Gregarious Gregorian New Year.

Photo: Elyaqim Mosheh Adam.Johnny, Tatiana and J.P. rang in the new year Nowhere.
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New Year’s Eve 2008–09 was spent at “A Func­tion” at Dou­ble-Headed Dis­co, Nowhere (Goo­gle group, Face­book, MySpace, Yelp, Web log), 322 East Four­teenth Street, Man­hat­tan, with Garth, Charles שת, Mara מרה, İlker and a gag­gle of new friends. One of the new friends told me I was “meant for lov­ing” and kept try­ing to embrace me all night. Unfor­tu­nately, pay­ing atten­tion to me meant tak­ing his atten­tion away from his coat which was sto­len on such a bit­terly cold night. He should have checked it with Paul, the friendly cloak­room atten­dant. More pic­tures can be viewed in my Face­book photo album “New Year’s Eve 2008–09,” as well as in DHD’s photo album, “A Func­tion—New Year’s Eve.”

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Photo: Elyaqim Mosheh Adam.Quality control: İlker and J.P. tested the horns.
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Photo: Elyaqim Mosheh Adam.Paul, the friendly cloak­room atten­dant. Note the warn­ing on the wall: “Nowhere is not respon­si­ble for lost or sto­len items.”
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Photo: Elyaqim Mosheh Adam.A new year’s scandal! One can only assume the sign was supposed to say “coat check.”

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✴ Elyaqim wishes all his friends and acquain­tan­ces a heal­thy, peace­ful new year. May its days be pleas­ant ones, unlike our pres­ent ones. —1 January, 20:35

A ver­sion of this arti­cle is repro­duced at webcitation.org/5eTPhizPV, as well as on Face­book.

Chinese New Year in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Mott Street between Canal and Bayard streets. Photo: Elyaqim Mosheh Adam.

 I have been a little sick recently, so I wasn’t able to get to the Chinese new year festivities until around 15:00 when almost everything seemed to have finished. However, according to About.com’s article on the subject, “The parade is expected to conclude at 3:00 pm, at which time an outdoor cultural festival will take place on Bayard Street featuring more performances by musicians, dancers and martial artists.”¹ In other words, I had missed the parade but was right on time for the cultural festival, but yet I never found it. In retrospect, the festival may have been closer to Mulberry and Baxter streets, possibly at Columbus Park, but, with the exception of my walks to and from the subway station, I spent my time in Chinatown entirely on or east of Mott Street.

Mott Street between Canal and Bayard streets. Photo: Elyaqim Mosheh Adam.

 I did, however bump right into a lion dance troupe, that of 金獅團 Golden Lion Club², that I was able to follow around eastern Chinatown as they performed in front of various storefronts and collected their extortion donations from the management. The dancers would perform in front of businesses and even enter some of them. Most of the businesses were tiny, but others were not; the lions ascended the escalator into 金豐大酒樓 Jing Fong Restaurant, and the crowd of onlookers patiently waited on the street for them to finish dancing and then come back down and continue the tour.

De-escalating at 金豐大酒樓 Jing Fong Restaurant, 20 Elizabeth Street. Photo: Elyaqim Mosheh Adam.

 All my pictures of the day can be viewed in my Facebook photo albums “January 2009, part III” and “January 2009, part IV.” The route we took can be seen on the map I created.

In front of East Ocean, 53 Bayard Street. Photo: Elyaqim Mosheh Adam.

Notes

 1. Heather Cross, “Chinese Lunar New Year in New York City: 2009,” New York City Travel, About.com Web site, January 2009.
 2. There are also three Facebook groups devoted to the Golden Lion Club: Golden Lion Club [no. 1], GLC babyyy and Golden Lion Club [no. 2]. A private MySpace profile also exists with an accompanying video page.

A version of this article is reproduced at webcitation.org/5eHcH3KzK.

The Acne Lions Truck.

Photograph by Elyaqim Mosheh Adam.

