Comedy arrives in the capital

With a growing number of options for stand-up comedy in Dubai, and even one way up in Ras al Khaimah, it's about time the capital saw some action. And that's just what happened mid-week, as Abu Dhabi standup comedy pioneers, Yalla Laughs, kicked off a fortnightly gig series in the Barosa pub at Cristal Salam Hotel.

The pub, itself fairly new, had a cosy bar hall reserved for the event. There was plenty of parking (albeit the kind that consumes some AED 1 coins and spits out others) around the hotel when I got there, forcing me to cancel my set's opening joke about parking in Abu Dhabi. I still got in a couple of city-specific jokes, woven into my newer set along with a few older bits.

Yalla Laughs' Erik Thornquist and Jonathan Boulton (top right and top left) -- AUH-based comedians who thus far have had to drive up north for gigs -- took care of preparations this time, while five of us from Dubai drove south to join them for Abu Dhabi's first regular local comedy night.

To our growing relief, the launch event was blessed with a turnout that was not only sizable, but generally receptive as well. Tight emceeing by Erik kept the energy going for me (bottom right) and four other performers, climaxing in a side-splitting headliner set by Salman Qureshi (bottom left).

A Funny Story from Dubomedy

Dubomedy launched a new mixed comedy event series this weekend, at its now regular venue, Fraiche Cafe and Bistro in JLT. Held as it was in the early evening at a cafe, the first event of this "It's a Funny Story!" series had a significant youth demographic in attendance. Also, a nice raised stage.

The evening began with stand-up, as the lineup of comedians narrated humorous tales that may or may not be entirely true. I only got there in time for the last few, but well in time to see sets from some of my favorite Dubai comedians.

And after the interval, several definitely made-up funny stories were created by Dubomedy's Improv Revolution troupe in primarily short-form WLIIA-style improv games, including a couple of fun games I had not previously seen from the troupe. Mainly thanks to the more experienced actors, it was a generally enjoyable and engaging show.

Two new books for Dubai poetry fans

A busy season for the local poetry scene gave us book launches by two prolific Dubai-based poets: Frank Dullaghan's third title, The Same Roads Back, and Zeina Hashem Beck's award-winning debut title, To Live in Autumn. Following grand individual launch events, the poets held a joint reading session at DIFC's Bookshop readers' cafe.

After reading out a few of the most characteristic and/or popular poems from their portfolios, Frank and Zeina took questions from and discussed their art with attendees. Topics on the table included the characteristics of "good poetry", free verse vs. metre and rhyme, Zeina's peculiar but apparently effective multilingual composition technique, and some anecdotes and advice on getting published and getting feedback.

Zeina's poems lend themselves well to performance, specifically the creative punctuation and the repetition of words or lines for effect. It makes pleasant reading too, though. Generally more urban in context, the poems refer to colorful personalities, and paint you-had-to-be-there experiences, many of which seem tinged with nostalgia.

Frank's use of metaphorical flourish, combined with everyday language and attention to detail, paints lucid imagery of human and natural scenery, using such phrasing as "quality of light" and "green state of grace". One is easily transported one into the moment, into the perspective of observer or participant. The seemingly mundane is rendered intimate and significant.

The differences between the lived stories of a grey-bearded Irishman and a Lebanese woman who was a college student not long ago are evident in their respective books. There's also some overarching commonality in the use of free verse and vivid descriptions of personal observations. Both books will therefore appeal to fans of this style, while offering differences in content and delivery sufficient to warrant reading both.

Music Diversity at NYUAD

After a long time, I attended a NYU Abu Dhabi music event tonight. These have always been "different", and this one was, well, no different.

In this special performance, five specialist musicians from very diverse schools and cultures shared the stage: (left to right) American-based Peruvian computer musician Jaime Oliver, Ghanian traditional percussionist Gideon Alorwoyie, Indian traditional instrumental and vocal percussionist Akshay Anantapadmanabhan, British saxophonist Barak Schmool, and French computer-assisted composer/mixer Gérard Assayag. 

Each performed solos -- occasionally leading collaboration acts -- in turn, before a closing performance as an eclectic quintet.

As someone who works with computers, I was fascinated at a technical level by Mr Oliver's setup, which created electronic sounds based on the movements and shapes he made with his hands. Mr Anantapadmanabhan's traditional Indian percussion (top) was also very impressive, especially his vocal percussion.

