Extra Extra: An Interview with Matthew Helmke

Matthew Helmke let us publish one of his short stories in Issue No.2. He was also gracious enough to answer some question we had about Morocco, supernatural beings, people who believe in supernatural beings, setting stories down in books, and publishing those books yourself.

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Dove&Snake: Your story in Dove&Snake Issue No.2, “A Wife from the Mountains,” is from a book you wrote called Nowhere Else to Turn. What is the basic premise of that book?

Matthew Helmke: The book retells stories of interactions that various Moroccans, who I met firsthand, have had with the supernatural. I published it as fiction solely because I added some details to certain stories to make them longer and fuller, or because I changed some details to protect the identity of the source. All of the stories were experienced either by me with a Moroccan or were told to me directly by the person claiming to experience it.

D&S: “A Wife from the Mountains” mentions something called jinn. What are jinn?

MH: In Islam, jinn are spirit beings that can be either good or bad, may fear God or serve themselves. Like men and women, they are created beings. However, as men were made from earth, jinn were made from fire or smoke, depending on who tells you the story. They will also either go to Hell or Paradise, just like humans, depending on their actions and God’s mercy on the Day of Judgment. Belief in them is pervasive in Moroccan, Arab, and all Islamic societies. They are considered common knowledge, but not talked about terribly often out of fear of reprisal from the jinn who may not want to be exposed. They are different from angels or demons, which are explicitly good or evil.

D&S: How did you first hear about jinn? When you first encountered stories like this, what was your reaction?

MH: I believe the first time I heard of them was from the story of Aladdin, which in English uses the term “genie.” There was also the tv show called I Dream of Jeannie. In those contexts, I reacted as kids usually do to stories of supernatural beings (like fairies, elves, etc.) and simply thought they were a cool addition to the mythical creature lexicon. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that not only do people believe in jinn today, but that some do so quite deeply.

D&S: What was your first encounter with a jinn story in Morocco?

MH: I honestly don’t remember the first time I heard about jinn in Morocco. It was very likely within days of my arrival, as they are mentioned in conversation regularly (both seriously and in jest). We did have a lady that came to the house once a week to help clean, and she would not put hot water down any drain in the house because she was convinced it would anger the jinn that live in the drains.

D&S: How often did you hear stories like those in your book, the supernatural told as matter-of-fact?

MH: These kinds of stories are extremely difficult for a foreigner to hear. Moroccans are generally reluctant to talk about them, either out of fear of the jinn, which all other Moroccans know about anyway, or out of fear that the foreigner will lose respect for the informant and think they are either crazy or superstitious.

D&S: If it’s difficult to hear these stories as a foreigner, how did were you able to collect so many?

MH: The first step involved learning Moroccan Arabic well enough to convince people that they could talk with me and I would comprehend them. This also meant learning a lot of cultural subtext and the meaning of many idiomatic expressions. Second, I had to convince people that they were not going to be mocked, regardless of what they told me. To do this, I would try to build bridges by discussing stories, ideas, and other things I had heard about the supernatural and clearly state that I believe the events we were discussing could happen–not necessarily that they did, but that they could.

D&S: How do you view stories like this in the context of your own spirituality and theology?

MH: I think there are several possible answers to this. First, there are times when unexplained events may have natural causes that are simply undiscovered, so I would be careful not to take every supernatural story at face value. However, there are also things that happen that cannot be explained by any known natural occurrence. What then? I think it is probable that these could have supernatural cause. I mentioned building a bridge with my Muslim friends for these discussions–this is part of the bridge. I believe the supernatural realm exists, not so much in the woo woo, X-Files sense, but in the Biblical sense. I believe angels exist, demons too. Jinn aren’t mentioned in any Christian context, but could certainly fit in as a subcategory of demon. Admitting that I don’t have all the answers and that I believe there is a God, etc., forces me to confront the possibility that there is more to this world than what may be observed by and proven with the scientific method.

D&S: Is Morocco a highly spiritual place? Do most of the people believe in the supernatural?

MH: Morocco is an Islamic country where all but 0.8% of the people are Muslim. By definition, Muslims believe in the supernatural. Morocco is also a place where Islam has been mixed with pre-existing animistic folk religion and other non-standard Islamic practices and beliefs. A belief in the supernatural is pervasive in the society, but not universal. It would be reasonable to estimate that at least 80-85% of Moroccan people believe in the spirit world and that God, angels, demons, and jinn are active.

