A Midsummer Night's Scheme
Friends, Ottomans, dragomen,
Forgive my rude intrusion. With the advent of midsummer and my forty-first year, I thought it apt to apprise you of developments concerning sultans, crocodiles and related phenomena.•
First, that mad newspaperman Mustafa Çorbacı has resolved to write a column. You may be familiar with Çorbacı from a certain, overrated Book of the Sultan’s Seal. In hopeless pursuit of the same meme, he has named his ephemeral effusions “Postmuslim”. Raising vaguely relevant questions only to leave them grossly un-dealt with would not be untypical. But if mildly psychotic speculation on being in Cairo today holds some promise of amusement, do humour the unfortunate lunatic by reading and sharing his 400 words.
In addition to being printed in Al-Ahram Weekly, “Postmuslim“ will appear in this space every Friday starting on July 7.
Secondly, intelligence concerning your correspondent:
My essay on homemade internet pornography and the Arab Spring is soon to be published as a book featuring colour photographs auf f***ing Deutsch. Arab Porn began life as an electronic “longread” with 60Pages. It is an honour to see it metamorphose into a Matthes & Seitz publication.
The space on which Çorbacı’s column will appear also contains new Arabic poetry and links to recent activities like this piece about being in Switzerland, this tête-à-tête with the inimitable May al-Ibrashy, and this political conversation with the intrepid Zachary Prong.
Finally, a number of you are yet to fulfil your promise of making a contribution of words or images to тнє ѕυℓтαη’ѕ ѕєαℓ, which awaits you with just as much patience as you’ve shown reading this message.
I am as ever your would-be lover and obedient servant,
Youssef Rakha
• The newsletter to which I have subscribed you will probably be bimonthly. My sincere apologies if it is unwanted or if you received this email in error.