Samantha Neugebauer

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In my six or so years here, exploring the Emirates outside of Abu Dhabi City and Dubai, into the deserts and small enclaves and coastal communities, has been one of the true gems of my life in the Gulf. It makes me want to reread Thesiger too, always. Onward to unknowns in the Western Region, Ruwais, a unique industrial town, near the Saudi border. #desert #roadtrip #abudhabi #visitabudhabi #uae #myabudhabi #travel #roadsigns #industrial #westernabudhabi #ruwais #ruwaislife #adnoc #emirati #emiratihospitality #thegulf #pitstop #openspaces 🌾🌾🌾 #thesiger #arabiansands #emptyquarter #blue

#abudhabiart Highlights for me include: Qiu Zhijie’s The Planet of Faiths, the music and unusual urban angles of Sarah Morris’ filmic portrait of AD for the future Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Jennifer Simon’s Skittles or ‘bowling pin women’ against female trafficking, and the geometric calm of Dana Awartani’s Islamic illustrations. Also, the helipad outside. 〰️〰️🚁🎨〰️〰️ #inabudhabi #uae #contemporaryart #arabartists #globes #interfaith #chineseartist #qiuzhijie #fujian #palestinianartist #saudiartist #myabudhabi #lovetheuae #sarahmorris #sarahmorrisfilms #artfestival #manaratalsaadiyat #saadiyat #guggenheimmuseum #modernart #desert #danaalwartani #islamicart

From Pound's Persian nom de plume, Caid Ali, 'What do they know of love, and what can they understand of it? If they don't understand poetry, if they don't listen to music, what can they understand of this feeling, in comparison with which a rose is gross and the perfume of violets is thunderous?'... Even if esoteric, prefer Mauberley than Pound's translations of translations of Chinese poetry. Nicely coupled with Lapis Lazuli too, #yeats #amreading #poetsofinstagram #ezrapound #americanpoets #bookshelf #shelflife #pound #abudhabi #uae #modernity #greek #french #english #chinese #love #music #beauty #modernism #art #americanliterature

#sharjah #spookysounds ☁️ From the exhibition 'Subversive Forms of Social Sculpture' Saudi conceptual artist Abdulnasser Gharem uses his work to examine modern daily life in the kingdom. This piece is of Gharem spending a day in Abha inside a plastic bag supported only by the oxygen of this one tree, throwing light on KSA's decision to continue to import foreign trees, which destroy the native flora and fauna #environmentalism #thegulf #saudi #sharjah #modernart #besubversive #socialsculpture #trees #sharjahartmuseum #gulfartists #muslimartists #abdulnassergharem #sharjahartfoundation #uae #artistsoninstagram #artistsofinstagram #performanceart #floraandfauna #ksa #sustainability #climatechange #climatechangeisreal

✨✨🎶 Diwali, Festival of Lights 🎶✨✨ #diwali #dancing #knowledge #lightness #goodness #abudhabi #uae #lights #festive

🌸🌸 Check out our latest #podcast featuring new sonnets from Filipino-American poet, educator, novelist, and community organizer, Bino A. Realuyo. These two sonnets are from his recently completed manuscript, The Rebel Sonnets. His poetry collection, The Gods We Worship Live Next Door, received the Agha Shahid Ali Prize for Poetry in 2005. Its Philippine edition, published three years later, received the Philippine National Book Award for Poetry in 2009. 🌸🌸 #sakura #poetsofinstagram #writersofinstagram #podcasting #podcaster #slushpile #sonnets #poetry #realuyo #rebel #filipino #american #philadelphia #newyorkcity #abudhabi #literature #poets #binoarealuyo #theumbrellacountry #amlistening #thegodsweworshiplivenextdoor #impermanence #educators #communityorganizers #socialjustice

Newly published ekphrastic poem from my summer 2018 collection (still in process). Link in the magazine's bio @postscriptmag (gender issue)... Inspired by Camille Alaphilippe’s La femme au singe on view at the Musée d'Orsay. "are you the leashed become the leasher?" #samanthaneugebauer #poetry #arthistory #poetsofinstagram #artistsoninstagram #politicalpoetry #feminism #2018elections #poem #museedorsay #paris #abudhabi #uae #museums #monkey #sculpture #statues #politics #americanexpat #writersofinstagram #postscript #amreading #alaphilippe #womenpoets

