My small raft and the watershed

2008-01-24T22:10:00.001-05:00

Here’s to life…

To go where it all started.
To go alone
guarded
by nothing
but hope
hope of finding her again…
no hand to hold your hand
no one to confirm your fears
to tell you not to look back
to gently wipe the tears
while your insides get shattered
along the way…
“tell me your name again?”
the soft music was not tender,
it was quite
like soundless blades
running through your veins.
no one hears the pain
when we cry no more

“All we always wanted was a couple of drinks, and a long night ahead of us.” we thought while leaving the house that night.
“was it too much to ask?”

like a weary piano bar singer at two in the morning, she cooed her words in the receiver “to go where it all started”.
no answer.
“hello?”
no answer.
“was it something I said?”

questions about life. disillusioned lovers. internet connection. meaningless dates. meaningless sex. leftovers. stale coffee and overflowing ashtrays. some music put on repeat. distance. vague memories of happier times. busy lives without a pause. familiar faces that take your breath away. snowy roads. age, aging and beauty. shadows of the past.

How far do you have to move on until you feel you have a past?

No one hears the pain when we don’t cry anymore.
Like billions with me, I partake in the silent melancholic psyche of the world.
We see each other everyday, everywhere.
We share that quiet understanding look and sometimes an irresistible smile that devastates your very soul with this inexplicable feeling of ‘home’.
A smile that an old woman on the subway gives you, knowing too well who you are, knowing too well that you are part of her world… a sturdy peon in her fleet of sadness.
and one day you will return her smile with infinite gratitude, declaring your eternal servitude to her majestic sorrow.
but not today. today… you smile for me.

2007-08-28T18:57:00.000-04:00

2007-07-12T23:58:00.000-04:00

The scent of your laurels

I write you again with the hope that this letter too shall not reach you.
I do not wish for you to know what I think, how I feel. nor do I care to know about you. but I have to leave a message lingering in the air, aimlessly, until one day it reaches home uninvited. I do this for me. not for you.
The honest truth is that during the last 4 years I almost forgot how much our life was… is a crisis. but going back you reminded me. the tragedy that we contrived, that we chose to live in, that will torment us until the end. that you chose for us, really; but little does it matter for this is hardly the time to throw some blame around. the time for that has passed. decades ago. because of this, you see, I write this calmly and with composure. from the distance that separates us.
how far I am now from the hurried hug and the awkward smile we exchanged at the airport. like lovers making some grand yet inane promises that have no consequences the minute they part…
but look at me now… I can’t help the sorrow… I am mourning the distance with every passing minute. but always with that dignified pleasure, and melancholy. playing the role of the deserted, the loner… and enjoying it. truly.
I didn’t keep pictures this time. for needless to say, nothing could have captured the yearning, the disappointment, the change… not even my very words that fall short and empty as usual. but it’s the little things as they say… the scent of your laurel soaps that was awful. your thick coffee. black and bitter. the cardamom that made me sick after you left that morning.
but as you do know – and maybe are scoffing at this with disdain – all what happened could not confound my love… to you… and my hope. I left though. in spite of that. I crossed. I came back here. and through the gray kaleidoscope of unrest… death… despair. all I could see then was your face. a tiny white dot turning and turning in the midst of it all…
I shall not write you anymore. for better leave on this vague note of uncertainty and confused affection, and much more love than a child could have to a parent. better not illuminate where dark demons have been dwelling for decades. better not.
‘it was death… I chose life.’ is a haunting phrase that comes to mind. and it’s true.
I choose life…

2007-06-04T12:22:00.000-04:00

Carefully delivered affection…

A smell of sulfur and a terrible yellow hue shamelessly covers the city. depression. mental weariness. crippled emotions. all are looming over the road from the airport.
Another planted bombed ravaging the silence. and only apathy is what you hear through the night. they don’t want to know anymore. they don’t want… anymore.

The sun shone earlier this morning. hours before its expected time. casting an oblong shadow of my head on the wall. decades of memory has been similarly projected here. momentary shadows that have never left a mark.
The sound of machine guns in the background hasn’t subsided yet. I could still hear it like some eerie music from a distant day. but life is as lively as ever on this day. I hear spoons stirring thick black coffee in quiet kitchens. clattering of trays and of small cups on small dishes… women readying themselves for the morning. I hear happiness swelling up like a rose bud waiting to bloom after all those years of gray winters.

