by Nathan Deuel

The other day I ventured out into the sun-drenched city of Beirut, where I saw cafes and restaurants packed with young people spending money. At a stainless steel table, buff men ate olives. Nearby, two young women in gold shirts talked over a stack of books. One title: Elite Management Training. Down the block, a gleaming red Ferrari rolled by and a transvestite teetered on heels. Osama bin Laden had just been killed.

On a quiet side street, I ducked into a grocery and asked a woman in head scarf where to buy wine. With a hateful roll of her eyes, she clicked her tongue, seeming to say: I have no advice for you on the subject of wine, can’t you see there is something more important right now? In the corner, a TV showed bin Laden riding a horse.

Back in the harsh sunlight, I walked down the road, red-faced with my error, and I saw buildings that bore bullet holes. Not far from the grocery, I found a dimly lit bar, where a gray-haired bartender smoked. He gestured at a chair. “Have a seat, friend.”

I took a breath, explaining that I probably needed a whole bottle of wine — maybe there was a store nearby? He smiled, maybe he understood what kind of day this was, but then he said all the stores were closed.

“Are you sure?” I said.

After a deep sigh, he eased off his stool and stepped into the afternoon. A sea breeze ruffled palms and bougainvillea. Squinting, the man surveyed a line of dusty shops. At last, he spoke. “That one may be open,” he said.

I thought about home, where people had gathered outside the president’s house to celebrate. It was hard not to feel a bit queasy — death and drinking — but alcohol seemed as pure a reaction as any other.

Inside that store, a fan creaked and sagging wooden shelves reached to a blue-painted, flaking ceiling. A hunched old woman napped on a crate, dyed hair slicked back, head resting against a refrigerator. She opened an eye. I gestured at one in a row of dusty bottles.

“Is this good?”

“By my heart,” she said, sleepily. “It is perfect for you today.”

Her husband stirred from behind the cash register. He smiled, mustache quivering, satisfaction in a sale like any other.

Running my fingers through thick hair, I asked if they knew a barber. Her face lit up, and she grabbed my hand. We walked into the warm day, and she led me around the corner, where a tall man in a dress shirt snipped at the thinning hair of a man as old as he.

She rapped on the glass. The barber nodded. Thanking her, I took a seat, admiring the red and white tile, the faint discoloration on lead mirrors, the worn edges of the white enamel barber’s chairs.

The palms rustled. As the men chatted, I heard the words I was looking for: Osama, CIA, Revolution. I closed my eyes, content. Then the barber cleared his throat. “America?” he asked, frowning slightly. I nodded, and he summoned me to the chair. As he clipped and trimmed — a knife held above my throat — the whole world seemed alive and we were all thinking one thing: He’s finally dead.

* * *

There was a moment, after the invasion of Iraq, after Abu Ghraib, when bin Laden truly spoke to the Arab world, a place where people had felt humiliated for decades. Those who would never admit they supported the killing of innocent people still saw in him a man seeking justice, someone who had not only spoken against suffering but had, with that monstrous act of 9/11, actually done something about it.

Then, a few months ago, a young man in Tunisia set himself ablaze, killing himself and igniting a much larger fire in the Arab world than bin Laden’s bombers ever had. With this one act — a death but not really a killing — people in Tunis took to the streets, and instead of spilling bad blood, they marched until their corrupt leaders left. The fire spread to Egypt, where weeks of protest crashed down another walled castle, and now it smolders in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria.

In the days since we killed bin Laden, my hangover from that night has subsided, but the American mind is still drunk on Osama. Why, Arabs ask — seeing U.S. news coverage locked on the story — is America so obsessed? It’s tempting, I’ve found, to try to explain. But people here have too much going on, honestly, to care.

Previously: Leaving Egypt, With Regrets: The Evacuated Students of Cairo

Nathan Deuel is a writer who lives in Turkey and in Iraq. When he quit his last real media job — at Rolling Stone — he packed a bag and walked from New York to New Orleans. His other writing can be found here.

Photo from Flickr by marviikad.

