• Sections

    • Apr

    18

    Billy Joel Keeps It Real

    Filed Under current affairs, music, nostalgia, people | 4 Comments

    I can offer no explanation of my fondness for John Mellencamp’s music … years ago when I was a 15 year old I didn’t even know any adults who listened to him, but for whatever reason, there was a connection to this prickly Midwesterner’s songs. Well, John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month, and he was introduced by another great American singer songwriter, Billy Joel.

    Of course, being a native New Yorker, I couldn’t help but know about Joel, and oh … the days when you could actually hear him on the Top 40 radio station. Back when it was okay for a “pop star” to be in their 30s, or chubby, or balding, or singing things that would never play in a night club. But now I’m starting to sound like an old grump muttering about the “good ole days.” 

    Here’s an excerpt from Joel’s introduction; another reason why he and Mellencamp are all right in my book. 

    Don’t let this club membership change you, John. Stay ornery, stay mean. We need you to be pissed off, and restless, because no matter what they tell us - we know, this country is going to hell in a handcart. This country’s been hijacked. You know it and I know it. People are worried. People are scared, and people are angry. People need to hear a voice like yours that’s out there to echo the discontent that’s out there in the heartland. They need to hear stories about it. [Audience applauds] They need to hear stories about frustration, alienation and desperation. They need to know that somewhere out there somebody feels the way that they do, in the small towns and in the big cities. They need to hear it. And it doesn’t matter if they hear it on a jukebox, in the local gin mill, or in a goddamn truck commercial, because they ain’t gonna hear it on the radio anymore. They don’t care how they hear it, as long as they hear it good and loud and clear the way you’ve always been saying it all along. You’re right, John, this is still our country.

    (transcription courtesy of Wikipedia.org; video available here - this excerpt is from the last 2 minutes of the clip)

     

    Popularity: 42% [?]

    Mar

    14

    Remembrance of Things Past

    Filed Under inspiration, islam, media, nostalgia, spiritual practice | 2 Comments

    This excellent 5 minute video won a national contest, and brought back some memories for me of being a young Muslimah trying to do my faith thing in a non-Muslim world. This made me think of the current UUA/YRUU troubles, and … I don’t know. I felt sentimental. I’m so not a kid anymore, but some of the same issues still linger. In any case, watch the video. It manages to be both dead-on and inspiring. (And who knows, maybe even evangelical.) What do you all think?

    *** The website this video is posted to (netmuslims.com) was sent to me today by an old friend I haven’t spoken to in over a decade. He manages netmuslims.com and says I first taught him how to design a website, for which he’ll “always be thankful.” Who’d a thunkit?

    Popularity: 30% [?]

    Aug

    27

    Musical Blind Spots

    Filed Under humor, lil things, music, nostalgia, pop culture | 2 Comments

    After reading the comments at CK’s post on 8 Random Things, I felt a little isolated. College aged students who don’t know who Tori Amos or Nirvana are? A few days ago I asked the DH if he’d like to listen to Cyndi Lauper. His response: “Who’s that?” I repeated her name, thinking he must not have heard it right. He looked at me, waiting. “You know that song, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!” No, he did not. “Time After Time. True Colors?” I sang a few lines of I Drove All Night. Blank stare.

    Scary.

    However, Tori Amos happens to be one of his favorite singers; he’s seen her live two or three times.  I guess we all have our blind spots. I’m sure I’ve some, too, but unfortunately can’t tell you what they are.

    Popularity: 23% [?]

    Jul

    5

    A Life in Books

    Filed Under books, islam, nostalgia, people | 5 Comments

    Today is cloudy and cooler than it has been for a while. Almost as though the sun got tired after the long holiday weekend and needed a break. It’s been a strange day for me. I’ve holed myself up since Monday and don’t feel well at all. It feels like October.

    I’ve been cataloguing my books at The LibraryThing and the process has brought up a lot of memories. My family moved a lot when I was a child - in 1992 my mother and I counted the number of apartments and houses we’d lived in since I was born: 25. So naturally I don’t have many things from when I was a kid, but I was permitted to bring a select number of books with me when the family made the big move from New York. The books I chose are all about writing and poetry. No novels at all, but an old textbook anthology that my grandfather gave me, a “synonym finder,” some grammar texts, and so on. This makes a lot of sense because at the time my biggest dream in life was to become a writer. Even though I shelved that notion more than a decade ago, I’ve somehow managed to keep some of these books - through eight additional house moves.

