3.02 Alexandria-By-Egypt: A Status Report - Footnotes

Commentary
Written By Hader Morsy
Placido Costanzi: Alexander the Great Founding Alexandria - Walters Art Museum Collection- WikiMedia

Placido Costanzi: Alexander the Great Founding Alexandria - Walters Art Museum Collection- WikiMedia

Footnotes:

Hey folks. This time I’ve chosen to present episode footnotes in text format to gauge whether it is better that way or you prefer the “bonus episode” format. Feel free to comment and tell us what you prefer ;)

So… Alexandria. Let me first start by saying that it’s very, very hard to find suitable music that represents the city. With all of its history, the Greek ties, the Arab vibes, the Italian influence, etc. It’s really hard to find background music to fit all of this. This city is probably the most sung-for city in the whole world, and yes I’m looking at you filthy Paris. Alexandria has way much more songs dedicated to it than any other city in the world.

Here is one of my favourite songs about it, and another one, aaaaaand another one, here’s one more. I think if I keep listing all my favourite songs about Alexandria this footnote will be longer than the story itself.

Anyways, I chose Alexandria by ElDor ElAwal as the background music for this episode. It’s the only piece of music that I can see capturing the soul of the city. It actually has a very chaotic jazz-like ending that I chose to omit as it wasn’t very suitable to the story. But that chaotic part resembles the present day Alexandria for me. It takes the first 5 minutes of smooth Middle Eastern and Greek music (the first twenty three hundred years of the city), puts it in a blender, and comes up with something that is as chaotic as it is beautiful.

If you ever wonder if this letter is historically correct, don’t. It’s obviously not. It’s as authentic as Falafel is Turkish, they’re not. The city has a lot of myths related to its birth and I chose to put them all into one stream of thought. I tried to write it as Dinocrates himself. I tried to model the character on the one presented in Vitruvius’ De Architectura, rather than other sources because…well it was more interesting like that. As someone who is snobbish. Thinking that he would create the greatest city on the face of Earth.

But to be fair, it is the greatest city on the face of Earth. #ObjectiveOpinion

Sources:

  1. De Architectura II.1-4 - Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  2. Geographica XVII.6-10 - Strabo

  3. The Odyssey IV - Homer

  4. Alexander Romance I.31 - Pseudo-Callisthenes

  5. Pharos: The Lighthouse at Alexandria - Encycopaedia Romana

  6. On Ancient Alexandria: The History And Civilization - Ahmed Ghanem Hafez Ahmed

  7. Ancient Alexandria - Carole Escoffey

Hader Morsy

I come from Egypt, from a long line of people who were fascinated by stories, Egyptian storytellers come in every shape and form from the shadow player that gathers children around to tell them stories from 1001 nights using his shadow puppets to the drunk and rebellious poets of downtown Alexandria telling glorified stories of failed revolutions against thousands of years of dictatorship. This is an attempt to retell those stories.


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3.01 Alexandria-By-Egypt: A Status Report
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