And being both a jazz fan and a general performing arts fan, I thoroughly enjoyed the moves and chords in Mr School's act (bottom), in which he played saxophone to a backing track while synchronized video slides of him casually dancing to elements of the track were projected overhead.

Whatever the individual tastes for their styles of music, though, I understood, from overheard reviews on the way out, that many fellow attendees thought the final collaborative quintet performance was amazing -- an assessment with which I heartily agreed.

Corals and Crochet at NYUAD

To provide some context to its two-month-long exhibition of "crochet coral", beginning this week, NYU Abu Dhabi is hosting two panel discussions on crochet art, one of which I attended.

Each of the three crochet artists in the panel introduced their very different approaches to crocheting.

Shauna Richardson (left), spoke about her "crochetdermy" of animal forms with dense "skins" of crochet, including some inspired by public figures, and large outdoor projects like the three over-sized lions of Lionheart. As she confirmed, she does them in aggressive poses and natural colors, in order to avoid the toy look.

Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam's (center) presentation drew many amused reactions from the audience, since her contrasting use of bright colors and playful shapes in huge, heavy-duty, netting-type crochet installations made them popular as jungle gyms for kids (and some adults), as many of her pictures showed. These and some of her less physically interactive works additionally employed interesting use of layering, as well as deliberate anchoring and weighting for dramatic surface contortion.

Finally, Christine Wertheim (right) began her segment with a fascination comparison of crochet to the ferrite core memory boards used in computers nearly half a century ago, pointing out that contemporary women's handicraft skills made them naturals when it came to weaving core memory boards, and supporting her opening statement that "crochet is a digital technology". She is also a co-founder of the Institute for Figuring and its Crochet Coral Reef project, assembling brightly colored, organic-looking hyperbolic crochet surfaces that bunch up into forms that resemble corals. She described how the artists' allowing variation in the crochet "formula" resulted in diversity akin to that found in nature due to genetic mutations, and how they preserved their plastic waste for years to weave them into the project's "toxic reefs".

After the event, I had a look around the reef exhibition. You had to go up close to see the use of various waste materials -- such as plastic piping, cable ties, and bags -- among the brightly-colored yarn coral bunches, balls and stalks, and even some full-blown crochet marine fauna. There was much variation in size and shape as well, and some also included beads and other effects. A beautiful exhibition, and worth checking out on the Saadiyat campus before it closes on December 4th.

A Conversation with Vintage

I was the only guy there. Well, apart from the staff, of course. The presentation at MAKE Business HUB was indeed about vintage, but it had a decidedly female-oriented focus.

That's not to say it was a complete loss for me; presenter Rawya Catto delivered a pretty comprehensive walk-through on vintage trends in social media, food, film/TV and mainstream fashion, and also covered ancillary topics like the difference between vintage and retro (something to do with actually having been produced for use in the historical period). In addition, she listed a few local options, from high end dealer Garderobe to the more bargain-friendly Flea Market, and brought along a few samples for examination by the audience.

Mind the Gag

Omar Kazim killing

Named aptly for a venue that is built to resemble London's subterranean rapid transit infrastructure (minus, as one comedian put it, the smell of piss), "Mind The Gag" is Dubai Laughing's valiant attempt at running Dubai's first weekly stand-up comedy night -- on Thursday nights, no less. At the far end of the cavernous network of drinking halls comprising the Habtoor Grand's "Underground", six stand-up comedians made opening night, with Omar Kazim blowing the roof off the house with one of his most hilarious performances yet.

Dark matter explored at NYUAD

Dark matter is a physics concept that's as complicated as it is fascinating. Fortunately, NYU Abu Dhabi brought it NYU cosmology/astrophysics researcher, Professor Glennys Farrar, to explain it to us, with the added bonus of her infectious enthusiasm. In the course of the public talk, she expounded the background physics and presented the astrophysicist's case for dark matter's existence, as well as what she considers an "equally exciting" alternative: that current theories of physics are themselves in need of modification.

