Every writer has fantasies. Every writer dreams of hitting the "big time." But how many do? Almost none. What is more common is that a writer will get a taste of this big time and continue to fiend off the thrill for the rest of their life. And so, for anyone whose ever felt any of this excitement, there is now a movie:
It was late in 2009 when I got back from surfing from Israel to Lebanon; and it was somewhere in January I decided that a book had to be attempted.
During the process, while calling around to boost up the marketing section of my book proposal, I found a producer who thought a "sizzle reel" or promotional TV reel should be made. In short, the TV show--Surfing the Middle East--was never made. But we did spend a lot of time talking to Discovery, Showtime, MTV, and TheTravelChannel. Here is the menace we showed them:
In the end, we used most of this footage I took while surfing from Israel to Lebanon in my enhanced media iPad ebook, Surfing the Middle East. (Click here for the promo reel.)
Just a little project history I thought you'd enjoy.
A few days ago I read the WSJ piece claiming that Saudi Arabia and Iran are in a "cold war" and are fighting it out in places like Bahrain, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and so on. My first reaction was that evoking the Cold War was a little inflated, but after some thought, well, I thought I'd look into what the peoples' of the Middle East think on the matter.
Over at The Arabist there is a most interesting opinion rendered:
There is no such thing as Saudi-led Sunni moderation. If things do come to a head between Saudi Arabia and Iran, I know which one I'll be rooting for: Iran, while its current regime is awful, is at least a sophiscated civilisation. Its current regime will hopefully one day fall. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, represents one corrupt family and its alliance with the most fanatical, retrograde interpretation of Islam in the world. Their downfall cannot come soon enough.