Like a precious perfume bottled in crystal, packaged with care. so much care. for if it broke nothing could contain the scent of a dissipated relationship that never took place.
Like a thin film of oil on the surface, it preserves. keeps a lid on so much. things that are never to be revealed again. matters of the heart that stay – as they should – stagnant at the bottom of the bottle. small precipitates of time. seconds, maybe years, carefully settled at the depths of aching hearts.
“do you allow yourself a little time to cry?” she asked, thoughtfully.
from the life that I never had. one that I never wanted. from there, I see them passing by indifferently… banding about happiness that I didn’t know. and then a slight tinge of regret clouds my day.
she hands me my coffee with a smile that conveys a feeling of compassion, with a little bit of pity perhaps.
It irritates me.

2007-04-28T12:56:00.000-04:00

“Come in.”

I heard these words. but that was the end of what I heard. of what I remember I heard anyway. I remember a door opened and then closed. an empty house swallowing me in like a fish a pebble. memories brushing against my face, defiantly, screaming “we are still here”: childhood cinematography… brutal and gruesome. brutal for still being so vivid, so ‘there’… when do memories fade? oh, when they do fade… they are nothing but few bits in the patch work of all the neuroses that… are me.
I laugh, you know, because you’re never to see this… to see it from the inside, nothing gruesome should be tagged to my past…
I still smell the gunpowder. I know it’s just fire works, but all the same it’s nauseating. ugh… make it stop.
when I stepped out of that airplane. lots of memories came flooding back of course. but not until I reached their house that… oh make it stop. I don’t care what day it is. tell the children to stop. no wait. don’t. don’t tell them to stop.
but this music is too brutal. please, play it down a little.

“your music is so so pretty peter. so simple and so elegant. you stirred feelings I thought.. they’re long gone… long gone! how pleasant you are! I haven’t known you personally, but I think if I had I would’ve liked you. you lovely, lovely darling!
yours truly,”
yesterday, while playing her favorite concerto, she wrote this note to Tchaikovsky. folded it into a small paper plane, turned the music up and flew her little work of origami out the window… with a sweet smile. (how charming!)
Until he told her to turn it down. how disappointed she was! he doesn’t understand her ears anymore. or was it just the fire works that really accentuated every bang with a small explosion. but she thought it fascinating… especially the cadenza near the end taking over all the bangs of a war site…

I was utterly destroyed by the scenery of the room. faded furniture, polished for the day. grotesquely displayed like a cheaply made up corpse in an open casket. ludicrous.
this is where life stops. this is where life stopped 30 years ago. history stunted like in some fairy tale. but everyone goes into paralysis in this house. everyone, even the hopeful lad who comes back at the end to awaken the kingdom. I can’t say it’s the ruins of anything, because nothing was ever built here. nothing. this is where people gathered to create a vacuum. no no not even a vacuum, because even that takes in energy. it’s where people stepped aside from the course of life, maybe by decision, to pose like wax statues in an ever empty (empty empty empty) museum. with an ancient gramophone incessantly playing the same music… for eternity.

“how was your trip?”

2007-04-14T00:22:00.000-04:00

come spring... and I will

remember...

2007-04-14T00:16:00.000-04:00

Tistifil Fayrouz…

When she comes back home every night, she always rings the doorbell although she lives alone, always has, and there’s never anyone to answer.
She believes that perhaps one night someone would open the door… welcome her home after an awfully long day with open arms and a ready dinner… or maybe she just thinks that if burglars were inside she would give them enough time to evacuate and evade an unwanted and unnecessary confrontation.
One night, she came back late, rang the doorbell, and waited for a few seconds. Suddenly another door opened. her neighbor stepped out with a beaming smile and said “you’re late tonight.”
“yeah. I was held up at work.” she said with surprise.
“I have dinner prepared. would like to come in?” he offered.
She did.
(candle light dinner. Fayrouz singing in the background.)
“I wonder if Fayrouz wanted to be Fayrouz… maybe she just wanted to be a simple woman from the hills she… colors in her songs… I mean, she was under the influence of a husband she never… well, she always sounds awfully sad!” she said, probingly.
“would you like to have dinner with me?” he interrupted.
“but I am!” she replied with surprise…
“no… I mean to go out with me… like a date.” he explained.
“not until you tell what you think about Fayrouz. do you think she wanted to be the woman she is today?” she asked in a determined tone.
“well… she’s great. she’s a legend…” he answered hesitantly.
“yeah… yes she is. no. I will not go out with you. thanks for dinner though.” she replied with… tender humor perhaps.
She finished the rest of her drink. dabbed her lips with the paper napkin placed next to her plate. blew him a suggestive kiss a la Marilyn Monroe. laughed and… left.
he heard her ringing her door bell again. waiting for a few seconds, and then going into her apartment.