    I also came across several math textbooks, the highly useful and recommendable “Practical Mathematics” series put out by the National Educational Alliance. These books are phenomenal in the way they teach math. I also have some books by Francis Schaeffer, the Christian theologian and L’Abri community founder. The math texts and Schaeffer books were lent to me by a co-worker about six years ago. M- was such a strange and sensitive man: deeply religious, childlike (and at times childish), allergic to everything, and a natural tinkerer obsessed with computers. He was in his 40s, and before the home computer era, his thing was ham radios. His social skills left much to be desired, but he could be a very sensitive and generous person. I think he was desperately unhappy much of the time, but he tried to live in the way he thought Christ would want, and he avoided all vices, like sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking, and violence. He was extremely intelligent. The reason I still have his books is because he died in the Phillippines while doing missionary work. He and his fiancee - whom he met there - and two of her nieces/nephews were drowned one day at the beach. They’d made a special trip (they were extremely poor), but when they got there they were warned not to go in the ocean; conditions were too treacherous. M- could be terribly headstrong, I’d witnessed it at the office many times. He disregarded the warnings and went in the water anyway, followed by the fiancee and her young relatives. I think about him a lot; I’ve never met anyone else like him.

    I have some other books here that are about Islam. My first trip abroad was to Great Britain. I’d already begun having doubts about the Islam I was seeing practiced and preached. Before heading to the UK (on my own), I’d been in Internet contact with some alternatives who believed in using the Qur’an only as a source of God’s law (most Muslims base their religious practices on the traditions of Muhammad in addition to the Qur’an). Turns out an important little network of these alternatives lived in England, and when I got there I met up with one of them. We talked for hours and hours. I took him to see The Thin Red Line, and his response was highly appreciative. We took the train to Birmingham where we met up with a university student who was writing reinterpretations of important Islamic concepts. The first fellow, K- was highly secretive; he went by several aliases and never revealed his real name to me! His life had been threatened numerous times by fundamentalists. I don’t know if they were genuine threats, but he took them seriously. The uni student, however, was open about his beliefs and identity, saying that he refused to live in fear. A bunch of sympathetic Muslims came over to the dorm room of the Birmingham student and we had a study session about Islam; he spoke passionately about the need for reformation and returning to the word of Allah as a way of releasing ourselves from the horrors of male chauvinism, capitalism, and other idolatries. His writings were highly interesting and I kept some of his articles.

    Later, I followed K to the house of an older, Pakistani couple who lived on the outskirts of London. They were so kind to me! They did not care that I was American, or of African descent or female. It was true Muslim hospitality. We were joined by some likeminded Muslims friends of theirs and we talked about religion (they talked; I listened) and dreams of Islam returning to its true roots after 1000+ years of human-based innovations and oppressions. They gave me many little books and pamphlets to take home with me. They warned me to be careful of who I revealed my religious intentions to, and wished me well. While I can’t recall names or faces, I’ll never forget the earnest good-heartedness of those progressive, yet pious Muslims. Their path is not an easy one.

    Reflecting on it now I can’t believe that really happened! The intrigue! If my parents had known I was meeting up with strange, radical Muslims in another country they probably would have never let me travel again. Well, it’s been seven years; I don’t suppose it hurts anything to spill the beans of those three or four “lost” days now. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it to anyone.

    Time to get back to life.

    Popularity: 10% [?]

    Jul

    1

    What’s in My Name?

    Filed Under from the heart, humor, islam, nostalgia, small happinesses | 15 Comments

    No, I am not going to add another post to the God/Lord/YHWH discussion. This is about my name. After almost 30 years, it’s at the point where I take notice when a person spells my name correctly. Not surprisingly, my name is often mispronounced, as well. I can count on two (maybe three) hands, the number of friends and acquaintances who say it the way I do.

