Matt Rees's Blog (318)

In between the drafts

Rock musicians like to note that, had they not discovered their talents for destroying ear-drums, they’d have been criminals. It adds some edge to their pampered personae. Here’s my claim to edge: had I not been a writer, I’d have been locked up long ago, but not in a jail. At best I’d have been sedated.


I know this for sure, because when I’m between drafts of a novel I feel the old madnesses creeping up on me. The dark resentments whose origins I can’t quite…
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Added by Matt Rees on August 13, 2010 at 7:03pm — No Comments

Sondheim in the West Bank

I’m in between drafts of a novel, so I thought I’d look for something to clear my head. Inspired by a BBC broadcast last week in honor of the 80th birthday of Broadway lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim, I’ve been working on a musical version of my Palestinian crime novels. (Only in the shower, so far…)


I’m thinking of updating the Romeo and Juliet story and setting it in Bethlehem. In tribute to the Sondheim-Bernstein classic “West Side Story,” it’ll be…
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Added by Matt Rees on August 5, 2010 at 5:05pm — No Comments

Israel Museum gets funky

I was the first journalist to interview James Snyder when he arrived in 1997 from a sinecure at New York's Museum of Modern Art to head the Israel Museum, the country's premier cultural institution.


Snyder had neat white hair, a trim build encased in a seersucker suit, and a black tie. This, in a land where dressing up means putting on a T-shirt that has sleeves. As I listened to his East Coast drawl, I took one look at him and figured he wouldn’t…
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Added by Matt Rees on August 5, 2010 at 12:32am — No Comments

With democracy like this, who needs dictators?

JERUSALEM — Israelis like to point out that theirs is the only democracy in a Middle East otherwise dominated by repressive regimes. Given the performance of legislators in the parliamentary session that just ended here, you might be forgiven for asking: with democracy like this, who needs dictators?


The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, broke up last week for its summer vacation. The speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, sent lawmakers on their way with an…
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Added by Matt Rees on August 1, 2010 at 11:40pm — No Comments

Memo to Oliver Stone

In Israel, the Jews control the banks! They fill all the top positions in the media! They are behind all the major political powerbrokers! They even print the money!


Someone should look into this, Oliver, because I don’t think it’s just coincidence, and I know you’ll agree. I think you’re the man to expose it.


You said in an interview published this weekend that Hitler was “a Frankenstein,” and then went on to add that the Dr.…
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Added by Matt Rees on July 29, 2010 at 7:28pm — 8 Comments

Israeli settlements: frozen, still cooking

JERUSALEM — Palestinian negotiators said again this week they’d refuse to re-enter direct peace talks with Israel unless the current partial freeze on construction in Israeli settlements is extended when its term runs out in September.


But as <a href="http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/201007_By_Hook_and_by_Crook.asp">a report</a> released this week by the Israeli human-rights organization B’Tselem reveals, a real settlement freeze…
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Added by Matt Rees on July 24, 2010 at 4:05pm — No Comments

Signing up

A book takes a long time to write, and then it takes a while to sell. And another while to sell in another country, and another after that. So a writer’s smile spreads across time.


My long-term grin widened this weekend, when I signed with my UK publisher for my next two books. Not only because Atlantic, the excellent publisher which has brought out all four of my Palestinian crime novels, bought my next books. But because Atlantic is launching a very exciting…
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Added by Matt Rees on July 22, 2010 at 8:11pm — 1 Comment

Tragic friends on a search for peace

JERUSALEM—If you asked about a moment that encapsulates the tragedy of the Israelis and Palestinians, there’d be no shortage of incidents, fatal and wrathful, from which to choose. This week, however, I’d point out an occasion that was less shocking but just as poignant.


In a banquet hall of the King David Hotel, an Israeli leader and a Palestinian leader came to the podium together Sunday evening. They embraced, spoke of each other as good friends and…
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Added by Matt Rees on July 18, 2010 at 3:57am — No Comments

Read international crime fiction instead, World Cup fans

World Cup fans, don’t fear hours of emptiness. Take up a work by an international crime fiction author. It’s the perfect replacement for your lost fix – and it’s a lot better for your soul, too.


Here’s why. As the World Cup unfolded over the last month, newspapers all over the globe were filled with articles in which journalists extrapolated from aspects of the play and team-make up of various countries to draw lessons about the politics and sociology of those…
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Added by Matt Rees on July 16, 2010 at 9:18pm — No Comments

The Barbara Cartland of Cairo…Sort of: Sanna Negus’s Writing Life interview

Cairo is a place we all know to some degree, even if only the image of the pyramids and the Sphinx. A short visit there is enough to make you wonder about how much of this teeming metropolis you really don’t know. No writer gets so deep as Sanna Negus under the skin of this ancient city, which remains key to the future of the benighted Middle East. Sanna’s the Middle East correspondent for Finnish radio and television. Her new book “Hold onto Your Veil, Fatima! And Other…
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Added by Matt Rees on July 15, 2010 at 9:16pm — No Comments

All talk, no two states

At his White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week, United States President Barack Obama enthused that the talks about talks will probably lead to talks, and his assessment was that the Israeli government is ready to take part in those talks.