On 8 October 2008, I used my broken-down, misbehaving camera to snap the above photograph of a truck parked in front of Apna Bazar Cash & Carry, 72-20 37^th Avenue, Jackson Heights, a market I curiously and unrelatedly mentioned in my last article. In bright sunlight, my camera tends to turn skies pink, and it also tends to make straight lines wavy near the edges of the images. (Note the awning.) The pretty graffiti on the truck said something rather unusual, “Acne Lions,” so I wondered if I might find better pictures of it online. My search was surprisingly fruitful, and I turned up six other pictures of it, spaced in time so the development of the different graffiti is somewhat demonstrated.

The second earliest was the picture above, embedded here with a link to the page on which I found it, taken by Robert K. Chin on East Broadway, Manhattan, on 2 November 2006 when some of the upper graffiti had not yet been painted.

I found all of the remaining five images on Flickr. There may be yet more pictures to be found, but I do not know like what the other side of the truck looks.

Photographs by (left to right, top to bottom) Nate Dorr, C-Monster, No. 3 Killer, Brendan Smith, Bodybuilding Liondancer.

Update, 8 January 2010: Indeed, I have turned up three more pictures of the truck. See “More of the Acne Lions Truck,” 7 January 2010.

• Versions of this article are reproduced at webcitation.org/5dtXsZHEW and webcitation.org/5md6igdFs and on Facebook.
• Additional comments on this article may be available on FriendFeed.

Ḥabîbî to mohabbat: Egyptian pop song to Bollywood filmī song.

 On Thursday, 13 March, I was in Apna Bazar Cash and Carry, a market here in Jackson Heights, and I was surprised to hear a Hindi/Urdu version of the 1996 Egyptian song “Nûru‐l‐ʻayin” (نور العين), composed by Nasser el-Mizdawi (ناصر المزداوي). The video of the recording by Amr Diab (عمرو دياب), with the original Arabic lyric by Ahmed Sheta (أحمد شتا), can be seen on YouTube here, here, here, here and elsewhere.

 The staff in the store were of no help identifying this later version for me even though they were playing it. A little research on the Internet revealed it was “Mohabbat hō nā jāyē,” a song from the 2001 Indian film Style. The Urdu/Hindi lyric, according to the Indian Movie Directory and Bollywoodlyrics.com, is by Abbas Tyrewala.

 The switch from Arabic to Urdu/Hindi was not only a change of language but of language family, from Afro-Asiatic to Indo-European, yet the first repeated word of the chorus manages to be from the same root in both. In the Arabic original, the chorus repeats “Ḥabîbî ḥabîbî ḥabîbî…” (حبيبي حبيبي حبيبي…‏), and in the Urdu/Hindi version, the chorus repeats “Mohabbat mohabbat mohabbat…” (محبت محبت محبت…‏), both of which come from the two-letter Semitic ḥ-b (حب، חב) root which refers to love. The Hebrew word for love, אהבה (ah^aḇâ), may come from the same root as well even though a hēʼ (ה، ه) is where the ḥêṯ (ח، ح) should be. According to Edward Horowitz, “Sounds made in the same part of the mouth or made in the same way, tend to change with one another” (How the Hebrew Language Grew, [New York: Jewish Education Committee Press, second printing 1961], 237, also available with Google Book Search). The ḥêṯ and hēʼ are both gutturals and prone to interchange. The example he gives is the Hebrew pair מחה (māḥâ, “wipe, rub”) and נמהה (nimhāh, “was worn out”) which are from the same root despite the ḥ/h exchange (246).

Versions of this article are reproduced at webcitation.org/5eUbMEWbi and 5eUcD08Sg.