2007-04-13T23:56:00.000-04:00

Delilah

“How… how far would you go?” he asked [fear – hesitation].
“for how long have you known me, darling?” she replied [assuredness – tenderness].
“23 years” he said [confusion].
“have I ever stopped? short of death. have you ever seen me stop? back off? I have never committed murder, it’s not my style, but murders did happen around me quite often. I always get what I want. I always dispose of nuisances… rather gracefully, I believe.” she answered [satisfaction – smugness].
Like swimming in a sea of laughter, he laughed.
He removed her sunglasses; she looked at the ocean and smiled. no, she even laughed too.
They were happy: He took her answer carelessly; she knew that he would not see the end of the month. She felt pleased. Actually, she felt a tinge of tenderness towards him now, knowing that he will soon fade away into her past. She cherished him now as a distant memory, which in her mind he already is.

He still remembers when he first saw her… singing the habanera in some party in New York. singing with perfect intonation, with a sway of the hip and a clap of the hand, and one glance… one all consuming killer glance and he was captivated; captured, actually. enslaved… to her beauty, to her presence… to her. he’d have never imagined that he’d stepped on the web of a black window…

2007-04-13T23:41:00.000-04:00

Babbling on the phone…

I used to listen to music while I go to sleep. I don’t anymore. I need silence. it’s more tasteful, I believe, to fall asleep to nothing. not even to a nocturne. it’s more private. the older I get the more private I get… reclusive; I won’t even share my moments of sleep with a long gone composer. or maybe that’s because now I listen more, or better shall I say. I can’t just take in the sounds without registering any emotion. any reaction.
and the sound of your voice on the phone, actually the ring of the phone itself, brings in a lot. sometimes, you know, I am apprehensive to pick up. for I know that… that your conversations are… charged. yes charged. it’s not an empty chatter about politics.. or the weather anymore. it’s all about us now. right when there is no longer ‘us’.
and your words… are shattered. they are vague. they cling to me. but only one by one. not in sentences. only words. you are shattered. yes you are. I get you piece by piece. like a joke that lost its humor for it was not told the way it should be. no no, not a joke. a plea. like a plea, yes. coming across… through so many layers. word by word it goes through – penetrates – every layer like going through… thin air. but the words are not sentences anymore. just words. shattered. vague. word by word. they simply… don’t make sense anymore.
haven’t you taught me to be a poet. haven’t you told me that if I listen to nature I could hear the music of a brook. so now I listen. and now I am filled with silent resentment… all building up… and to what? nothing. I am just becoming emotionally charged. yes, charged. you are not charged – I take that back. I am. you project. I receive. and keep it inside.
again. as I said. I can’t sleep to music. maybe it’s not you. I am becoming more… perceptive. (receptive?)
(static)
hello?
(static)
can you hear me?
yes. so… how’ve you been? and how’s Boston treating you?

2007-03-19T11:23:00.000-04:00

MOULID...

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pic: Sayed El Badawi Mosque (Tanta)
Music: Mesr Yamma (sheikh Imam)

