Shana Tova

“Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
How do you measure, a year in the life?”

For bonafide New Yorkers, the New Year has nothing to do with the bridge-and-tunnel types swarming Times Square on December 31st or that awful crystal ball they hang above the masses (still don’t understand what the correlation between NYE and crystal? Oh wait, never mind)

In truth, the city is reborn in the fall, with the return of its glitterati and intelligencia from their summer diaspora. Manhattan’s vibrant cultural scene comes to an abrupt halt in august, the humidity causing an exodus of its brightest apples to Europe….err, or to Long Island (ahem, for those of us who can’t afford extended vacations in St. Tropez, Long Island provides a cost-effective weekend escape from the concrete jungle, while still conserving those good ‘ole sub-culture distinctions of the Manhattan grid. So Chelsea relocates to its summer outpost by the ocean at the Pines, Trust-fund BoBos migrate to Montauk, Upper East Siders do not venture out of their make-shift colonies in the Hamptons, and Hipsters tend to stay close to their mothership in Williamsburg.

Yes, fall is the season of renewal, the so-called ‘New Year’, and everything from Vogue’s September ‘Fall Fashion’ issue, to the hordes of unchaperoned noisy children on the subway en route to their inner city schools, to the enticing (yet often predictable) Fall Opera Program, to the scores of Oscar-worthy films finally replacing the summer flicks and the hemorrhage some of us suffer as a result of exposure to them (with notable exceptions), to the fleet of new off-off-broadway shows, not to mention Rosh Hashanah.

In this spirit of renewal, I reflect on my fifth year of residency in this marvelous concrete jungle: in a series of 30 posts, I’ll showcase, digest – and at times – culturally re-appropriate things & persons that I believe are quintessentially New York. I will invariable touch on anything that I consider – in my humble, subjective opinion – iconic, all entities (objects and living beings) that embody or otherwise serve to advance the notion that brought me here in the first place: that this is little concrete island is the cultural epicenter of the world. Romanticized of a notion as it is, it’s why I call this enchanted place, home.

Zeitoun Apparitions

Another excerpt from my work-in-process, untitled novel:



Om-Hassan sat on a bench in the Ramses station. She watched as passengers dragged their bags or their children or a combination of both across the tracks. She heard sighs of exasperation: “It’s late again!”, “Wilad el kalb, can’t they do anything right?”

She felt ambivalent to the happenings around her; she knew today was the day she would experience transcendence. Like the hundreds of thousands who had flocked to Zeitoun from all over Egypt to witness the 'miracle' of the Marion apparition in May of '68, she yearned for contact with divinity.

Om-Hassan stared blankly into the horizon, as if she could see the train approaching, miles away. That was Hassan’s favorite childhood past-time activity, she pondered. She recalled how her smiling child ceremoniously announcing the arrival of the train, describing it with such vivid detail: its navy blue color that distinguishes it from the red cargo trains, the golden eagle, the official emblem of the state painted on its side, its erratic whistle sounds and the smell of burning coal. Passengers on the platform within ear shot would stare in the direction he was pointing, and then dismissingly brush him aside. “Don’t lie, child. That is wrong” they would say. But he wasn’t lying, Om-Hassan thought. She envied him the world he lived in: a world where reality was enhanced by sparks of a flamboyant imagination, a world where history teachers and unicorns, bus conductors and talking crocodiles, fairies and shape-shifting cars, all inhabited the same world he did. She envied him his absolute control over the reality he experienced. In his world, there were no needs, wants or sorrows yet, only fascination.

Her life started the day he was born, she would inform people: neighbors, friends, the grocer, the butcher, anyone willing to listen. People knew her as Om-Hassan, but no one knew her real name, or at least, they thought they didn’t.

In truth, she was born Om-Hassan. Her father, as customary in villages in Upper Egypt, chose her name as a self-fulfilling prophecy. God willing, they reasoned, she would grow-up, marry and bear a (male) child named Hassan. Her nascent life would thus be defined by her future role as bearer of a first-born male child. When she did eventually grow-up (just barely), marry and bear a child, it was not Hassan, but a beautiful girl, whom she subsequently named Zahra. Zahra’s arrival to this world was met with pats on the shoulder and encouraging words, the way an athlete who finishes a race last is told: there’s always next year. Next year you will win gold, next year you will bear a boy. She was the only one happy to see Zahra, the only one who held her in her arms, who looked into her round brown eyes. Her young husband – who is also her cousin - came into her room after labor and told her it would be all right. As if she was a helpless child who broke her doll or scrapped her knee. As if Zahra was stillborn. And when Zahra died a few days later of sudden infant death syndrome, she was the only one to mourn her loss.