U.S. Independence Day 2008

 I wrote on the GLYNY Again Reunion Board how I spent my Independence Day:

The fireworks were pretty blah this year. I viewed them from a rooftop party on the Lower East Side, but the windless, overcast weather meant the smoke from each burst stayed in its place and blocked the view of successive bursts. And it only lasted about twenty minutes with no spectacular finale. If the right-wing fanatics can blame gays for AIDS and the California earthquake because we supposedly incited God’s wrath, then I blame the U.S. government’s evil ways for inciting Mother Nature to remove the spectacle from the Independence Day festivities.
—Untitled post in thread “Happy 4^th of July Weekend,” The Official GLYNY Again Reunion Board, 5 July 2008

 Nonetheless, I had a great time. Thanks to Dr. Charles and APANY for the great party. I saw many old friends and met many new friends, but I would be remiss if I did not mention the Web log authors I met there: I Need You, Babe a.k.a. Greg, Richard and comedian Sean Graham: Leader of the Chucklenauts.

Update (9 July): My friend Andrew was also at a rooftop party on the Lower East Side, albeit a different one, and described the fireworks similarly:

it was amazing. we were seriously right under all the fireworks. all the car alarms on the street were going off from the loud noise. it was kool but the smoke from the fireworks wasnt clearing fast enough so it was alittle blocked. it still was amzing.
—Andrew Jonas, “And the Rockets Red Glare…,” Andrew MySpace Blog, 5 July 2008.

A version of this article is reproduced at webcitation.org/5kYviTskE.

Jewish roots of the song “Rich Girl.”

 I first noticed the 1993 recording “Rich Girl,” by British duo Louchie Lou & Michie One, when I heard it played at the Basement Bhangra parties I attended at the dance club S.O.B.’s in the late 1990s. I was immediately struck by the surprisingly Jewish elements of a West Indian dance hall record.

 The chorus, sung in an Oriental melisma, is to the tune of “If I Were a Rich Man” from the 1964 Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof, composed by Jewish-American Jerry Bock. The lyric is changed but nonetheless patterned on the original lyric by (I assume) Jewish-American Sheldon Harnick which, according to Wikipedia, in turn was inspired by the 1902 Yiddish monologue “Ven ix bin Rotşild” (If I were Rothschild, װען איך בין ראָטשילד), written by Şolem Aleyxem (שלום עליכם). (The title of the Yiddish version of “If I Were a Rich Man” is “Ven ix bin a Rotşild” [If I were a Rothschild, װען איך בין אַ ראָטשילד], the extra word presumably added to fit the song’s meter.) What few other people seem to have noticed is that the additional “na na na” part is to the tune of “Hat-tiqwâ” (התקוה), the Israeli national anthem. (Gwen Stefani’s more popular cover version uses a different melody for the “na na na” part. Was that intentional based on the melody’s Zionist connection?)

 The only online acknowledgment I could find of the use of “Hat-tiqwâ” was James Lœffler, “Ethnic Sampling,” Nextbook: A New Read on Jewish Culture, 26 August 2005. Lœffler noted the borrowing of Jewish melodies “as part of an unlikely ode to social justice and community harmony.” Eric Schulmiller posted a comment on that article on 31 August refuting Lœffler’s interpretation: “…[T]he juxtaposition of the two most popularly recognizable Jewish melodies (outside of ‘Hava Nagilah’)…echoes the age-old antisemitic trope of the money-grubbing Jew as typified by the spoiled, materialistic Jewish American Princess (aka the ‘Rich Girl’).” Schulmiller’s accusations of anti-Semitism are unwarranted and unfounded. Louchie Lou & Michie One are a London group that was, again according to Wikipedia, exponents of a “rise of radio friendly reggae in Britain.” According to Michie One’s MySpace profile, the duo co-wrote “Rich Girl.” Listen to the recording: The performance contribution of Michie One, the black West Indian member, was toasting in a light West Indian créole. All the Jewish elements (the melisma and two Jewish melodies) were contributed by the other member, Louchie Lou, better known to her friends and family as Louise Gold. I have no direct documentation of her ethnic background, but the evidence suggests she is a British Jew rather than an anti-Semite.