D&S: How does that belief in the activity of God, angels, demons, and jinn, play out in the everyday lives of Moroccans?

MH: It really depends on the person. The answer would be very different if we were to discuss an urban-dwelling, university educated Moroccan scientist versus a rural, uneducated farmer. I will say that, on the average, people in Morocco are far more open to the possibility of the existence of the supernatural realm than people in America or Europe. For many, they will make a verbal assent to the existence of jinn, etc., but not give them much thought. Many others will make a point of avoiding behaviors that the culture says will offend the jinn, just to make sure they are safe. This is what the entire book is about: exploring the differing perspectives on the supernatural that exist within diverse parts of the culture of Morocco through stories told from many different perspectives.

D&S: What made you decide to set these stories down in a book? Most people would have just kept them as interesting anecdotes to bring up in conversations.

MH: Primarily, there are almost no examples in print of these sorts of anecdotes in English (there may be in French, but I didn’t find any), and I had the permission of my sources to record their stories. Second, these sorts of stories and beliefs are difficult for foreigners to learn about because of the things I mentioned earlier, but they are vital to understand if one wishes to adequately understand, communicate with, and engage the culture. So much of Moroccan culture will make more sense to people experiencing it for the first time or living in it if they have read the book or heard these sorts of stories.

D&S: Where did you look for stories like these in French?

MH: Bookstores, libraries, and online. I’m afraid that most of what I found was rather belittling in tone, and that made it less useful for my purposes. The French literature I encountered primarily took the view of “Isn’t this quaint?” and were attempts to document the beliefs of the “backward, but noble savages.” Perhaps other materials exist in French, but I didn’t have the pleasure of finding it.

D&S: Why did you self-publish the book and not try to go the traditional publishing route?

MH: I self-published the book for two reasons. First, I wanted the book to be accessible to as many students of Moroccan culture as possible and decided to license the book in a special way (using Creative Commons license) to allow people to make copies of it and share them or to make derivate works (like study guides or recordings) without fear of lawsuits (see the book’s license section for more information). Also, I didn’t feel that a major publisher would be interested in publishing a book that wasn’t likely to be a best seller even though the information was of high quality and worth publishing. However, by publishing myself and using a print on demand company, I can list the book on Amazon and make it available and easy to find for people with an interest in the topic (and I’m selling approximately one copy every two days, which is better than I anticipated).

Extra Extra: Images from Kenya

Now that Issue No.2 is out, we’re going to publish a few extras on the blog that relate to the content in the print issue.

Issue No.2 includes the journal entries Kaia Chesney penned while spending a couple of months in Kenya. Kaia also gave us some of the photos she took during her time in Africa.

Issue No.2 {Nobody Wants To Be A Sucker} is Ready to Read

Issue No.2 is finally available. We waited for Keegan Rider’s Whata Cafe art show on September 3 to release it because Keegan agreed to make 15 copies into special editions, and also to let me set up shop at Caffe Luce for the evening. Last night was great. We sold a few zines (some folks even showed up specifically to pick up Dove&Snake No.2), hung out with John and Andrew of Reflective Collective (and the RC wives, Emily and Sara), drank some coffee, listened to shoegaze, heard a couple of girls read poetry*, and didn’t clear out before we heard a little guitar-backed hip hop.

It was the first time we sold copies of D&S at a public event, and even folks who didn’t buy a copy saw the sign (or the shirts) or leafed through a copy of either No.1 or No.2. We’d like to thank Keegan for letting us be a part of his exhibit.

We’d also like to thank these fine contributors for letting their work be a part of Dove&Snake:

John Weatherford, card designer: I** mentioned to John that a face card design involving a dove and a snake would be great for a cover. About a week later, he emailed me the design on the front of Issue No.2. That was that. No more questions about what would be on the front of the second issue. Thanks, John, for taking a quick kernel of an idea and turning it into our first color cover.

Andrea Anduaga, snake enthusiast: The first piece in the zine is an interview I did with a former coworker of mine. She likes snakes. A lot. She even brought a couple to work one day. That was the first day I held a snake. When you hold a snake, you can feel it’s muscles flexing. Snakes feel strong. That day was also the last day that Andrea brought her snakes to work. See, many of us thought it was oh so cool to see a snake at our place of employment. However, a couple of ladies across the hall did not share our views on the experience. I heard that there was a threat of a formal complaint, and Andrea was told not to bring them back***.

