On the Edge (Sur la planche) – Leila Kilani, Morocco 2011 Death For Sale (Mort à vendre) – Faouzi Bensaidi, Morocco 2011 We were very well advised, at the outset of Tangier's just-concluded 13th edition of Morocco's National Film Festival, to see the two films that in fact came to win the top two prizes. … Read more Filming Morocco’s Lower Rungs On the Social Ladder
François Beaune wants your (true) story. Your Mediterranean story, in whatever language (French, Arabic, Hebrew, English, Spanish… the Med is a melting pot of languages too) you choose. And though the invitation is open – "I believe in copyleft, and want stories to be shared" – there are some conditions for submissions. Inspired … Read more Copyleft Your True Story: Histoires Vraies de Méditerranée
Poster adapted by Serena Epstein, American School of Tangier As we walked, I showed Tennessee the Arabic translation of his play, and explained that the title in Arabic meant: A Cat On the Fire. Mohamed Choukri, Tennessee Williams in Tangier (1979, Cadmus Editions, translated by Paul Bowles) Choukri's little book recounts one of the playwright's … Read more Tennessee Williams’ A Cat On The Fire
From "Précipitations Annuelles," dry month map inset at TALIM research library, from the colonial era Institut Scientifique Chérifien The Scientific American picked up Reuters' article from today "Morocco prays for rain for first time since 2007." Now, I don't think that my prayers for dry weather last fall, when the Embassy contractor started our latest … Read more Let It Rain, On Morocco
To our usual languages in the little "card" above, we wanted to add a New Year's greeting in Tamazight, also known as Amazigh or Berber. But we couldn't find it in tifinagh, the Berber alphabet. The world's most complete list of holiday greetings has just included (with our prompting) an entry for the language spoken … Read more 2011 to 2012: Another TALIM Transition
For the last couple of months, settle into a Royal Air Maroc airplane seat, reach for the inflight magazine, and you'll see the cover story – the Museums of Tangier. Featuring, along with our friends the Kasbah Museum, the Tangier American Legation (TALIM) museum. We are thrilled that RAM, with its six million passengers per … Read more Read All About It: Legation & the Press
1961… Fifty years ago, a modernist architectural edifice in "New Tangier" replaces the Gift of the Sultan. [T]he Tangier Legation was an exception. Before 1821, and for a long while after, the United States owned no property abroad… [In the 1950s and 60s] Projects such as Tangier… designed by young "stars" such as Hugh Stubbins, … Read more The Modernist Tangier American Consulate General
No qualitative or political inference to my post title – it's just a phrase, usually denoting the kind of people who show up at international conflabs like Davos and Aspen. That said, MEDays brought an impressive array of people from all walks and regions to Tangier, for the 4th consecutive year. It was a Davos … Read more MEDays 2011: Tangier Welcomes the Great & Good
Today Morocco celebrates Independence Day. "The View From Fez," a fine English-language blog, has some photos from King Mohammed V's return from exile, the date of which determined Morocco's Independence Day. I know what they say about reading the telephone book, but there is great value in leafing through the 1956 Tangier Anuario Telefonico, reprinted … Read more Moroccan Independence: November 18, 1956
There have been Shahs in Morocco. Of Iran, and of Afghanistan. We speak of the latter. Tahir Shah (official site) In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams (Bantam, 2008) Tangier holds a special place in my heart. It was there that my grandfather lived, then died, knocked down outside his villa on the steep … Read more A Shah’s Triumphant Return To Tangier