Piquing interest with a really cool video of dark matter in cosmic collisions way out in the Bullet Cluster (almost like a ballistics video, except over billions of years instead of fractions of seconds), she spoke about the challenges in detecting, as well as theoretically describing and modeling dark matter; she mentioned the Large Hadron Collider in this regard. She also spoke about contemporary hypotheses for explaining dark matter, such as the WIMPs and the H-dibaryon, and touched upon both dark energy and baryon asymmetry (topics deserving separate talks, it would seem).

Masdar Institute launches innovation-entreprenurship lab and scholarship with BP

iInnovation

The institute's recent reorganization into area-specific research centres (putting me in "iSmart") resulted in a new centre for innovation and entrepreneurship, called "iInnovation". Many of us from the university, as well as corporation delegates and faculty from other universities today gathered at iInnovation for an open house marking the launch of the centre's innovation lab, "iLab".

Dr Bruce Walker Ferguson

Centre head Dr Bruce Walker Ferguson, who was commended in an opening address by institute president Dr Fred Moavenzadeh, delivered a presentation on the entrepreneurial ecosystem and policy issues, highlighting the educational value to students of seeing real world processes of innovation and company setup in action. The open house also marked the launch of a new entrepreneurial scholarship that would encourage students to develop business plans and possibly even set up companies while at the university. Dr Katherine Moortgat and BP Ventures' Dr Issam Dairanieh were present and presenting, BP being involved with both the centre and the scholarship.

One of our projects

After the talks, an outdoor lunch and informal poster session shone light on some existing institute research projects with entrepreneurial potential, including one of our lab's newest projects.

Surfing a smorgasbord at Dubai Food Carnival

I had myself a little weekend indulgence at the first Dubai Food Carnival, which is held together with other food festivals in Dubai under the umbrella of the new Dubai Food Festival.

I was mainly looking for independent restaurants from which to sample, but most of the places were still very hotel/chain-ish. We seriously need a "Taste of Karama" food festival or something. Anyway, I found a couple of such places, including the seemingly all-female burger place called She Burger. Theirs is a seriously good burger; the bun has a soft and non-crumbly texture, the patty is generous and succulent, and the cheese they use rounds it off really well.

I also liked the chicken mashwi from Barjeel, an Emirati food place. The chicken was just falling off the bone, and the rice was cooked with hearty lentils and a rich spice mixture.

Holland House's fluffy and moist mini-pancakes, drizzled with chocolate sauce and honey, made for a sweet finale. Apart from these, I also dipped into some of the samples that many food manufacturers and startups had lain out.

The carnival, located next to the Dubai Festival City mall, and run over two days, naturally included a lot of entertainment; a massive 360-degree stage for variety show performances dominated its center, while live music was performed in the licensed section at the back. There were also a few live chef demos and cooking contests to attend, although I was disappointed when the Beat the Heat pepper-eating contest was moved ahead by half an hour, causing me to miss it. I would have also liked there to be cooking contests open to more demographic segments than just dads or kids i.e. to me.

Dubomedy's stand-up comedian and emcee Ali Al Sayed and visiting American comedian Dean Obeidallah were also part of the evening lineup, valiantly working the crowd out of food comas over the other live shows in the background.

DUMM launches 90 Degrees North at Story Rooftop Lounge

Knowledge Village does not have very many entertainment options, but Dubai Underground Music Movement (DUMM) is looking to start changing that by launching a weekly Wednesday house music night at Story Rooftop Lounge on the top floor of Holiday Inn Express DKV --- incidentally, a short walk from my place.

The venue has undergone a major makeover from its days as the restaurant known as Vista -- itself a recommended destination. I had, in fact, dined there about a year ago. Arriving a bit before sunset got me a nice view of the last rays, as well as a happy hour rate. The food menu is small, and purportedly Peruvian; to my great joy, they did have piquillo peppers, although I wish they were stuffed with the cheese, and not buried under it.

The view around is lovely; you can see the Cordoba residences, DKV, the sea, and the buildings of The Palm. It gets even better at night. I also liked the results of the aforementioned interior decoration makeover, which gives it a colorful, boho look inside. They seemed to have some difficulties with the outdoor speakers; I hope those get fixed soon, because the music was good, and the terrace would be an even better place to enjoy it.

