Reel Bad Arabs: How Arabs Have Been Portrayed For Decades By Hollywoods With Almost No Pushback

Jack Sheehan Devoted His Life To It

Around 2011 or so, I was invited to an NYU exhibit of Jack Sheehan’s work, by Michel Moushabeck, the publisher of the first 9/11 debunk book—by David Ray Griffin.

They shattered the windows of Mr. Moushabeck’s ground floor office windows with rocks, after publication. I’m sure many other things happened. Mr. Moushabeck is a Palestinian who came to the US penniless, at age 19 if memory serves.

I was introduced to Mr. Moushabeck by Lynn Margulis—we went to his office to pitch a book that Lynn was intent on, and which later divided us.

I can see the office, we sat on a small sofa, and were served a delightful aromatic tea from a silver tray, and Mr. Moushabeck was kind and gracious. He listened to Lynn—whom he adored. I think we were there for hours. I was, as usual, caught up in something I could not really do justice to.

It was the manuscript of a savant/madman— perhaps a genius, perhaps not; He devoted his life to de-coding what he felt certain was code in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, for lesbian erotica. On his deathbed, a son was enlisted in a promise to bring this thing to light, and Lynn became ensnared.

I found the text alienating. Kind of frightening. It struck me as a form of post-humous inappropriate speculation.

“We can’t do this to Emily,” I said to Lynn, backing out, and infuriating her.

Lynn was a devoted admirer of Dickinson, and could freely recite many of her poems by memory. In addition, one could see Dickinson’s house from Lynn’s kitchen window in Amherst, Mass. But the point is: She’d somehow given her word to these people, and I broke the chain.

This basically ended our relationship, as Lynn believed I should be able to work on the manuscript whether I “believed” in it or not. She said she didn't know if the author was correct but her conscience compelled her to get it out.

In any case, she got ice-cold mad at me, and I was crushed.

Later that year, she died of a massive stroke, which I find almost suspicious, given how healthy she was. (One was up and dressed and ready to get into Puffer’s Pond to collect “jelly balls” (some kind of pond slime that fascinated her) at 5:30 am or so, each morning. Real New England stuff.

I wish I had more memories with no complications.

In any case, I remember Mr. Sheehan, and I remember feeing sad and embarrassed when I first encountered all this, about how Arabs are portrayed in Hollywood.

I can’t stand Hollywood.

I really can’t.