 Perhaps my epiphany is common knowledge in Britain. For all I know, hundreds of magazine articles may have been published in the U.K. about how Louchie Lou & Michie One have a blend of Jewish and West Indian influences, but I never read any of them and I found none on the Web. I admittedly have not sought any print sources for information on the Jewish element of the group or the recording, instead relying solely on Internet sources. I would love citations of print sources that confirm or deny my suspicions about the group.

 On an unrelated, typically linguistic aspect of the record, Michie One’s toast curiously mixes verb tenses. The rich are perceived as singular, but the poor as plural: “Rich is getting richer, but the poor are getting sting.”

Update (11 June): “Rich Girl” (1993), by Louchie Lou & Michie One

Update (3 February 2009):
• “Rich Girl” (1993), by Louchie Lou & Michie One
• “Rich Girl” (1993), by Louchie Lou & Michie One

Versions of this article are reproduced at webcitation.org/5eJlAStJc and 5eJlkViv2, as well as on Facebook.

My friend Andrew was stabbed at Union Square.

 My thoughts keep returning to my friend Andrew who was mugged Thursday on the uptown 4-5-6 platform of Union Square station. He found himself in Brooklyn Hospital with a stab wound in his hip, a gash on his head and a broken pelvis. It’s particularly scary as I and many of my friends use that station frequently, and a particularly close friend uses that platform particularly often.

 Andrew is a fixture at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center’s Dance 208 series and can also be seen at numerous bear events and venues in New York City. (Although I first met him at Lucky Cheng’s through a mutual friend, I mostly know him from the Eagle and “Woof!” at View Bar.)

 (Andrew, I wish you the speediest possible recovery. החלמה מהירה ורפואה שלמה.‏)‎

 If you have not already done so, read the shocking story of the assault in Andrew’s own words.
• Andrew Jónás, “I’m a Statistic!,” Andrew MySpace Blog, 19 May 2008.
• Andrew Jónás, “Pain Is Not Even Close…,” Andrew MySpace Blog, 20 May 2008.

Update (21 May): I understand now that the title of this article is likely inaccurate. Andrew was assaulted at Union Square, and he was stabbed, but the police believe the actual stabbing occurred elsewhere. Also, he has published another article, this one about nightmares resulting from the attack: Andrew Jónás, “And Here We Go….Dreams and Stitches…,” Andrew MySpace Blog, 21 May 2008.

A version of this article is reproduced at webcitation.org/5eVG6nrtq, as well as on Facebook.

“The Mesopotamians,” by They Might Be Giants.

 This song from last year has been in my head and emitted by my computer speakers aplenty the past few days. I am very pleased that Sumerian and Akkadian names can be found in a popular song along with a reference to cuneiform. And yes, for the most part, Mesopotamia corresponds to modern Iraq (العراق).

Update (14 May): How unlike me to not cite my source! I had no idea this song existed until I read Justin Mansfield, “Another One for My ‘Ancient Themes’ Playlist,” The Mad Latinist’s Journal, 18 October 2007.

Jott’s error: “One drink with her to go necked(?).”

 Jott is funny. I recorded a message they interpreted to be “One drink with her to go necked(?).” I had actually said “Wondering whither to go next.”

Ḥāmēẓ vs. ḥummuṣ.

 Yes! Despite their appearing to be spelled identically and both referring to food, Hebrew חמץ (ḥāmēẓ, in Yiddish xomeʦ) unleavened bread, and Arabic حمص (ḥummuṣ) chickpeas are from two different roots. While it is true that the Hebrew letter צ (ṣāddî) corresponds to the Arabic letter ص (ṣâd), it also sometimes corresponds to the Arabic letter ض (ḍâd) which is the case here. חמץ comes from the ḥ-m-ḍ (חמץ׳، حمض) root meaning sour, and is thus cognate with the Arabic حامض (ḥâmiḍ) sour, حمض (ḥamḍ) “a bitter plant, sorrel” and حميض (ḥamîḍ) “tract of land abounding in bitter herbs.” (The quotes are from F. Steingass, A Learner’s Arabic-English Dictionary [Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1989]. Thanks also to John Wortabet and Harvey Porter, Hippocrene Standard Dictionary: Arabic-English English-Arabic [New York: Hippocrene Books, 2000].)

