25 Sep 2008
Hugh Fitzgerald
In two places it is called the "zanjeer zani." Then it is called the "zanzeer." Which is it? And why do I suddenly think of a soft wind blowing off the sea, and through the gently-swaying palms, in sunny Zanzibar?
25 Sep 2008
reactionry
[more answers that aren't even wrong from Google]
The Grand Veneer
Or: Five-Bladed Whips & Five Star Hotels
Pododomani, Pododomani,
I'd see you in Dodoma pododomani
But pododomani never comes
Tanzanian boys* just want to have fun fun; not Kazi Kazi ("work work"). They want to be high as a kite sailor (see Windbad the Windsailor) , kissing their cousins while the Kuzi blows in from the sea off Zanzibar.
Mr. Fitzgerald, who might have just blown into London town with the sirocco while driving a Volkswagen Scirocco (with adjustable sun vizier), was surely not sniffing for Zanzeer, the bomb-seeking mutt of Mumbai (seen stuck under the seat on "A sign you might be driving too fast"), and it is probably incorrect to say that the zanjeer zani strips not only the flesh from the back, but also the zanzeer from the zany Islamic civilization.
Respectfully & Zanzeerly Yours,
R.
(click on "Weather Gallery")
* so too do girls; here's a little lagniappe from Lauper:
25 Sep 2008
reactionry
Cutting Edge Islamic Technology
Or: Little Shavers
Or: Gulf Fiction*
Or: Kiam, I Am, Green Flags & Islam
Fuzzy Wuzzy
Not zanjeered
'Cuz Fuzzy Wuzzy
Had no beard
Fuzzy Wuzzies broke the British square (I've long wanted to say, "Broken square! Fuzzy Wuzzies broke your square!" to a guard at Buckingham Palace, but the thought occurs that might cause them, not to crack a smile, but rather my head), but I'm not sure if I've cracked the codes for zanjeer/zanzeer. Could it be that while a zanjeer is festooned with sharp thingies, the ends of a zanzeer are relatively forlorn and so unadorned as to leave the flesh untorn? Is there an Arab apothegm - to slit, "Never give a blade to a boy until he's old enough to shave"?
So, if Omar of Oman (granted most are Sunni, not Shia) has a son who is still wet behind the Emirs, and whose beard is still fuzzy, but is becoming prone to bouts of self-flagellation, he should forget the zanjeers and flesh-pots of Tangiers, and send him packing to Zanzibar to cuddle on the beach between the opalescent* knees of his Filipino** nanny (or, if very wealthy, some blond Umma Thurman* revert); blown and caressed by the winds of Kuzi or Kazi Kazi.
While there are no right hand column commercial Google hits for "Zanjeer zani", those instruments of self-abuse have to be umma-manufactured somewhere, perhaps under the ripping rubric of Zanjeer Engineering.
If Victor "Omar" Kiam had not already joined the Barber Shop Quartet invisible, he might have liked a zanjeer zani so much that he would have bought...well, Mr. Fitzgerald had that one covered a long time ago.
Why buy the company? Kuzi can.
* still trying to grok "died of typhus in Corfu"
** Getting past (annoying Americanism?) the "civilize 'em with a Krag" sentiment expressed during the Moro insurrection, we should civilize them with a Remington (Lady -geddit? -dissing the French)
