Welcome to our Arts and Music issue! Since we are still bloated from massive intakes of turkey and yeshimbira assa, (not a good combination… despite what some "Marta Semret"s might tell you!) we will make this short, but not necessarily sweet.

We were pleasantly surprised… well, stupefied really, at the vast array of Ethiopians in the Arts, and we were like Democrats at a convention in Las Vegas… hey, sine s’rat! … we were like kids in a candy store in trying to cover as wide a variety of issues as possible: art, film, music, architecture, language… (We are still suspicious about the parade of buxom beauties that was seen waltzing in and out of SELEDA upper management offices… "performance artists"? Well, we never! Qisfet… abet Qisfet!

The point being, we are mighty proud of this, the first "feature" issue of SELEDA, and are hard at work on the next feature, our "Home" issue. (When ideas rain… oy, it is a virtual gorf!) Meanwhile, we hope you find this a worthwhile literary venture, enough to dip your toes in. (Hey, cute toes.)

Last month, we introduced SELEDA Interactive and… ye-TiQil Ashker!! Submissions for Top Ten Differences between Bole and Arada People was… well, we wished we had an X-rated version of SELEDA (? Semayawi SELEDA?) to include most of the great entries. Alas, we have to adhere to the very flexible piety of upper management, and so were forced to put in only those entries that would not Tim mabrer. Thank you for all of you who participated, and thank you to those who thought about thinking about participating.

You, of course, know what’s coming next…so emboldened were we by the encouraging signs that SELEDA Interactive is actually a viable experiment and not just another felonious phenomenon concocted by shiftless editors who want the readers to do all the work, that we want to repeat the song and dance.

Ehem…

The January issue, al’yas henceforth known as the "Home" issue, will include a SELEDA Survey (a round-up of opinions) entitled, "What I Miss most about Home…". Your mission, dear readers, if you choose to accept, is to send us a paragraph reflecting this sentiment.

Of course, still wrapped tight with abesha yelugnta, we thought we should not masCHeger you. However, that would mean we would have to ask our friends to participate, and well, their answer would be a variation of the following: "Ooooh! What I miss about Ethiopia? The [choose one: pasti, cake, gellati] of [choose one: Sodere, Langano, Hilton.]" You see what we mean?… Uninspired. So, we’ll depend on you.

Therefore, one paragraph… iTir, miTin about what you miss most about Ethiopia. Please send in submissions to editors@seleda.com by December 19. Include your name and where you hail from, and other details about yourself that you think we should know.

Let’s see… we are still burping cranberry sauce, and the QunTan from an entirely overdone Thanksgiving celebration is playing havoc with our thought process…What else do we need to tell you… Ah, what’s new at SELEDA…

You will be delighted to know that Amharic poems included in Life Diaries are presented to you in actual fidel! Yes, no more squinting at your monitor and cursing us for making you read Amharic phonetically. (Yes, but we are sure you can find other things to curse us for.) Special thanks go to our friends Metchal Zebergha and Daniel Yacob for their superb work in accommodating our "endezi… endezia… wedih… wedia" requests to make this possible. They tried to tell us how we too can do this, but eventually, even they lost patience with questions such as "…and what did you say HTML stands for again?" (Go to http://libeth.netpedia.net/Zobel/) for more information about making "fidels appear magically".)

Also new, and hopefully as exciting, is SELEDA CHilot, a forum where two people air grievances… just like a Qebele fird shengo , except we will try not to imprison you if you don’t agree with one point of view or another (try being the operative word here…). We hope you like.

And finally, say hello to the SELEDA Profile. Since not all people we ask politely to write for us clamor to their keyboards and jump up and down in delusion, we have been forced to create something a little more inciting to lure them into our pages… sans us offering them virgins as bribes, seeing that… well, no need to elucidate…We are grateful to filmmaker Yemane Demissie for bravely going where no man has gone before and agreeing to be the first… vict…interviewee.

OK. That’s all the creativity we could muster on full stomachs. Jeepers! We just realized that the next time we talk to you, we will be hung over from Millennia Mania… We guess we should part with meaningful words, but somehow "Send us Alka Seltzer!" seems a tad… déclassé. Hold it. We hear leftover leg o’ lamb callin’ out our name… (Abet?…U! MeTan!)

Happy New Year! And for those of you celebrating ye ferenjie Gena, merry, merry. May the Holiday Season bring you joy and happiness.

We will see you in January!

The Humble Editors.

editors@seleda.com