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Tag: queerarab

Episode 195 [in English]: Intensity and Exhaustion

We’ve got a personal episode this week with Ellie, Alia, and Nadia! 

A lot of the discussion focuses on one particularly eventful day for Alia and Nadia that included:

  • Alia attending a protest in solidarity with Iranian women’s rights, along with some friends from Iran, who discussed how optimism and political energy varies across micro-generations. 
  • The puppet/public art project Walk With Amal, which was heartwarming, but also brought up complicated feelings about the need for art to create empathy towards refugees.
  • The documentary Sirens about the Lebanese all women thrash metal band Slave to Sirens, which was both beautiful in its authentic depictions of Arab women, and bittersweet in having the last three years of events in Lebanon as a backdrop. 

Also in this episode, we wonder about the origins of weird wedding rituals (and why isn’t there a Worst Man?) We also discuss the sense of tired fogginess a lot of us have been feeling lately, and the weird void that comes with unlearning internalized capitalism: if we stop basing our self worth on our productivity, what are we supposed to base it on…just being hot? Plus, we talk sapphic sci-fi storylines.

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Episode 190: Where Do Flat Earthers Think the Edge Is?


Photo attribution:
Trekky0623, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Just the hosts this week here with an unedited personal catch-up episode (Do y’all like these? Let us know!) 

Ellie talks about getting COVID (finally) and lots of things wrong with the world: from the overturning of Roe v. Wade to Mohammed Bin Salman’s continued financial takeover of the video game industry (this leads to a conversation about which countries are the best at glossing over shit, and we wonder if we’re all in a Dubai-based replica of our lives). 

Nadia talks about their time in Turkey and Lebanon, and how time functions differently off the New York grid. They also talk about previous projects they were working on, including immortal jellyfish, “Gawd” as a middle manager, and dabke at pride.

Alia discusses leaving a “queer” orchestra group due to transphobia and unchecked white privilege among leadership, and finding other music opportunities. She also talks about her trip to London following a death in the family. 

We all talk about being deeply burnt out – which is one reason we’re not publishing as much lately – but it is good to be back!

(By the way, just a cute little update: 3 days after recording this, Alia tested positive for COVID.)

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