Old news travel fast...!

Skin magazine has been online for a while. Only today did I manage to find a 2007 interview the magazine's Farah Salti conducted with me sometime last year. In the afore-seen link one can find the abridged online version on Skin's interview, and here one can find the interview in PDF.



On a less self-centric note, rumor has it that the world is collapsing. A friend from the music industry sent me this article a few days ago. BBC ran this story on Oct 28 about Microsoft creating a "cloud" world where applications get stored online, saying "Microsoft has unveiled a cloud computing service, in which data and applications will not be stored on individuals' computers." The concept of desktop, that took my generation a while to grasp, is becoming obsolete. What will happen to the world once The Cloud goes *POOF*?



Third item on our menu today... stay tuned for an exclusive interview with world guitarist Jan Akkerman. I had the pleasure of singing with Jan in Amman in August as guest artist, now I am wearing my other hat, Media, and writing about him. For years I have been asked the same question over and over; "who is your idol?" My answer was always preceded by weird silence (since the word "idol" doesn't strike too many chords on my guitar) before mouthing, "Um Kalthoum." Today, I can safely say, I learned so much, on sooo many levels from Jan Akkerman. A true artist, a great man and musician. Dutch, famous, and full of energy, life, light and love, Akkerman gives the West a new dimension. His band, comprising down-to-earth musicians whose sense of humor is Arab-like, is a warm gathering of musicians who shall always be in my heart and mind. Wilbrand Meischke (bass guitar) remains my Rumi-kindered friend.



On its way to publication... an exclusive interview I recently conducted with Joi Ito, CEO of the Creative Commons, and one of "The 25 most influential people on the web" rated by BusinessWeek in its recent edition. Ito was in Jordan very recently for a Creative Commons function there. As a musician, I think the CC license, which is a copy-left trend, might be starting a liberation movement to free the world of art, music and creativity at large from the grip of corporate greed/capitalism. CC encourages the culture of sharing within a legal framework that gives credit to authors, songwriters, composers, photographers (etc) within a context of sharing, building together and free flow.



On a Sufi note... Forgiveness is a strange thing. It happens when you least expect it. I was at a regional press conference a few days ago and there I found a few people I have been holding grudges against. It was the biggest gathering of "people I hate" in my whole life. It was pretty funny, very amusing. Since there was an overload on my internal system, which crashed under the pressure of having to deal with so many people I truly disliked, this internal system found a loophole to get itself out of its jam; Forgiveness. With forgiveness no internal mechanisms need to be employed to dodge, evade, duck, flee... With Forgiveness people become new, no association or emotional history attached to them, and you walk down the corridors of the conference with absolute freedom. Hail Forgiveness!