Oct 25: Went to Volunteer Park along with my wonderful hosts. It’s a beautiful park with a water tower, a conservatory, the Seattle Asian Art Museum and the “Doughnut.” It’s located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Lots of coffee houses, beards, flannel shirts, hoodies, and bikes. Very counterculture. No wonder this was the epicenter of the grunge scene. An ad for yogurt at the Westlake station, en route to the Transit Tunnel: “If your dad was this smooth, you’d have more siblings.”
v early tomorrow morning off to seattle, vancouver, san francisco, palo alto and berkeley. 10 days, 5 cities, 3 flights, 3 hotels, one train ride across the border to canada, 4 screenings of A Thin Wall, and lots of friends to connect with. yay!
A THIN WALL is on the festival circuit. It will be shown at:
The Seattle South Asian Film Festival on Oct 25th
The 3rd i Film Festival in Palo Alto on Nov 1st
Please let friends and family know about these screenings on the West Coast. Hope to see you there.
i will be at UC berkeley on nov 2nd to screen “a thin wall,” my new film about the partition of india. west coast friends, hope to see u there!
Monday, November 2 at 5:00pm – 7:00pm PST
Conference Room of Center for Race & Gender, 691 Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley
loved vieux quebec – its unique architecture and hilly geography, its crowded streets, its lively shops and restaurants, its cozy neighborhoods, and its extremely friendly people. had the best food since paris at l’échaudé (rue du sault au matelot) and had some pretty good poutine too. nice little apt on rue lavigueur and wonderful weather the whole time we were there!
off to quebec this afternoon: chateau frontenac, dufferin terrace, st lawrence river, quartier petit champlain, plains of abraham, chute-montmorency, limoilou, l’ile d’orléans, lots of french, and hopefully excellent food. so much to do and so little time. happy labor day weekend!
Feb 17, 2015: The Ayo and Casibari rock formations here in Aruba are stunning, monolithic boulders and rocks which time and the elements have molded into smooth unusual shapes. However, what fascinated me most were 1500 year old native Arawak rock paintings. The Caquetio people of the Arawak tribe from the South American mainland were Aruba’s first inhabitants. Later we drove uphill to see the Alto Vista Chapel. The chapel was built in 1952, designed by Dutch engineer J.A. Hille, on the site of the first Catholic church built in Aruba in 1750 by a Spanish missionary, Domingo Antonio Silvestre. The chapel is beautifully simple and its location, on top of a hill, perfect for quiet contemplation. Yet i could not help but think of how the business of conversion took place here, a long time ago. I’ve just finished reading Laila Lalami’s “The Moor’s Account” a gem of a book for it tells the story of the Spanish colonization of the Americas but from the intriguing perspective of a conquistador’s Moroccan slave. One of the book’s tremendous achievements is a vivid description of and familiarization with the Americas’ native populations, in all their glorious diversity and complexity. I know that Aruba is a Dutch colony. How does that happen…
feb 14, 2015: THIS + 5 hours flight = THAT (commonly known as aruba)
travel expands our horizons and does much to restore our faith in humanity. here is a wonderful, interfaith tour of turkey led by omid safi, professor of asian and middle eastern studies at duke university and the director of duke’s islamic studies center. i’ve always wanted to go but the timing will not work out for me this year. it might for u. check it out here.
December 21, 2014
In Paris: Lovely people, Sunday mass at Notre Dame de Paris, dinner at a Lebanese restaurant run by an Iranian where I had manouche (similar to tandoori roti) with makanek (Lebanese beef sausage flavored with cumin) and broumana (semolina honey lemon syrup cake). Paris is all lit up and the weather is mild spring weather for us Rochesterians. So wonderful to be here.
December 23, 2014
So yesterday we checked out the Louvre and the I.M. Pei pyramid and stole a glance at the elusive Mona Lisa. We walked around the Eiffel Tower which begins to shimmer and glitter at dusk and loved the Christmas market along the Champs-Elysées (nothing like churros and a warm drink on a winter night). Kids were ice skating in a small, makeshift rink and there was Christmas music aplenty. We had dinner at a restaurant in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Today we checked out all the ostentatious gold at the Chateau de Versailles, took a rest after all the walking and then headed to Montmartre. The Sacré-Coeur is always magical and the views of the city from the butte Montmartre always stunning. But the best part of the day was getting together with my indefatigable activist friends, the brilliant Stephanie McCarthy and Raymond Deane! Here we are at Le Sancerre with our families. What’s not to love about Paris?
