Paying installments.

January 31, 2007 4:13 AM

What's the best way to pick up girls in Damascus?
posted by three blind mice (34 comments total)

Don't try and pick them up by the ears. They hate that.
posted by GavinR at 4:40 AM on January 31, 2007

Under the armpits works pretty well for me....
posted by pax digita at 5:40 AM on January 31, 2007

SPOILER WARNING: Drive a cab and tell them 'Love is the fire that burns a man's heart so that a woman can eat it.'
posted by sveskemus at 5:49 AM on January 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

Like a six-pack, that's why they...this is the Bernard Manning comedy club isn't it?
posted by biffa at 5:53 AM on January 31, 2007

Nice article, thanks.

What's with all the one liners? You gotta take time with a joke, massage the comedy out of the words. Stretch the zinger into something more. Into a fire that burns.
posted by four panels at 6:01 AM on January 31, 2007

by the scruff of the neck..it calms them...
posted by HuronBob at 6:38 AM on January 31, 2007

With the legs. Always lift with the legs.

But the best way to pick up girls on the road to Damascus is to pick up a guy instead. And I ain't talkin' Bing and Bob.
posted by pracowity at 6:47 AM on January 31, 2007

Is the point of this missive to show how much better off the Israelis have it than their Arab neighbors?
posted by Burhanistan at 6:50 AM on January 31, 2007

Is the point of this missive to show how much better off the Israelis have it than their Arab neighbors?

Yes. In precisely the same way that, every time the New York Times publishes something about Mexico, it's to show how much better Americans have it.
posted by felix betachat at 6:56 AM on January 31, 2007

"This unexpected sequel finds Albert Hockenberry on the streets of Damascus, sharing a cab with a man named Khaled who becomes his mentor both in matters of the road and the heart."
posted by The Straightener at 7:09 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Is the point of this missive to show how much better off the Israelis have it than their Arab neighbors?

Burhanistan, there are plenty of things to criticize the Israeli press for, but a sympathetic portrayal of everyday life in neighboring countries is not one of them. Pick your fights.
posted by limon at 7:23 AM on January 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

with a forklift
posted by quarter waters and a bag of chips at 7:30 AM on January 31, 2007

With a pitchfork...
posted by tadellin at 8:31 AM on January 31, 2007

A few good lines from books by George Bernard Shaw or other writers are best.
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:43 AM on January 31, 2007

The point of the missive is to welcome the educated Syrians to the global club of educated people taking on shitty jobs, a category which probably includes that Haaretz reporter. By which I mean he probably isn't paid well enough, of course.
posted by pleeker at 8:48 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Hell yeah! Hits them with a little Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh and the next few hours you'll need to find cover from the impending Punani Storm.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:48 AM on January 31, 2007

You are right felix but I have to say that my first impression was similar to that of Burhanistan. It seemed like the point of the article was to show how bad off Syrians are under a socialist dictatorship and to re-affirm the Israeli identity. These same kinds of articles were common in North America prior to the fall of the Soviet Union. (And still are in the USA with regard to the Canadian healthcare system.)
posted by my neighbourhood is sexy and popular at 8:52 AM on January 31, 2007

Interesting insight on the clashes in Lebanon: it's not just about Sunni vs Shi'ite, or Christian vs Muslim, part of it is about working people trying to get their jobs after a bunch of assholes decide they want to close off the streets.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 8:52 AM on January 31, 2007

It seemed like the point of the article was to show how bad off Syrians are under a socialist dictatorship and to re-affirm the Israeli identity.

I suppose you could see it that way, although it seems unnecessarily cynical to me. Also note that some of the interviewees are in Egypt and Lebanon. I thought the point of the article was to show, perhaps, that these young people are as human as any Israeli and have to struggle not just with shitty economies, but with more universal problems like commuting to work and borrowing money from mom and dad to buy a cellphone.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 8:58 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

"The student employment office sent architecture students to fix roofs. Agriculture students got jobs on farms cleaning dairy barns. And design students cleaned houses. I thought, 'If it's good enough for students in Germany, why can't I bring this custom to Syria?'"

