Café de Flore, Paris

Continuing our coffee qnd dqte tasting series, here in Saint Germain des Pres, with the finest of service, well dressed waiters in their long white aprons and black vest coats, with the perfectly white napkins replaced by the yellow paper napkins now at Les Deux Magots, ... we continue.

Rashudiyya. these long, brown dates have a bamboo-like, cane suger-like taste. The smells are like the dry surface plants of the desert, and the surface of the date is a bit flakey. Inside, the date is soft and has a little hint of bitterness in its taste. It is sweet, yet bitter at the same time. It is like eating dark chocolate with minimal suger, although one is sure there is plenty of natural sugar in Rashudiyya dates. Interestingly, the root verb ra-sha-da, in Arabic is the word for guide, and gives us the name for the first four "good" or "righteous" caliphs, khulafa' al-Rashidiin, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali-. The plural of rashiid (رشيد), which means "rightly guided," "having the true faith," reasonable, intelligent, discriminating, mature (in Hans Wehr); ---the plural of rashiid is rushada' (رشداء), meaning "full legal age," mature (in Hans Wehr), is also the name of the famous North Egyptian town in the Delta, Rosetta, where the "Rosetta stone" was found. The Rosette Stone gave the key to Champollion to decipher Pharaonic Hieroglyphs.

Café de Flore, Paris

Coffee and date tasting at Café de Flore, continued tonight past midnight on my birthday.

Khudrii, which means "greengrocer" in Hans Wehr, but comes from the root verb "green"--خضري-- in Arabic. These dates are somewhat dry and hard, once they are demi-sec, one might say, like a fine red wine. Fine Khadri --خضري فاخر--are less expensive than fine 'ajwa or Rashudiya, and they are perhaps more of the common man's date. But, being somewhat more dry than the sticky dates, the pit comes out easily from your mouth and your fingers don't get sticky

The taste is less sweet, and more like a fiber cereal than other, more expensive dates. Khadri have a slightly muddy, kind of starchy, dry, earthy taste. This is really a fine woody taste (like the fine woods for making perfume in Arabia, i.e. 'oud--عود) with a hint of far-away Michigan oak-tree and acorn nut tannins and an easily identifiable fresh ginger taste.

Café de Flore, Paris

All accounts of gallantry shall be from Café de Flore, or Les deux Magots--better--in St. Germain des Pres.

Prime "ajwa"--soft "paste-like" black dates from Medina. These dates have a very rich, chocolaty texture with a hint of desert sage and woody tannins.

Best tasted with good Ethiopian or Yemen roasted-"torrified" to a very light brown, or with the southern Arabian preference of nearly unroasted, "green" coffee with cardamon.

Re-cap of the different coffee shops--Addison and Steele's, The Tatler

Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.

I once more desire my readers to consider that as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Flore’s under two euros each day merely for his charges, to Fishawi’s under six rials, nor to the Shati without allowing him some plain American, to be as able as others at the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even Tuna (sandwich from the vending machine) at McNamara’s without clean paper napkins; I say, these considerations will, I hope, make all persons willing to comply with my humble request (when my gratis stock is exhausted) of a “visit-with-advertisement” a piece; especially since they are sure of some proper amusement, and that it is impossible for me to want means to entertain them, having, besides the helps of my own parts, the power of divination, and that I can, by casting a figure, tell you all that will happen before it comes to pass.

“All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under
the article of White's Chocolate-house;[57] poetry, under that of Will's
Coffee-house;[58] learning, under the title of Grecian;[59] foreign and
domestic news, you will have from St. James's Coffee-house;[60] and what
else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own
apartment.

I once more desire my readers to consider that as I cannot keep an
ingenious man to go daily to Will's under twopence each day merely
for his charges,[61] to White's under sixpence, nor to the Grecian
without allowing him some plain Spanish,[62] to be as able as others at
the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even
Kidney[63] at St. James's without clean linen; I say, these
considerations will, I hope, make all persons willing to comply with my
humble request (when my gratis stock is exhausted) of a penny a piece;
especially since they are sure of some proper amusement, and that it is
impossible for me to want means to entertain them, having, besides the
helps of my own parts, the power of divination, and that I can, by
casting a figure, tell you all that will happen before it comes to pass.”
Tatler, Steele Tuesday, April 12, 1709

