hawgblawg

Good recent resources/commentary on Donald Trump's move to neo-connery. Adam Shatz, "The Drift towards War," on the LRB Blo...

My review of Syrian Prayers: Sacred Music from Bilad Al Sham was just published by RootsWorld . You can read it here . Here's...

Syrian singer and oud player Samir al-Tawil wrote "Linda, Linda" and released it in 1967. It was his biggest hit and has been ...

More great stuff I've come across: 1. Sabri Mudallal (Moudallal), live in concert in Cologne (1988) and studio recordings (1989). ...

by Waref Abu Quba. it will only take 4 minutes of your time. a four-minute short that merely shows a slice of life in the city. It captur...

I highly, highly recommend this article by Ian Nagoski on the Syrian-American violin player Naim Karakand, recently published by Reorient ....

Sultan Hassan mosque, Cairo, December 1961 ( Photo: Romain Swedenburg) My family made its first trip to the Middle East in De...

I recently ran across a couple of very cool sites for vintage downloads. First is this one, Vintage Arab Pop Music . It is mp3s of 50+ 7...

Here 's the report, from April 30, 2014. Some interesting data. ' Nearly 300 migrants drowned last year just half a mile off th...

I know very little about Syrian-Kurdish neo-expressionist painter Bahram Hajou, but I like this painting, called "Menschen," featu...

 Syrian dabke singer Omar Souleyman has a new album out, Wenu Wenu , his first album produced specifically with a Western audience in min...

Volume 2 of Orient-Institut Studies (put out by the Orient-Institut Beirut and the Orient-Institut Istanbul) recently came out (the jour...

This release from the label Sham Palace is terrific. (I say that based on listening to the samples: haven't yet purchased it. But I aim ...

I haven't had a chance to watch/listen to the papers yet, but I wanted to call this event to readers' attention. In October 2012, th...

From the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences. Read the rest here . The drought in Syria is one of the first modern events in which a climacti...

Now I understand why NPR was so excited about Cinnabon in Tripoli. Because they were hoping Libya would now become "free" just ...

From Layla Al-Zubaidi, writing in the London Review of Books : Since the uprising began, every village has come up with its own dabke, a t...

Check out this very important and illuminating article about the role of drought in the Syrian unrest. Here are a few of the scary excerpts...

Ramy Essam, singer of the Egyptian revolution, who produced the unforgettable song "Irhal," has put out a song in solidarity with...

The photo is by Tyler Hicks of the New York Times , who accompanied Anthony Shadid (RIP) on his final visit to Syria. The photo gallery it ...