She cried herself to sleep for the death of her first-born, to no one’s sympathy. While she slept, her husband took the infant and buried her in the fields. It was harvest season and there was no need to inconvenience the villagers – he reasoned - with a funeral and a proper burial. It was for this reason, Om-Hassan believed, that when Hassan was born less than a year later, he was born with both his spirit and Zahra’s. It was the only way for baby Zahra to live in a place where everyone wanted her to die. Hassan was born with the same round brown eyes that smiled at her the way she thought Zahra’s eyes smiled at her. The baby was received like the prodigy son they believed he was. They held a “Sebou3” ceremony on his 7^th day, a pagan Egyptian ritual conducted for thousands of years, where the village women and children orbit the child in his cradle, holding candles and chanting hymns to ward off the evil spirits and ensure the blessings of the gods.

It was the spring of 1947 and the Cholera epidemic ravaged through Upper Egypt. By fall season, more than 10,000 villagers would be dead, the worst Cholera outbreak in the 20^th century. It would wipe entire villages in mere weeks. The virus, which came on cargo ships from India, found fertile ground in the densely-crowded, un-sanitary living conditions in rural communities. The disease was incurable, and patients developed high fever for 5 days. On the 6^th day, the person either recovered fully or died. When her husband Ali developed fever, the government came and took him away. In an effort to curb the propagation of the disease, the government had created quarantine zones in the desert, akin to concentration camps, where the ill were presumably treated, but were effectively deposited and left to die. Ali never came back. When Hassan developed fever, Om-Hassan, fearing the government would take him too, fled in the darkness of the night, on a train to Cairo. She arrived penniless, with a sick child, and spent the night sleeping on the platform at the central station. When she woke-up, Hassan’s fever was gone and she rejoiced in the certainty that everything else would fall into place. She walked to the affluent neighborhood of Garden City, asking at every palace or mansion if they needed a cook, a maid, a gardener, a nanny. She was turned away on every doorstep, until the reached the bustling palace of Hillali Pacha. Like a bee hive, dozens of servants were racing in and out of the palace gates, presumably on errands in preparation for an evening of festivities. She offered her services and was immediately whisked into the kitchen, to help the chef and sous-chefs prepare a feast for a hundred guests. She labored for hours on end: stirring, simmering, baking, boiling and slicing. When dinner was served, she packed behind the curtains and watched the fair ladies and gentlemen of high society, in lavish gowns and tuxedos, waltzing to the music of an entire orchestra. She had never seen anything like it, the sights, sounds and scents were exotic and almost intoxicating. She left a good impression on the kitchen staff, and they decided to keep her. She would stay in the servants’ quarters, where everyone took an immediate liking to the smiling 5-year old Hassan. Om-Hassan gradually came to know of her patrons. Hillali was an established Cairene upper crust family of Turku-Syrian descent. Hillali Pacha owned a textile company in the delta and some of the most fertile cotton fields in the Nile valley. Madame Hillali was a Portsaid-born French woman. Her father was an engineer for the Suez company. Despite her relatively modest background (daughter of a provincial technocrat) she effortlessly morphed to a lady of high society, one that hosts lavish balls, organizes charity events, the tall fair blonde of delicate features and perfectly fluent French (it was after all, her native tongue) was paradoxically, the very definition of a post-war Egyptian femme moderne, the way Grace Kelly, an American actress, became the face of post-war European royalty. It was as if Matilde Hillali (she preferred to go by the name Vivienne, as Matilde betrayed her family’s provincial French origins) was rehearsing for that role her entire life. Their children, Emile, Adi and Farida inherited their mother’s delicate features, French tongue and all the trappings of an affluent lifestyle. Excessive wealth can take its toll on the emotional development of an offspring: absent workaholic entrepreneur father, absent alcoholic socialite mother and a troop of nannies that revere you like a totem can result in debilitating emotional detachment. Om-Hassan observed in wonderment the children’s morning ritual: dressed by their nannies in school uniforms, marching sullenly down the stairs and cobbling on the marble landing, like kittens separated from their mother, who draw in each other’s bodies for warmth and a sense of safety. Except their faces did not convey any of those emotions, their faces conveyed nothing.

