Laury Silvers's blog

Life's been moving on. I finished training for pro-wrestling. I had my debut. I managed, did an in ring interview, took some serious bumps, and got forced into the royal rumble. I'll put the video up when I get it. That pic is JP Black lifting me up for body slam. The wrestler I managed, Jihad, is lying on the ground. I am the blur in JP's arms. (pic will be up as soon as I remember how to load pics, where did the little edit buttons go?)

My spam blocker consistently blocks any mail from Tarek Fatah or MCC.  I have whitelisted his addresses again and again.  I have gone into the settings of the spamblocker to make sure his addresses are not considered spam.  I have talked to the computer help desk about it.  No matter.  Spammed.  Every single time.  Spammed.

We've been hit by a huge snowstorm here in the North East.  The Valentine's Day Blizzard!  When I was married, whenever there was huge snowstorm I had to get out of the house.  I had to get into the car or walk outside or something.  My ex and I thought it was funny.  Seriously, no sooner would we get snowed in then I had to make tracks out.  I've been snowed in since I left him nearly 3 years ago now.  I'm snowed in today.  There looks to be nearly three feet of snow out there.  Still has to settle, could be less.  But I don't need to make tracks.  I haven't needed to make sure I had a way out of being snowed in since I left my husband.

James Brown died today on Christmas Day, Allah yarhamhu. 

I saw James Brown perform a handful of times when I was still living in Los Angeles.  I saw him right up next to the stage at these awful little clubs with hardly any attendance [Come to think of it that was around the same time I saw Tina Turner perform at Magic Mountain (an amusement park)].  Even without a full audience, in a small club, he was tremendous.  He was "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business." The whole entourage was on stage.  He walked in and bended one knee, lowered his head before all of us, and a member of his band came and removed his cloak with great reverance.  The Godfather of Soul was before us.  He was an extraordinarly generous performer.  God bless his soul and give him ease. 

I am in Love, Love, Love with Titanes en el Ring.  You can catch some of their luchas on-line.  I just got a copy of their first film.  It is the essence of Saturday Morning movies back in the day.  Purrrrrrfect.

I have nothing to say.  I find myself reflecting on these verses from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching:

31:

Weapons of war are omens of doom,
To be loathed by every living thing
And shunned by those who keep the Way.
Presiding at court, the leader honors the right to conduct war,
But weapons are never the leader's choice.

Weapons of war are omens of doom,
Not to be used unless compelled.
And then used only with a quiet mind and heart.
Do not glorify arms.
If one glorifies arms,
One sings and rejoices over the slaughter of people.
Those who sing, praising such slaughter
Get nothing from this world.

Thus the left is for deeds that bring ease,
The right is for deeds that bring death.
The commander of the left is less important.
The commander of the right is most important,
The commander of the right conducts war with mortal gravity
by mourning for all those slaughtered,
and observing victory like a funeral.

Is it appropriate behavior for a Muslim woman, a feminist Muslim woman, to go to professional wrestling events and scream a lot? Scream things that maybe no one should ever scream, except for maybe at a professional wrestling event? This week I went with my buddies Kathleen, Hassan, and Mike to see Smackdown taping (showing tonight 6-23 on UPN) and a live taping for ECW on Sci-Fi. I love wrestling. It is a living comic book series of superheros and villians building stories by battling each other over years. Each match is an issue that hooks me for the next one. Better than a comic book, the audience gets to take part in it. Audience reactions to the wrestlers can push the way a wrestler's story will be told. The wrestlers are performers and have to work with us to hate or love their gimmick. They have to improvise when we do not cheer for the guys the company thought we would. The audience has turned gimmicks around in the past. The audience is also interacting with each other. We all have our favorites, our allegiances, our "issues" that come out in the posters and in the chants we yell for each other's benefit not just at the wrestlers.

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I'm off today to visit a friend in New Jersey.  We're going to be meeting up with a bunch of people who we talk to on a list-serve for Muslim scholars of Islamic Studies.  People from the list often have regional dinners to get together.  It is a healthy intellectual environment.  People are people, but the conversation is good, the expectation of each other is high, and we all learn a lot.  I'm looking forward to meeting some of this crowd.

My adopted feral cat is still running from hiding place to hiding place and hissing.  But she lets us pet her a little more now.  Mike Knight is going to watch the cats while I am away.  Let Lalla CC out, keep Sidi/Lalla Molé in.  Perhaps magically when I get back the feral darling will be domesticated.