2007-03-16T13:51:00.000-04:00

Forte-piano…

“Dearest. for all the notes that flow by… with every note, I still have more time to think about you than I would have ever imagined. the pianist at the ceremony plays incessantly, with mounting heat in every phrase. and I still think about you… with a precipitating rhythm… on changing keys. I try to match his piano to the life we had together. an accelerando for a soundtrack for a picture… about us. one that would make you cry. how charming we were. charming together. people would watch the picture and they would say that. how charming they are! we wish we were they… and then… and then, my dear, life would be utterly blissful. wouldn’t it? I wish you could see the smile in my heart when I think about you. when I write this to you. I love you, you know I do. I always loved you more than I loved us, for that my dear is what’s important… you loved me more than yourself, and that was not right. my wrong, not yours if I daresay, for I needed everything you gave me, and sometimes more. but that was then. now, I just celebrate you with mounting heat just like the music that surrounds me… but forgive me love for I will not be able to accept your invitation. I would have told you that I am too busy to be with you on your day, but you’d have known that it is not true; for nothing could stop me or you (I still believe) from being there for each other (and I still hope that this will always be true - and it will). having said that, I could only wish you all the happiness and love, from this distance I take. and I am sure you understand now how I don’t belong to their society, but never to yours, for you are mine…
yours as always.”
She looked into the mirror of this dingy restroom in this rather mediocre pub somewhere by the piers (she can’t remember where) in the very innards of this ugly city… She pulled a compact bag of cosmetics from her purse and started working on her face. ‘retouch’, she thought. She softened and darkened and reshaped and then dabbed any excess to look as if she was born with impeccable shadows and skin intonations. she took her drink from the edge of the sink, opened the door, gave the queuing crowd an icy look and walked by to her table. to him. to his table. to his conversation. to his gesticulating hands. to his agitated mood. to his domineering presence. to him. to where he has her grotesquely exposed to a crowd. to where he exhibits her to the room, a woman, his woman, someone to smile and nod, someone never to leave lipstick marks on his cheek or her champagne flute. someone who darkens and softens discreetly in a dingy restroom to always stay immaculately made up after he’s smeared and smudged with wet kisses and fervent hands… someone with grace and taste, a taste that’s tasteful to his taste… a trophy wife.
She sits and smiles and nods and plays her role. but under the table her hand wanders around in her purse, touching ‘his’ letter. her hands slowly, dreamily roles over the indentations of his words just like some faded Braille’s alphabet… for she is blind for not reading… not seeing what it is.
for a moment, she lost herself in the realms of this letter… of an award ceremony she never saw, of a piano recital she never heard, hoards of people she never knew, and someone constantly inhabiting her mind like the memory of a smell that stirs up so much in so little…
she felt the weight of a question lingering in the air, like she always does when conversation ceases and eyes expect. with an orchestrated smile she said “excuse me darling, I simply loose my focus in crowded places. what were you saying?”
“Did you finish the arrangements for the honeymoon? I faxed you my schedule for next week…” he said.
“yes.. yes.. would you excuse me.” she said, and then, bag in hand, she simply... walked out.

2007-03-01T10:39:00.000-05:00

Since my first post…

It has been a year.
the canvas is still empty.
the door left ajar.
and I still have nothing to say.
my colors are still packed for better days.
my words are reserved and I haven’t shared with you the color of my insides…
the red well tucked in a tube. the blue waiting to sprinkle the white. and the white waiting to lose itself in someone else’s existence.
my brushes are dry. their hair virgin and smooth.
all I read is you.
I learned your expressions, your moods…
I did spill some of my red on this page.
but my canvas is still empty and I still have nothing to say.

2007-02-12T17:56:00.000-05:00

Like magic...

2007-02-04T15:16:00.000-05:00

Parody of a country…

She sat down on her kitchen floor, spread her crayons all around, and readied herself to draw new signs for the demonstration. So many things happened since she last did this. So many new affinities shaped her new moral grounds. She reached in the cupboard under the sink for fresh papers.
(Fresh papers for fresh ideas for fresh starts… a brighter future.)
She smiled, recognizing the marginal significance of what she’s doing.
She took out stacks of colored boards and papers. some used. some new. She looked at the old ones with a tinge of disgust, wondering how on earth did she buy into all this ‘crap’ before. “Indict Bashar”… “Syria out!”… “Stop the war”… “Stop the terror”… “No to America”… how different she is now, she thought… and she is different.
She put the old slogans aside, planned to destroy them as soon as she’s done, thinking that she wouldn’t want anyone to see what she was cheering for in the past…
She started working on her new series of “ana mesh ma3 hadane”… to accentuate her neutrality toward the whole scene of protests and protesters… to denounce all the parties, and thunder a new voice of neutrality, of independence… to teach people what independence really means. to show them how original she is… how defiant. how Lebanese. she is the true Lebanese, she thought.
“Ana mesh…” she started in red.
Suddenly she remembered her mother saying, with scolding looks and a severe tone “ma hadane la hadane ya mama”, and wondered sadly if this is where we are all heading. where they are all heading, she corrected herself…
Then she wondered whether - if anything - her neutral position was of the most aggressive. passive-aggressive… didn’t she owe it to herself to declare her war, her inner war on all that’s around her. didn’t she owe it to her children to scream at the top of her lungs like a mad woman slogans of disparate unity…
The national anthem.
she started humming the national anthem…
up to the point when it speaks of ‘fitan’…
up to the point when it speaks of men sprouting from mountains like lions…
up to the point when it speaks of the protection of god…
until she realized how far she is from all this…
from a declaration of ‘fitan’ right in the heart of her national core, like a stigma, to carry on forever…
from a sexist aggressive tale of lion-men roving the earth… she the feminist tigress who stood up for all she believed in more than any lion-man she knew…
from a god that she never believed in…
This deceitful little tune that speaks of work of literacy and labor but never mentions compassion. an anthem suitable for the most fascist of institutions…
she started to wonder if this is really her country… just like a child wonders if her parents are really her parents… then realizing that she has her mother’s eyes and father's chin, thinking in amazement how different they are, her family and she... or her country and she at that.
She wrote a different slogan “ma hadane la hadane?” and felt, really, that her question mark not only marked her indignation, but also her utter surprise at her mother’s intuition into life. her mother knew… but then, she remembered her saying with teary eyes, her head slightly tilted to the right “ma 2lkone gheir ba3ad ya mama”… she fell into despair…
For she realized… isn’t this just a travesty of what a real country should be like?
With a thick black marker she crossed all her old slogans, one by one, and below each she wrote “ma hadane la hadane?”

