From artist Laura Harling: 

 Since October 7 there has been a steady stream of reports about the kufiya: their growing use and visibility, and, in response, efforts to squelch or silence or even arrest people for wearing them. I'm too overwhelmed to keep a full accounting, but occasionally I will try to post about the phenomenon. Here's one incident. Layla is a grad student in Social Work at Columbia, very active on Twitter/X and elsewhere.

Interesting film, "Palestine Red Crescent Society" (1979, dir. Monica Maurer and Samir Nimer). Filmed in 1978 in Lebanon, it examines the development and the work of the PRCS. Its work encompasses not just pre-natal health and "normal" medical functions, but also the treatment of the wounded and the rehabilitation clinics that handle those mutilated or left handicap by periodic Israeli attacks and the Lebanese Civil War. Attacks on Palestinian health infrastructure did not start in Gaza in 2023.... 

At the Grammys last night, jazz bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding (double nominee)

showed her support for the Palestinians by donning a kufiya.

Also: poet Aja Monet, up for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album, carried a watermelon clutch.

and...boygenius wore arists4ceasefire pins.

And finally, Annie Lennox gave a shoutout for #ceasefire

October 7 and its aftermath have produced multiple kufiya spottings, and a fair bit of news coverage. I've been too overwhelmed by the events to get on the blog to write about it. I will try to make more of an effort in future, but all I can promise is dribs and drabs. This represents some housekeeping, in fact, a photo that has been on my hard drive for some time but never managed to post.

John Lennon spent some time in Bermuda in 1980. A friend sent me this photo, found on reddit. The description says only this: "new release photo, on deck, Bermuda June 1980." Do we presume then that John was on some yacht, and needed to cover himself from the sun, or protect himself from the wind. And why did he use a kufiya? Kufiyas were starting to become somewhat common street wear in US urban areas by the early eighties, as I've written about elsewhere, so I guess it was simply something he came across in New York City, where he lived. That's all I've got! Check out the photo: 

 My book chapter, "The Kufiya," published in  Asef Bayat and Linda Herrera, Global Middle East: Into the Twenty-First Century, University of California Press, 2021, is now available here, as a pdf.

Note that there is even a kufiya on the cover of the book! (On the shoulders of Edward Said, from a mural.)

 Note too that if you search this blog there is lots of kufiya/kaffiyeh/keffiyeh content.

 My 1992 article, "Seeing Double: Palestinian-American Histories of the Kufiya," published in Michigan Quarterly Review 31(4): 557-577, can now be found here, as a pdf. It also appeared in the Michigan Quarterly Review's 60th anniversary issue--60(1): 341-362 in 2021.

Watch it here.

 This is courtesy the FaceBook page (which I hope you can access) of the Archives Numérique du Cinéma Algérien, who say about it:

Then we dispersed, Otis ended up in London, eventually started his own band, and was such a prodigious talent that he was voted 'Best UK Blues Guitarist' seven years running (1990-1996) by the British Blues Connection magazine. (After 7 years, his name was retired.) He issued lots of recordings, they are easy to track down. I'll have more to say about Otis in future.

This is an amazing song (found on Nash's 1973 album, Wild Tales) that I only just learned about, thanks to a brilliant book I recently finished, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War, by Doug Bradley & Craig Werner. Graham Nash actually attended the Winter Soldier Investigation organized by the Vietnam Veterans against the War (VVAW) in Jan-Feb 1971, where he witnessed this testimony from Scott Camil: "I was a sergeant attached to Charley 1/1...My testimony involves burning of villages with civilians in them, the cutting off of ears, cutting off of heads, torturing of prisoners, calling of artillery on villages for games, corpsmen killing wounded prisoners, napalm dropped on villages, women being raped, women and children being massacred." 

 If you've not seen the Winter Soldier movie, you must, it is essential. Check it out here.

Very honored to have been asked to contribute to this great volume, to be published, inshallah, in October. Look for it! My chapter is entitled: "Rai, World Music, and Islam." More details here.

The order for this event was: Credence, The Dead, Iron Butterfly, Sly and Steppenwolf. My memory is that Sly put on the most exciting show. I think for me the attractions were The Dead and Steppenwolf ('Born to Be Wild' was a great hit of summer '68). The Dead were not playing in there proper element, and of course their set was way shorter than the usual. (Alas, this was the only time I ever saw the Dead, or any of the others for that matter.) Iron Butterfly of course we all scorned and thought were way overblown. I guess Steppenwolf was good but I have no memory of them. Nor of Creedence, who were known at the time chiefly for their single, "Suzie Q." They may have played "Proud Mary," which was released shortly after the concert.

Here's a review of the concert, from the Wilmington Delaware Morning News, on Dec. 9. There is much to comment on about the review, but let's just say that where I agree with it is (1) The Dead were not impressive (2) the sound was shitty and (3) Sly & Co. were terrific.

The effect of the Aswan Dam on Nubians, one elderly Nubian told me in the late 90s: "Have you heard of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima? The Aswan Dam was our Hiroshima bomb."

 The last video shown yesterday (June 13) at the House January 6 hearings featured several insurrectionists explaining that they were present at the Capitol that day because Trump had called them to it. I think this is the last of the insurrectionists interviewed. I noticed that he was wearing a kufiya, but didn't manage to get my camera out in time to take a picture. Luckily my very alert friend Tim did, and he sent this photo to me.

 I've written rather extensively about the push by the Palestinian rebels to impose kufiyas on Palestinian males at the height of the 1936-39 revolt, in fall 1938. And I just came across another story about those events, courtesy Zeina Ghandour's A Discourse on Domination in Mandate Palestine: Imperialism, Property and Insurgency (Routledge 2010). This is from her interview with Said Hassan Me'ary, originally from the village of Sha'b, in the Acre district, found on page 113.

I very much like this photo of a Nubian (I presume) kid looking at the photo welcoming USSR Premier Nikita Krushchev on his May, 1964 visit to Egypt. (I apologize for not keeping a record of where I grabbed this from.) I visited Aswan with my family that same year, in November. Here's a photo.

As is often the case, someone sent this to me (thanks, can't remember who did!), and it took some time for me to get around to posting.

 In Berlin the popo are keeping a close watch on kufiya wearers. 

The kufiya, they seem to have determined, is a sign of anti-Semitism.

(posted May 20, 2022)