كيفاش كنقل "Runyonesque"?

In the past week, through no particular fault of my own, I have met a hustler called Muhammad Couscous, been asked if I wouldn't mind buying some hashish to help pay for a leg operation, and encountered a former marriage-license salesman named Steve who advised me to go to Moscow for the babes. This last delivered an astonishing ten-minute monologue which may have been about medieval Russian art, his work in the pornography industry, or UFOs—I remain uncertain, despite having given it much thought.

I guess I have no excuse not to write a book.

It is officially cold.

Call me a simpleton, but I will never cease to be highly amused by non-Anglophones singing "Hotel California" to me by way of introduction.

Happy Thanksgiving

I have been informed that it is time to post again.

I am currently living at 6 Derb Jamaa, in the Akbet Ben Soual quarter of the Fez Medina. If you looked on a map, you would be at a total loss to find my street. If you asked 90% of the Fassi population, they too would be unable to tell you where to go. Welcome to Fez.

Our house is of the type known as a "Mesriyya." Not as grand in scale as a riad, it has two indoor floors, in addition to a rooftop terrace and a basement-kitchen. It has been under significant construction for the past two years, but is quite liveable at the moment. The only signs left are small piles of home-improvement debris in the living room and kitchen, but they aren't in the way, the rooftop has a magnificent view, and there is a small, cheerful fountain on the ground floor.

Life has recently been improved by the purchase of a classy set of speakers.

I will try to post more frequently in the future. I know how the public thirsts for my edifying vignettes of Moroccan life.

Here we go

"Gaouri" is a slang term for "foreigner" here in Morocco. The other day a fellow taxi-passenger used it while discussing me with the driver. For some reason, I felt a bit less offended when I read that Catalonians use nearly the same term.

Two years ago, I purchased an instrument from a man named Mohsin. Mohsin had a shop on Talaa Kbira in Fez, and I had been looking for it ever since my return. After a month and a half of fruitless searching, I had given up on him and found another instrument shop with friendly owners who seemed capable of doing some basic repairs on my "hajhouj," as it is called.

Today, I tried to find their shop again, made a wrong turn and ran straight into Younis, the translator who was working for Mohsin back in 2005 when I bought the instrument. After a friendly chat, he took me to Mohsin's workshop, unchanged since I last ate couscous there two summers ago. Mohsin offered to give me lessons and reattach the attractive (if musically unnecessary) parts of the hajhouj that had fallen off since our last encounter. Verily, Allah works in mysterious ways.

I am off to Barcelona for a few days. When I am back, my hajhouj will have its head reattached, In Sha' Allah.