2007-01-30T14:09:00.000-05:00

The tragedy of… failure.

Bossa nova music was flowing listlessly in the air… he stretched again on the park bench and rested his feet on her lap. she lay her head back, and stared at the sky. the music was faint… and vaguely saying “silver jet… take me… I’m all set… take me… through the sky… fly me…”
they recognized the song, and together went in a reverie… holding hands, following the silver jet… “make this trip non-stop…”
they dozed off.
when he woke up, he saw her bent with concern over the morning paper again…
He smiled and said very calmly “I haven’t been there in a long time, I simply don’t know how people are there… give me the paper again. let me read it a second time.”
He read it a second time.
“well, yes” he says “I understand what you mean. this should be resolved internally. but I think it makes sense for everyone to cut their losses and move on… you know, sometimes I imagine having another war… looking back now, it all seems so romantic, not so deadly, and tender, as tender as our young years… although it might sound very sick and no one besides another Lebanese our age could come close to understand, but the sound of a Kalashnikov firing away in the distance is so soothing, so melancholic… the safety of home, the lonely soldier… all that… you know the war brought people together over and over… this is what civil wars are about.. it’s violent brutal love. so it’s fine, you see? we could still go. it’s us. this is who we are…”
She looked away… at the children, playing happily on the green. she remembered their own playgrounds back home, back then… she still remember. how happy they were with so little. he’s right, she thought… no one would understand how they used to value all what life offered… because, well, that was life for them, all in all. to be happy with one hour of TV when the house comes back to life when the electricity is back… to catch a glimpse of their favorite cartoon shows if they were lucky… if they were good. to have vacations during the winter time… and the spring time… and any time, really, when life became too unbearable and their home too dangerous so the family had to leave. ‘yeherbo’ was the term, she thought… but they always came back.
“how funny it would be to do it ourselves this time.” he said “stock food for the shelter. get water. blankets… do you think they still have shelters?”
She put the newspaper aside, carefully. pushed his feet back to the bench, gently. stood up and walked toward the children. suddenly, as if transformed into a little girl herself, she threw her arms up and prepared to catch the ball. she laughed and ran and made friends. she kept her tears in for later times to come. and knew that she was doing this for one last time.
He looked at her. idly, tenderly and couldn’t help but to smile…
The bossa nova music continued to float over their hearts… “silver jet… take me… I’m all set… take me…”
take me back…

2007-01-20T11:34:00.000-05:00

POMPEII…

“you know how it goes: like Pompeii. feelings frozen under so many layers of ash. frozen in awe. in fear. disbelieve. in anger maybe. on the surface one sees a nice quiet meadow. underneath, there’s always a face… distorted with pain, frozen in time.” he said listlessly swirling the drink in his glass.

“our relationship is an excavation site… digging for frozen time.” she said absentmindedly “did you decide about June? I need to get the plane tickets asap.”

“for all the happiness that left me… that left me behind…” he continued “‘to seize the moment’. to live the moment. I didn’t know it was only one moment, I thought it’d last since… since it’d have had just started…”

“How many glasses did you have so far?” she said not a little reproachingly.

“I was putting off being-happy… until the moment was gone…” he added to himself.

“this is why we need to go. fresh start and all.” she replied with fake enthusiasm.

“three. maybe four.” he said.

“listen I’ve got to go now. call me later and tell me what you’ve decided. we have the house till the end of July. it’d be a waste not to take advantage of it. at least for a week.” she said with exasperation.

“four, most probably four. where is it again?” he added as an afterthought.

“near Naples. right by the sea.” she said with a pleading tone.

“that’s where… Pompeii is. maybe we could visit?” he hesitated.

“sure.” she said, looked around the dingy bar with disgust, and stood up to leave.

2007-01-19T22:31:00.000-05:00

Como que te va te va…

como que te viene viene…

2007-01-13T14:39:00.000-05:00

The Art of Procrastination...

