WHY DON’T YOU? #255
Monday: Why don’t you joyously SCREAM with me about the discovery of an 18th Dynasty village being excavated within walking distance from my friend’s house in Luxor, Egypt? I’m so […]
Category Archives: Egypt
WHY DON’T YOU? #254
Monday: Why don’t you read more autobiographies? These are unequivocally my favorite genre. Nothing satisfies me more than somebody telling the story of their own life—whatever it means to them. […]
WHY DON’T YOU? #246
Why don’t you remember why you don’t have polio and stop acting like an idiot and get hyped for your Coronavirus vaccine?
WHY DON’T YOU? #243
Monday: Why don’t you do exactly what I’m about to say and get a fireplace? I don’t care if you get a gas one or an actual chimney system. If […]
WHY DON’T YOU? #233
Monday: Why don’t you buy environmentally friendly products to soothe your guilty conscious? I’ve never much cared for paper towels, though the convenience is lovely. On a whim, I bought […]
WHY DON’T YOU? #232
Monday: Why don’t you watch National Geographic’s exceptional miniseries Kingdom of the Mummies? It follows Egyptologists Dr. Ramadan Hussein and Dr. Salima Ikram (who I adore) as they excavate an […]
THINGS I LOVED/HATED THIS WEEK #253
I entered what I can only describe as an old abandoned asylum. There were no people there. There were no sounds aside from the humming of the lights. There was an overwhelming foreboding of something gone wrong. I simply assumed that I had entered from the back and would soon find the rest of the caucus. I was wrong and I realized this is why people always die in horror movies. It is so easy to make a dumb mistake.
THINGS I LOVED/HATED THIS WEEK #251
He was strongly influenced by one of the most important and derided albums of all time, “Paris,” by Paris Hilton. I knew I loved him then. If you don’t know by now, I don’t think you’ll ever know how significant Paris Hilton’s debut album is. I’m not going to get into that even though it is one of the seminal albums of our age…I connected immediately with the mysterious gay cowboy and his dramatic mask. In other interviews, he gushes over Dolly Parton and her wigs with the reverence of an art history major wandering through the Louvre for the first time. I am captivated by him.
THINGS I LOVED/HATED THIS WEEK #236
Ever since finding that deal, I’ve had my eyes peeled — what a horrifying expression, I need to look that up. Bear with…bear with…well that was a wild ride. According to linguists, the expression first appeared in American English around 1850 and was derived from a latin word that meant “to pillage.” Over the years, the original spelling became bastardized to “peel” and it meant to remove, which it still kind of does. So, the expression means to remove any covering from the eye, not to literally peel your eye away, which would seem to defeat the purpose. Anyway, back to the main point.
THINGS I LOVED/HATED THIS WEEK #235
I miss getting into playful Egyptological arguments with scholars over martinis at The Royal Bar. I even miss the touts demanding baksheesh and donkey drivers hollering at me. I miss the filth in the streets and the flies that buzz around the horses. I miss the robes and the heat and the ferry across the Nile. I miss the cacophony of sounds at night when you’d hear honking horns and bellowing camels and the call to prayer. It suited me and I need to get back. Once I get this terrible year behind me, I’m going to treat myself to a glorious return to the sands of Egypt.
Benjamin Phillips 