 Dave Curwin (DLC) suspected as much in his Web log article “chametz,” Balashon - Hebrew Language Detective, 12 April 2006. A comment on that article nearly a year later by Justin a.k.a. The Mad Latinist, 7 April 2007, confirms it. However, in his article “Chickpeas,” The Jewish Daily Forward, 21 October 2005, Philologos appears to be forcing a connection between ḥāmēẓ and ḥummuṣ where it doesn’t actually exist: “The reason for this, as you will know if you ever have left chickpeas or hummus paste in the refrigerator too long, is that both have a tendency to sour quickly.”

The 29th Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Festival.

Festival banner while Yosakoi Dance Project was performing. Photograph by William Eng (eggrollboy).

 I had a great time today at the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans’ 29^th Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Festival at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza in Turtle Bay. Music, dance, cultural and political organizations, food and sexy men were in great abundance. I bumped into a number of friends including my neighbor and fellow GLYNY alumnus Glenn D. Magpantay who introduced me to a number of volunteers from Gay Asian and Pacific Islander Men of New York (GAPIMNY). Not only present but performing were Makalina and Virgil, my former co-workers at Waikiki Wally’s, together with the Lei Pasifika group. My other favorite performers of the day were DVL Dance Vietnam (who truly know what to do with hats), Yosakoi Dance Project, Caron Eule Dance (performing “The Crane Wife” featuring dancer Hasi as Kinzo) and Bollywood Axion. Kudos to Rainbow Yuen, Bibs Teh and the rest of CAPA for a smashing event, although the black ink on the covers of their programs was unstable, and both my copies have ugly smudges on them (as had also been on my fingers).

Media already online
• Photographs by William Eng (eggrollboy)
• Photographs by Ina Bixade
• Video by Ami (amilee2)

Swap vs. swapna.

Swapna Trading, Lexington Avenue, Murray Hill

 On Friday, 28 March, I met a friend for dinner at Rice in Murray Hill, and nearby was the store Swapna Trading. As swapping and trading are similar concepts, he speculated the English word swap may derive from swapna. It does not. Although I was certain it was only coincidence, I did not yet know enough about the etymologies of the two words to speak educatedly. The English word swap derives from a root meaning to strike, according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, “fr. the practice of striking hands in closing a business deal.” The Sanskrit word स्वप्न (svapna) refers instead to sleeping or dreaming. According to a number of sources, including the Indo-European Documentation Center of the University of Texas and Wiktionary, it derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *swep- making it a cognate of Latin somnus and Greek ύπνος (hypnos), thus meaning it is also a cognate of English somnolence, soporific and hypnotic.

Lobster Canto.

 Like many others, one Chinese restaurant I frequent in Jackson Heights (specifically New Jade Bamboo House 玉竹園, 70-24 35^th Avenue) has pictures of various dishes on an overhead menu. The captions to these pictures are in a font size much too large for the space allotted to them, so numerous rather extreme abbreviations are employed. My favorite is Lobster Cantonese Style abbreviated as Lobster Canto, a song I would love to hear.

Blessed Lightning, or Barack and Baruch vs. Barak and Burak.

Barack, Baruch, Barak and Burak.

 They’re at it again. Pronunciation shift and inconsistent transliteration are confusing people. With Senator Barack Obama high in the public eye at the moment, people are speculating what his first name Barack might mean. With the knowledge that it is of Semitic origin (in this case, Arabic via Swahili), many have compared it to the name of Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak and incorrectly concluded that it means lightning. However, the two names, despite their similarity, are from entirely different Semitic roots.

