ICONS FOR ICONOCLASTS

I guess that icon wasn't a word much in use until we all went on line, but it's one that's been turning up in my mind quite a lot since the UAE started celebrating its 40th birthday.  To quote a friend of mine: "Dang! I'm older than a whole country!" Everywhere I go there are signs of national pride; houses decorated in the national colors, flags the size of football fields, cars wrapped in pictures of the three sheiks.  The date palms are wrapped in fairy lights and the schools are distributing flags and scarves to their students.  Scarves in 78 degrees of heat? I wonder if that was thought through.  I've even bought a t shirt in the national colors so as to go with the flow, but given some of the looks I've got from my neighbors that may not have been a good idea.

Why are we all so keen on symbols? Look on any discussion board and you'll see what I mean.  Kittygurrl37 has a persian kitten picture for an identifier, whilst HAVOKK666 represents himself as a heavily armed troll with bad dental hygiene.  Is this post-modern cynicism on their part, or is that really the image of themselves that they want to project?  As an exercise for the student look on Facebook and see what you can see there.  Why does your aunt use a picture of her dog?  Why do you? Why do entire nations, tribes, families identify themselves in this abstract fashion?  What's the real message?  I know that it's a moment of pride for many Americans when we see a bald eagle.  They're impressive birds, soaring free, symbolic of mountain majesty and a swift nuclear counterstrike, but turning it into a window decal for an F-150 seems to be a degradation for something better suited to an F-16.

So our forefathers [and foremothers, who never get enough credit] decided that the new nation would benefit from being identified with an airborne predator with a taste for carrion. Ben Franklin preferred the turkey as an alternative, given that it was "in Comparison a much more respectable Bird."  If he'd had his way then Thanksgiving dinner would certainly be different today.  As for Uncle Sam, well, strange dress sense is just the start of it...

As for the British, we have a number of symbols accumulated over the centuries.  The Rose, far from being sweet and pretty is left over from theFifteenth Century wars of succession, known as the Wars of the Roses.  Not a pretty image.  Bulldogs?  Butt ugly products of a breeding program.  But then bulldogs are symbolic of stubborn determination, a quality alien to most of the nation but attractive to our secret selves.  So, we are told something about nations by the icons they adapt, but perhaps not the image that they themselves wished to project.  Got that, HAVOKK666?

So, here in the UAE the soul icon is a falcon.  Wild, dangerous and justifiable, given that falconry is still a widely practiced sport, if only by the unreasonably rich.  As the guide at the Al Ain Zoo pointed out however, falcons and hunting birds in general, have no loyalty whatsoever, being nothing more than feathered mercenaries.  I think - borrowing the famous sequence from 'American Beauty' that the true symbol of the UAE should be a plastic supermarket bag, blowing endlessly through the desert.  Owing to most Emiratis' assumption that someone else will deal with the trash, specifically an imported Indian, there is a supersurplus of plastic bags.  Most of them get eaten by camels, which isn't a surprise as a camel is not the most discriminating of gourmets.  Sadly for the camels they die as the bags blocks their intestinal tracts.

So perhaps the search for meaningful symbols should be tempered with some humility.  For America the turkey, for Britain a mongrel dog, for the UAE a plastic bag blowing through a desert landscape accessorized with dead camels.  For you, a picture of yourself on Facebook.

I say hello, and you say....

Bless the Beatles, they really had a way with words, or at least Lennon and McCartney did.  Not to diss George and Ringo, but the most memorable phrases originated with John and Paul.  'All You Need is Love', 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.'  Unlike the previous generation who remember where they were in November 1961, mine can tell you where they were the first time they heard Sgt. Pepper.  For the record [and that's what it was] Rebecca Seal's bedroom, with her dad pounding on the door.

Looking through the data I can assert that English speakers have been given a most amazing tool of self expression.  An estimated total word hoard of 1,010,649.7 and counting, the basic vocabulary needed for fluency is estimated at 2,000 words.  This gives us a surplus of, well, you do the Math as they say.  By the way I have no idea how anyone could defend the existance .7 of a word.  You decide.