2007-01-01T16:32:00.000-05:00

... but more than this, I wish you love.

and you. and you. and of course you. and the three of you. and you two. and you. and you too.

2006-12-20T14:56:00.000-05:00

Paloma Negra.

She lifted up the hem of her veil and wiped a tear of his cheek. He looked up at her and felt like dissolving in the copious drapes of the black muslin niqab she always wears outside the house. He remembered them: warm, welcoming, smelling of fresh lavender, faint perfume… a home to any lost soul. He buried his face in her drapes, and took in her womanly fragrance… a thousand little scents telling the story of a nation… the history, the culture, the eloquence of a civilization that never faded in his heart.
She lifted up the white drape covering her face below the eyes, the only white in her whole attire, and gave him a gentle kiss on his lips…
He rested his head on her lap. She caressed his hair so tenderly as if her child’s. She moved her hand down his neck… his side… his waist… She slid her hand under his pants, and then in one swift motion, as if practiced all her life, drew his knife and plunged it in his throat. She didn’t slit his throat, just plunged the knife in it… he pulled away. tried to stand, but instead he dropped to his knees… in this kneeling position in front of her, he stared at her in pain, in shock, in disgust, and in grief…
She gathered the folds of her skirts… and flew away through the park, like the black dove she is… leaving him by some bench gasping for air, folded on himself, like the fetus he is… covered with blood… with mud… convulsing by the last spasms of life… of death.
By the gate of the park, perched on the high metal grills, she looked down toward that bench, uncovered her mouth, blew him a kiss and flew away…

“Paloma negra…” he uttered in his distinct sevillanos southern accent, in choking staccato she barely heard in her flight “¿paloma negra, dónde, dónde andarás?”

She replied in her clear translucent Arabic “Touhyee iza katalatte…”

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2006-12-09T22:56:00.000-05:00

Life in a plane…

A circle with its center.
A dot…
Not egocentric… just minimal. an ordinary dot.

A triangle with its three vertices.
Equidistant…
Equilateral…
And as such they will always stay…

Two parallel lines that have never met.
Never…

A sine.
A cosine.
Two functions that always meet… periodically.
Always…
Occasionally. Like two regulars. Like two lovers…

2006-12-06T21:33:00.000-05:00

Right below their balcony…

- things are fine habibeh. we just don’t go out at night.
- but they killed someone.
- oh, people die every day.

Like running hot water on your head during a chilly winter night. yes, just like that… your nerves are soothed beyond any perception. your limbs are weak. the room is dark and you collapse at the bottom of the tub.

During times like these, people usually have their sense of identify heightened… or perceptible at least. they feel it stronger than their sense of life.
They parade it… dark. bold. tender. sugary. fanatic. traditional. liberal… they dance to its rhythm on the street… right below their balcony… they shout it with colors. black. green. orange. yellow… white?
I have nothing of it. no identity. only my pathetic little flyer… from a protest against a war… sneering at me “idiot”, without any reservations.
How far away I am… from that small flyer pleading for justice… from screaming slogans commanding power… unity… identity…
How much did I miss? How many theses did I read… analyzing… speculating… or at least trying to rationalize what would happen…
and then I coldly understand that they are so unfazed by someone dying… right below their balcony… as if no time has passed… nothing changed, and people are still dying every day…

2006-11-16T22:44:00.000-05:00

You see. It’s all in your head…

He pulls the shades down. he darkens the room. he puts his music on, and floats in a reverie. (reverie. what a pretentious word). not really. he just floats away in a cloud of… sadness. yes maybe sadness. with a trace of anger. but diffuse anger. the kind when one doesn’t exactly know toward whom this anger is. emptiness.

He walks toward the kitchen, grabs a dish and smashes it on the floor. he enjoys the sound of breaking glass. the shattering of a million pieces all over the place. he has to clean now. but he WON’T. because he doesn’t give a fuck.

Great. Channel his anger toward something more destructive: writing this post. he is writing this post and not me. No no not me. I am still at work making movies of dead corps. they contract and detach and float away. by the millions I tell you.

- I didn’t like what she said to you.

He is not well, you see. Perhaps now I could say that after all these years, there are too many people living in his head. It’s crowded in there. I mean, there’s no place to think. sometimes I wish things were more organized, like people could take shifts over the played character… or the projected or presented personality, however you want to call it. he can’t even write this properly. pathetic.