That got me thinking about how often people asked me if the name of the zine, Dove&Snake, referred to good and evil. It does not, and Issue No.2 seemed like a good place to address the fact that many people think snakes=evil due to various cultural connotations, but not in the D&S context. Andrea agreed to do the interview as a person who approves of and generally enjoys snakes, and for that we thank her.

Kaia Chesney, missionary: Okay, Kaia is not always a missionary, but in the context of the journals she wrote in Kenya, he was. She spent a couple of months in Africa working in a school and seeing first hand what happens when the church looks healthy on the outside, but is dysfunctional on the inside. When you read through them, you’ll see her fall in love with the experience, discover more than she expected, and have to make difficult decisions that will effect people in that community after she leaves them. Africa is kind of the cool kid’s cause of the moment, but Kaia’s journals stay away from reveling in the idea of going far far away to help those less fortunate and instead confront the reality that help is not an easy thing to give. We’d like to thank Kaia for letting us publish the journals from a difficult time in her life.

Matthew Helmke, storyteller: Matthew lived in Morocco for seven years. While he was there, he collected accounts of the supernatural from people he met. These were not legends or myths. They were personal accounts told as truth. When he returned to the US, he compiled those accounts into a book called Nowhere Else to Turn. Then he self-published that tome.

That was Matthew’s second foray into self-publishing****, and it happened soon after he moved to Tucson and crossed paths with Dove&Snake. Issue No.2 was in the works at the time, and it fit well with the theme of suckerhood. The stories in Matthew’s book (I got a peek at the pre-publication manuscript, so I’ve read most of them already) are told from the perspective of people who believe 100% in the events they are relating, events that include buried talismans influencing soccer matches and genies that can be offended or even married. Some may label Matthew’s narrators suckers for going so far as to believe such supernatural things are true, but Matthew’s narrators may look at those people as fools who have been suckered into believing there are no supernatural forces in the world. We thank Matthew for allowing one of those narrators to tell his story in the pages of D&S.

Alisa Wilhelm, playwright: If you know Alisa, you’re probably thinking that “artist” or “graphic designer” is a much better description of what she does. However, the piece that appears in Issue No.2 is a snippet of real-world dialogue between two friends set down in dramatic form. It first appeared on Alisa’s blog (which is a wonderful little miscellany that is undergoing a transition and does not contain all her archives at the moment; we will let you know when her entries are up once more*****), and we immediately asked if it could fill a page in our second issue.

That’s right. It’s only a page long. That doesn’t stop it from being interesting and enlightening, so we’d extend our gratitude to Alisa for letting her blog entry move into print form.

You, reader: I’m not being trite here. I am not being general either. I’m actually thanking you for allowing me to publish my own work. The last piece in Issue No.2 is a short-short story that I wrote for a special edition of Issue No.1.

I know it’s my zine and all, but my goal is to function as editor and fill the pages with others’ stories and words. I’m not aiming at publishing my own work. In this case, I liked the story and thought it fit into the theme of suckerhood in a way the other pieces did not address. It’s a man reflecting back on a specific moment of being a boy and realizing how valuable that moment is to him out of all the moments of his entire adult life. He’s not being suckered into thinking it’s not important.

I do also want to thank you for reading the zine, paying attention to the blog, commenting on our Facebook page, wearing the t-shirts, writing for upcoming issues, and supporting this literary adventure. I think Issue No.2 is a step forward for D&S (not just because it’s the next issue, but in terms of momentum and progress and vision and all that idealistic kind of thought) and it’s largely because people keep supporting it. Thank you.

If you want a copy of Issue No.2, you can email us at doveandsnake@secondmi.org. We can work out the details of bringing you a copy and exchanging it for money. The Reflective Collective Editions and the Keegan Rider Editions are both $3. We also have some untouched (as of yet, but you could make them special later) editions that we’ll let go for $2. We’ll have photos of the special editions up soon, and we’ll post the items on our Etsy shop soon, as well.

*From The White Rabbit, another local zine. We’ll try and see about doing something on the blog about that project.

**That’s me (Scott Appleman), specifically. The “we” on the blog is sometimes just me, but not always. It’s always Dove&Snake, though. The “I”, however: just me.

***Nicely, but still. The ladies work in a room whose only entry points are a locked door and large window meant to facilitate communication between the ladies and those who require their services, but also to keep them separate. Those snakes were not a threat. And they weren’t poisonous, either.

****His first foray was Humor and Moroccan Culture. That book is now in the national library of Morocco, and not because Matthew gave them one, either.

*****Or you can check back periodically yourself: alisawilhelm.com/blog/