I've always been fascinated by language, in particular my own and to some extent that of the neighbours, the French, as up until know that's been the only language with which I have been on friendly, if distant terms.  Language is the structure by which we express and understand ourselves, so if the signifier is missing, chances the signifier didn't make it out of the box.  I suppose you all know that the story about Eksimos and words for snow isn't true.  I suspect that they only have a couple and they both translate as "Dammit!"  But even if the signfier isn't the signified then words still map out the territory across which we walk the sentences.

In France, Foucault established that language has a historical function that establishes the truth of the time.  Thomas Kuhn called that a paradigm, stealing the idea and give it a wider currency.  Which is the story of English and French, England and France in a nutshell.  Whilst English has robbed, accomodated and absorbed much vocabulary from its romance and germanic neighbours, precise numbers for vocabulary remain elusive.  The fact is that different languages get to the same place along a different path.  The English "What is it?" is terse compared to the French "Qu'est-ce qu'il y a qu' est ce?" whilst the German "Warum?" is almost monosyllabic.  Arabic, however has us all beat down and whimpering in the sands of the arena.

You might think that having mastered "Salaam alaiakum" and "Khevel sah" you were hanging out with the shebab.  However such is not the case.  Yesterday I was greeted in such a way that I caught the arabic word for saffron.  Not difficult, it's Za'afraan, so no points there.  What was that? I asked.  "May your day be sprinkled with saffron," he replied, explaining that camels who win an important race are sprinkled with saffron.  What else can I say I asked and then the floodgates opened.  Check this out:

"May your day have the scent of jasmin."  "May your day be covered in roses."  "May your day become bejewelled"  "May your day win the 4:30 at Epsom."  Well, so I made up the last one, but you get the idea.  Makes "Have a nice day" look pretty lame, doesn't it?

So, I am establishing a commission to expand greetings in the English language.  So far I have "May your day have free refills at the Salad Bar" and "May the traffic signals turn green at your approach."  All contributions gratefully received.  Leave them in the comment box.  Thank you!  May your day/night/evening be marked by the approval of the deity of your choice.

Landcruisersaurus

Quatroterrae Toyotasaurus

This is the land of the Landcruiser - Landcruiserland? - more big, white, tricked out behemoths than aspired to by a whole 'hood of sneering hip hop wannabees.  Seriously, this town has so many Landcruisers that with a couple of coats of desert camo they'd be ready to invade, well, maybe the next oasis.  It's a mystery to me, really, as the men you meet - and they are the drivers -  are generally friendly, soft-spoken and courteous.  Getting behind the wheel must release some inner Vin Diesel as they devolve into a perfect example of the Darwinian principle on four wheels.  Four wheel drive Darwin.

Now imagine that you're reading this in the breathless tones of a David Attenborough: The everyday scene of conflict is the roundabout and as they act as the traffic control at every intersection there's opportunity enough to observe the basic tactics of intimidation.  First of all, unless in immediate danger of collision, they never stop at the line.  This is taken as a sign of weakness and will evoke a riot of dismissive horn blowing from those behind.  This is the same derisive chorus that greets the driver who is more than a second late in pulling away from the light.  Sometimes these Toyotasaurs will bellow a challenge just for the hell of it.  Occasionally conflict spills over into the waterholes, sorry, gas stations as they jockey for position at the pumps.  Apart from its basic white hide the Landcruiser comes with a wide variety of secondary markings, mostly along the flanks.  The purpose of these markings is not clearly understood, but it may be something to do with mating.

Around these brontosaur equivalents roar the velociraptors of this prehistoric world, the Mercedes, tricked out by AMG, the Porsche Cayennes and the occasional Corvette looking for all the world like a land based trilobite.