Even though I have removed all references to Project Gutenberg, this was nicely pasted in from the Project Gutenberg Tatler, which says, "This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net".
posted by 3011 @ 12/01/2005

MacNamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine snackroom honors Mohamed Bouazizi

Rising food prices and unemployment sparked protests in Tunisia last December, which grew larger after the death of Mohammad Bouazizi, who burned himself to death in protest when police arrested him for selling food without a permit. His death was the tinder box for the beginning of protests, forced the President, Zein ed-Din bin Ali, to leave the country. Protests continue to this day calling for a new republic without traces of the old regime.

from my appartment

Al-Arabiyya montre le vieux Jimmy Carter au Sudan, mais les grandes Chaines imperialistes, CNN et BBC ne le montre pas. Ah, Jimmy, c'est toi, avec ton evangelisme chretien qui a eu l'idee de virer de l'aide militaire pour le sud du Sudan pour bientot mettre Darfour au pieges de tes amis dans les grands societes de Petrol. Maintenant les imperialists mangent les fruits de leurs efforts a diviser le Sudan pour bien avoir un petit protectorat pour "leur" petrol, et, en plus, un autre base militaire americain pres du base de Djibouti.

Pensee du 13 janvier 2011

...bien que il y a de l'avncement politique dans les droits des opprimees ethniques du sud Sudan, en meme temps et ca n'est pas tout a fait bon pour les imperialists, non, plus. C'est pour cela que maintenant Jimmy est avec Bashir, au nord pour verifier qu'il y aura toujours du conflit dans la region. Que les imperialsists sont complexe dans l'epoque de leur declin!

Shati Tea and Falafel Shop

Terrible storms all day today and tonight, affecting the coast and the interior of Gaza.

Starbucks, Doha--a suburb of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Voici ma premiere connection wifi avec mon HP Mini netbook. Je suis a Starbucks, Doha. Je dois vite quitter pour aller a Farm 5 acheter du poisson.
A bientot sur Qahawi Al-Bahr Al-Abyad Al-Mutawasat

Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza

We're outraged that the state of Israel can't even take good care of the land they've stolen. There is a fire burning the area of Palestine behind Haifa and the jerks running Israel can't put it out.

Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza-du marché de Gaza, en direct

image left: oil pipelines in the desert, photo taken from the airport bus between Dammam International Airport and the Saudi ARAMCO compound in Dhahran.

Ci joint, le rapportage de Hanan Al-Masri, de Gaza à la télévision Al-Arabiya.
The Israeli governement has announced that next Thursday, Israel will announce that some formerly prohibited items will be lifted--a decision that is not worthy of mentioning:
قرارٌ لا تُرى الحكومة المقالة اهمية تُذكَر

Most food and drink still comes through Egypt, she says. I will attempt to transcribe the rest of her report today at a later time. Enjoy listening to her nice Palestinian accent and the accents of the women she interviews in the main market of Gaza city while you read my blog today on the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Saudi Arabia.


The media in the US is mostly covering the oil spill. The coverage is too American. It distracts from the ecological disaster that imperialism causes in Africa and the Middle East. The citing of Thomas Sankara's speech to the Paris Tree conference is much more appropriate:

Nor can the worked-up consciences of a multitude of forums and institutions—sincere and praiseworthy though they may be—make the Sahel green again, when we lack the funds to drill wells for drinking water a hundred meters deep, while money abounds to drill oil wells three thousand meters deep!

As Karl Marx said, those who live in a palace do not think about the same things, nor in the same way, as those who live in a hut. This struggle to defend the trees and forests is above all a struggle against imperialism. Because imperialism is the arsonist setting fire to our forests and our savannas. Paris, Feb. 5, 1986



It should be pointed out that the Oil pushed out from under the sands of the Middle East Countries, comes at the price of millions of gallons of precious well water. The Oasis of Al-Hasa, near ARAMCO in Dhahran is nearly depleted of water because of the huge amounts of water needed to push the oil up from under the desert. The Island of Bahrain used to be all oasis, but now is dry because so much water was used to push out the oil. I guess it is the huge tonnage of water in the Gulf of Mexico which allows offshore oil to be extracted so cheaply. It is this very tonnage of water which keeps the oil gushing out without the Americans having to spend on water pumping, or having to deplete their natural water supply, as the Saudis have to do, in order to keep up with Exxon's and Chevron's, and the other big sisters', demands.

