Suits: Everyone is a legal genius, but no one can Google Harvard alumni and it’s always sunny in New York. CSI: You can only analyze DNA if you’re 22 years old, female and blonde, and there’s a Lynyrd Skynyrd track in the background. Criminal Minds: Everyone wants to kill you and wear your skin to… Continue reading
This article was published in the September issue of GQ India. It is June in New York. The heat is heavy, and it weighs down lazily on millions of people going about their day. On the wooden bench on the platform at York Street Station I wait for the Jamaica-bound F train that has been… Continue reading
We don’t live in a country where there is any form of positive myth-making in popular culture around security forces. And with good reason a lot of the time, as anyone who has set foot in a Lebanese police station or been arbitrarily harassed at a checkpoint will understand. There is no show called ‘CSI:… Continue reading
As we’re standing outside Torino last night three guys approach us. Two of them are colossal with long blonde ponytails, and the third is shorter and stocky with an emo punk haircut and a broken nose. All three are wearing metal band tees. In what sounds like a thick Scandinavian accent, they ask us what… Continue reading
I am really happy to announce that a project that’s been on my mind for a couple of years is finally online. In simple terms, Gate37 is the first imprint of Keeward Publishing, and it is ostensibly a publishing house aimed at spreading creative projects, mainly writing, by those who have grown up in cross… Continue reading
Here’s a sentence for you. Today Lebanon celebrates 70 years of Independence. It’s a tricky sentence, isn’t it? Every single word of it feels wrong. None of those letters feel like they should be aligned to form this particular idea. Lebanon? Celebrate? Independence? What is Lebanon? How can we celebrate days after 23 people were killed in yet another… Continue reading
I was sitting on a hotel terrace in Istanbul yesterday, lingering in the empty cafe after a wine-laden meeting, just looking out across the city as the cold sun flowed across its sprawl, completely taken by the confusing nautical traffic jam of the Bosphorus. Satisfied with the outcome of my work encounter, and enjoying a… Continue reading
What an absurd set of miscalculations this week has seen. Ostensibly, the US threatens the Assad regime with imminent strikes to weaken it, giving much-needed – if we presuppose a successful mission- much-belated respite to the millions of innocent civilians stuck between a rock and an Al Nusra fighter. They forget to factor in the… Continue reading
I don’t get why there is this form of self-righteous anger over people are discussing Miley Cyrus rather than important world events. Surely discussions of Miley Cyrus and Syria aren’t mutually exclusive. No two discussions are mutually exclusive. We should discuss everything. Also, I think it is essential to discuss Miley Cyrus. Because beyond the… Continue reading
Most short-haul travel these days consists of sitting in what is essentially a glorified office chair for 2 hours while you get flown from Gatwick to Verona by the Celtic bus-in-the-sky Ryanair. Which is about as glamorous as imagining the short-lived tv show Pan Am being filmed in Scunthorpe. But most medium and long-haul flights… Continue reading
I grew up in London in the 80s, too young to understand what miners’ strikes and privatisation meant, too young to understand anti-Poll Tax graffiti scrolled against the walls of the then-grimy capital, too young to even imagine where the Falklands were. But I was old enough to understand that it was important that we… Continue reading
“The thing about quotes on the Internet is that you can never confirm their validity.” – Abraham Lincoln Quotes are notoriously tricky in the digital age, as the one above illustrates. They end up on websites that make little to no effort to ensure correct attribution, and then they spread quicker than an STD in… Continue reading
I was very happy last weekend. You may or may not care about this. Actually, I’d much rather you not care about this. There, that’s better. However, the reason I was happy was that I was in London. My hometown. The city where I learned to ride a bicycle. Quite badly, which also makes it… Continue reading
13:23 I approach the edifice cautiously in my vehicle. I am directed by men in uniform towards a subterranean parking bay. I comply, wanting to remain docile and form bonds with the mall-dwellers. 13:43 I find a place to leave my vehicle. I almost lose this space to an irate man who appears to have… Continue reading
SHARE Beirut Talk: Nasri Atallah from SHARE Conference on Vimeo. Here’s a talk I gave at SHARE Beirut back in October about a new Third Culture Kid publishing project we’re working on. There’s no audio for the first minute because the mic wasn’t working, but it’s still fun to watch me walk awkwardly around the… Continue reading
I haven’t really been on an actual holiday in about a year (mainly because right around then I started a job I actually enjoy, that allows me to travel a lot and forget that holidays can useful from time to time). So in early November, in a bid to disconnect from all my routines, I headed off to a place I’d always been fascinated by, the Balkans. Over the previous couple of months I’d met a whole bunch of crazy Serbs in Beirut who were organizing a conference (where my company, Keeward, was a partner and I was lucky enough to be a speaker), and I also happened to make some Bosnian friends at the same time. So it all made a lot of sense.
Bones from MS MR on Vimeo.