"Biggest Artistic and Cultural Event In the Middle East"

Makes you wonder, huh?
What could it be?

Lebanese diva Fayrouz comes out of retirement for a final concert in Beirut?

Archaeologists in Aswan discover a hidden tomb even more glorious than King Tut's?

Saddam Hussein agrees to exhibit his secret "Kuwaiti Sunrise" paintings in Baghdad?

Guess again.
It's obvious isn't it? I mean we are talking about the "biggest artistic and cultural event in the Middle East" here.

You give up, right?
But you're going to hate yourself when I tell you the answer.
You're going to smack your forehead with an open palm and say, "Damn, I should have known that!"

Because who in their right mind wouldn't consider the opening of Egypt's first drive-in movie theater "the biggest artistic and cultural event in the Middle East?"

The investor who paid for it thinks it is.
Thousands of young people searching for a dark, quiet place to do the deed think it is.

And Al-Ahram, the country's biggest newspaper, has no problem with it: they've allowed the advertisement for the drive-in to blare the ridiculous claim in boldface type.

But consider the following testimony by an Egyptian who long ago immigrated to the United States:

"I remember in 1973 when I was new to the Washington area, there were about five drive-in movies around the beltway. We used to take our old 1970 Maverick to the one along Rockville Pike and watch two movies at a time.

Now all the drive-in movies have disappeared from the area and no one is talking about them any more.

When an old idea that failed in the west appears as a new great idea in Egypt, everyone will rush to it out of curiosity, and then the thing will fizzle down."


Next week: Darwich gets a first-hand look at one of those "brilliant" ideas