- What did you say?
- I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to you. explain yourself. why did you like what she said.
- After all she was being herself.
- What the fuck are you talking about? and who is she?
- I’m going to stick the penis in the airshaft and see what will happen.
- I thought we stopped doing that.
- Who’re we? we only share this fuck but we are in no way shape or form related.
- Yeah. don’t associate yourself with others. especially you. you piece of shit.
- I’m sticking the penis in the airshaft. she liked it last time.
- Would you fuck off with the penis already. no one is in the house anyway.
- Will someone open the shades. it’s kinda gloomy in here.
- Please be quite I am trying to listen to the music.
- Not Fauré again. what the fuck is wrong with you.
- It helps me calm down.
- Who the fuck asked you.
- It’s helps me… float.
- Great.
- Fuck you.
- I am breaking this fucking dish.
- You broke it! you clean this mess now. I am not fucking cleaning after you anymore.
- Fuck you.
- Yeah. walk away. YOU ALL WALK AWAY. no one does anything around here except me.
- SSSHHH. You’ll wake up the kids.
- That’s it. you know. Where’re the razor blades.
- What are you going to do?
- I know what I am doing.
- Stop right there.
- That hurts…
- I am floating again now.
- Yeah float away…
- I love Fauré.
- We all do.
- Is it cold? Or it’s just me.
- Hello? Anyone there? Helloooo. I…
- I…
- I…
- I…

2006-11-15T15:49:00.000-05:00

A CATAPULT FOR ME…

He was violently thrust into midair. All he could do was to pretend to fly. He choreographed his gestures amazingly: arms outstretched like wings slightly bent backwards, legs tight together, eyes closed… he was riding the autumn breeze like any other bird in the sky.
Like any other. Just like any other…
Did he know that soon he would hit the ground? Did he?
No one noticed the catapult behind the bushes… all he was, was a small flying bird, just like any other.. riding the autumn breeze…
What would they do when he drops… would they rush to dampen his crash… would they try? Or once they realized that he was nothing more than what he was, they would let him go… let him slip… away… they would simply clear the way for his crash… they would gracefully fly aside to let him drop unhampered unstopped. He wasn’t a small bird riding the autumn breeze, he wasn’t just like any other, they would say…
Until then… He will just enjoy the wind beneath his wings…
Fly, Damn it!

2006-11-13T12:01:00.000-05:00

Alliance of Civilizations: must read...

2006-11-08T15:46:00.000-05:00

Charades of the fall…

Central Park. Fall. They meet in the park.
- I am sad.
- I know. Just come sit next to me and let’s… be sad for a while.
- Yes. let’s be sad for while.
- Sounds like a plan.
They dissolve into the scene. Their fingers interlocked. They take in the beauty of the park, they leave out the people. They take in each other’s warmth, smells, heartbeats… and they are sad. together. for while…
(said in a whisper)
- and then what?
- and then nothing.
Then their laughter… once again rips through the park. through the fall… until everything dead is gone. and there’s nothing left but white, very white snow…

2006-11-07T21:17:00.000-05:00

I live in the solitary cell. in the Fenway. by the park.
(is this where we're heading...)

Afraid of your own identity. your very own identity… you. afraid of you.
Afraid of getting hurt just by being what you are.
And sometimes you can’t hide. and how would you? why should you? and who would?
Anything points at you. the friend. the neighbor. the stranger on the street.
Everyone has something to say. a knife to plunge in your breast… mercilessly.
I am an arab. I am a Lebanese.
I am a… I am a… I.
This only comes with anger. helplessness. and with fear.
Fear of being who you are: “I am!” “I am!” are nothing but whispers, resonating from the back of a darkened auditorium.
From the back of a throat. The back of a… barricade.
Screams resonating from the back of a darkened interrogation room. a living room. a bed room.
A parent weeping. a brother ruling you dead. and maybe you… almost dead.
From dust to dust to dust to dust to dust… how many times?
I live in a prison of my own making. I live in a prison. I live in a concentration camp. I live in the solitary confinement cell.
But you listened to the cries, seeping through the apprehension and the silence of a night. You heard them. These are not cries of cowards.
These are cries of fear. Learn this as you read:
When the brave are afraid they do it in silence. in dignity. they stay home. make their tea. wear their finery. and wait. and wait. and wait. they wait in silence. for the knock on the door. And when it arrives, solemnly they collect themselves, kiss each other goodbye, only one kiss on each cheek, and then are taken away. are taken apart.
No farewell. no pity. only pride. pride for who they are.
They are… they are… They.

Where do you live?

2006-11-04T16:38:00.000-05:00

Collage of a character, or… dissection of a personality?

Making up someone’s character to our taste from bits and pieces we collected from here and there. I give you her hands, his eyes, his lips, her neck, her passion, his sense of humor, my madness, their compassion: construction.