We're all Refuseniks

By sheer coincidence, I came across footage and interviews from the sizable Anti-war protests in Israel. It is refreshing to hear a voice of reason in midst of all this barbarity, to hear individuals touched by this conflict on a quotidian basis denounce violence, all violence. Whether this violence is directed against a child in Sderot, or an equally innocent child who happens to reside in Gaza.



Perhaps '09 will be the year we will finally concede that one's geographic location should not appreciate/depreciate the value of one's life? That a child - or for that matter, any human being's - death should never be justified, regardless of circumstances?

Will '09 be the year that we - for once - collectively recognize the hypocrisy of paying lip service to 'Peace' while still implicitly/explicitly participating in the cycle of violence by serving in the military or voting a fascist party to power?

That having you heart-in-the-right-place (so to speak) while being part of a killing machine does not humanize/validate what you do? That intentions don't matter, only outcome, and outcome has never mounted to more than constant blood spill?



Will '09 be the year we stop justifying violence, stop blame-shifting, and for once, claim responsibility for the lives lost?

Will '09 be the year we all become Refuseniks? Or are we destined for a dozen more barbaric wars like the one we're engulfed in now?

In highschool in Cairo my sophomore year, we read a poem in English Literature class about a little girl dying in the Warsaw ghetto. It was compelling in light of the European 20th century history class we took that same year, in which the holocaust was a pivotal event. I remember thinking that a part of my humanity was lost forever in Auschwitz, that something died in me that can never be restored. Part of my humanity is dying today on the shores of Gaza.

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

A week in Oz

It’s funny how a spit of sand off the coast of Long Island can mean the world to me.

Fire Island is the adult manifestation of my childhood fantasies: the soft sandy beaches (optimal for sand mega-castle-building), the high tides (perfect for tummy-surfing), the sunken forest with its intricate foliage and maze of small paths that lead to no where. It seems like the perfect real-life location for a Little Red Riding Hood re-enactment Disney movie. Except the creatures lurking in the bushes are not wolves (the locals bestowed the name Meat Rack on the woods as euphemism for the type of sports one can play there), so the film would naturally be R-rated.

And fairy tale creatures abound on the island. Bambi-like Deer prance around on the beach, on the suspended roller coaster walkways that connected the island and even in our own back yard; they occasionally rummaged through our trash in search of a hearty meal, unaware that the boys have a passion for southern cooking with its abundant use of oil and butter; hence our leftovers were single-handedly responsible for increased cholesterol levels among the native deer population. And of course, there were drag queens: the urban-dwelling embodiment of either comic-strip Super-heroines with their flawless wig-like hairdos, silhouette outfits and imposing bosoms, not to mention “super” skills…Or, the female nemesis in Disney movies (have you ever noticed how evil women in film – animated or not – are universally depicted in smoky-eye make-up, fabulous frocks, oozing sex appeal and spurting lines in either a British accent or a Park Avenue inflection? As if implying that being evil is tantamount to being sexy, rich, fashionable and intellectually stimulating).

So I imagine as a child, this would have been my playground de preference. I always liked playing dress-up using mommy’s heals and pearls as props and I also loved playing doctor. It appears that playing Dress-up & Doctor are the favorite past-time activities on the island. Evidently, I am no longer a child. Luckily, the island is also a materialization of my wildest adolescent wet dreams: young men with sculpted tanned bodies and chiseled jaws frolicking semi/fully naked with/around other young men with sculpted tanned bodies and chiseled jaws. The island, with its strategically placed hot tubs and hot pools in every other house provided a splendid backdrop for all sorts of hedonistic activities. I suppose that is what Herodotus envisioned as his Utopian society. Or maybe I am just projecting my nymph-loaded fantasies on poor Herodotus. If I had visited the island @ age 15, with all those raging teenage hormones in my system, I would have had a heart attack from the sexual/sensory stimulation. Luckily I’m 24 and much more apt at acting non-chalant and/or concealing my woody.

And lastly, I came to the pleasant realization over the week that all my friends are alcoholics. When you’re being served a Bloody Mary with breakfast at the ungodly hour of 9am, you know its time for those AA meetings. Of course, weekend drunken house pool parties during the day, drunken naked house pool parties at night, evening High Teas, Low Teas, culminating in the overnight Beach Party made Sobriety jump out the window and kill herself.

