While the US State Department deals with the Wikileaks crisis, we have our own brand of leaks. The literal kind. Leaks that seep in between the large, gaping spaces in window frames, through shutters that are rotten, or via walls that are cracked from foundering foundations. Think I'm exaggerating? Well, look at the map (Bestcountryreports.com). … Read more Wicked Leaks & TALIM: Our Own Liquidity Problem
We like the new TALIM poster, which made its debut at the AIMS booth at MESA last week in San Diego. It has a nice '30s travel touch. Yes, we do hope you visit Tangier and TALIM. You can experience the '30s – both the 1930s and the 1830s. The Legation has seen it all. … Read more Visit Tangier, Send $ to Tucson
فوضى Pronunciation: Fwḑá Definition: chaos It's one of our favorite words, a way to smile at the confusion that sometimes swirls around us. Arabic teachers searching for that perfect visual aid to illustrate the fawda that can come to inhabit life in places like Algeria could do no better than show the hilarious opening sequence … Read more Mascarades: Fawda Was Never So Much Fun
That's me in front of one of the Legation's many doors, or doors-within-gates. Only it's not in the medina of Tangier, but in DACOR Bacon House, the HQ of Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired. DACOR has a small but wonderful museum, open to the public. But why this massive artifact from America's oldest diplomatic establishment? … Read more Washington’s Piece of the Tangier American Legation
Vicariously, I experienced the First Regional Book Fair in Tangier through updates from TALIM's Associate Director. According to Yhtimad Bouziane (here with Tangier's new mayor Fouad El Omari and Book Fair organizer Rachid Amahjour as they visited the Legation stand), it was a great opportunity to network and do lots of outreach, while selling a … Read more Tangier is Enchanted by Diana Wylie’s Book
It's official: Lonely Planet has ranked the World's Top Ten Cities for 2011, and this city on the tip of Africa has made it to runner-up position, just after the Big Apple. Here's what they say: From its extraordinary position perched on the northwestern-most tip of Africa, Tangier looks in two directions: one face towards … Read more New York #1 – Tangier Number Two
Americans, when they hear the term "roofing," may think of flimsy shingles nailed into plywood. A weekend project for do-it-yourself carpenters. Not Tangier. Think concrete. Think layers. Many layers, like those encountered by an archeologist digging down into a Middle Eastern tell. Unearthing layers of valiant attempts to combat Tangier's notorious rains, which, as novelist … Read more Reclaiming America’s Legation: One Roof, One Room At a Time
After 5 days of readings, exhibits, concerts, and walkabouts, Tangier's week in Homage to Paul Bowles has come to an end. Though most of the events were attended largely by a strongly European cultural crowd, it started and ended with programs well-attended by young Moroccans. "Every Reader Is a Translator," held at the Tangier School … Read more Tribute to Paul Bowles In Tangier
There's excitement in the air. In Tangier this week, an ad hoc group of cultural institutions – Moroccan, French, Spanish, and American (us), plus some very dynamic individuals on the cultural scene – is marking the Centenary of the birth of Paul Bowles with a great variety of events (Download TALIM Paul Bowles Centenary brochure). … Read more Spotlight on Paul Bowles, Musicologist
Once, in a doctor’s office, as he paged through a dermatology manual, I was in the uncomfortable position of discovering the incredible variety of freckles, moles, beauty spots, rashes, cancers, ulcers, and growths that can appear on the human body. Luckily, whatever I had was in the benign category, but those pictures were indelibly seared … Read more Tangier’s Plague of Black Mold
