Acting 101, Surfing the Middle East

OK Casbahites ... I know that this blog started as a Middle East forum, then to a iPad, build-your-own eBook monster ... but now, I want to spout the only two things I know about ACTING.

Yes. Acting. Acting. An interesting word. Perhaps most interesting about it is that you don't need to be 100% acting all the time. You can be "highlighting" - or fitting a character ... like I do with Surfing the Middle East. (It's authentic, it's merely a slice of my true self ... as should be--but not always--assumed.)

Tip #1:

Over a year ago in Lebanon, when I went to a Hezbollah rally to commemorate the slain martyrs of the 2006 War, Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, came on to speak. Famously, Nasrallah did what he does best: Instead of talk AT his followers (like most Arab leaders) he talked too them ... though his location was undisclosed and his feed came over a digital network. Simply put: Nasrallah looks into the camera and speaks TOO THE PEOPLE, NOT AT THEM.

Tip #2:
Anyone who knows anything about Surfing the Middle East (and that, at this point, would be only those in production - as it is not for sale yet) knows that Apocalypse Now is one of the most referred to items in the multimedia build-out of the text. Anyway ... Marlon Brando is a de-facto hero of mine (in the acting sense). He says to Larry King in an interview, "Acting is simple. IT IS SIMPLY LEARNING TO ACCESS YOUR FEELINGS."

TALK TO PEOPLE AND NOT AT THEM; LEARNING HOW TO ACCESS YOUR FEELINGS - that's the two thing's I've learned. But at this point, if you really want to know WHY I penned this post, I ask:

what does it matter?

Linchpins of terror

Terrorism is an interesting philosophical idea (or is it an ethos?). Does it even matter?

There is a lot of who is in the right, who is in the wrong, and a moral assumption that makes the two different. What it really comes down to is the status quo: if this is how things are, and someone goes against THE STATE, then that is somewhat commonly regarded as terrorism? Ahh - gibberish. What am I saying? What's the point?

That is why the concept of terrorism is hard to grasp. Everyone has a different definition ... yet most seem to agree when they see it (like the US Supreme Cort and the "Porn ruling").

But, what's more interesting that trying to define terrorism is the actual act of it: Terrorists are often non-state actors who look for linchpins in a situation to provoke them for whatever their goals & interests.

Over at at Jeffery Goldberg's blog, he writes:

Peter Bergen and Foreign Policy Magazine have pulled together a very interesting survey of terrorism experts, who tend to believe that we are only slightly safer from terrorism today than we were in September of 2001. The most interesting comment in this survey comes from Andrew Exum, who said that the most dangerous terrorist today is the "terrorist whose actions precipitate a war between India and Pakistan." In other words, only one more Mumbai stands between the world and South Asian chaos.

So isn't that interesting ... out of everything in the world--Israel-Palestine, Nigerian pipelines, the US, EU, southern Russia, whatever--India-Pakistan is the hottest front, most loaded with these so-called linchpins that terrorists can provoke. A Nuclear Linchpin?

Only question ... what stands in their way?

Have a nice day.


Update: Sorry Casbahites ... this is a much better Wiki of the "Porn - I know when I see it - thing."

Viral Marketing (Surfing the Middle East)

So we've been really busy finishing the Surfing the Middle East app (my iPad eBook) - and it will come out this January. We've also been getting the marketing seriously into gear.

As for the social media element of the marketing, we've been focusing on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogging the Casbah (and another blog that I'll talk about in a few weeks). Anyway, to get to the meat of the matter, I had a wonderful Facebook chat today with Erin Barrett, the expert helping me navigate the cruel vortex of Internet.

Part of our conversation:

Jesse: yeah, will do. I'm just getting the hang of it all now ... This whole project is so multi-skilled. Crazyness. What learning process.

Erin: Indeed. Brave new world and all that, eh?

Jesse: Just a new world for me - I'm getting into it all now. Everyone else--who knows the OLD WAY--seems to have a harder time "relearning"

I'm just learning.

Erin: Yeah, true.

Jesse: I'm really interested to see how this whole viral marketing gig pans out. Like if it really works, I could maybe train a chimp to tweet for me while I go surf or something.