New hybrid #nonfiction & #artexhibition review published via @postscriptmag (link in bio) on the V&A's current exhibition 'Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up' in London, a Person of Determination, as my adopted home, the UAE, would say. "Her clothing was typically comprised of a huipil (square-cut tunic) and an enagua (skirt) with an holán (flounce). She wore the same accessories and clothing frequently, as evidenced in many photos and paintings reunited in this exhibit with Kahlo’s real wardrobe. She also kept clothing that was imperfect —paint splatters, ink, cigarette burns, and other marks of life. She altered, shared, and borrowed stones, beads, fabrics; some of her famous swaps were from notables like her comrade Picasso and Peggy Guggenheim (Phillips 89). She was generous and inventive. Alternatively, in a recent article about Rent the Runway in the The New Yorker, Alexandra Schwartz writes, “…the average American buys sixty-eight items of clothing, eighty percent of which are seldom worn; twenty percent of what the $2.4-trillion global fashion industry generates is thrown away” (46). If we admire Kahlo’s style, why not create our own and eschew the anodyne of fast fashion? We don’t need to imitate her look, but rather follow her attitude towards style cultivation and wardrobe accumulation." #samanthaneugebauer #artistsoninstagram #fridakahlo #inspiredbyfrida #arthistory #feminism #victoriaandalbertmuseum #fashion #style #sustainablefashion #communism #artist #disability #disabilityawareness #peopleofdetermination #abudhabi #uae #bodyhair #writersofinstagram #fastfashion #renttherunway #mexico #capitalism #gender #identity #kahlo #recommended #london

A dusk upon which I'd like to embody an Anne Bachelier painting. #metamorphosis #thesmiths ✨🎶 "As Anthony said to Cleopatra as he opened a crate of ale, Oh I say, some girls are bigger than others, some girls are bigger than others, some girls' mothers are bigger than other girls' mothers." #amlistening #lightness #abudhabi #uae #annebachelier #electionday #somegirlsarebiggerthanothers #music #taxi #sunlight

The best poems are like Heraclitus' river as you encounter them again with more & more life. Wislawa Szymborska 🍂 . . 'I know how to handle misfortune, how to take bad news. I can minimize injustice, lighten up God's absence, or pick the widow's veil that suits your face. What are you waiting for-- have faith in my chemical compassion.' . . ______________ Two poems #discovery and #advertisement #wislawaszymborska #poetsofinstagram #dubai #dxb #poets #polishliterature #uae #amreading #poems #szymborska #poland #map #collectedpoems #poets #atheism #compassion #bookshelf #bookstagram

Autumn morning in #dubai with sun, indoor cycling, & Poe's The Black Cat. ☀️🍁🐈 "Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?" #dubailife #uae #beach #autumn #amreading #flywheel #indoorcycling #edgarallenpoe #theblackcat #literaryquotes #humanheart #shortstories #bookshelf #cityscape

Today's pre-work Italian lesson...My translation of Eugenio Montale's 'Dora Markus', is nearly content to live with sea legs in my imposed lexical exile (Guarda, mon amie @giuliettat 🌷🌊): . . 'Your restlessness makes me think of traveling birds, crashing, across watchlights, on stormy nights: your kindness too, like a windstorm, always and unseeable, without pause. How can I fathom how you persist in that lake of indifference which is your heart; perhaps you are saved by an amulet you keep within your purse, close to your lipstick, powder, white as ivory mouse, and in this way you exist!' . . #translation #poetry ...I wanted to place a term of endearment before 'you exist' but felt I had taken enough liberties. 🌬️ #eugeniomontale #poetsofinstagram #poets #poem #italian #english #language #lovelanguage #abudhabi #uae #morningcoffee #montale #translating #literature #funnygirl #fleur

Drying flowers in my office. 🌸 "Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time." #georgiaokeeffe #abudhabi #uae #flowers #花卉 #fleur #driedflowers #bouquet #okeeffe #ufficio #beauty #wisdom #joy

#abudhabi First course trip of the year... "Ways of Seeing" Exhibition @nyuadartgallery inspired by visual culture critic John Berger and includes works by Lateefa bint Maktoum, Salvador Dali, Thomas Struth (Hermitage), among many others. 🧐🧐 "The relationship between what we see and what we know is never settled...When in love, the sight of the beloved has a completeness which no words and no embrace can match... " #johnberger #uae #waysofseeing #arthistory #nyuad #mynyuad #museo #gallery #artistsoninstagram #thomasstruth #hermitage #firstyearstudents #nyu

🍃 303, a special poem, also tattooed on my back-- "The Soul selects her own Society — Then — shuts the Door — To her divine Majority — Present no more — Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing — At her low Gate — Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling Upon her Mat — I've known her — from an ample nation — Choose One — Then — close the Valves of her attention— Like Stone —"...................................... #poetry #paris #dahlia #fleur #colors #emilydickinson #americanpoetry #france #flowers #feminist #poetsofinstagram #soul #society #choice #beauty #poems #dickinson #poem303