The disappointment is not much in the loss of "status" , but rather in the loss of opportunity, income and the delusion of watching an advanced education rendered almost useless because nobody told you "but in practice you will go clean the barn" . One adapts and accepts for a short while..hoping the short while will remain short. And find themselves outdating more or less slowly and stuck.

Granted, some of them are exactly fit for the job and got a degree by cheating or whatnot, but many others don't.

That same people may be developing a self-cleaning, robotized barn ...others may be studying with Temple Gradin making the barn better for animals, other may physically build it.

And yes at the end of the day the barn will be clean.

But no..the mentailty is still the same old idiocy : you gotta start from the most inefficient jobs, from the low ranks and learn your way in the hard way....(so that you don't compete with us or don't realize the promised new job opportunity don't really exists..actually they shrank)
posted by elpapacito at 9:09 AM on January 31, 2007

I enjoyed the article, but I'm not sure how it got from 'how to pick up girls in damascus' to 'its ok to be a supermarket cashier'
posted by criticalbill at 9:24 AM on January 31, 2007

Bit by bit, through swirling smoke.

What am I thinking? That's Beirut.
posted by breezeway at 9:49 AM on January 31, 2007

Fascinating article. It portrays the "evil" Syrians in a dignified human light; they have the goals, dreams, desires, and struggles as the rest of us. I wonder if it would have the same buzz if the same article was in a regular European or UK newspaper, and not Haaretz.

I think every society's educated youth has its own set of challenges. Here in the US, it's the high cost of housing in cities where the best jobs and highest concentration of peers are, the burden of student loan repayment, and the difficulty of creating a new circle of friends as one moves from their hometown. What the article describes is really not that much different than the classic PhD barista one sees in so many hip US cities and college towns.
posted by elmwood at 9:53 AM on January 31, 2007

'Love is the fire that burns a man's heart so that a woman can eat it.'

Maybe, through speculative romantic reduction, this is where "Eat Me" comes from?
posted by Peter H at 9:57 AM on January 31, 2007

Maybe, through speculative romantic reduction, this is where "Eat Me" comes from?

Perhaps the poet Gary Snyder said it best when he...uh...poeticized thusly:

'Eating each other’s seed / eating / ah, each other.

Kissing the lover in the mouth of bread: / lip to lip. '

The heart is a lonely hunter. But also tasty when oven-roasted.
posted by Midnight Creeper at 11:09 AM on January 31, 2007

In precisely the same way that, every time the New York Times publishes something about Mexico, it's to show how much better Americans have it.

Hell, every time the NY Times publishes an article about anyplace outside of Manhattan (especially New Jersey and California), it's to show how much better New Yorkers have it.
posted by blucevalo at 11:41 AM on January 31, 2007

Maybe the point of the article was a subtle poke at globalization. University-educated Syrians cleaning out barns is a failure of the market--they could probably do well for themselves in another country, but as long as immigration rules prevent laborers from moving around the globe freely they'll be stuck cleaning out barns. Globalization is pointless if capital can move around the world freely while labor cannot.
posted by mullingitover at 12:39 PM on January 31, 2007

Maybe the point of the article was a subtle poke

Can you please leave euphemisms out of this.
posted by Peter H at 12:59 PM on January 31, 2007

howdy miss, care to come over to my place for a ride on one of my camels? i'll give you the option of one hump or two!
posted by bruce at 1:49 PM on January 31, 2007

Mmmmm. Taxi drivers are crazy sexy.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:50 PM on January 31, 2007

Mmmmm. Damascene girls are crazy sexy.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:41 PM on January 31, 2007

"Hey, beautiful, want me to give you a hejab?"
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:45 PM on January 31, 2007

I suppose you could see it that way, although it seems unnecessarily cynical to me.

It's how I saw it, but I am a very cynical person.
posted by delmoi at 2:57 PM on January 31, 2007

Wait, there's a place where my love of George Bernard Shaw can get me laid?
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 5:35 PM on January 31, 2007