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eldashraheb.bsky.social
Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
@eldashraheb.bsky.social
3.4K followers 4.7K following 2.4K 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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eldashraheb.bsky.social
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…
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
acfick72.bsky.social
Everywhere there is a great rage simmering, boiling over, and everything feels like an argument. But there are no arguments to be had anymore.
•Omar El Akkad, 2025
Excerpts from the last pages of Omar El Akkad's ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS (2025, Canongate). I know now there are people, some of them once very dear to me, to whom I will never speak again so long as I can help it. It's the people who said nothing, who knew full well what was happening and said nothing because there was a personal risk to it, a chance of getting yelled at or, God forbid, a chance of professional ramifications. It's the people who dug deeply into the paramount importance of their own safety, their own convenience. I feel no anger toward these people, not even frustration or disappointment, simply a kind of psychological leavetaking, an unspoken goodbye.
December 7, 2025 at 8:00 PM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
We have Rachel Owlglass, we have Pig Bodine, Mafia Winsome, McClintic Sphere, Angel Mendoza, Hugh Godolphin… we have all these characters
Charlie rose
December 7, 2025 at 8:06 PM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
Now this is podracing
December 7, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
cmonmaque.bsky.social
Cackling that someone did this shit
Jessica walker winking like she does on arrested in Columbo. Gotta be added in
December 7, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
ultralaser.bsky.social
"we gotta get more racist"
December 7, 2025 at 8:15 AM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
One look at this image and I’m readying 10k words about how King of the Hill is America’s answer to Chekhov
December 7, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
roxconn.bsky.social
Private equity
December 7, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
erikloomis.bsky.social
This is such a fucking fantastic film, one of the greatest ever made, all should watch
December 7, 2025 at 5:13 AM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
Watching The Mother and the Whore (1973) with my movie club. Strangely watchable. Young people navigating bad sex and weird relationships during a terrible time in the world - relatable!

www.criterion.com/films/33280-...
The Mother and the Whore
After the French New Wave, the sexual revolution, and the upheavals of May 1968 came the near religiously revered magnum opus by Jean Eustache. In his long-unavailable body of work, ranging from docum...
www.criterion.com
December 7, 2025 at 5:05 AM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
Very good and underrated. Dramatically askew (like most DeLillo) but interesting take of “novella as haiku.”
#booksky 💙📚
December 6, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
petercbradbury.bsky.social
My wife has stage 4 metastatic cancer and is undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. You can support her via her GoFundMe page at gofundme.com/f/help-debbi... or by purchasing one of my thrillers or murder mysteries at tinyurl.com/24nucxb9. Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you!
December 6, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
carlbeijer.bsky.social
NEW: Abundance fans have called for market reforms to welfare - but as the SNAP crisis proved, no amount of technocratic tweaking can make up for basic underfunding.
www.peoplesline.org/p/abundance-...
Abundance market tweaks left millions hungry during SNAP shutdown
The central challenge faced by the welfare state is still the simplest one: funding.
www.peoplesline.org
December 6, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
alsvid.bsky.social
I follow you for banger skeets like this, bloomfiee
eldashraheb.bsky.social Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 1d
I can’t shake this picture. It’s like Neil Young’s last waltz jaw debacle but instead of coke Trump’s snorted the ash of the afterlife. Both he and Biden have felt the orbit of death and refuse to come clean. Also, his left hand looks itty bitty
iwantyoustudio.bsky.social Christian Petersen @iwantyoustudio.bsky.social · 2d
A perfectly NORMAL picture of the world's GREATEST president (who is also the HEALTHIEST man alive) picking up his very REAL peace award.
December 6, 2025 at 8:46 AM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
I can’t shake this picture. It’s like Neil Young’s last waltz jaw debacle but instead of coke Trump’s snorted the ash of the afterlife. Both he and Biden have felt the orbit of death and refuse to come clean. Also, his left hand looks itty bitty
iwantyoustudio.bsky.social Christian Petersen @iwantyoustudio.bsky.social · 2d
A perfectly NORMAL picture of the world's GREATEST president (who is also the HEALTHIEST man alive) picking up his very REAL peace award.
A perfectly AWFUL picture of the world's WORST president (who is also the UNHEALTHIEST man alive) picking up his very FAKE peace award.
December 6, 2025 at 8:39 AM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
jimmyjazz1968.bsky.social
Hard to overstate how important it was that Jerry Dammers almost single handedly created a youth movement during the height of the fascist National Front and Thatcherism that was organized around multiracialism
December 6, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
jimmyjazz1968.bsky.social
youtube.com/watch?v=0R4e...
The Specials - Skinhead Symphony (live 1979)
YouTube video by pittrek81
youtube.com
December 6, 2025 at 8:11 AM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
Feel like I should have an idiotic project over Christmas. Like watching all the James Bond movies
December 6, 2025 at 8:25 AM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
Wayne’s lived a crazy life. Shame what he’s become but to be expected when you get fame this early

m.youtube.com/shorts/qbsMP...
Interview with 14 year old Lil Wayne, talks about fame😈
YouTube video by OP TALK
m.youtube.com
December 6, 2025 at 8:14 AM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
Woke 2 will not accept surrender
December 6, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
nhoodpublicist.bsky.social
I was sleepy but the hunger was at a level that destroyed the sleepiness so I’m eating 6 lemon pepper wings at 1:30 am
December 6, 2025 at 7:38 AM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
nasboat.org
you know how i know im a 44yo dad? how much i laughed at this shit
bubs, i’ve only got two, maybe three Motown puns left in me. Four tops.
December 6, 2025 at 3:31 AM
Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer
dumbmike.bsky.social
I don't know when it was, but at some point I hit an age where learning new information was no longer fun and was in fact a dagger driven into me to kill me, to kill me, to kill me
In November 2023, NFL players and brothers Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce covered the song as "Fairytale of Philadelphia" for the charity album A Philly Special Christmas, raising money for the Children's Crisis Treatment Center and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The Kelce brothers' version adjusts the lyrics by moving the story to Philadelphia and changing the plot from a romantic relationship to one between brothers and rivals, in addition to choosing more creative insults.[66]
December 6, 2025 at 6:25 AM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
m.youtube.com/watch?v=2rwv...
Jane Remover — Dream Sequence (audio)
YouTube video by Jane Remover
m.youtube.com
December 6, 2025 at 6:42 AM
eldashraheb.bsky.social
m.youtube.com/watch?v=kFGK...
The Clash - Hitsville U.K. (Remastered) [Official Audio]
YouTube video by theclashVEVO
m.youtube.com
December 6, 2025 at 6:36 AM