Reviews

Match Point (*) This disappointing film starred two pretty pairs of lips. It was difficult for me to care about what happened to the main characters and the acting made it no easier. Jonathan, if you can hear me, please move your face. Scarlett Johansson was completely believable as a failed actress. I can understand Woody Allen wanting to shake things up-- to make something that is totally unfunny for once, but I expect a little wit from him. If not humor, at least wit. This film has none. There is a little plot twist, on the theme of luck, which gets dealt with clumsily.

Bodies: The Exhibition (****1/2) I thought at once that everyone and no one should see this. It's science? It's art? There is too much gratuitous slicing and dicing for pure science, I'd say. I was informed. I was intrigued! I was inspired. I was disgusted. I left with an uneasy awe at the intricacy and fragility of the human body. I decided never to smoke again. The exhibition is arranged to minimize gross-out, with the most gruesome bits situated at the end. Well after you've desensitized yourself with the flayed sportsmen in the muscles room and gazed in wonder at all the pretty red glowing capillaries in the circulatory room, there comes the reproduction room, and the things-gone-horribly-wrong room. Worth every penny, but not for the faint of heart.

Emirates Airlines (***1/2) Provides enough food and movies to keep this reviewer occupied for a 15 hour flight. There's even lotion in the bathroom. Loses points for stale croissants and lack of leg room, but I can't imagine any commercial airliner getting four stars.

Camel Milk (****) Creamy, low in fat, with a slight nutty taste. Not weird at all.

10 Things I Like Most and Least About Living in the UAE

Alan, who writes a wonderful blog, just tagged me, which apparently means I must write the following.

10 things I like about living here, in no particular order:

The students

The Persian Gulf

Meeting cool muslim girls

Meeting cute Indian guys

The lack of coldness

My job

The small but growing art scene in Dubai

Cheap, great Indian food

Rocks on strings

The dunes, the palm trees, the camels...

Things I don't like about living here:

The maniacs on the road

The lack of good customer service

The camel jockey problem

Other labor issues

The lack of English subtitles on Bollywood films

The lack of nutritional labels on local and French food

The extra care one must take when teaching students about the Italian Renaissance, so as not to show them any nudity

Taxi drivers with body-odor and physical boundary standards which are different from my own

Expats who find it uncool that I like my job

Prestige Symbols

I've never really been attracted to them. At least the ones you can't hold in your hand. Maybe I'm anti-prestige-symbol to a fault. Some academic greek society club-thing once contacted me with the honor of a nomination only to be rebuffed on account of the membership fee: "Lemme get this straight-- you want me to pay you to honor me?" I didn't think of it at the time, but it might've been damn good resume fodder. So that was a mistake. I do own a BMW. Because it's a good car. And I want a Cavalli watch. Both expensive, potentially prestigious in their own way. The names symbols of luxury. I can rationalize costly brands-- I'm paying for quality, for design. In both cases, I have an object that I own, which is more about pleasing me than impressing others. Even the clothes I buy... I mean, I want to look nice, but I'm just as likely to wear a flattering Salvation Army skirt as I am a designer. Okay, more likely. The goal is to look good, not to give anybody the false impression that I'm loaded. So it's not surprising that I can't get my head around the following cultural tidbit from the Gulf News-- my favorite source of "news" and bemusement.  I include the entire article. For your pleasure.

Special car number plates fetch Dh3m
The latest car number plate auction held by the Dubai Police Traffic Department on Wednesday fetched Dh3 million.
Brigadier Mohammad Saif Al Zafein, Director of the Traffic Department, said the total value of the auction was Dh3,042,000. The original starting price was Dh1,556,000.
The number 155 topped the list, generating Dh175,000, and number 1963 was auctioned for Dh20,000.
Eighteen three-digit numbers fetched Dh977,000; 15 four-digit numbers were sold for Dh500,000.
Ten special four-digit numbers brought in Dh217,000; and 12 five-digit numbers were sold for Dh178,000 at yesterday's auction.
Published: 3/9/2005, 07:04 (UAE)

You read it right. The honor of possessing license plate number 155 cost some schmuck $47,683.92! No, really.