“Standing just 3ft 5ins tall and weighing a staggering 14st 5lbs, this child weighs five times more than she should…. She is the same weight as two Kylie Minogues, a Great Dane or England rugby player Jonny Wilkinson.”
 — Doing some rudimentary math, I have determined that a minogue is equal to 100.5 pounds. Now you know!

From 2005–2008, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich reviewed 156 books on Amazon.com. Slate’s David Weigel assess the critical oeuvre.

Oh, great: “[R]esearchers in Vancouver report that they’ve found bed bugs with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The scientists studied five bed bugs, taken from three patients treated at St. Paul’s Hospital. All three patients were residents of Vancouver’s poor Downtown Eastside, where both bed bugs and MRSA have been on the rise in recent years. The researchers wanted to see if there was a connection. So they crushed and analyzed the bugs and found three samples with MRSA, the superbug that is resistant to most commonly used antibiotics.”

Balk: So, and this will never happen but I want someone to match all the silhouettes in the Mail and Sun to the actual photos they are based on.

Choire: Whoa. “ONE of Britain’s top bloggers caused chaos on Twitter yesterday after appearing to link more than a dozen celebrities to gagging orders.”

Balk: But I wouldn’t even know who to start with on that.

Choire: I don’t even know how to find what blogger they’re talking about!

Balk: It’s Guido Fawkes.

Choire: Huh. Okay, but I’m confused….

Balk:

Annie Lennox, papers seem to have stopped covering her lately.Wed May 11 13:40:30 via web

Guido Fawkes
GuidoFawkes

Choire: Oh no, not Annie! Well, hmm, this is like reading a foreign language.

Balk: Ha.

Choire: Literally this is impenetrable to me!

Balk: Really?

Choire: I never said I was bright. So wait. There’s a gag order about what?

Balk: Oh. It’s more about who HAS the gag orders out.

Choire: … Regarding?

Balk: They are all privacy claims.

Choire: …

Balk: “Slept with hooker,” “had affair with,” etc.

Choire: Annnnnd? Oh God, am I stupid? SOME DAY THE GUARDIAN WILL EXPLAIN THIS TO ME.

Balk: Basically, one or more papers was going to report on these stories, but before they could the celeb in question got a prior restraint.

Choire: Ohhh! So there were a number of stories, and then these people went to the courts… and everything died.

Balk: Right. So the papers all know who did what to who but can’t name names.

Choire: Ah.

Balk: Which is unfortunate for the prostitutes who want to sell their stories to the tabs.

Choire: So much for Nick Denton’s romanticization of the English newsroom!

Balk: I’m not sure how I feel about this take, but it does explain a lot.

Choire: Yow! What happened to the days when people just got to have hot sex with footballers and then go on with their lives?

Balk: I blame our “everyone’s a celebrity” culture.

“Don’t, for even one moment, fall for the song and dance about cat-lovers being animal-lovers, they are anything but that. They don’t give one damn about any other animals nor even other humans. Cat-lovers are just like cats, the only thing they care about are themselves. Nobody else and nothing else matters to them.”

So begins a very long and very persuasive blog comment on this site about the evils of cats — an argument that this unknown person makes over and over again on various websites, word for word. What drives a person to begin a holy war against cats? I mean, he’s not wrong, in part! Cats are killers. Except then… he recommends shooting them and blinding cats. And maybe you cat-lovers too: “It’s time to give cats and cat-lovers the same consideration and respect that they have for all other humans and all other wildlife — that means NONE.”

Move over, culture war! It’s time for the war between cat enthusiasts and cat murderers.

While the Texas legislature is currently on track to enact deep cuts to public schools, do not let it be said that the state’s lawmakers are completely against the learning process.

Why ‘The Little Mermaid’ Is The Greatest Movie of Our Time

by Rakesh Satyal

The latest trend in celebrity hairstyling is mermaid hair. Look at Rihanna: weave long, flowing and tinted deep red. Blake Lively wore a similar style when she appeared at the Time 100 Gala. And the appropriately named Scarlett Johansson was the latest to adopt the look. The inspiration is one mermaid, in particular — golden-voiced, purple-brassiered and, most notably, red-haired Ariel. Some seem surprised by this turn of hair-vents, but I, for one, am not so shocked. You see, ever since The Little Mermaid came out, I’ve been firmly of the opinion that it is not only a masterpiece but, quite possibly, the most satisfying movie I’ve ever seen.