Comedy Dubai Xmas standup at Bidi Bondi

Russell Bell

Snapping up stragglers of the holiday exodus, Comedy Dubai's final monthly stand-up show of 2013 took place at Bidi Bondi Palm Jumeirah's grill terrace, with light jacket weather just starting to creep in. Some hilariously risque bits included in the sets of Omar Shams and Feyaza Khan set a naughty mood, and closing act Russell Bell killed with his well-tuned material and his physical expressiveness. Sheida Ibrahim also deserves special mention for the interesting gamboo3a bit.

BOLDTalks Innovation 2013 at DUCTAC

BOLDtalks made its second specialized foray on 16 Nov, hosting a morning and afternoon of talks themed on innovation, held at DUCTAC.

The event began with Dubai SME's Alexander Mathew Williams talking about local challenges and cycles in innovation. From Williams' statistics-filled talk, a couple of points that stood out were obstacles faced in getting local universities -- many of which do not have R&D programs -- to foster innovation among their students, and local perceptions of mentoring as wasta-dealing rather than the provision of guidance. He also attempted to explain the fees levied on startups by the state as a sort of pre-earning taxation scheme; I'm not sure how many entrepreneurs would agree that is necessarily better than taxes on earnings.

Some of the other talks were about innovation cycles in the region, microfinance, regional fast food franchising, educational innovation, and branding. For me, three talks were particularly fascinating.

Bastian Schaefer is a designer from Airbus -- which was one of the sponsors -- but his talk was not a lot of PR spiel. He walked us through the innovation process in developing the airplane of the future, starting with demographic shifts, and why and how these matter. He presented an example of a lighter, computer-designed, 3D-printed crew rest bracket that they created, and concisely described how advances in technology will impact construction, seating, aesthetics and efficiency in the kind of aircraft they are developing.

I also liked Dr Alejandro Rios G.'s talk a lot, and not just because he is also from Masdar Institute. He described the food-water-energy nexus, the growth of aviation emissions growth, and talked about his research center's project to use seawater -- available in overwhelming abundance -- to farm marine life for human consumption, as well as grow specialized mangrove plants that can be used to produce biofuels. I have long wondered if something could be done using mangroves, and I was pleased to know that it's happening, and right here in the UAE.

Possibly the most inspiring talk that day was that of Hind Hobeika. Although she is developing a rather niche product -- albeit one related to her passion -- she captivated us with tale of a journey from inspiration to conception to prototyping to funding to manufacturing. Most importantly (from an entrepreneurial and innovation perspective, especially), she recounted both successes and failures, and provided specific anecdotes and observations from along the way, about team-building, investment, patenting, production, and challenges specific to the region. Only a tiny minority of us are training swimmers, but I'm sure she had everyone there sincerely and enthusiastically wishing for her success by the end of that talk.

Dark East Mania rock event at The Music Room

September's multi-sub-genre rock music event, named "Dark East Mania" by organizers Charged ME's fans, started early in the night, featuring 11 locally-based acts back-to-back all the way to lights up at The Music Room.

Alt rock band Drasbor put in one of the more memorable performances of the night, with strong vocals and good percussion.

Metal fans had much to mosh over, with 4 metal bands playing that night. The first, Coat of Arms, was a great kick-off, their vocalists' preppy look belying a powerful metal voice.

After Benevolent and Voice of the Soul continued the metal lineup, split down the middle by hard rock band Point of View, Ascendant ended it with a very well-received performance.

Booza night by The Carton at thejamjar

A rather large number of people skipped dessert at last evening's iftars, because it was "booza" night at thejamjar.

The gallery-studio was hosting an event with The Carton, a food-centric art/photography/culture quarterly. There, The Carton was promoting their sixth issue, a special on ice cream ("booza" is Arabic for ice cream). I had no idea that this magazine existed until now, but I bought three back issues. See, apart from great articles about, and pictures of food, they also feature recipes. As my readers would have guessed by now, I love experimenting in the kitchen, and I look forward to trying some of them.

Attendees could engage with the ice cream theme by customizing a cone or cup on the open drawing wall, using the colored markers provided. I designed a mango and lemon twist, poured into a cup of berry syrup.

The Ice Cream Shop UAE provided us with scoops of free fresh ice creams and sorbets before we settled down to watch the hour-long documentary An Ice Cream Show, the educational and entertainment value of which quite made up for having to endure the cringe-provoking '90s hairstyles it featured.