“I think there’s something about America that makes people crazy.” That’s what Alaa said as he scanned the headlines of the New York Times: “Gunman slays 6 at N. Illinois University.” And “Attacks on the Homeless Rise, With Youths Mostly to Blame” “What else would make people do things like that?” he asked. Every culture …
On Monday evening, the International Center for Journalists introduced its new class of Knight International Journalism Fellows. The six new fellows were feted at an event at George Washington University’s Jack Morton Auditorium. The evening also featured a screening of four documentaries produced by my workshop trainees and graduate students in Egypt last year. The …
Bromhidrosis. That’s the medical diagnosis for foul underarm odor. I learned that today at the doctor’s office. It wasn’t my diagnosis, mind you. But the doctor did point it out, among the list of hundreds of ailments and diseases that lined the computer printout he has been compiling for years. “I once had a patient …
In the latest edition of The Indypendent, the online newspaper of the NYC Independent Media Center, reporter Amy Wolf wrote a story about our recent New York premiere of the documentaries by students I taught at the American University in Cairo last year. The story features an interview with Alaa Al Dajani, one of the …
In this month’s edition of Budget Travel (available on newsstands now), I reported a piece for the magazine’s Dream Trips issue, about the stunning ruins of Petra in Jordan. You may remember hearing about my trip there last year. The story is less narrative, more service journalism — a site by site description of what …
On today’s nytimes.com site, a video I produced with Michael Slackmanand Mona El-Naggar accompanies Michael’s thoughtful and well-told story about how across the Middle East, many young people are forced to put off marriage, the gateway to independence. In their frustration they turn to religion for solace. We meet a young man named Eid, who has …
Tonight, we screened seven of the films from my documentary courses in Egypt at a special event sponsored by the American University in Cairo and the International Center for Journalists. It was a posh event at the fancy screening room of the Tribeca Grand Hotel. The audience was set to be a sellout, until the …
AUC Films Screened in Tribeca… and Live Blogged! Read More »
There were white patches on the campus sidewalks today. I noticed them as I walked from my office to go check out the gymnasium fitness center and sign up for a membership. I still haven’t worked off my “Cairo 10,” the flab that glommed onto me during my year of rich food and poor exercise …
My first move was to open up a Netflix account. That shows you where my priorities are. Top of the queue: films that didn’t make it to Cairo — Pan’s Labyrinth; Eastern Promises; Knocked Up. Since this is the first time in a year and a half that I’ve had a U.S. address where I’ll …
In Cairo, just around the corner from the building where I lived for nearly a year, is a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf franchise. It’s in the Om Kalthoum building (named for the famous Egyptian singer who rose to international stardom in the 1950s and whose house used to sit on the site of what …