Flyssas

[PBishop]

Originally Posted by Manolo

It's good to see such an interest in Berber culture though. How did you come to be so attracted to it?

Hi Manolo,

Berber culture attracts me very strongly indeed. I'm a devout multiculturalist for one (I even recently started a multicultural club here in New Jersey), so diverse cultures interest me in a general way.

More specifically, I'm very interested in Berbers, the Ainu, Basques, and Lapplanders for the reason that these groups just might be the aboriginal inhabitants of their territories. Linguistically as well as genetically, they are quite distinct from any of the surrounding people.

But what REALLY sold me on the Berbers per se was a movie called "The Wind and The Lion," in which Sean Connery plays a kind of sherif. Very very cool movie.

I'm a huge fan of Berbers wherever they live, and one of my goals is to do some trekking in the Atlas mountains. There's a remote place in S. Morocco called Tizguiedel that I want to explore. I had a student a few years ago who was a Berber, and my barber when I lived in NYC was a Berber as well - Aziz, the Berber barber... Both were very high quality people.

I think you're probably right about that chopper, it does lack some of the curviness of the flyssa, and I'm glad you liked my story. If it DOES end up in some serious publication, remember where you saw it first...maybe I should get it copyrighted!

Cheers,
Patrick