Michael Toler

Cultural Diplomacy, Diplomatic History, Historic Preservation, Legation Tales, Museum, TALIM

Can’t Stop Curating

November 2, 2014June 26, 2014 2 Comments by Michael Toler

New “name cloud” exhibit listing literary & artistic friends of Paul Bowles who were drawn to Tangier

Can’t stop curating?

Well, I do have to stop – we’re getting on the ferry to Spain Friday morning! Friends have joked that I’ll still be at it tomorrow morning, mounting yet more exhibits while my wife waits in the car. Not true; I stopped this afternoon.

At the French Consulate’s 14 Juillet reception after we arrived in 2010, a Moroccan friend introduced me as the “nouveau conservateur” in what people in Tangier only knew then as the “Musée de l’Ancienne Légation Américaine.” I joked that I was no conservative… I was a Democrat!

But the point is that conservateur or curator was the way people thought of this position in this city. I thought that was a bit limiting – how about our research library? Our seminars? The Arabic literacy program? Etc. I also didn’t like that ancienne thing – made it sound like we were closed.

Morocco’s Music: Archives to Archnet

November 2, 2014June 26, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

His Majesty King Mohammed VI Paul Bowles Library of Congress Moroccan Music Collection Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies — His Majesty King Mohammed VI
Paul Bowles Library of Congress
Moroccan Music Collection
Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies

It was the only way I could think of to get the opus of Morocco’s traditional music, recorded in 1959 by Paul Bowles and digitized by TALIM in 2010, into the hands of King Mohammed VI: have a leather presentation case made, embossed with the TALIM logo and dedicated to His Majesty.

US Ambassador to Morocco Dwight Bush now has it, and will present it at an appropriate occasion. Morocco’s musical heritage will have been repatriated after more than fifty years in the vaults of the Library of Congress.

AIMS, Books, Interzone, Morocco, Research Center

Tangier: Guides and Gateways

December 9, 2014June 25, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

Cover by Robert McDonald, Tangier: The Golden Gateway (Tangier: Mediterranean American Press, 1952). Collection TALIM Research Library.

The following is a guest post by Emma Chubb, who made a presentation on her subject to a group of American, European, and Moroccan researchers and interested members of the public at TALIM on June 17. Emma Chubb is a doctoral candidate in art history at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois USA) and is a 2013-14 American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS) fellow in Morocco.

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Guides and Gateways

I spent much of last fall reading through TALIM’s collection of guidebooks and tourism magazines published between the 1940s and 1970s. Perhaps it was because I too was a newcomer to Tangier, but these guides fascinated me. Some folded out like maps, mixing quirky tips for the European or American traveler to Tangier with black-and-white photographs and brightly colored illustrations.

A Virtual Tour for Ambassador Peck

December 9, 2014June 23, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

This is a “guest post” by Ambassador Edward Peck, who returned to Tangier on May 1 on board a cruise ship, and had been hoping to show Mrs. Peck the place where he and several other future US ambassadors had studied Arabic over fifty years ago.

He found our doors closed. Disappointment all around – we were so looking forward, as the Pecks were, to a trip down memory lane. Since the visit unfortunately didn’t happen, here’s a virtual tour of the Legation in photos (featuring some Legation exhibits that have just been opened), along with Ambassador Peck’s narrative of his return to Tangier.

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One of the first six students who attended FSI’s Arabic Language School in the old Legation building when it opened in 1961, I was both pleasantly surprised and extremely impressed by the view of Tangier from the sea as our ship arrived on May Day 2014.

Cultural Diplomacy, Historic Preservation, Museum, Research Center, TALIM

Introducing the New Mudir – John Davison

November 2, 2014June 22, 2014 1 Comment by Michael Toler

Almost four years to the day, I wrote about my predecessor Thor Kuniholm and his long tenure at the Legation. Next week, it will be my successor, John Davison, who will be coming in after Marie Hélène and I head off to greener pastures.

I was an early and strong supporter of John’s candidacy, among a very competitive field of applicants for this job. He had visited us at the Legation after learning of the job opening, and we were impressed with his enthusiasm, imagination, and his knowledge of Morocco.

Books, Historic Preservation, Museum, Research Center, Tangier

The Skeletons of Portuguese Tangier

December 10, 2014June 19, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

“Portuguese Tangier” uses the latest GIS modeling technology and 15th century archives to recreate a vibrant image of the city during its two Portuguese centuries.

Cultural Diplomacy, Music, TALIM, Tangier

The First Farewell

December 10, 2014June 15, 2014 1 Comment by Michael Toler

Drawing by Lawrence Mynott, graphic design by Anthea Pender

The eagle – hats off to artist Lawrence Mynott and his American eagle balloon on our invitation cards – has taken off, or almost. Actually, we’re still here for a couple more weeks, so last night’s farewell was the biggest but not the last farewell.

Thanks to the generosity of Madison Cox, we were sent off with full flying colors by our Tangier friends, a cross section of this multidimensional city, with donors, staff members, artists, artisans, academics… everyone who has helped us make this place a livelier, more open venue for our wide range of activities.

Global Voices, Chicago and Tangier

December 10, 2014June 8, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

TALIM Global Voices group — Tangier Global Voices group, plus ALC Tangier staff: IT wizard Rachid El Mziryahi, teacher Rabia el Antaki, and Director Mark Holbrook

Their voices came wafting up over the Legation courtyard, a springtime Friday evening. Intrigued, I paid a visit to our group of high school English students enrolled in the Global Voices Initiative program, thanks to our partnership with the American Language Center (ALC) Tangier. You can watch the videos on the ALC website.

It was practice for their upcoming presentation of a set of three plays, which they developed, wrote in English, and then performed for their audience of American students in Chicago, via a Google + connection.

Meanwhile, the Chicago students were doing the same thing – in Arabic. Here’s how George Bajalia (he’s smiling from the corner of the screen in the photo below), former Fulbright scholar in performance studies in Tangier, described the scene in Chicago:

Books, Cultural Diplomacy, Music, Research Center

Ten Years of “Performing Tangier”

December 10, 2014June 6, 2014 1 Comment by Michael Toler

Several other intervening events prevented me from properly congratulating Dr. Khalid Amine and his circle in the International Center for Performance Studies on the tenth edition of “Performing Tangier.”

Books, Research Center, TALIM

TALIM Library Catalog Finds an Online Home

December 10, 2014June 5, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

Grecia Álvarez has written the following guest post.

Grecia Álvarez (MLIS) is a librarian and an EFL instructor who specializes in Cataloging and Information Literacy Instruction. Her first encounter with Morocco was in 2010-2011, when she was a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at Abdelmalek Essaâdi University in Tetouan. She has been working on various projects at the Legation since her arrival in Tangier last September, including volunteering as an English teacher in our Arabic literacy program for the women of the medina.

Her librarian work at the Legation has been possible thanks to a generous grant provided by the U.S. Embassy in Rabat.

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We librarians lead pretty exciting lives. We come into daily contact with objects of incalculable value, like books and papers that have played a role in furthering relations between peoples and nations.