Me, I drive a Yaris.  I like to think of the Yari as the analogue of the early mammals, scurrying around the edges, keeping out of the way and getting to evolve into something smarter.  Just as long as we don't get stepped on by something big and heedless.

Seafood and Die.

                This isn't about seafood really, unless somewhere in the world of omnivores there's a taste for hermit crab.  You know, those squatters of crustacean society, the creature with no home of its own that ends up living in someone else's cast off carapace.  Never quite cute enough to make it into a Disney movie, the hermit crabs of the world are to be found around the water cooler or in the Teachers' Lounge making a reputation for wit out of sarcasm.  I contend that anyone can sound profound as long as they can do the word dance with a wry smile, but at base the material is bitter and founded on disappointment and anger.

                I am, I admit it freely, a recovering hermit crab.  I didn't like my job, but it was at least a familiar cage and even when it was uncomfortable there were benefits, such as my fellow sufferers.  Getting pulled out of my shell has had a profound effect on my everyday life, not least transporting me 7,000 miles from home to a land far, far away.  Being faced with something so far removed from my everyday made me a hermit crab without a shell, learning to swim in a strange part of the ocean.  Dropping the shell has made me reassess the way I deal with the world.  Is seeing the downside really an asset?  It's too easy to fall into cliché here, but being smart without responsibility is the same as having 20-20 hindsight; not really useful, but apparently impressive.

                That's the trouble with living in a shell.  You can put up with the numbing effect of your daily frustration and take your revenge building a reputation for plain talking.  But you don't get to explore much of the world.  You do get to insulate yourself against at least some of the pain as you watch the same old actors wading through the same old mistakes.  Perhaps the crustaceans of the world really do know what's going on and have opted out of the responsibility/blame cycle.

                Here's the rub: will I build a new shell?  Secretly do I long for my shell like an adolescent for his phone?  There's the temptation to fall back into the cynical for the sake of cheap laughs.  But for every knowing sneer there's a loss to be paid from a potential new experience.  Being part of the solution means swimming in the unknown, which brings us back to the ocean and seafood.

                If you don't want a shell, then you could, for example, swim with the prawns.  Prawns have a far more three dimensional approach to the ocean.  Rather than trudging along the seabed with the hermit crabs, prawns swim wild and free.  The price for living on the edge is, unfortunately, prawns get eaten.  But I bet they're happier than their cousins the hermit crabs, even if they don't have much of a reputation for witty repartee.

Once upon a time...

                Once upon a time, all good stories start like that, don't they?  Well anyway, once upon a time there was a teacher who lost his way in the deep dark forest.  Detroit doesn't have forests, but stick with the metaphor alright?  So after a while of wandering in the trackless forest, trying to anticipate where a path would be if there were any logic to life the teacher met a creature that appeared to be a big bad wolf.

                "So what do you think you're doing here?" asked the wolf.

                "Just trying to do my job," replied the teacher.

                "Shame about that," said the wolf, "as I cut your job last week, so that we could go on paying my

                son-in-law, the Community Outreach Director."

 Now, in most fairy stories the hero, in this case yours truly, defeats the monster, gets the princess and half the kingdom and is gazed at in a generally adoring fashion by the peasantry.  In this story, none of that happens, except that whilst my job was cut, they sacked the wolf and he didn't even see it coming.

 Here's what really happened next: I got a job teaching in Abu Dhabi [yes, I had to Google it too] and moved to the Middle East for the next two years.  This is the story of just how it is, here at Desert High and the adventures that happen along the way.  There are camels instead of dragons, the sons of the rich instead of sons of poor shoemakers, but there's still a lot of Hans Christian Anderson in the air anyway.  It's an attempt to make sense of what's proving to be an experience of equal parts fascination and frustration with a dash of WTF [look it up] thrown in for good measure.  I decided to write this, on occasion, mildly disguised account of my experiences mostly to help me make some sense of the whole show.  If you enjoy reading it then that makes it all the more worthwhile.

Once upon a time.......