Of course, no vacation would be complete without The Diva (read: Madonna), who was omnipresent throughout the trip, thanks to Queen B’s iPod dock station, which made certain we were honored with Madge’s company in our cabin every minute of the day. We ate, drank, drank, drank, drank, slept and woke-up to her voice. Isla Bonita is forever associated in my mind with hangovers.

Deus ex Machina

In classical Greek Drama, fantastical plot twists were the choix-de-jour of a fair number of ancient Greek playwrights. When confronted by a dicey situation, or when all hope is lost to avert a crisis, or when tragedy strikes, etc. the writer simply stages a divine intervention from the gods of Olympia to resolve the issue and create a happy ending. Couple can’t marry and live happily ever after because the groom was just murdered? No problem, just introduce Zeus unto the stage before the curtain falls to miraculously resurrect the groom from his deathly state. Crisis averted, you may kiss the bride!


This plot-technique was called Deus Ex Machina, or God on Machine, since those last-minute plot-twisting gods were usually actors propped on a huge crane, literally, god on a machine.

I couldn’t help but think that, in light of the recent fantastical turn of events in my life. After what felt like a decade (but was a mere two months) of waiting for my H-1b visa, preparing myself mentally for a miserable closeted life in Egypt, after serving a mandatory 3 year military service (shoot me now, please) and thinking, how on earth would I get an h-1b with a success chance of 40% at a lottery? (if you think 40% is a high probability, then you’ve never met me or my bad luck), I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to leave the country, ending up in Egypt getting drafted (read: royally fucked) by the Egyptian army.

Out of nowhere, like an Olympian god on a crane, came a ruling by the department of homeland security to extend the stay of visa applicants so they are not forced to leave the country for a gap period. Then, I was informed I received a visa. Honestly, I wanted to kiss everyone on the subway back home that day, including the Hobos in Penn station.

First item on the agenda: to Party like its 1999 and I’m a big a Drag Queen on Crack.

DISCLAIMER: Te operative term is “like”. Do not write me back asking if I’m into 90’s pop music (I f***** love it) or drag (I got a whole collection of fierce wigs, but I’m a strictly-Halloween kinda gal. I only drag for one night in October, just like the housewife that will only have anal sex with her husband on his birthday. That way it will always be special. *giggle*

As for crack, I tend to talk about it as if I walk around carrying it in my purse, but those of you who really know me, know I’m horrified of anything that goes up one’s nose. My mommy used to say: “the only thing that was meant to be shoved up my nose is an index finger. Everything else is an abomination”. I made that one up, but wouldn’t it be funny if she did say that? Secretly, I wish I had a crazy mother.

The only thing in my purse (ah, I mean my macho man handbag) is my make-up. Kidding! Maybe…

So I went to Fire Island for the fourth of July weekend and watched the “Invasion of the Pines” ceremony unfold. It’s too surreal an experience to describe by words, so I’ll do an interpretive dance for you…Or, you can watch my video:

A Mad Tea Party

Excerpt from my work-in-process, untitled novel:


It was a mid-summer evening, and an assembly of well-coiffed women stood on the turf of the Maadi Croquet court and coddled in small talk. They were the last of their kind within a 3-mile radius, for it was June and the upper class's seasonal migration to the north – to Alexandria proper, but more recently to the Bourgeois colonies of Montazah, Ma'moura and Agami that were in vogue - had commenced almost a month ago, promptly at the closing of the school year. For 3 months of summer, Cairene women would whisk away their children and their nannies to evade the stifling summer months in Cairo. And for the Cairine girls who had neither nannies nor children but wanted both, summer was the official hunting season for eligible bachelors. The beaches of Agami and Montazah were the new chasing grounds for young women with any aspirations of upward social mobility. It was the sport of preference of any lady-of-society-in-the-making. They could stroll around in décolleté swim suits to demonstrate to their suitors – or the matchmakers that represent them – that they hold the proper credentials for the title of Wife.