The sanctions on Iran are the way Imperialsm prohibits Iran from developing nuclear energy which could be used to form massive desalination projects to obtain water to pump out their oil, insead of depleting the natural underground fresh-water supply. Even as they are, the current desalination plants in Saudi Arabia, merely to provide waste water, are marvels of technology, much more of "an effort to make the desert bloom" than anything the rogue state of Israel did in the days when their propaganda claimed Palestine was a desert which their immigrants had "made to bloom."
Indeed, the 1947 Israeli immigrants to Palestine, at the bidding of the colonial powers, actually destroyed the water and irrigation system built through centures of practical experience, when they destroyed the 500 Palestinian villages.

If you read this blog, please tell your friends how imperialist policy is depleting the water in the Middle East and Iran.

From my appartment

A collage: Plate of frike and chicken, lettuce from Syria, olive oil from Palestine, Apple OS X, Nadira Sururi poem called "Rejection" in Opening the Gates, Mandela at Havana with Castro--"How far we slaves have come," Pathfinder Press, Dome of the Rock, Mada'in Saleh postcards, l'Officiel des Spectacles


First The Mavi Marmara, then The Rachel Corrie; soon another. Why it is becoming another way to make the Pilgrimage, just like in Chaucer's time, when the Wife of Bath made several pilgrimages all the way to Palestine! The difference this time is that when one arrives off the coast of Jaffa and Akka, pirates occupying the land board your ship and deport you to Jordan or, if you are from an imperialist country, on a plane back to Ireland or America. I sit back in my apartment, glad that I can at least eat Palestinian food... things like my Shammoute ("Jaffa") oranges coming to my from Tripoli, Lebanon, and Frike (فريكة), one of the special foods of Palestine. And the box is from Palestine! I washed the frike, soaked it in a little water, and then, after melting some margarine and a little olive oil in a sauce pan, I added a fair amount of chicken broth and cooked it until it was soft. Had a special sweet taste.

In the quicktime movie,attached below, is an experiment with doing a blog with Quicktime Broadcaster. Remember, with Quicktime broadcaster and a Mac, you have to use the internal microphone and set things to mono, as the Mac does not record in stereo, except with applications like Garage Band. I'm reading this: ...from Nadira Sururi's, "Female Contractions"--a poem which forms the Chapter heading for other Arab Women writers on "Rejection" in Margot Badran and Miryam Cooke's Anthology:

She did not know
Nor her family knew
But the bridegroom Was a Ghoul
They sang and sang...
‘He’ll feed you
Fatten you
And on your wedding day
Will eat you...’

They sang and sang
She wept and wept
And then sang
‘I don’t want. I don’t want.
I’m no fool
He’s a ghoul
Wed? To a ghostly host? Am I?
Fed? His bridal-roast? Am I?
She wept and wept alnight
‘He was alright except

At night he was a goat’
They sang...Alweddingnight
She wept and sang and wept and sang
Alweddingnight
At dawn he slept
At last she crept. Away
She went. Away. Unwed.
They sang, resang...
Unwed...She left...Away...
They sang...

... in the book I reviewed in 1975 for an English Language Jordanian newspaper, Female Contractions, by Nadira Sururi, RSS Press, Jordan 1975; this one poem of her poems and illustrations is published in Opening the Gates an Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing, edited by Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke, Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2004, p. 123.

from my apartment-listening to theater in the beautiful Palestinian accent

Hanan al-Masri reported on a play being performed in Gaza. I recorded her TV coverage from Al-Arabiyya TV--the recording starts a bit into the report, and the volume is a bit low until a raise the volume of the TV. Below is the recording and to the left is me in front of my apartment with Shamouti oranges(the original "Jaffa orange" behind me.

Recording of Hanan Al-Masri commenting during the play

Café de Flore, Paris-à la recherche du café Yémen

Je viens de retourner de Al-Khobar, ou j'ai acheté encore de figues--cette fois de Syrie--et du café éthiopien, moyennement torréfié --pas bien--et légèrement torréfié: un peu mieux; et comme ça l'arôme du chocolat existe un peu.

