“So wuddya think?” said the kid who brought me a photocopied sheet of paper.
This is amazing, I shrieked!
“Thought you might like it, being the artist and all.”
Can I borrow it and bring it back to you in a couple days? Just to make my own copy.
“Sure,” he said.
Later that day during recess, I sat with the thing and fiddled with it in a feeble attempt to understand the magic behind how it worked. How is it even possible that a simple sheet of paper featuring four pigs laid out in grid, when folded a certain way, would magically turn into the face of Saddam Hussein?! What strange sorcery was this?!
From the latest RESTRICTED FREQUENCY. Issue #223: Insidious Swine. Sign-up page can be found at Ganzeer.com/newsletter
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For as long as I can remember, I'd come across an interesting Japanese tradition or philosophy of some kind that can be summed up in one word; things like Wabi-Sabi: finding beauty in imperfection and transience, Ikigai: the intersection of passion, mission, vocation, and profession that culminates in the reason for being, or Kaizen: continuous improvement through small, incremental changes. Fascinated, I often wondered if other cultures also had their share of single-word philosophies, ignored for one reason or another by the international gaze (if we can call it that). Over the course of the past few months though, I have come to realize that Egypt almost certainly boasts at least one such tradition: Karwata.
Read more in the latest RESTRICTED FREQUENCY, #222: Karwata.
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After a bit of a [accidental] hiatus, the newsletter is back with issue #221: Because Cairo.
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Here's a link to the web edition of the latest RESTRICTED FREQUENCY – 219: The Great Shi(f)t is Upon Us.
In other news, one of my bookshelves made the Shelfies newsletter. Really delightful initiative by authors Jared Shurin and Lavie Tidhar.
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A new RESTRICTED FREQUENCY is scheduled. Titled The Great Shi(f)t is Upon Us, it goes out in about 15 hours.
Here's the link to the previous RESTRICTED FREQUENCY – 218: Between Venice, Rome, and Cairo
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“Footsteps on cobblestone bounce off the walls in Venetian passageways. Aside from the sound of the occasional motorboat, there isn't much else to be heard on the streets of Venice; A much welcomed change of ambiance for someone who does not drive but hails from a world dominated by cars and multi-lane motorways. In Venice, wherever your eyes fall, there is only beauty to be seen.”
From issue 218 of RESTRICTED FREQUENCY, scheduled to go out late this evening.
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A new RESTRICTED FREQUENCY is out! It is issue #217, and in it the question of cultural funding is explored.
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Newsletter scheduled to send in a few hours from now. This will be issue #213 and its title is The [Inherent] Evil of Techno-Optimism, and just as it says on the tin, its main feature is a [partial] takedown of Marc Anderseen's horrendous The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.
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A snack and dishes before tending to those. Would like to kick the weekend off with a clean slate. Sumud for Palestine tomorrow.
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