An in a recent, most exciting development, the rapid commercialization of hair spray introduced dramatic hairstyles to the beach scene, hairdos like Jackie Kennedy's flap, once avoided in adherence to the laws of nature (namely Alexandria's notorious humidity, capable of reducing slick styles into bundles of frizz), a new generation of women braved the elements and marched to beach resorts in diamond-studded do's; hordes of Audrey Hepburn wannabes a la Breakfast at Tiffany's frolicking at seaside resorts. This was Cairo in 1962.

On the turf, the conversation of the feminine assemblage centered on the earlier sighting of Madame Rafik – née Angela Antonioni - at the tennis courts, allegedly accompanying her son Adham, Maadi's undisputed tennis champ and equally undisputed teenage heartthrob. The alleged sighting aroused excitement among the crowd, mainly because Monsieur Rafik was arrested a mere few days ago, for alleged subversive communist activities. The effect of a potentially fresh rumor was decidedly orgasmic: the women could not contain their excitement at the prospects, and proceeded to deconstruct every angle of the unfolding story. What body of etiquette governed the behaviors of wives of polticical prisoners? Was it appropriate / scandalous to appear in an elite social club while said spouse is touted by police in interrogation rooms? Was their a decorum mourning period for which, not unlike a widow, the wife must reflect on her loss in the confines of her private lodgings before resuming normal day-to-day activity? Was it even appropriate for the wife of an alleged communist to indulge in daily activity in a decidedly Bourgeois, and - hence capitalist - private social club? Would that be an indication that her husband is innocent of such horrid accusations? Or did he in fact betray his principles by blending in this irreverent garden community and calling it home? Or has she betrayed his ideals? This ignited a somewhat intellectually stimulating discussion among the women. The urban-come-suburban former downtown Catholic school girls argued Trotsky vs. Stalinism, and rhetorically pondered the question: is the revolution a constant process or two-phase? The wives of officers, provincial-come-suburban women of no particular formal education to draw on, were suddenly anxious at the Russian-names-dropping of their gossip-club colleagues and decided to divert the conversation to the silly and benign, the way they always do whenever the conversation became too political or less cliché. In the next few years, as the military ruling class strengthened its hold over Egyptian Intellegencia, the provincial mentality of avoidance of all things serious would reign supreme: a new unwritten book of etiquette cautioning against the mere mention of authors or ideas in casual conversation to avoid embarrassing / offending those who never read a book (who by the mid-60's would be appointed at every critical administrative position in the state). In a book she wrote and published years later, Angela would dub it the politics of trivialization.


Angela walked out of so-called "Social Building" and stood in its terrace, a depressing modern (read: minimalist) two-story cement block that was christened only a few days back. Angela was lost in one depressing thought upon visiting the new mammoth building (mammoth relative to all the smaller structures dotting the Maadi club): why was her world collapsing so suddenly? The terrace overlooked the croquet court, and the sight of a posse of middle-aged Barbie dolls first startled then intrigued her: when did they start allowing stilettos on the croquet turf? Then she spotted Madame Karim (née Fadila Hussein) in a Liza Mennelli frock and instantly got her answer. Every tea party has a Queen (or so the proverb goes, or should) and if the queen of this tea party also serves the role Wife to General Karim (dutifully promoted from Officer to General after the '52 Coup d'Etat) then she will have her tea and cake on the turf if she so pleases, stilettos and all. In fact, she could have a marching band perform on the turf to go with the tea. Or even a firing squad, but that would be in poor taste. She found herself entertaining the thought of her own croquet-firing-squad, but who would they shoot? Officer Gameel for starters, the prison guardian who denied her a visit to her husband this morning and every morning, and possibly Madame Karim for ruining the turf with her stilloto-trotting posse. A mischievous smile came across her face momentarily as she basked in that thought. This was Angela's coping mechanism with tragic circumstances and life's little annoyances alike, she imagined herself capable of terrible vengeance against the perpetrators, indulged in the dream-like thought, then banished it from her memory altogether.

Meanwhile on the turf, Madame Karim had spearheaded the movement to steer the conversation from Trotsky to Angela's sighting in a white Coco Chanel dress with an elusive hemline. Mrs. Gamayil (née Geneviève Frangieh), the resident Femme Moderne expressed her doubt that a woman like Angela, known for her austere appearance would don a trendsetting Chanel dress. Others shared anecdotal evidence to that point. They were lost in a transcendental moment of joyful revelations when they noticed sensed the towering figure shadowing them, and synchronously turned around to see Angela standing on the terrace above them. She stood still, her hands to her sides, staring down at the now silent crowd beneath. The sun was setting behind her. To the women, all they could make of Angela was a silhouette of a slender, tall woman against the backdrop of a red sun, casting her shadow on the entire pack. Her appearance was both iconic and imposing. To the Catholic school girls among them, the fair woman in the white dress with a Fire-y glow was of mythic proportions. They believed they were witnessing an apparition of the Madonna.