J'ai lu une article par un aficionado du Café qui a visité les agriculteurs du café au Yémen et il a dit que pour vraiment avoir l'origine du café il ne faut pas trop le brûler, et je crois qu'il a raison. "Le french roast," et le "Expresso roast" sont goûtés pour l'odeur de la torréfacteur, et pas pour le café. Je crois que le café du Yémen ne doit pas être trop brûlé, trop torréfié. Les vrais amis du café, torréfient leur café eux mêmes avec une machine à pop-corn ancien et américain!!!

cuilliere verse le poudre--spoon pours the ground coffee stir coffee and water








heat kanake









boil 1










boil 2












pour





















second cup; spoon pours coffee into kanake








second cup; spoon-full

Shati Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza

February 1, 2010 Israel repremands a couple of Israeli army officers who ordered phosphorous bombs dropped on the UN warehouse in the center of Gaza City today.

I found, from a course website of an English teacher in Virginia, that some of Nadira Sururi's book, Female Contractions, is in the Margot Badran anthology of Arab women writers: Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing. Ed. Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.

McNamara Ground Operation Coffee Machine-Arabic Study

This Nigerian guy who tried to blow up a Northwest flight from Amsterdam as it was landing here in Detroit studied Arabic for a bit in Yemen. However it was that he decided to carry out an anti-Christian revenge mission in the name of the modern proponents of terrorism, "What a waste of his intellectual journey!" I say.

If only he had had a chance to work with the American working class...We studied Arabic in the age of dinosaurs, when we studied with Charles Pellat, who came from the Sorbonne to teach us about Al-Jahiz, and right here in Michigan, we studied with Charles Bellamy, who helped edit with Ernest McCarus a wonderful selection of Modern Arabic Poetry. I'll have to scan it and put it on my private web site.

Also, now in the midst of teaching English, I speculate on whether the words and vocabulary with which Arabic literature and newspapers discuss the issues now is not almost completely different from the words and vocabulary of typical pre-intermediate English courses which select from the topics of the developed world, and use words like "systemic," as Obama was prompted to use. A word with no meaning which all the newsmedia seem to understand immediately.

I got a rude shock in my English teaching to Saudi's yesterday when I prepared an episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos to show the excitement of the first Voyager 1 pictures in 1979. It was completely confusing to them...and I realized it was because the planets have completely different names in Arabic.

Café de Flore, Paris-notes du 21 novembre 2009

This is my blog from the first day in Paris. Here is a picture of the woolen fashions of Paris in the late fall, and a picture of Michael Moore's film advertised in a Parisian Kiosk in Sevres Babylone.

I have been so busy preparing my English lessons, with only the thought of doing things like making power point explanations of Grammar, or putting quizzes on Blackboard CT that I almost forgot the promotional ticket on KLM that I had reserved two months ago to spend the Hajj vacation in Paris.

Paris is such a stimulating intellectual expereince for me. Even on the Plane, KLM had the Saturday le Monde(le monde is always pubished the day before in the afternoon; so the Friday afternoon--i.e. Saturday--issue was already in Amsterdam for the 7:15 am flight to Paris CDG. There was a fascinating interviews with a biographer of Camus, Olivier Todd, on Camus and Sartre. Camus is in the news now because Sarkozy wants to "Pantheonise" him--have him buried with Napoleon in the Pantheon. I had confused Camus with Sartre, who, en fin de compte, malgré son gauchisme, was against the Algerian rebellion against French colonialism. Camus, though a pied noir, born in Algeria, supported some of the early uprisings of the Algerians. But mostly he was a writer for the writer's sake. He joined the PC francais, but denied it for a chance to go to the US on a visit during the Witch hunt era, --a fact which his biographer finds strange, since he was such a believer in honesty.

I took some pictures right in the Airport to show you how nice CDG is. I am staying at the Jules Ferry Youth Hostel, right near Place de la Republique and Bastille. I went to the Louvre today because on the Plane, I watched a documentary about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre!!! Yes, an italian immigrant carpenter, a certain, Mr. Perugia, who had worked for a time putting the mona lisa in a glass frame, walked in on a Monday when the museum, in those days was closed and had no guards, or at least only minimal guards while the workers moved paintings around and such types of cleaning. He kept the painting in his room for two years, the police never found him, and then took a train to Florence after writing to an Italian art dealer that he wanted to bring the Mona Lisa back to Italy. The art dealer consulted with the head of the Ufizzi and decided to meet him to see if he were a prankster or not. They took the painting, recognizing it as the original, left him in the hotel and sent the carbinieri to arrest him. He was put in jail for two years and then released. The Mona Lisa was on display in the Ufizzi for a month--long lines came to see it. So the wish of the thief became a reality before the Italians did indeed return the Mona Lisa to the Louvre.