 Ehud Barak’s last name might be better transliterated Bārāq or Bārāḳ to reflect its coming from the Semitic b-r-q (ברק، برق) root, but is transliterated as it is to reflect its pronunciation in modern Europeanized Hebrew which has shifted from [q] to [k]. The precise same shift occurred in the Turkish language as it is spoken in Turkey (as opposed to Turkic Central Asian languages). Thus the Turkish first name Burak, as in that of musician Burak Kut, is also from the b-r-q root, more specifically from the Arabic burâq (براق).

 Barack actually comes from the Semitic b-r-k (برك، ברך) root and means blessed. The cognate Hebrew word would be bārûḵ (ברוך) as in the name of Bernard Baruch. In Hebrew and Aramaic, the pronunciation of certain letters changes to a different allophone when in certain positions (in this case, word final), so that the sound of the letter kāf (כ، ك) becomes spirantized and shifts from [k] to [χ] or [x]. In imitation of German or Polish, this is frequently transliterated ch. This sound change does not occur in Arabic.

Update, 3 October: The following articles have more information. At least two of them were published before mine was, yet I failed to consult them.

• Benjamin Zimmer, “The Barrage Against ‘Barack’,” Language Log, 12 February 2007.
• Benjamin Zimmer, “‘Barack’ Mailbag,” Language Log, 14 February 2007.
• Bill Casselman, “Barack: Origin & Meaning of Obama’s Given Name,” or “Barack Obama: The True Meaning of His First Name,” Bill Casselman’s Canadian Word of the Day & Words of the World, ©2008.

Update, 9 October: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language believes the b-r-k root to be “Probably a metathesized variant of krb” which would mean Barack is cognate with Hebrew כרוב kərûḇ, Arabic كروب karûb and English cherub and cherubic.

Versions of this article are preserved at webcitation.org/5bJ8vqYBb, 5bJAFkj2i and 5bRhxh8gS.

Canada geese.

Photo: Melanie (cat_crocodile).

 I was walking home today from having submitted my move-out papers to Riverbay Corporation when I spotted a Canada goose with a yellow neckband marked as RT46, a participant in the North American Bird Banding Program, nibbling grass on a small remaining green area of the huge parking lot that was formerly the Co-op City Greenway. Once home, I reported the sighting online to the U.S.G.S. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Bird Banding Laboratory. The geese are some of the few things I shall miss after leaving the Bronx, although I will not miss their droppings always left behind in the most inconvenient places on the internal paths of Co-op City.

“…[A]ll away from the [B]ronx”

As I organize my move in the next few weeks from the Bronx to Queens, I was nostalgic one night for the Bronx gay community of which I was actively a part in the 1990s and which I will soon leave behind. I was scouring MySpace for evidence of individuals I knew from the various different gay organizations with which I had had contact at the time, but found very little.

I did, however, find a strange quote from someone I don’t believe I ever met: Jenny Toledo, a Puerto Rican Lesbian living in the Bronx. Last month, she posted a comment on the MySpace profile of California-based Lesbian podcasters 2 Homos of whom she is presumably a fan: “Showing love all away from the bronx”. I would think this would count as an eggcorn, but perhaps not, since it could be interpreted as having the opposite meaning than what was intended. Either way, it seems to say a lot about the current Bronx pronunciation that would lead to such an error.

Misheard: The huge Korea fair.

 Almost every multilingual person I encounter exhibits the same trait that is the reverse of my own personal experience: They learn to speak a language more or less fluently but have great difficulty imitating the sounds of the new language and instead choose from the repertoire of sounds of their native tongue. This is of course why people speak with accents, and I am fascinated by it. This week, my painter Pablo, who is Ecuadorean, was describing another client of his, and even with repeated utterances, I could not ascertain whether this client was huge or Jewish. (It turned out to be the latter.)

 I overheard Dan, a Romanian-born member of the faculty of the school where I work, talking about the Korea fair taking place downstairs, and images came to my mind of exotic music and costumes (not to mention cute guys), and I momentarily wondered how I would excuse myself from my desk to attend. I was disappointed to figure out it was actually a career fair.

