Category Archives: Humor and Satire

Cavorting with Cazotte #3

Books You Should Read, Humor and Satire, Literature, Orientalism

Here is the continuation of a previous post the story of Habib the knight from Jacques Cazotte’s Mille et une fadaises, Contes a dormir debout (The Thousand and One Follies, Tales to Sleep Upright), which was later translated into English. The English edition published in the year of his death is available in that magical resource for book lovers: archive.org. There are several volumes, but the excerpt here is from volume 3. Enjoy.

For the continuation of the story, you will need to consult volume 4 on the archive.org site.

Cavorting with Cazotte #2

Books You Should Read, Humor and Satire, Literature, Orientalism

Here is the continuation of a previous post the story of Habib the knight from Jacques Cazotte’s Mille et une fadaises, Contes a dormir debout (The Thousand and One Follies, Tales to Sleep Upright), which was later translated into English. The English edition published in the year of his death is available in that magical resource for book lovers: archive.org. There are several volumes, but the excerpt here is from volume 3. Enjoy.

Continue reading Cavorting with Cazotte #2 →

Cavorting with Cazotte #1

Books You Should Read, Humor and Satire, Literature, Orientalism, Orientalist Art

The name Jacques Cazotte may not ring many bells these days. After all, he died in 1792, a victim of the success of the French Revolution, but probably not because he was into the Illuminati… But fans of Oriental tales imitating the famous Arabian Nights may recognize his name. In 1742 he published Mille et une fadaises, Contes a dormir debout (The Thousand and One Follies, Tales to Sleep Upright), which was later translated into English. The English edition published in the year of his death is available in that magical resource for book lovers: archive.org. There are several volumes, but I have chosen an excerpt about Habib the knight from volume 3. Enjoy.

to be continued (just like the 1001 Nights…)

Comment peut-on être Persan?

Humor and Satire, Iran, Literature, Travel


The French savant and satirist Charles-Louis de Secondat, better known as Baron Montesquieu penned his Lettres Persanes in 1721, almost three centuries ago. This was long before the age of computers or the idea that eventually germinated in the head of Steve Jobs and blossomed into the Mac (and I do not mean the big kind you eat). I suspect that Montesquieu wrote by candle light with a quill for a pen, but he would have been delighted to type away on a Macbook, especially since it comes prepackaged with both a French keyboard and a Persian font. But, alas, poor Usbek and Rica would not be able to board an Air France flight to New York, connect to Atlanta and then walk into an Apple Store and buy a much smaller Air than the one they flew from Charles de Gaulle.

Shocking, is it not. But as Jamal Abdi writes in today’s New York Times, how to be a Persian has taken on new meaning in our globally-fixated-on-terrorism age:

Last month, Sahar Sabet, a 19-year-old Iranian-American woman, was improperly prevented from buying an iPad at an Apple store in Alpharetta, Ga. After she had gone over the various options with two Apple sales clerks, a third clerk, who had overheard Ms. Sabet speaking Persian to her uncle, intervened. He asked what language they were speaking and, when he found out it was the language of Iran, he said she could not buy anything because “our countries do not have good relations” — never mind that she intended to give it to her sister in North Carolina.

Of course, Montesquieu himself could walk into Le Apple Store in Paris and come out high on his own Airs. So I can only wonder what he might have added in the new updated version of Le emails persane. Perhaps it would go like this: Continue reading Comment peut-on être Persan? →

The 8th Voyage of Sindbad: #5

Humor and Satire, Literature, Travel


The Third Voyage of Sinbad, by Charles Robinson (1870 – 1937)

[Webshaykh’s Note: This last semester I taught an Honors Seminar on the Arabian Nights. The last assignment asked students to write the 8th voyage of Sindbad, drawing on what happened in earlier voyages. I will post several of these here for your enjoyment. This is the fifth one I am publishing by Becky Cuthbertson The fourth is by Mahmoud Abdelaziz. The third is by Peter Otis. The second is by Marissa Priest. For the first by Taryn Teurfs, click here.]

The Eighth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor
by Becky Cuthbertson

For many years after his seventh journey, my father Sindbad the Sailor stayed at home, resuming his former lifestyle. He was joyous at my birth and that of my sister’s. We lead a life of indulgence and happiness; we had all the luck in the world. Many years later, my father sat at home with his wife, my mother, by the fire; they watched my sister and I play. He thought that it was a shame that my sister and I would never meet our grandfather; my parents fled my grandfather’s great city where men turn into birds and my father swore never to sail again. Smiling at my mother, he announced that we were journeying to see our grandfather; we were sailing next week.

My mother looked at him curiously, “Husband, have you not sworn to never sail the seas again?”

He smiled broadly, “Yes my dear but I shall press my luck one more time; I am not sailing for excitement or adventure but to visit family. Allah should not begrudge me that.”

So the following week we set off, sailing to find the city of my grandfather. A few days out to sea, a storm hit. The ship was rolling, rain down pouring, and wind gusts pitched the ship from side to side, almost capsizing us several times. All of us prayed to the Almighty God to protect us, save us, and deliver us from harm while the crew worked to stabilize the ship. Lightening began to strike off in the distance, but at every crash, a bolt loomed nearer and nearer. The captain bolted down below and brought up with him chalk. Murmuring to himself, he began to draw patterns all along the rails.

“Captain,” my father called, “why are you drawing with chalk all over the ship?” Continue reading The 8th Voyage of Sindbad: #5 →

Power corrupts and corrupts

"Arab Spring", Arabic Cartoons, Humor and Satire, Yemen


Yemen Press is reporting that they have uncovered documentation that the head of military finances in Yemen from 1998-2009, ‘Abd al-Mun‘im al-AdÄ«mÄ«, appropriated about 281 million riyals for his own use during the Salih regime. As his name suggests, he was indeed a slave to the role of benefactor, but not in the hallowed religious sense. Such corruption is not unique to Yemen, as dictators and monarchs do the same all the time. Power corrupts, as it has since records have been kept. The political cartoon accompanying the article speaks for itself…