The red-haired mermaid re-surfaced recently with the great hipster Ariel meme of 2011. A veritable school of other Disney princesses soon followed, but Ariel remained the most popular, due mostly to the funny cringe-expression on her face but also because no other Disney character has so fully attracted the unflagging, unanimous gawking of people across the entire sexual spectrum. With her bright eyes, big personality, generous bosom, and, yes, those titian locks, she is Girl Next Door meets Babe The Next Pond Over.

Last year, Second City brilliantly sent up the untoward morals one might draw from The Littler Mermaid in its web series “Advice for Young Girls ,” which starred actress Danielle Uhlarik and offered such wisdom as “If you have a father that loves you, run away from him” and “Don’t ever talk to a man unless he kisses you on the lips first. Then, as a woman, you’re allowed.” As recently as last weekend, SNL chose to address something as grave as bin Laden’s death by way of an “Under the Sea” parody starring Tina Fey and Keenan Thompson.

But jokes aside, The Little Mermaid succeeds because not only is it over-the-top and often surprisingly adult — there’s that infamous priest scene conspiracy theory, after all — but because it’s gorgeous and joyous and very, very funny. With the exception of the older adults (except King Triton, who is buffer than any cartoon dad has a right to be), most everyone in possession of a human torso in this movie is hot. Ariel, Prince Eric, Ursula the Sea Witch’s alter-ego, Vanessa. All six of Ariel’s sisters are bodacious, and by the way, you owe it to yourself to see how Ariel’s sisters appear in the “Characters from Disney’s The Little Mermaid” wiki.

But despite the relative attractiveness of many of the characters, the offbeat ones make a true play for our hearts, as well. Animator Ruben Aquino is said to have modeled Ursula after Divine, John Waters’s muse, and the Disney creation manages to be worthy of her divine inspiration. Ursula is one of the great villains of modern cinema: cunning, hilarious, and, without question, utterly fabulous. An Ursula bon mot, delivered in Pat Carroll’s delicious grumble, is available for almost every social situation. Want Miss Manners-style advice? “Don’t lurk in doorways; it’s ruuuuude!” Are you a copyeditor at Cosmo searching for that next killer headline? “And don’t underestimate the importance of body language — ha!” And, of course, should your pet(s) pass away, comfort yourself with a Phaedra-like tearing of hair and “My poor little poopsies!”

In fact, the single most brilliant YouTube video I’ve seen is the mesmerizing “Ursula’s Transformation Multilanguage,” a genius montage of Ursula’s heave of a laugh (given as she transforms into the beautiful Vanessa), dubbed in a dozen or so languages in one concatenated string. Once you’re accustomed to its insanity, it becomes fascinating and side-splitting. What carries you through it is the fact that Ursula, in all her fleshy, neon-ringed glory, is its star. Would that we all had something similar that drove us to madcap glee and endless cackling.

(Apropos of nothing: when I was a little kid and they made Gushers fruit snacks, I used to bite off one end of a Gusher, squeeze the filling on my lips, and say, “Well, Angelfish,” just like Ursula does with one of those pod-thingies when Ariel first meets her. Please, if only to save my therapist from more discussion of this, tell me at least one of you did the same. Any gender will do.)

And let us not forget that Sebastian, more so than any other plucky sidekick, made being a plucky sidekick so fashionable. Yes, Disney movies have always been full of such figures — key characters like The Jungle Book’s Baloo and Sleeping Beauty’s Flora, Fauna, and Meriweather spring to mind — but Sebastian is the gold (or ruby) standard. The Little Mermaid marked the resurrection of Disney’s animation scene after many tumultuous years, and the crab’s chutzpah may have been the company’s most valuable asset. Voiced to comic perfection by Samuel E. Wright, Sebastian is probably more active than any other sidekick ever. Here is a partial laundry list of things that he does: at the base level, he tries to keep Ariel punctual; he warns her about the impropriety of her collection of human treasures; he tries, in vain, to prevent her from visiting Ursula in the first place; he becomes, surprisingly, the chief architect of Ariel’s plan to undo Ursula’s plotting once Ariel is human; he is violently assaulted by a clearly deranged French chef, during which fracas he has salad and breadcrumbs shoved into his shell; he is then almost eaten; and, most terrifyingly, he has to remember that complicated and extremely prolix bridge of “Under the Sea.” What have you done for me lately?