Well and smoothly.

A voice-mail message from Šəmûʼēl (שמואל) referring to my impending moving: “I hope it’s going well and smoothly. I hope you are well…and smoothly.”

APANY’s MySpace account was closed but not quite deleted.

 I worked very hard on developing a MySpace presence for the Asian Pacific Alliance of New York (APANY), a struggling not-for-profit organization of gay Asians and Pacific Islanders here in New York City. I was not only the Web master of their profile page, but a force of nature driving all their MySpace–related promotion. I painstakingly typed all the articles from the hard copy of their newsletter into the MySpace Weblog, I created both an event page and calendar listing (which MySpace keeps curiously separate) as well as a bulletin for each upcoming event, I uploaded every possible APANY-related photograph I could find on the Web to picture albums, and I found videos of APANY events online and linked to them in the corresponding Weblog entries. I invited as many APANY members and pageant “royalty” with MySpace accounts as I could find to be our friends, and browsed for every Asian or Pacific gay male and transsexual in the New York City Metropolitan Area (hundreds) and slowly requested their friendships one at a time, a process that took days to finish. Most who checked their accounts before the requests expired seemed to accept, and we soon had over two hundred forty friends, including local gay Asian artists and performers (e.g., Kevin Nadal, Vidur Kapur, Danny Katz, Justin Woo) and major organizations and venues (e.g., the Web, Lucky Cheng’s, the Asian and Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS [APICHA]). Keeping up with friendship requests from genuine parties and spammers alike, as well as the steady stream of new images, videos, messages and events was arduous, but I managed to keep my head above water.

 Then this week I discovered it was all gone. In its place were the words “Invalid Friend ID. This user has either cancelled their membership, or their account has been deleted.” Why was our account closed when other not-for-profit organizations were allowed to keep theirs? I can only speculate: I created event pages and bulletins with large numbers of external links, mostly to other not-for-profit groups or government Websites, precisely during the brief window of time before they introduced their current safer external linking system (redirecting via msplinks.com), but after they had instituted a policy of insisting accounts had been “phished” if there were too many external links in their bulletins and event pages and then forcing the users to change their passwords. As a result, I wound up changing our password about ten times, not knowing this might possibly raise a red flag to the powers at MySpace and indicate a theoretically compromised account ripe for the closing.

 I posted a message in the MySpace forum asking how one might appeal the decision if that were even possible. As one can see by viewing the thread, I got conflicting advice by two persons who fancied themselves informed on the topic. (One wrote “nope no appeals”; the other “Youi [sic] can appeal….”) Both thought getting the account reinstated to be little short of impossible. I don’t know how likely getting our account reinstated would be, but I strongly suspect that MySpace could easily do so if I could only catch their attention and gain their sympathies. Here’s why:

• Our social network is intact. Our friends’ respective numbers of friends did not decrease by one when our account was closed. (I personally still have 169 friends, although the number should have decreased when APANY’s account was closed.) Our Weblog also looks different depending on whether or not I am logged in, so I am being treated as if I were still APANY’s friend.
• Our Weblog is intact. As I mentioned above, our friends can still view our Weblog. Those who were not our friends see the Weblog set to “private” (not “deleted”).
• Our pictures are intact. For the time being, our main profile page can still be viewed at Google’s cached copy of the page, and the embedded slideshow still functions. As the slideshow accesses the original images, they all must still be in place.

 I wrote a letter to MySpace. If they respond, I’ll let you know. I also wouldn’t mind if others wrote to MySpace at this location and summarized this article and pleaded our case with them. If enough MySpace members write, perhaps they’ll flip the necessary switch and reopen our crucial promotional tool.

Gay and Lesbian Arab Society film screening, Friday, 29 April 2005

Via della Zoccolette, 95 Avenue A, Manhattan

Gay and Lesbian Arab Society
Seventh Dog (2005)
حدوتة مصرية [Hadduta Misrija/An Egyptian Story] (1982)