December 24, 2014
Merry Chirstmas everyone! Special wishes from Place Rossetti, in Nice. This beautiful video was shot by my son.
December 25, 2014
Today we drove to the picturesque towns of Villefranche-sur-Mer and Menton. It is nice and sunny here. Menton is so pleasant in fact that it is full of lemon and orange trees, heavy with fruit, throughout the year. I kept saying to my husband that I wouldn’t mind retiring in the South of France. That is until I read a comically awful article about the “djihad sexuel” which made beards and long hair synonymous with beheadings and rape. Seriously? That’s a bit much, even for Yahoo News in French. Below is a stunning picture taken by my daughter.
December 26, 2014
Visited Eze and Monte Carlo today. Was charmed by Eze. Some history: “Eze is a tiny walled village perched on the top of a 1400-foot peak overlooking the Mediterranean. The village claims to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in France, possibly dating from the 9th century B.C. Tradition has it that early Phoenician sailors chose the spot to build a temple to Isis, goddess of the sun, and that the town’s unusual name is derived from hers. The site’s obvious advantages of defensibility, nearby water and arable land, and a commanding view of the sea explain why a town was established and remained there, despite repeated attempts of invaders to conquer and destroy it.” Loved Le Jardin Exotique planted amidst the ruins of a 12th century Roman castle that crowns the village. Not only does it offer gorgeous views all the way to Saint-Tropez but it’s also alive with beguiling sculptures of Earth goddesses created by Jean-Philippe Richard. The sculptures have an elegant simplicity to them, a calm beauty that blends in with the garden (which is full of exotic cacti and plants from all over the world) and the rugged cliff that supports the village. Magnifique. Picture by my daughter.
December 27, 2014
Started the day with a visit to the Matisse Chapel, Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence. Matisse was quite old (77) when he started working on this project, which took 4 years to complete. He designed everything – from the chapel’s architectural rendering and stained glass windows, to the furniture and light fixtures. My favorite piece of art inside the chapel is the carved wooden door to the confessional, a perfect example of Matisse’s cut-outs. The patterns are inspired by Islamic art Matisse had come across in Morocco. Light from the chapel’s stained glass windows hits the door at such an angle that the confessional seems to be suffused with pink light, when in fact the room is completely white. Simple and elegant, stripped down yet full of the creative play between light and color, it’s the perfect place to be quiet and centered.
From Vence it was a short drive to St Paul de Vence, one of the most beautiful villages in the South of France, chock-full of art and sculpture. After a quick lunch at Cafe de la Place, we headed to Cannes. The Promenade de la Croisette was lit up and offered gorgeous views. I had some hearty soupe de poisson à la provençale and a piece of delicious tarte Tatin with vanilla ice cream at a cafe across from the boardwalk. It was getting dark by the time we got to Cannes but the sky was an incredible blue velvet, palm trees rustled in the wind, and people hurried along to their various destinations. A wonderful, lively scene.
December 28, 2014
Back to Paris after a very comfortable ride on the TGV. I wanted to check out the Pere Lachaise cemetery but it was closed by the time we got there. No problem. We had a lovely dinner at a bistro on Rue de la Roquette. I had magret de canard avec de la sauce aux canneberges et gratin Dauphinois. To die for! The tiramisu wasn’t half bad either. Tomorrow back to the US. Will miss France!
going on vacation tonight to re-discover paris and nice in the winter time. happy holidays to all my family and friends. i wish u peace, connectedness and beauty.
i lived in karachi for 4 years and was always awestruck by its diversity. it’s a huge melting pot of religions and cultures, languages and ethnicities, old and new immigrants, commerce and history. it’s constantly teeming with political tensions, economic disparities, and an ever increasing population boiling over its city limits. it’s violent and overwhelming and gritty in the way that nyc was when i moved here in the early 1990s. i wish i had been more familiar with karachi’s architectural side. for more on that, here is farooq soomro, the karachi wallah.
was at stony brook over the weekend. took a tour of the campus. after a delicious lunch at se-port deli (best sub i’ve ever had in my whole life), we had some bubble tea at the charles b wang center, “an international hub bringing asians and americans into a common space, a marketplace of ideas for the 21st century.” it is truly a beautiful space, filled with art and thought provoking ideas. i was immediately drawn to this wall and what it had to say about the veil. yay stony brook!
my documentary “pakistan one on one” was screened at hunerkada college of visual & performing arts in islamabad, pakistan, on oct 30, 2013. here are some pictures from that screening and trip.