My first day in Paris, the day the plane arrived was everything I could have wanted it to be. Michael Moore's new film, Capitalism, a Love Affair, was in the kiosks because it is coming out Nov. 27. I bought a "carnet de dix" and took my favorite busses and watched the people in the sunshine and last day of autumn, a sort of Indian Summer with people in simple "vestes" ou un "pull", rairly with the famous black woolen coats of the Parisians in Winter.

At a little before 4pm, I was looking at the posters outside the Comédie Française, Théatre du Vieux Colombier, in the 6th arrondissement, when a young man, perhaps a teacher, offered me a free ticket to the 4 o'clock show because the people he had invited--perhaps his class? had not come. So I treated myself to my first experience in this branch theater of the Comédie Française. It was an interview with the costume designer, coutumier, of the Comedie Francaise, a certain Renato Bianchi. The librarian--archiviste--of the Comédie Française was the main sort of master of ceremonies getting two actual actors, comédiens, from the Comédie Française, (on the program, the actors are referred to as "sociétaires de la Comédie Française") to comment on Renato's work with them as they all sat on stage and spoke in their wonderfully articulated French--especially the comédiens. The young archiviste; Agathe Sanjuan had spliced together some readings of the historic descriptions of the costume rules in the Comédie Française, and these were read by a student (eleve comedien) of the Comédie Française. Also wonderfully read. Finally they had some pictures of the costumes and Renato went into some detail on the change that happened when he came where there was a desire for researching the authenticity of costumes. He said it was sort of archaeological work. They bought a whole bunch of old period clothes from Italy. Further on in the program they talked about the tissue of the costumes, and later again on how the costumes are made to fit the actors. Finally, they showed pictures of Renato and his assistants turning the blue lines on the "tissue" which they had used to fit the actor, into sewed cloth for another "essai." and then the final cutting. Renato talked a long time about what was going on in the blue lines--almost trade secrets, that was hard to understand, but I could see why when, later, just before closing because time was running out, Agathe asked him to comment on what someone who wanted to be a "costumier" should study, and Renato said he or she should study to be a couturier. I don't know how we would translate couturier in English. But, of course it is the special tailor who designs "la haute couture," not necessarily a "tailleur," or taylor.(I just passed a men's "tailleur" near the Opéra, before writing this, which had a video in the window of the tailor cutting and fitting like Renato in the Comédie Française At one point Renato said a very telling thing. He said that in the old days when you apprenticed to be a couturier, you were CORRECTED. But that now no one ever corrects you. It made me realize that the fitting that goes into the European or British suit, with it's padded shoulders, for example, is really out now. The American look is just casual sloppy, doesn't enhance the body. By a freak, here too was a connection with my trip from Dammam. KLM provided a taxi-limosine from Al-Khobar to Bahrain airport to catch the KLM plane to Amsterdam, and during the taxi ride, we watched part of an American series where young aspiring fashion designers compete in the fashion world. Everything was "create an iconic image of New York for this shoot"--they were given the choice of the best photographers and models and then had to make an iconic new york shot. They just dressed a model in a tee shirt and had him eating hot dogs with mustard, or another dressed a model in old boots and a brown sack and had him throw a blanket in extasy has he saw the Stature of Liberty on the Staten Island ferry. Yet another commissioned an African American friend in the sewing trade to make an evening dress out of the American flag. All this TV stuff strikes me as being SO patriotic as everything has to be in the US as it goes to war in 3 different places to protect itself from "terrorism."

Such a difference between how the Parisians wear clothes. Especially the women. Every woman has someting different. A yellow scarf here, black tights with boots of various kinds, even blue jeans with a big patch of black and white cotton repairing a pretend tear in the rear end, wonderful assortment of sweaters of various lengths.
The men, too, sometimes wear jackets--"coutourier jackets?" with the sort of "bulkiness" of design similar to the costume Renato was making in the slides at the Comedie Francaise, as he fitted an actor who was to play a man with a big (artificial) stomach. You don't see what they wear for sale in the deparment stores. They just seem to invent them from what they have in the home. Black is especially prevalent in Paris, and like the Parisians, I was able to buy a black wool coat made in China in Saudi Arabia, which gets a lot of cheap things from China, for about $40 instead of $400. But it looks just as good.