As the camera shutters clicked and the Israeli prime minister cocked his eyebrow in the way he favors when trying to look smarter than everyone else in the room, the most powerful…
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Added by Matt Rees on July 10, 2010 at 12:39am — 1 Comment

Murdering Holocaust-denier Engaged to Celine Dion Recovers Couches

I’m taking my revenge on the deployers of banal Facebook updates. I’m writing a blog post about my new couches.


Old couches recovered, actually. But I’ll get to that soon enough.


I had first thought to be avenged on the lame updaters by putting up a false Facebook status update of my own each day, attempting to see how long it would be before people caught on to the joke or simply had me removed from Facebook altogether. I…
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Added by Matt Rees on July 1, 2010 at 7:15pm — 5 Comments

What's floating in the Dead Sea?

If you’ve ever slathered your skin in the healing, mineral-rich mud of the Dead Sea, you may want to stop reading now.


More than 8 million gallons of sewage from East Jerusalem is pumped downhill to the Dead Sea, raw and untreated, every day. That’s not just a little icky for those of us who like to float in the lowest body of water on earth. It’s also an environmental catastrophe, and potentially another flashpoint in the conflict between Israelis and…
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Added by Matt Rees on June 28, 2010 at 2:07am — No Comments

Soggy sheep at breakfast

I was under the impression that the English weren’t allowed into Wales any more, now that Tony Blair persuaded us we ought to have at least half a government of our own and let Westminster pay for it. I assume Colin Cotterill managed to make it through the border undercover on his Australian passport. Which is a good thing, because his blog post of this week was a lovely appreciations of my homeland, even down to the 28 yards of…
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Added by Matt Rees on June 24, 2010 at 1:52am — No Comments

How to keep up on the Middle East

JERUSALEM — Time was anyone with an interest in the Middle East could be guaranteed a couple of books a year would be brought out by U.S. journalists based in the region. Now many of those correspondents are history, with news bureaus closing and those that remain cutting back. The new books written by Americans tend to be by think-tank types or others whose agenda is hard to figure out.



But you know that already. It’s one reason you’re reading GlobalPost, which was founded… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on June 20, 2010 at 9:19pm — No Comments

Cheers for Hitler, and Brits go home

The company you keep can put the culture around you in a new light, let you see it as you haven’t before.


That’s true when I travel to different countries and discover that readers in Germany have a particular take on my Palestinian crime novels which differs from the way they look to Americans, for example.


I got to thinking about this when I was wandering the Nablus casbah this week with two German friends. An enthusiastic…
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Added by Matt Rees on June 17, 2010 at 7:30pm — No Comments

Motor sport, Palestinian style

Their politics might be spinning wheels, but Palestinians are revving engines on the race track.
NABLUS, West Bank — For a change, the Palestinians gathered on the main street of Nablus were happy to be going around in circles.


Palestinian politics makes a lot of noise, only to end up spinning its wheels, moving no closer to statehood or peace. But the same combination on the race track is attracting growing attention for the…
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Added by Matt Rees on June 13, 2010 at 12:28am — No Comments

Save me, Middle Eastern ladies, from the nightmare of the World Cup

The women of the Middle East are about to save me from the greatest banality known to man. I’m counting on them to care as little about the the World Cup as I do and to keep me entertained until men can once again talk about something other than the groin of volatile England player Wayne Rooney (it's strained and tender, apparently...).


Though I’ve long loved to play soccer, I scorn the watching of its endless buildup passes, the constant disappointment of a…
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Added by Matt Rees on June 11, 2010 at 12:48am — 1 Comment

Big acts cancel, Israel's opera goes on

MASADA, Israel — A parade of bejeweled camels, elaborately costumed warriors and prancing horses crossed the stage. Jerusalem had fallen to a conqueror from the east. The high priest predicted disaster and the wrath of a vengeful deity. Three hours later, with searchlights flitting across the rugged face of this ancient fortress, the Jews were freed, the conqueror stood in awe of the God of the Jews, and, oh yes, a fat lady sang.



The Israeli Opera last weekend staged the… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on June 10, 2010 at 5:59am — No Comments

How to avoid writer's block

Writer’s block has nothing to do with writing.


That might seem obvious. When a writer wants to write, but can’t get anything out, he’s blocked. Not writing. Blocked.


But it isn’t the writing that causes the block. Neither is it some psychological problem or an inability to conjure up the Muse of inspiration.


It’s because the writer didn’t put everything on little index cards…
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Added by Matt Rees on June 7, 2010 at 12:12am — 3 Comments

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