear about your stolen bike, did the peace corps issue you a new bike? and did you have to pay for the stolen one? i realize the answers be different because of time and geographic program, but i was curious. i'll have to email soon - got a bunch of questions.
STACY H: oh, had no idea you read it, never actually saw it in your reading piles - yeah, i checked out your reading material when i was house-sitting. and you better come visit soon!
~LOL~ Hysterical post. I thought you got OUT of marketing, though. *BG*
Fave quote: "'Your venom isn't really insulting, you know,' she told him. 'It has no focus. If you really want to be really nasty, at least you've got to be conscious of the other person.'"
So difficult to achieve in this life.
As a Japanese tea master quoted by A.L. Sadler in his Cho No Yu book put it (I can't find the page so will paraphrase): Virtue is what every child of three knows and what every philospher of eighty cannot accomplish.
FRANKYSBRIDE: i can't say that i'm ever truly done with marketing. it has been so rewarding!
I do not know much about the japanese tea master you quoted, but am interested and will be searing the web for more info, sounds interesting.
Hi guys,I happened to find this blog for a pure chance, but I found it pretty interestingKeep up the good workRichardCycling Tours Asia
speak up!
hey nam - careful not to crash your bike into a PARKED car like you did a few years ago in golden gate park! though your pride was injured, i thought it was very good of you to have a good laugh over the whole thing.
Jo Travels
Nice bike! Mine was stolen 2 weeks ago *cry* [bikenapping is the #1 crime in holland].
I agree, "the intellect is the soul's pimp" - that also means a great number of bloggers [since the doorway of intelligence is partly through writing] have been pimping each other, haha!
Will email you later okay.
Nam LaMore
CHRISTOPHER: i can't believe you would bring that up, that was so long ago. only you would remember something like that!
THE DUTCHED PINAY: well, at least the #1 crime in holland isn't violent! all serious aside, stealing is just bad -- shows there's no respect for other's belongings. i hope you get a new one soon. i remember walking around amsterdam and seeing all the bike lanes. it would be sad if you could not see more of your town, or the beautiful country-side, for lack of a bicycle.
i'm still not sure about the whole blogging thing - i continue to just do it as part of my "service" to the peace corps - i'll expand another time. and, looking forward to your email!
I got my bike stolen while I was a Peace Corps volunteer, too. It was a very sad day. I wrote a haiku about it, which helped.
Enjoy!
I read "The Spider's House" a few years ago and always wanted to go to Morocco, but never made the time. Reading your blog makes me want to plan for a trip. Good luck in '06! - Stacey (you better know who this this)
Nam LaMore
SCOTT: oh, sorry to hear about your stolen bike, did the peace corps issue you a new bike? and did you have to pay for the stolen one? i realize the answers be different because of time and geographic program, but i was curious. i'll have to email soon - got a bunch of questions.
STACY H: oh, had no idea you read it, never actually saw it in your reading piles - yeah, i checked out your reading material when i was house-sitting. and you better come visit soon!
Unknown
~LOL~ Hysterical post. I thought you got OUT of marketing, though. *BG*
Fave quote: "'Your venom isn't really insulting, you know,' she told him. 'It has no focus. If you really want to be really nasty, at least you've got to be conscious of the other person.'"
So difficult to achieve in this life.
As a Japanese tea master quoted by A.L. Sadler in his Cho No Yu book put it (I can't find the page so will paraphrase): Virtue is what every child of three knows and what every philospher of eighty cannot accomplish.
Nam LaMore
FRANKYSBRIDE: i can't say that i'm ever truly done with marketing. it has been so rewarding!
I do not know much about the japanese tea master you quoted, but am interested and will be searing the web for more info, sounds interesting.
Hi guys,I happened to find this blog for a pure chance, but I found it pretty interestingKeep up the good workRichardCycling Tours Asia
speak up!
previous 10 posts:
- Reflections Upon Reflections
- Personal Portal: Morocco
- McHappy in Morocco
- That Time of Year
- Make Mine Khemisset!
- Crossing the Line
- Credit Where Due
- The Assignment
- The Gaza Strip (not really)
- The Secret Kitchen
