ـ "... إن فى الإنسان منطقة عجيبة سحيقة لا تصل إليها الفضيلة ولا الرذيلة ، ولا تشع فيها شمس العقل والإرادة ، ولا ينطق لسان المنطق ، ولا تطاع القوانين والأوضاع ، ولا تتداول فيها لغة أو تستخدم كلمة ... إنما هى مملكة نائية عن عالم الألفاظ والمعاني ... كل مافيها شفاف هفاف يأتي بالأعاجيب فى طرفة عين ... يكفي أن ترن فى أرجائها نبرة ، أو تبرق لمحة ، أو ينشر شذا عطر ، حتى يتصاعد من أعماقها فى لحظة من الإحساسات والصور والذكريات ، ما يهز كياننا ويفتح نفوسنا على أشياء لا قبل لنا بوصفها ، ولا بتجسيدها ، ولو لجأ إلى أدق العبارات و أبرع اللغات ... " ـ

توفيق الحكيم

Within man lies a deep wondrous spot, to which neither virtue nor vice can reach. Upon which the sun of reason and will never rise. In which the mouth of logic never speaks, the laws and rules are never obeyed, and not a language is used nor a word is ever spoken.
It is a distant Kingdom, beyond words and meanings. With everything is a sheer murmur offering wonders in a blink. From the depths of which, suffice a single tone or a flash of mind or a scent of a perfum, to allow rise of emotions, pictures and memories, a rising that will shake our being and open ourselves to things we can neither describe nor materialize even if we used the most refined of phrases or the most skillful of languages.

Tawfiq Al-Hakim.
(My humble transalation of the arabic text)

Monday, October 31, 2011

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Fotografia , Al Bano & Romina Power

The awful truth ...

Cost reduction ............ waitting for the next one to go.


Monday, October 24, 2011

طبقية

أول مرة أحس أنى انسانة ... لوكال
مش علشان انا مستواي الأجتماعى متدني ولا ساكنة فى عشوائيات ولا علشان عربيتى موديل 1900 ولاحاجة من دى
أنما علشان أنا بأشترى كتب رخيصة ... مش رخيصة بمعنى رديئة المستوى الفكرى أو الأدبي ... رخيصة علشان مثلا من مكتبة الأسرة اللي كتابها ممكن يكون ب 5 جنيه أو نسخ طباعتها قديمة وممكن النسخة تكون بسبعة أو عشرة جنيهات
الموضوع أنى أثناء مناقشة مع أصدقاء أكتشفت أن من أهم عوامل شراء نسخة كتاب أنها تكون طباعة فاخرة النسخة على الأقل بخمسة وعشرين جنيه
ساعتها حسيت إحساس أحمد زكى فى مدرسة المشاغبين ! و أنكسفت أقول أنى فى يوم أضطررت أشترى نسخة "سكند هاند" -مستعملة يعني- من مذكرات اللواء محمد نجيب لأنها كانت أول و أخر مرة أشوفها ولازم أقراءها

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Smiling ...

After all ... it's good to know that an old friend is alive and kicking ... as ever :) It just brought smiles to me :)

Right ! :)

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Silent !

Really, who ever made people talk in moives, made a major crime to the art of Cinema!
The movie that made this clear to me is a movie that was made when my grandfather was 10, when Saad Zaghloul passed away and when Tawfiq Al-Hakim was still studying in Paris.
Thanks to an old friend who loved movies and collected famous classics, I was introduced to it like 4 years ago. Yet I never thought it could be this fantastic, after all it was the 1920s! Fashion-wise I hate the 20s, so, a mental image prevented me from seeing it. But, I've been seeing it for the past few days ... et voila ...
Metropolis, a German movie directed by Fritz Lang on 1927, It must be the father of science fiction and drama, the father of visuality,Lihgt, Effects, and MUSIC. I never felt the power of a musical score in a movie before like I felt in this one, and they were a few times when I felt the power of an idea in a movie, accented very heavily by light, music, sets and even makeup..even the human body movement. The idea of man in the age of machine, upper class and lower class, masters and slaves in the same universe yet few of each side realize the existence of the other side. What struck me was that these ideas were common in literature at the time between the two great wars and the oldest movie that I've seen till this one discussing the main theme was also a silent movie...Chaplin's Modern Times! Was it a very pressing idea at the time or what ? I need to know more about that.
Anyway, The eyes of the heroine are the most magneficent I have ever seen, and surely that was intended for Maria, the "Good" in the movie. And as I said, the movie is german, a language that I don't know, imagine if it was a talkie ! I never would have seen it probably!

This is the official trailer of the restored version of the movie, after more that 80 years.

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Of school days

They were ... school days!




Of college days ...

Carefree ...
and full of music