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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

@eldashraheb.bsky.social

3.1K followers 4.5K following 1.9K posts

https://www.abeelraheb.com Egyptian-American Editor and Writer (WGA West) Desperately trying to learn Spanish We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · Jun 18

Once again, I’m reading Nabakov shit on your (and my) faves, while praising them too. Always a great time. #booksky 💙📚

Chesterton, G. K. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Romantic in the large sense.
• Conan Doyle, Arthur. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14, but no longer.
Essentially a writer for very young people. Romantic in the large sense.
• Conrad, Joseph. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Certainly inferior to Hemingway and Wells. Intolerable souvenir-shop style, romanticist clichés. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Romantic in the large sense. Slightly bogus.
• Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Dislike him. A cheap sensationalist, clumsy and vulgar. A prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. Some of his scenes are extraordinarily amusing. Nobody takes his reactionary journalism seriously.
• The Double. His best work, though an obvious and shameless imitation of Gogol's "Nose."
• The Brothers Karamazov. Dislike it intensely.
• Crime and Punishment. Dislike it intensely. Ghastly rigmarole.
• Douglas, Norman. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.
• Dreiser, Theodore. Dislike him. A formidable mediocrity.
• Eliot, T. S. Not quite first-rate.
• Emerson, Ralph Waldo. His poetry is delightful.
• Faulkner, William. Dislike him. Writer of corncobby chronicles. To consider them masterpieces is an absurd delusion. A nonentity, means absolutely nothing to me.
• Flaubert, Gustave. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter.
Read complete works between 14 and 15.
• Forster, E. M. Only read one of his novels (possibly A Passage to India?) and disliked it.
• Freud, Sigmund. A figure of fun. Loathe him. Vile deceit. Freudian interpretation of dreams is charlatanic, and satanic, nonsense.
• Galsworthy, John. A formidable mediocrity.
• García Lorca, Federico. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.
• Gogol, Nikolai. Nobody takes his mystical didacticism seriously. At his worst, as in his Ukrainian stu…

• Hemingway, Ernest. A writer of books for boys. Certainly better than Conrad.
Has at least a voice of his own. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Loathe his works about bells, balls, and bulls.
• The Killers. Delightful, highly artistic. Admirable.
• The Old Man and the Sea. Wonderful. The description of the iridescent fish and rhythmic urination is superb.
• Housman, A. E. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.
• Ilf and Petrov. Two wonderfully gifted writers. Absolutely first-rate fiction.
• Ivanov, Georgy. A good poet but a scurrilous critic.
• James, Henry. Dislike him rather intensely, but now and then his wording causes a kind of electric tingle. Certainly not a genius.
• Joyce, James. Great. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.
Let people compare me to Joyce by all means, but my English is patball to Joyce's champion game. A genius.
• Ulysses. A divine work of art. Greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose.
Towers above the rest of Joyce's writing. Noble originality,
unique lucidity of
thought and style. Molly's monologue is the weakest chapter in the book.
Love it for its lucidity and precision.
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Never liked it. A feeble and garrulous book.
• Finnegans Wake. A formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book. Conventional and drab, redeemed from utter insipidity only by infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations. Detest it. A cancerous growth of fancy word-tissue hardly redeems the dreadful joviality of the folklore and the easy, too easy, allegory. Indifferent to it, as to all regional literature written in dialect. A tragic failure and a frightful bore.
• Kafka, Franz.
• The Metamorphosis. Second-greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose.
• Kazantzakis, Nikos. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.
• Keats, John. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter.
• Khodasevich, Vladislav. The gr…

• Lawrence, D. H. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up. Mediocre. Fakes realism with easy platitudes. Execrable.
• Lowell, Robert. Not a good translator. A greater offender than Auden.
• Mandelshtam, Osip. A wonderful poet, the greatest in Soviet Russia. His poems are admirable specimens of the human mind at its deepest and highest. Not as good as Blok. His tragic fate makes his poetry seem greater than it actually is.
• Mann, Thomas. Dislike him. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.
• Death in Venice. Asinine. To consider it a masterpiece is an absurd delusion.
Poshlost. Mediocre, but anyway plausible.
• Maupassant, Guy de. Certainly not a genius.
• Maugham, W. Somerset. Mediocre. Fakes realism with easy platitudes.
Certainly not a genius.
• Melville, Herman. Love him. One would like to have filmed him at breakfast, feeding a sardine to his cat.
• Marx, Karl. Loathe him.
• Milton, John. A genius.
• Odoevsky, Vladimir. Indifferent to his works.
• Yury Olesha. Some absolutely first-rate fiction.
• Orczy, Baroness Emmuska.
• The Scarlet Pimpernel. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, but no longer.
• Pasternak, Boris. An excellent poet, but a poor novelist.
• Doctor Zhivago. Detest it. Melodramatic and vilely written. To consider it a masterpiece is an absurd delusion. Pro-Bolshevist, historically false. A sorry thing, clumsy, trivial, melodramatic, with stock situations and trite coincidences.
• Pirandello, Luigi. Never cared for him.
• Plato. Not particularly fond of him.
• Poe, Edgar Allan. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, but no longer. One would like to have filmed his wedding.
• Pound, Ezra. Definitely second-rate. A total fake. A venerable fraud.
• Proust, Marcel. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.
• In Search of Lost Time. The first half is the fourth-greatest masterpiece of 20th-century prose.