Inspired by Rebecca Solnit's essay 'Preaching to the Choir', my country folk, #vote #registertovote 🎉🎉🎉 "...to suggest that you shouldn't preach to the choir is to misunderstand the nature of preaching...the primary assumption is that one's proper audience is one's enemies, not one's allies...Yet most evidence suggests that political organizations benefit most from motivating those who already agree with them...Is the purpose of the choir to sing to the infidels or inspire the faithful?...There are still people who don't believe that women are endowed with the same inalienable rights as men, and that has not prevented us from creating policies that are based on the principle of equality... What matters is that some of us act." Remember, the majority of Americans did not support the civil rights movement, and it happened. Support for abolition was not pervasive. Think of MLK Jr.'s "I have a Dream Speech"... a classic example of preaching to the choir...that motivated the like-minded and eventually reached other ears through time and generations. If preaching to the choir was ineffectual, I don't think voter suppression and gerrymandering would be pivotal to Republican strategy. Solnit says, "The performance of integrity is more influential than that of compromise." #american #votethemout #climatechangeisreal #healthcareforall #educationforall #usa #democrat #democraticsocialism #democraticsocialist #americanexpat #philadelphia #newyorkcity #pennsylvania #rebeccasolnit #amreading #callthembytheirname #paris #france #autumninparis #americaninparis #feminism #equality

♦️♦️Ah, American audacity! Americans exist in a tension between wanting the common simplicity and those whale-sized truths, perhaps. "What's so distinctive about American Literature? D. H. Lawrence speaks, with grudging esteem, of an American extremity of consciousness, typified by Poe, Melville, Hawthorne, and Whitman [Dickinson and her dashes!!]: an American intensity of apprehension joined to a robust seeking of selfhood. But there is something else: violence. The American, he says, 'has got to destroy. It is his destiny' because 'the essential American soul' is 'hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.'" 2018 #williamgiraldi #americanaudacity "The literary critic should be tethered to no theory, no ideology, no asphyxiating ism. Like the poet and the novelist, he should be of no party. Ideology is the enemy of art because ideology is the end of imagination. The critic's chief loyalty is to the duet of beauty and wisdom... " #americanliterature #american #expat #paris #france #literarycriticism #audacityofhope #maga #usa #amreading #nationalism #bookshelf #writersofinstagram #poetsofinstagram #wisdomandbeauty #history #noondrinks #audacity #recommendedreading #vote #voting #imagination #voterregistration #anaudaciousamerican #climatechangeisreal #climatechange

🎃🍊🍂🍁Meet Mercredi, the Halloween pumpkin, Americanah tradition! 🎃🍊🍂🍁 "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are [still] Octobers.” - Anne of Green Gables #halloweenseason a @peglar first #october #paris #pumpkin #jackolantern #autumn #cityscape #anneofgreengables #literaryquotes #canadianliterature

Samantha Hunt's prose is a pure s L O w I N g down or s I N k I N g 🌊🌊🌊 even with the music of the metro, her watery lullaby envelopes and slows you in a world drumming be fast be fast be fast. Originally published in '04, it was rediscovered and reissued by Tin House this year. Her work swirls around surrealism and allegory, but isn't exactly that. It has the girl-ed and holy confessional tone of The Bell Jar with the grime of modern realism, the foreshadowing of hopeless climate change. It is doing something different and new. It is self-referential and factual. "My grandfather has told me he remembers a time before longitude and latitude...he insists that he remembers the headline: Tiny Lines Circle the Globe! More on page 24...My grandfather takes down an old map from the Constantinople Press while my mother walks into the kitchen. He spreads the map out before me while she looks over my shoulder. He points to Greenland. 'This is how a nineteen-year-old girl sees a man like Jude...The Mercator projection. It's making Jude look a lot larger than he actually is.'" #theseas #samanthahunt #recommended #amreading #publictransport #metro #paris #metromusic #sea #bookshelf #americanliterature #literaryquotes #mermaid #thebelljar #surrealism #magicalrealism #realism #tinhouse #france #writersofinstagram #bookshelf #bookstagram cover design #dianechonette #tinhousebooks

🍁🍂🧡 Autumn! 🧡🍂🍁 "I told her voler oddly means both to fly and to steal in French. Faites attention those who voler. I told her to say, nous sommes ouvert demain. She said, nous sommes ouvert deux mains. 👐🏻 Like a dissection. She got the job and when I see her in there she usually comes out to tell me 'mercy mercy'!" #theseas by #samanthahunt #amreading #paris #france #autumn #october #leaves #trees #halloween 🎃🍁🍂 #chic #stockings #french #language #americanliterature #literartquotes 🍂🍂 @peglar

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Samantha Neugebauer

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