So interesting: Arabic dialects.

Like a month ago I was at a public park in the city, and as I was washing my hands in the restroom adjoining the pavilion that’s rented out for weddings, I was looking at all this crap that the wedding party had put in the public restroom for their guests: nice soaps, a few starlight mints and packs of gum, and even 2 high school graduation pictures (presumably of the bride and groom).

As I was stepping out of the restroom, this older (brown-skinned) man asked me in French if I spoke French, and when I said (in French) “a little”, he proceeded to ask me who the pictures were of, and I tried my best to explain that the hall was rented out for weddings and that I thought they were pictures of the bride and groom, though I kept mixing in Spanish words and the whole thing was just halting and atrocious.

Then, I talked with the man a bit more (in French), and it turns out that he was Moroccan and visiting his daughter and son-in-law, and when I explained that I had been to Morocco once, he asked where, and it turns out that he has a little shopping stall just a few storefronts off the main square in Marakesh, and he insisted that I take down the address so we could have tea if I ever came back.

So, I walked back down to where I had my stuff out, and since I had been hanging out with my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend, I mentioned that my friend was born in the Sudan and spoke Arabic, which made the Moroccan light up, and as soon as we got over by my stuff, he started speaking in Arabic to my friend – though I noticed that they quickly started speaking French.

After the guy was gone, I asked my friend what was up with that, and he said it’s so hard to understand the Moroccan dialect because of the heavy accent and all the Berber words thrown in, that it’s just easier to speak French sometimes, and that when he lived in Paris, he’d do that all the time when speaking with North African immigrants who tried speaking to him in Arabic.

“Did you hear that?”, my friend was like.  “He kept saying chelaphon.”

“What’s that?”, I was like.

“Telephone,” he was like.  “Between that and how they leave out so many vowels, it can be very hard to understand.”

Later, I spoke with his sister about this, and she agreed.

A very odd barhopping experience: Recon.

Like 8 days ago after a work function in downtown, I hit up some upscale restaurant and hotel bars to have a quiet beer and do some reading for class prep, and ended up at the lobby bar in one of the big luxury hotels in that part of town.

Oddly, the bar was hopping, and I found out it was b/c of some investment conference coordinated by a business magazine that connects capital and capital managers, including to university investments.

So, since I had on nice slacks and a snazzy shirt and tie with a black sweater and had just gotten a haircut a few days earlier, I began mingling and asking how a donor might make money off a university.

The first (young) (white) (female) (Jewish?) magazine editor got suspicious of my direct line of questioning and my saying I had written financial exposes, so I changed my story when I met people and began saying that I had a friend who had done well in i-banking and had given a few million to a university, but wanted to get access to the endowment money.

The next guy I spoke to was brusque and said that that wasn't good, but I pushed through and said that it wasn't anything wrong since my friend wasn't going to hook up the endowment with crappy investments that'd f*ck the university, but rather the $ had to be invested somewhere, so why not help out your friends if they could provide the same opportunities.

"Those days are gone," he was like, and he then explained that "too many eyes are watching."

Later, another guy said that really, those kinds of connections are how "investment is done since someone knows someone", but even then, that "that really doesn't happen anymore," and he again said that "too many eyes are watching."

I pressed him, and he admitted that the eyes watching were only board-internally.

So, I identified the place as my university, and said my friend was pissed since they were giving contracts to 2 particular companies but he had seen nothing.

He then asked me how much $ my friend had given, and I said like $6-7 mill, def. under $10 mill, and he said that that was probably not enough for that, he'd have to give at least $20 mill in his guess before he could call in any favors.

I also told a British fund manager some of the #s from my university (debt, admin payraises, announced building and financial aid initiatives), and he just whistled and shook his head and said the #s were whack.

Yet another horrible dream of decay!

I'm standing in my kitchen, holding the back of my mid-century black-padding-and-chrome chair, since the metal connectors that connected the back to the seat and had been slightly rusting had been worn through and someone must have broken the back off by leaning on it.

Teaching art teachers.

A few weeks ago, I got this open invitation from the art school to give remarks and lead lunchtime discussion for a small group of high school art teachers who were doing continuing ed, and then lead them on a tour of the museum.

They had this whole day of events, and at the last minute twice as many people as expected signed up, so they were looking for more faculty for that part of the day's activities.

I was stoked - I just love that art school! - and I texted 2 friends who are high school teachers to tell them that I'd be doing continuing ed for high school teachers and would be leading a lunchtime discussion.

The reply of the husband of my one friend who runs an integrated homelessness / domestic violence shelter, who's a high school teacher and athletic director? -

Tell them really fucked up stories and see how they react.  Or about the fecal density app.

. . .

Interestingly, I really bonded with the art teachers when they found out I was doing exposes of "badmin".  They've faced a lot of insane shit lately in their districts, and we had a really wonderful discussion about messaging.

Big paybumps and in-house PR firms are increasingly normal, it seems, even in small-to-middle-sized school districts.

Patty Hearst's memoir: So great.

I love the opening of the 3rd chapter.

You know what made Patty Hearst feel the most helpless she ever felt in her life?

Sniffing the soundproof padding in that closet.

Sweet text from my one friend who studies Czech literature.

After I read the new book about Michael Jackson's last years (written by his security guards), I scanned a few pages about the women that he liked in order to send them to this famous sexologist who I've met socially and has written on MJ's proclivities...

He emailed back almost immediately, with a quick note thanking me and saying it was interesting.

I happily texted that to my one friend who studies (Czech) literature, and she replied -

Yay!  That's great!  Save that.  People whi [sic] are worthwhile know your worth, [my first name].

. . .

Addendum.

I forgot -

For that daytrip, I overslept my alarm...

I had had a hectic week, and my alarm was set right, so I must have just slept right through it...

I was supposed to get up at 6:15am to catch the 7am long-distance bus, but I only got up at 7:40am, out of nowhere.

Fortunately, I was able to find a later bus on a different line, though I lost half my time at the citywide art fest, since I got there so late.

That morning as I was running around frantically trying to get together alternate travel plans, my roommate had questions about my thinking that I'd only get 3 hours of sleep, get up, then sleep more on the bus.

"I've done that before," she was like.  "But to be able to sleep on the bus, you first have to get up in order to catch the bus."

Also funny was that when I didn't show up at the bus stop, my one (Asian-Canadian) friend just hopped the bus anyway since he was already there and had blocked the day off and was figuring that there'd be something to do in the city for eight hours by himself...

Even then, we arranged by text and he hung out with my friends (who he'd never met) for like 4 hours without me before I arrived.