Broken Thoughts

There was an international writer's convention in Iceland this week. All card-holding members of the World Organization of Writers (W.O.W) had to attend, or risk losing their licenses. They drafted a proposal which stated that "we, the writers of the world, proclaim that the muse visits while we are writing, not before".

President W. Bush claimed this was a conspiracy by the Axis of Evil to encourage hard-working Americans to read & write (!). In a white House press release, the president stated that "writing was just as un-American as universal healthcare, communism, homosexuality, stem-cell research, diplomacy and anything else they do in France". To further his point, the press release intentionally misspelled the words healthcare, communism, homosexuality and stem-cell.

Bin Laden appeared in a tape later that evening on AlJezira, denouncing the Muse's Visit as "a sinful display of debauchery! The improperly-veiled muse would visit a non-related male while he is writing (In Islam, naturally only men are allowed to write) and seduce him to fornicate with her. It is yet further proof that western infidels seek only to destroy the moral fiber of our young men while they are transcribing Allah's names (in Islam, nothing else is worth writing) on the side of bazookas we are firing against the infidels."

Al Musto Lopez, spokesman for the Latina Immigration Reform Coalition, said this incident yet again proves how vital Latino immigrants are to the American economy, for they are take up tasks that Americans refuse to perform, like reading & writing. Without Latinos, he questioned, "How will the average hard-working American understand his TV guide? That's a lot of Palabras....I mean words. Who will read them their TV guides out loud for $5.95 an hour? Certainly not the terroristos"
And in a statement released from the heavenly palaces, God - who had retired from the spotlight and had not been seen in public in nearly two millennia, following the tragic death of his son in a hit-and-crucify accident by an unidentified Roman Legionnaire (Police believe the suspect may have fled across the borders to Mexico, or the Incas, as it was called back then) - said it warmed his heart to know that his legacy as the World's Greatest Writer has inspired so many others to follow suit. God is best known for his two best selling novels "The Torah: All you need to know about my Chosen People" and "The Bible: Why I sent my son to die for your sins". Both novels have been best-sellers for centuries, with millions of people around the world claiming it is their ultimate guide to understanding this world and life itself. God is also responsible for a number of key accomplishments, including the creation of the world itself, the death of the millions of human beings who read his book, and millions who didn't, wars, volcanoes, earth quakes (the term "natural disaster" and "god's work" can be used interchangeably) as well as the design of the highly controversial platypus (some argue it of all his 'animal creations', that was the most downright 'retarded'). He has also been suspected of writing "The Quran: The guide to an Austere Life" under the guise of a nom-de-plume (the book was signed Allah, and for years, readers have asserted that it is god in fact who wrote it anonymously, fearing backlash from the avid readers of his first two best-sellers. God has repeatedly denied the allegation, stating that he does not speak Arabic and that he has never met Mohammed, though he admitted that they might have chatted online before Mohammed started claiming they were "meant to be together" and began stalking him)

Entertainment weekly published pictures of God parading in a Speedo on Malibu beach. The picture showed him cuddling with a handsome young man of Hispanic heritage. A comparative analysis of god's nose showed he may have undergone Rhinoplasty. The magazine claims there is evidence to suggest he may have "undergone a little Lipo too".

Shakespeare congratulated god on his return from early-retirement, reminded him that it is HE who is truly the world's greatest writer. Shakespeare asserted that surely, no one could compare the poetic epiphanies of "The Tempest" or "A mid-Summer Night's Dream" to the simple-minded, simple-worded commands of say, Leviticus in the Old Testament. Shakespeare compared God's writing to computer code like C++ "totally incomprehensible and stupid". He also hinted that God may have plagiarized other writers, as both the Bible and the Torah lack coherence, continuity or even a writer's voice. "Dude, it's as if god just copied & pasted a few articles from the New York Post and made a collage of the little pieces. It's totally pathetic".

God responded by ordering Bin Laden to kill Shakespeare