Both Sides Now: Muoslak Muo?

Should this be your first encounter with the person of Oum Kalsoum (that's her at the mic in the above picture), you may want to look her up, and for that purpose you have numerous options, including : Umm Kulthum, Om Kalthoum, Oum Kalthum, Omm Kolsoum, Umm Kolthoum, Um Kalthoom) (Arabic: أم كلثوم ). Egypt’s most celebrated singer crossed the river in 1975 at the age of approximately seventy-five, give or take a few years, interrupting the workings of government in Cairo during three days of national mourning.

Certain elements are not what they first appear to be in the person of Oum Kalsoum. That’s how she got started: her father, an Imam at the mosque in their small village, dressed his pre-adolescent daughter as a boy so that she could mingle freely and practice with males instructed in religious song. Dad thought she was better than her brothers, and the deception paid off: she went on to become the greatest female vocalist of her time in the Arab World.

Amsterdam’s Royal Tropical Institute used to stage a monthly open-mic talent night. On one such evening, I watched a gifted Oum Kalsoum impersonator whip a crowd of men of Middle-Eastern origin into a clapping, cheering frenzy. The applause trickled off to a confused, out-of-sync splatter as the audience gradually realized that the impersonator was a man. After a few tense moments, the singer struck another great note, and the audience, either convinced by the talent or just determined to prolong this good night out, rose up to the occasion and began to sing along and sway in rhythm again.

With this idea in mind (the idea that initially comes to mind is ‘opposites which attract’ as a relative concept, subject to amendment as circumstances change), I was charmed by the image of Oum Kalsoum lyrics floating in two languages across a screen in illustration of her improvisational virtuosity and unparalleled ability to sustain notes. The original Arabic lyrics move from right to left, the English lyrics from left to right (okay, backwards, but the impressive timing is the same).

The screen occupied a small rectangle of space in an exhibition in a European capital devoted to Oum Kalsoum. As reflected above, the display/audiovisual array was complex: photographs, recordings, film and print documentation, clothing items, current fashion from the Middle East inspired by her look and, touchingly, even the vintage microphone and radios that carried her sound live to millions back in the day – it was all there. And all off-limits for photographers. Somehow this clandestine still from the video for musicologists reached my files. She was, by the way, born as Fatima Ibrahim al-Sayed al-Betagui. What happened after that is the stuff of musical magic, cultural cooperation and rivalry, intrigues, geopolitics and global wars, all on a large but also small, intimate scale.

A Dish Towel in the Sun

My parents were married on September 10, 1938, after a whirlwind courtship in and around Toronto, Canada (Mom) and New Haven, Connecticut, USA (Dad). Her mother was critical of daughter Mary swanning off with an uncivilized Yank; the family of Alfred was disdainful towards the import bride with no previous exposure to New England protocol.

But Mary was swept off her feet by the bold young lawyer and punster who appeared out of nowhere as the Best Man at a wedding where she was the Maid of Honor. Alfred fell for the sparkling Toronto lass, an avid reader and lover of jazz, eager to escape her mother’s sharp scrutiny with emigration to the south.

Family friends from the early years of their marriage would later recall how Mary was a gracious hostess who would rather curl up with a book than clean the house, while Alfred drew praise for his gardens and succulent meaty treats prepared on outdoor stone grills built with his bare hands.

Mary’s Scots-Canadian temperament did not always blend well with the formalities enjoyed by her in-laws. She missed her Uncle George, a shy Ontario farmer who still spoke with a brogue which she never tired of imitating. Her mother inadvertently encouraged her to hone her natural beauty by asserting that she had none; Uncle George offered her blissful hours rumbling along on the back of his horse-drawn wagon carrying fresh peas to market.

Alfred would also show off the odd pumpkin or tomato that appeared in the green zone, but his love lay with flowers. You’d think this might have given more pleasure to his father, a professor of Forestry and planner of urban woodlands. Bare-chested in the summer, protected by layers of flannel and wool in the winter, Al hacked his way through thicket and bush with an enormous machete.

The parents catch up with me from time to time: on a restaurant sign mimicking Dad’s handwriting; on a common dish towel with tips for Scots pronunciation. Their anniversary falls in late summer, on September 10, a fortuitous day in some ways for many of us.