Apparently, the lowest numbers are given to the royal family. Number one, for example, must belong to the president of the UAE, his highness Sheikh Khalifa, or in this case, perhaps the sheikh of Dubai, his highness Sheikh Maktoum. So the lower your plate number, the closer, other drivers assume, your relation to a sheikh. This might keep you from flipping the bird should one of these cars (SUVs, as a rule) cut you off at a roundabout. It may also come in handy when allotting fault in an accident. So, okay, somebody wants to look like they're somebody. I guess I get it...

Other expensive numbers include years, or numbers with patterns in them. The bidding for "special number 40404" started at Dh40,000 ($10,899.18), for example. (Also Gulf News  3/8/2005) These numbers are apparently more aesthetically attractive. Or lucky. A very cursory search indicates that numerology and it's variations are haram, or "really not cool" in Islam. So they must just be pretty looking. Or people know they're expensive, so if you have one, you must have money to, uh, waste. Who are these people? According to the Gulf News (3/8), each bidder paid Dh4,000 ($1100) extra on their insurance bill just to participate in the auction. Clearly people who need something to buy.

And where does all this money go? One assumes it goes to fund the Dubai Police, whose website is given in the Gulf News articles. It is definitely worth a look. And why not? Any organization listing their objective as "To drive our vision towards a perceptible reality 'To make the dream become real'" deserves a grant or a cult following. Thus we support our men in greenish beige. After all, "We are unlike any other Police Force in the world."

Indeed.

Ramadan Mubarak

It's gotten totally out of hand. Perhaps it is the feeling of finally having disposable income. Or the shopping culture I am now immersed in. Maybe it comes from too many hours watching Sex and the City, but I have begun lately to engage in some serious retail therapy. Even now, the idea of exchanging my money for goods and services makes me feel the same guilt-tinged anticipation that I might feel right before I order one of those praline-ganache obscenities they serve at my local french-ish cafe. I know it's bad. I know I don't need it, but I want! I want! I want! Things to furnish my apartment that I'll probably leave in two years. Practical things to stuff into my tiny, crowded kitchen. Things I have one of back in the states. Pretty things to put around my fingers, wrists, and neck. New clothes. New shoes. New books to put in the pile of unread books on my shelves. And this after a summer spent spending.

I was never one to do this kind of thing before. I was a hippie who got furniture off of sidewalks, who wore the same pair of shoes for a year, who never had three purses and (just counted) 26 different colors of eyeshadow. In grad  school, I had money left over to travel. Now I finish entire paychecks without having paid the electric bill. What has happened to me? Have I gotten caught up in the Dubai "do buy" mentality? When has consumerism ever been my thing? I read this article in the NY Times about purses that cost thousands of dollars. Instead of nauseating me, it made me think that I need a new handbag. A sixth.

So it is with some amount of internal conflict that I have decided to give up consumerism for Ramadan. In the same way I always tried to sympathise with Catholics by giving up something for lent, I will give up gratuitous shopping for 40 days. To truly be in the rhythm of Ramadan, I could technically shop after sunset, but no. I will not buy: those coffee table books about jewelry of the world, those three silver pendants from Turkmenistan, the new Death Cab cd, an espresso machine, a kilim, a basket for the ironing to go in, new towels, cafe au lait mugs, or any of the other tripe I'm craving right now. Absolutely no non-food items. It can wait, and if I really want it, I'll get it later.

Ramadan started Tuesday night. I had really been hoping to get some shopping in beforehand, but got derailed. So now I have to wait. Like an alcoholic who can hear liquor calling to him from the other room, I know that I just got paid and the shops are all open late. At the grocery store, I deftly avoided looking at all the Ramadan promotions of scarves and kitchenware and tried to stick to my list. It helped that everyone and his brother was doing their pre-Iftar shopping, and I was distracted anyway by hunger-crazed shoppers. As I dodged heavy carts and screaming, running children, I almost didn't even think about new earrings. There's a gold shop in the grocery store.  I didn't even look at the Body Shop, open right across the way. I was good.

It's been, what, three days? I'm starting to look for loopholes. Could new mugs  be considered essential? The only thing that makes keeps me from slipping is the crazy shopping I'm going to do at Eid. They have amazing sales.