Wednesday, July 24, 2013

The art of party-crashing in medieval Iraq

I love this book titleSelections from the art of party-crashing in medieval Iraq.

Here's an excerpt for you:

A party-crasher came to a wedding and was denied entry. He happened to know that bride’s brother was absent, so he left and got a piece of paper. He folded it up like a lette, and he sealed it (although there was nothing inside), and he addressed it “From the brother to the bride.”
He went back. “I have a note from the bride’s brother for her,” he said.
He received permission to go in and present the letter.
“We’ve never seen an address like this before,” everybody said. “It has no name on it!”
“What’s even stranger than that,” said the party-crasher, “is that there’s nothing inside – not one letter! That’s because he was in a big hurry when he wrote it.”
Everybody laughed. They knew it was a trick to get in, and they him get away with it.