Café de Flore, Paris-notes du 23 novembre 2009

Notes for the 22

Below is a short video which I shot from the bus number 68 from Sevres Babylone to Place Clichy for lunch at Flunch. The 68, and the 94 pass through the Louvre, Carousel. You can hear the bumpiness as the bus goes over the cobblestones that still remain in this stretch of the Paris streets in front of the Louvre.

Cocteau at Comedie Francaise\ Just missed it

The Reserve, by Russel Banks translated into French and read by an actor of the Comedie Francaise.

Russel Banks is not to be confused with the revolutionary fighters Russel Means and Dennis Banks in the US. The Reserve, by Russel Banks seems to me more of this E.L. Doctorow stuff where the American writer tries to show his progressiveness by writing with references to Sacco And Vanzetti, the Haymarket Martyrs, etc.

Like many things American, the French are more in tune to our « leftist » history than most Americans. Dashiel Hammet is in an Expo here in Paris this winter and also you see articles on him in the Kiosks.

Bought Les monstres, started reading in Starbucks

Umberto Eco is coming to Louvre. Thoughts on the Medieval Esthetic and his Lists.

Lists are the same. The same happened in the Middle Ages in the East, no, as far as the greek esthetic. It is just that the Middle East kept the Roman Law and its traditions whereas Luther and the teutonics dispensed with it . That is why the English are so much against Sharia perhaps. But the Arabs had Aristotles, Poetica, too. So, in reality they had the same esthetics. And a comparison between Homer’s lists, like Eco does, and the lists of the Medieval Arab historians should be made : Maqrizi, Lisan al-Arab. However there is no Dante, no Ariosto. Or is Jahiz that ?
Shakespear’s Macbeth witches seene is a list—the observations of astronomers in Tus, Maraqha, Baluchistan are lists.


On things Italian. Umberto Eco is invited to the Louvre ! Le Louvre invite Umberto Eco. And La comedie francaise is playing La Grande Magie by Eduardo De Filippo.
Eduardo De Filippo with Dario Fo is the most famous post war author-actor in post WW2 Italy. He made L’Abito nuovo in collaboration with Luigi Pirandello. He wrote La Grande Magie in 1948 and has been an actor in the cinema. I hope to see a matininee of it (La Grande Magie) on Sunday at 14h.

As for Umberto Eco, I had previously only associated him with « The Roman de la Rose, » Which I think was made into a film with Sean Connery. But he is a writer about many things relating to history of Art. I cama cross a book of his in the Louvre bookstore, in the Carrousel du Louvre, just inisde the entrance to the Louvre, where you don’t have to pay to go inside :Umberto Eco, Art et beaute dans l’esthetique Medievale Grasset 1997 Italian original Arte e Bellezza nel estetica mediavale 1987.
He notes what I came up against in 1971—that people don’t accept that there was an aesthetic in the Middle Ages. I must buy the book, I thought to myself as I was in the Louvre bookstore.

Then I cam areound a corner and say that there wss a whole table of Umberto Eco books and that he was coming Wednesday for a signing of his book published under the Louvre’s own « habitants du Louvre « series : Vertige de la liste : Traducion du tete d’Umberto Eco : Myriem Bouzaher. He willl be signing the book today, so if I’m not to shy I’ll go meet him. His book on lists relates to what I have frequently thought about Islam. That the Histories are essentially lists. In this sense, they are a form of Art. This idea of seeing lists in art by umberto Eco is very good.

En bas, video du Louvre vu du bus 68, allant a Place Clichy pour manger au "Flunch."

Hamediyya, Damas au Louvre

Ecole de Bellini--explications du site Louvre

Café de Flore, Paris--Hamediyya,Damas

Photo de tableau Bellini au Louvre

Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza

The oranges are just starting to turn yellow now. A sign that winter is here. Egypt will be exporting oranges to Saudi Arabia, ours not. The blocade by Israel continues. Abbas has said he will not run again because there is no point in having a "Palestinian Authority," since Israel does not want to stop settlement activity.