• Queneau, Raymond.
• Exercises de style. A thrilling masterpiece, one of the greatest stories in French literature.
• Zazie. Very fond of it.
• Ransom, John Crowe.
• Captain Carpenter. Admire this poem.
• Rimbaud, Arthur. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter.
• Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Great. A favorite. How freely one breathes in his marvelous labyrinths! Lucidity of thought, purity of poetry. Magnificently poetical and original.
• Rolland, Romain. A formidable mediocrity.
• Salinger, J. D. By far one of the finest artists in recent years.
• "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." A great story. A particular favorite.
• Sartre, Jean-Paul. Even more awful than Camus.
• Nausea. Second-rate. A tense-looking but really very loose type of writing.
• Schwartz, Delmore.
• "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities." A particular favorite.
• Schweitzer, Albert. Detest him.
• Shakespeare, William. Read complete works between 14 and 15. One would like to have filmed him in the role of the King's Ghost. His verbal poetic texture is the greatest the world has ever known, and immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays. It is the metaphor that is the thing, not the play. A genius.
• Sterne, Laurence. Love him.
• Sue, Eugène. Melodramatic, second-rate.
• Tagore, Rabindranath. A formidable mediocrity.
• Tolstoy, Aleksey. A writer of some talent with two or three science fiction stories or novels which are memorable.
• Tolstoy, Leo. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter. Read complete works between 14 and 15. Nobody takes his utilitarian moralism seriously. A genius.
• Anna Karenina. Incomparable prose artistry. The supreme masterpiece of 19th-century literature.
• The Death of Ivan Ilyich. A close second to Anna Karenina.
• Resurrection. Detest it.
• The Kreutzer Sonata. Detest it.
• War and Peace. A little too long. A rollicking historical novel written for the general reader, specifically for the young. Artistically unsatisfying.
Cumbersome mes…

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 29m

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D'Angelo & the Vanguard - Full Concert - Live at North Sea Jazz Festival 2015

YouTube video by North Sea Jazz Archive

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 50m

As terrible as things are, I’m grateful to have lived during his time. Isaac Newton, Nano Nagle, Marcus Garvey, George Eliot, Shakespeare, W.E.B Du Bois, Galileo, Mozart, Frederick Douglass, and Dante never got to experience his genius.

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 54m

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D'Angelo Live - Amsterdam - Another Life - Paradiso 2012 HD

YouTube video by Zandoka

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 57m

A song like “Chicken Grease” nonchalantly contains the entire history of Black American Music in its breast. An eternal living object that could only be made in it’s own time

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 1h

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D Angelo Jonz In My Bonz Live

YouTube video by Cat Woman

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 1h

Black Messiah came out at a really difficult time in my life and lifted me up, somehow exceeding the impossible height. It was crazy to listening to the Questlove demo for “Really Love” for years and getting the realized vision which was the sonic equivalent of In the Mood for Love.

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 1h

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D'Angelo & The Vanguard Sugah Daddy Live at North Sea Jazz Festival 2015

YouTube video by 小野ミチ子チャンネル

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Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

Arif "Felonious Munk" Shahid @feloniousmunk.blacksky.app · 2h

3 classic albums. No skips. Love songs. Liberation songs. Sensual songs. Fun songs. Black ass music. 51 is too young. D'Angelo can't be gone.

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 1h

He had 3 albums but they were each universes unto themselves: intricate, magical, perfectly conceived and executed. A master craftsperson in the studio, with some of the best live shows the world has ever known. It was easy to call him the greatest living musician. A genius. RIP D’Angelo 🤍

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Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

Nina Turner @ninaturner.bsky.social · 1h

The world lost a giant.

D’Angelo was more than a musician, he was a vessel of soul, a conjurer of feeling, a truth-teller in melody and rhythm. He bared his soul with every note and we felt it.

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 11h

My favorite area in the game

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 11h

I’m not a huge fan of Thomas Pynchon, but he really understands this country and was ahead of his time

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 11h

I’ve written 102 poems in the last month and a half 😵‍💫. Almost done with my first book 🤞🏼
#booksky 💙📚 #wip #poetry

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Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

tinybaby @tiny.baby · 11h

you know one thing that really pisses me off is that the common wisdom is that it's just not possible to figure out a way to stop apps from popping up in front of what you're doing sometimes. not true. that is not true. it's just nobody cares to do it

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Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 12h

When is the bootleg series for Knocked Out Loaded coming? I need 27 takes of “Brownsville Girl,” I’m not content with “New Danville Girl”

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 12h

He looks like a man at sea these days. Like he knows a massive backlash is coming to his music and him as a person so he’s quietly prepping for it by entrenching himself in diversified power structures