Joining Sebastian is the adorable, plump Flounder and the squawk-raucous Scuttle, voiced by Buddy Hackett. I’ll admit, there is never a situation in which I don’t find the words “dinglehopper” and “snarfblatt” funny. And then there is the aforementioned chef, Louis; the delightful Carlotta (voiced by Edie McClurg, who is either Mrs. Poole from Valerie’s Family or the best part of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles depending on your disposition; and the gangly, loveable Sir Grimsby. If this cast were real and not animated, it would win the SAG Award for Best Ensemble.

And then there’s the movie’s music, especially its crown jewel, “Part of Your World.” This is the best song that has ever been in a movie, and I will not hear otherwise. Straight men, I guarantee you that in your life, you will date someone who sang this song into her mirror at some point as a child, so pay respect. (Gay men, this actually applies to you, too.) This was the song that taught me the word “reprimand.” Additionally, had I grown up underwater, it also would have taught me how to catch the light convincingly when singing in a grotto. My personal crush on Darren Criss of “Glee” predates his appearance on that show by a wide margin, simply because I was one of the thousands who had fallen in love with his performance of the song back when he was still strumming Disney ballads in his bedroom. Recently, I performed this song while doing a cabaret show in Beijing, and even though I was on the other side of the world, I still had people coming up to me saying that they knew every word. Ariel’s reach extends, indeed, across oceans. Once, when I performed “Part of Your World” at a show in New York, a friend said very wisely afterwards, “You know how there are some songs that are universal and could apply to many occasions? Yeah, not that one.” It’s true. It is very solidly a song about a mermaid who lives at the bottom of the sea and grossly, if adorably, misunderstands human culture. But I’ll take it, because I know I’m not the only one who swam in my neighbor’s pool and wished to Poseidon that I could grow a mer-tail at the age of 8.

The Little Mermaid is a delight — a musical, visual, and, yes, suggestive feast for the senses, so it’s really no great surprise that some of showbiz’s most sensational divas have adopted the Ariel look for themselves. I’d like to imagine an even wider sartorial, um, net cast: perhaps some dowagers might sport Warhol-like Ursula wigs; maybe a well-placed fork could act as Gaga’s next accessory; heck, if William and Kate can look strikingly like Eric and Ariel on their wedding day, there’s likely a place for someone to paint Flounder-like stripes across his or her next red carpet outfit. “Watch and you’ll see”: it’s a Little Mermaid world, and we’re all part of it.

Rakesh Satyal is the author of the Lambda Award-winning novel Blue Boy. The protagonist of his book is also obsessed with The Little Mermaid.

“I was standing right there and it wasn’t running from me. I almost ran from it. I thought it was a rat, but when it moves, it rises up and then it just walks like a dog.”
 — Rochester resident Greg Payne, tells the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper about “Dimples,” one of two hideous-looking mystery creatures that live near his friend Gwyn Byrd’s house. Byrd’s grand-daughter took a photograph of Dimples last month, which Byrd hung up on a sign offering a $7 dollar reward for its capture. But she has since reneged on the offer.

Google doesn’t laugh
It doesn’t even titter
It can’t guffaw like Facebook
It won’t split its sides like Twitter

Google doesn’t crack a smile
It won’t respond to mirth
There’s not a single laughing part
Not even Google Earth

Your title might be funny
Forcing chuckles from the chest
But Google sits there stone-faced
Resolutely unimpressed

Don’t try to brighten someone’s day
Don’t aim for “smart and winning”
Your goal is catching Google’s eye
And Google isn’t grinning

Best to stick to SEO
And trade your wheat for chaff
Forget the humor, blogger boy
’Cause Google doesn’t laugh