Outing One: Taste of Morocco and District 9

We achieved criticality (four people, enough for a death quorum) and overall I think the inaugural meeting of the Moroccan Fishwives and Friends was a productive success. Among other things, we settled on the name Moroccan Fishwives and Friends, although Moroccan Fishwives and -mongers or Fishmongrels was felt to be more gender accurate. But, Moroccan Fishwives and Friends is snappy so it works. We followed the meal with a viewing of District 9. We're going to have to do it again, but next time we're bringing a backpack. As for the next restaurant, perhaps Casa de Oaxaca. For the movie, Legion: wherein an old lady bites throats and crawls on the walls like a spider while people blast her with a shotgun. Why wouldn't you want to see it? Especially if you have a backpack. Of course, the murderous Estonian dwarf movie might be fun as well.

Taste of Morocco: Located in Clarendon, the place was almost deserted when we arrived at six, probably because it was Moroccan and in Clarendon. However, it may also have been because the belly dancing didn't start until nine o'clock and that's what people really came to see. We, however, actually struggled to finish, pay, and leave before the belly dancing started. The "belly dancer" arrived wearing a trench coat, and several of the restaurant handouts showed her (him?) leering at the viewer. Frankly, our effort to leave before the dancing verged on panic, but we did succeed. We ordered the multi-course dinners for four (we got shortchanged a main dish and an appetizer -- not that we really needed it, but it's the principle), which included bistilla (think chicken pie with sugar and cinnamon, best thing there), soup (we all got the traditional Moroccan harira, served with spoons that doubled as weapons), a selection of tagines and couscous (perfectly acceptable), a plate of cookies (probably stolen from a CVS), and Moroccan mint tea (good). We also ordered a bottle of Moroccan red wine which was "interesting...but in a good way." I also tried the Moroccan coffee -- very heavily spiced, it was fine, but not as good as Turkish coffee. Also, the ceiling above our table was leaking and bulging rather ominously, which added to our eagerness to get out of there. All in all, not bad, but it was rather slow, taking almost three hours. I'm not sure if that was just because we got the multi-course meal (even so, it was just appetizer, soup, entree, dessert), or if it's deliberately staggered to keep you there until belly-dancing time.

District 9: If you're looking for a fascinating sociocultural study of an attempt to integrate an alien population into a human society, then you've found it. As long as by "fascinating sociocultural study" you mean "lots of exploding bodies" and Nigerian attempts to eat the aliens to get their mystical powers in order to be able to operate the alien weapons and explode more bodies. 'Cause you know, seriously, Nigerians believe in witchcraft and shit. Yeah, I bet you didn't know that. There was also an intriguing reference to the Nigerians' sponsorship of transspecies prostitution, a concept sadly not further explored; later, a character is falsely accused of having sex with aliens as though he were uniquely depraved, however. I thought the pseudo-documentary opening scenes featuring the protagonist, Wikus -- a nebbishy South African employee of the evil multinational that was apparently granted rights to care for/experiment on/slaughter with impunity the aliens -- clearly were inspired by The Office and Wikus reminded me a lot of Steve Carell. I particularly enjoyed the South African accent, which we don't hear often enough. Also, it was funny that the aliens really liked eating cat food. Hehe. That's funny. Kind of like in Paul Blart: Mall Cop when fat people fell down. It's funny 'cause they're fat. Anyways, the movie is an interesting concept that turns into a fairly standard blast fest with cool effects, nice alien weaponry, and tons of plot holes. At the end, we're left wondering whether the aliens will ultimately slaughter humanity in return for our sins while Wikus manufactures tin foil flowers for his wife.