Ahsan Butt — The Monarch Review
The Alchemy of Haris Durrani’s Spiritual Sci-Fi – Ahsan Butt
Tuesday, May 10, 2016 14:45 — 1 Comment
A time-traveling conquistador, who is the devil, h(a)unts the eccentric uncle of a half-Dominican, half-Pakistani, American Muslim kid, “Joeâ€â€”real name, Jihad—who is left wondering what’s real and what’s halal in a cynical, post-9/11 New York. This hints at only some of what Haris A. Durrani is up to in his 116 page debut, Technologies of the Self. The story is structured around Uncle Tomas’ fragmented accounts of his confrontations with the devil—Santiago. As family members take turns sounding off about the credibility of the crass and incorrigible—old and lonely—Tomas, Joe’s own reality and memories begin to hum to Tomas’ frequency. […]
Hassan Hajjaj’s World Premiere and the Assumptions of Modernity – Ahsan Butt
Thursday, May 28, 2015 11:46 — 0 Comments
Hassan Hajjaj styles, photographs, installs, interior-designs, dee-jays—essentially, he arts. His works have featured in Brooklyn, Paris, and London museums. And now, he’s a documentarian. The world premiere of his first film, A Day in the Life of Karima: A Henna Girl, was hosted two Wednesdays ago at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s (LACMA) Bing Theater. The (free) event included a Q&A with Hajjaj and Karima herself. The film has been dubbed a companion piece to his most famous exhibit—‘Kesh Angels—which centered around a series of photographs of Karima and her henna crew posed on motorbikes while dressed in […]
M.I.A.’s Aesthetical Warfare – Ahsan Butt
Thursday, April 30, 2015 11:04 — 0 Comments
I. Bucky Done Gun blitzed The Wedge on MuchMusic. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing or hearing. The trumpets sounded out into a memory though. That brown girl with the trumpets, I remembered, almost a year later.
We Don’t Choose the Days – Ahsan Butt
Monday, October 6, 2014 10:09 — 1 Comment
I grew up in a labyrinth.
Those Moments That Happen, An Improv Conversation
Tuesday, June 24, 2014 9:52 — 0 Comments
Four nights a week for four years of my life I climbed up the cobblestones of Post Alley past aproned smokers and Gum Wall gawkers. Below Pike Place, below a neon sign that made no noise, I would split the jutting line at the Unexpected Productions box-office and bow into the Dionysian temple that is the Market Theater.
Inspiration and Perversity in Cumbaya – Ahsan Butt
Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11:29 — 0 Comments
It had all the makings of a night that would fall through. The logistics were becoming more complicated by the second. Last minute costume shopping had been a bust. The hour long commute to the party was beginning (*maybe*) an hour late. So while we huddled around the passenger-side window of a cab pleading with the driver to let all 5 of us in — against the literal law, but in the spirit of the compassionate Virgin, who was hanging from his rear-view mirror — the prospect of driving through Quito to costume-lessly attend a Halloween party whose host I didn’t know lost any […]
Asthma – Ahsan Butt
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 12:33 — 2 Comments
Turbulence used to terrify me. Before I developed the ability, turbulence felt like God’s judgment finally deciding on us. I hated planes. I used to pray so desperately.
The answer isn't poetry, but rather language
- Richard Kenney