    One friend, whom I do love, informed me that she WAS pronouncing my name right (she was not), and that I just wasn’t hearing properly - and if she did so happen to be saying it wrong, it was “just too bad.” That hurt my feelings for a very long time, and made me feel a little wary of those who repeatedly mispronounced my name. Deep down, was that their attitude, too? Did it just not matter to them?

    Yes, I have an unusual name. Both my first and last names are very uncommon, even among their respective cultures. When I chose the middle name of Sofía it was partly to mediate the foreign-ness of the first and last names. I don’t expect folks to get them on the first try. Heck, I don’t even really expect folks to try anymore, but it sure does make me feel special when they do.

    There are some folks who regularly read my blog yet misspell my name a lot. I keep wondering why that is. Is it just a typo? It’s easy to mistype; I often have to attempt it twice before getting it right. What would help people remember to type it/spell it correctly? Is it just too foreign? Would having some context be beneficial?

    If so, here is some background. Hafidha is the feminine form of the name Hafidh, also known as Hafiz. In Arabic, there is a letter called “dha” or “za” that is like a very tough sounding version of the hard “th” (e.g. moTHer). This is a hard sound to make and has no equivalent in English. Often Persians and people from the Indian subcontinent like to pronounce “dh” as “z” because it is easier for them. Sometimes it will be a “z” with a dot underneath it to be distinguished from an Arabic letter that actually is pronounced like “z.” It’s quite common to see Hafidh transliterated as Hafiz and the most famous human being with a form of this name is the poet Hafiz.

    But my name is Hafidha and it is spelled with a dh.

    The root (verb) of my name means to guard and to preserve. My name is Islamic in addition to being Arabic. This means that my name has some relevance within the Islamic religion. A Hafidh is a title - it is someone who has memorized the entire Qur’an, and by doing so, preserves the word of God. A hafidh is also a record, or an account, and in the Qur’an, for example, (chapter 6, verse 61), it is written that Allah sets hafadha (pl.) over us; these are interpreted as guardian angels, or perhaps those angels that take account of all that we do. Other forms of my name’s root have to do with remembrance and mindfulness.

    As I’ve tried to demonstrate here, Hafidha is a name with a great deal of meaning. I should also mention that Al-Hafidh (Al-Hafiz) is one of the 99 attributes or “Names” of Allah. One might meet a man named Abdul-Hafidh or Abdul-Hafiz; if a man wants the name of one of Allah’s attributes he should always precede it with Abdul (servant of).

    Okay, Arabic lesson over. When I was a kid and struggling with the fact that so few people seemed to be able to say or spell my name properly, I wanted to hate it. I wanted a name that was shorter, or “prettier” sounding, or more exotic. I resented my parents for not naming me something more familiar to white American ears - like Layla or Yasmeen. My name just sounded awkward, clerical, nerdy.

    Coincedentally, that is pretty much how I turned out!

    Eventually I came around to loving the name. I was sitting in College Prep English one morning with my classmates when a substitute teacher entered the room. As she read through the roster, she first got stuck on my name, then that of a soccer player named Sonead. When she stumbled over the name of a girl of Asian descent, the teacher threw up her hands and let out a big Prrrhhuhh! “Geez,” she said. “Whatever happened to the good old days when people named their kids Mary, Susan and Joe?” She chuckled at her own joke, but we, the students, exchanged looks of total disbelief. Of course, the three people with “funny” names were also the three not-white people in the room. This was a really uncomfortable moment for everyone on so many levels, but in that moment I felt solidarity with all the other kids, and I took some pride in my name. Like in the way you feel protective of your bratty younger brother after someone else makes fun of him.

    I decided to view my name as a challenge - as something to live up to. It’s arbitrary, I know. I could have been named Layla, and then I’d have to figure out how to be like the “dark night.” Instead, I strive to think of how I can be a guardian and what can I preserve, how I can be mindful and watch over others. I’ve certainly not mastered this yet, but it’s a lifelong endeavor, I suppose.

    In any case, I hope all of this rambling helps even just one person remember that it’s h-a-f-i-d-h-a. If not, I’ll love you anyway. Or you could call me Sofía, another name I am striving towards.

    Popularity: 10% [?]

    Next Page →

    Close
    E-mail It
    visitors since June 16, 2007