halfway down

- what do you find takes you from taqwa, basit?
- pandaemonium.

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loan

words said are irreparable.
they create breaches and marks.
…but of course they are, you can say. you /will/ say, your voice sweeping in. that isn’t the point – all words said are irreparable, they all demand more from us than we can give, they leave us drained and spent, and the subject’s act is always more [...]

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mirabile dictu

(some weeks ago)
gow: so, how are you?
me: ramadan’s passing. every year i wait for it to come and then agonize over its passing. am in the agonization stage.
gow: because you feel you haven’t done enough?
me: yes.
gow: i don’t mean school-things, i meant other kinds of things.
me: yes, those things.
–

gow: so, how’s it going?
me: well, i [...]

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there – . . . .

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echolalia: ash wednesday

now, horrifically, the entendre undercut and slipping upward: here, (a production,) will be the site of its reading. from butler’s “violence, mourning, politics”:
there is losing, as we know, but there is also the transformative effect of loss, and this latter cannot be charted or planned. one can try to choose it, but it may be [...]

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shawwal 1

i have complained about theory camp and about what it has done to me as a person, and more closely what it has done to me as a reader and writer. many of those criticisms still stand, and will remain standing into the foreseeable future. given that, however, four essays i have read recently are [...]

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there is a town in north ontario

merry eid, everybody. it’s on saturday, not friday. if you are celebrating on friday you are wrong.
i started the month by attending a four-hour rosh hashanah service at the synagogue downtown. and i end the month by skipping classes and trying to catch up on sleep, readings, people, qur’an, fresh air…
laura on talking ; yaser [...]

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oct7.07

(noor and usman looking at pictures of zacharia&saman’s trip)
usman: ist das jannah?
shelby: so, garnholz, i’ve turned into my worst nightmare.
me: how’s that?
shelby: i’ve started commuting in a truck, man.
me: well, it is the month of tawbah…
navid: so what’re you doing this weekend?
me: oh, not much. catching up, mostly.
navid: (ha) you know basit, ever since i’ve [...]

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