Breaking down someone’s character to pieces to understand what he or she is made up of. I take apart your hands, your eyes, your lips, your neck, your passion, your sense of humor, your madness, your compassion: deconstruction.

When I am done with you, I will keep some parts that I liked. I put them away, and use them later on, along with other parts from other people before you, in a new collage for a new character.

Now. can I use your heart on someone else?

It’s too bitter. too tender. too fiery. too big. it won’t fit.

But this is the part I like the most, the part I like to keep.

I guess I’ll just have to save it for myself, on me it fits perfectly well.

Thank you for your heart my dear.

picture: Pablo Picasso. Guitar. (after March 31, 1913).

2006-11-02T22:49:00.000-05:00

ALYA…

Note to reader: This story is a work of fiction and none of the characters portrayed here are real – names and places are the product of the author’s imagination, any resemblance to actual events and persons living or dead (or soon to be dead) is mere coincidental.

Alya is a single Lebanese girl who lives in Bostonia. Alone in the city, Alya usually spends her nights grocery shopping… at Saws.
Zeus, Alya’s neighbor, is a famous painter, a swimsuit model, he wrote his first opera at the age of 5, his hobbies include equitation and sailing. In brief, a living legend is what he is.
One day Alya invited Zeus to come along with her to Saws to buy grocery. At the deli corner he participated in the following conversation:
Alya (to the grocer): “HIIII! HOW ARE YOU?!”
He automatically reached for a container to weigh her some olives (because she always asks for the olives), she shook her head frantically and said: “no. not today, I just want a pound of smoked ham please…”
Then she glanced at Zeus, thought for a second, returned her gaze to the grocer and said rather loudly “THIS IS MY BROTHER! He’s visiting me here… he might stay… in Bostonia I mean.”
She then turned to Zeus and gave him the I’ll-explain-to-you-later-just-say-HI-now look… Zeus said hi, and the grocer greeted him warmly, then turned to Alya and asked her “soooo… how’s the baby?”
… with not a bit of hesitation she replied “fine, thank you so much for asking, he’s growing, you know how babies are, a lot of work, you know.”
“I know, I know… and how is your husband?” asked the grocer.
“He’s great! He sends his regards…” said Alya.

Alya, later on, explained to Zeus that earlier this month, she was with another friend at Saws and introduced him to the grocer as her husband with whom she recently had a baby… and that she didn’t want the grocer to ‘judge’ her since now she’s out with another guy, so she had to say that Zeus was her brother.
“didn’t you see how he relaxed and started talking to me after I said you’re my brother?” she said to Zeus.
“well… yeah [is she insane?] makes sense now. of course you wouldn’t want the grocer to judge you… who would… what if you come with someone else another time though… you’ll be introducing him to your whole family…” Zeus said.
“well… more brothers… not that I care, you see, but what would he say, married with a baby, and going around the market with another man… it’s not right.” she said.
“you realize this is Bostonia, not… Batro-mania, the guy doesn’t know his own name, let alone one customer brandying about her fictional family tree…” Zeus said.

Two aisles later, Zeus asked her “who was the husband? Ferruccio?”
“no, not even… it was Jerruccio… we were here together once, and I felt inclined to explain myself to the grocer” she replied.
“explain yourself? You totally live in your own head, you know that.” Zeus said.
“no. it’s just that I created this whole character at the deli corner and I don’t want to be a liar. So either I’d look like a liar, or he’d think I’m a whore. This way – by introducing you as my brother – he will know that I am a married woman with a child, having her darling brother visiting her to see the newborn baby. Don’t I look amazing for someone who just gave birth – I mean I am not one of those moms who take till the kid goes to college to lose the baby weight… look, it’s fun to make up characters during the day. It takes the edge off. At every place I am someone different… I live several lives.” She said.
“yes. I know. We all do the same… to some extent. but not at a deli… the other day, for instance, I was at a dinner party, and I pretended to be a postdoc in cell biology. I don’t know why… maybe because a while ago, I went out with a bunch of cell biologists, and since then I can’t get over the fact of how fascinating their lives are… to know all what they know… to see all what they see. How meaningful their existence is. And what am I? Just a famous painter, composer and swimsuit model, and my hobbies include equitation and sailing… so depressing.” Zeus said with a tinge of sadness.

A week later, Zeus met Alya in the lobby of their fabulous apartment building at the Cremway. She was discussing with a neighbor, an old man of about 75, how her upbringing in the Soviet Union taught her so much about equal rights and emancipation although she never supported communism at heart… the man looked captivated by their conversation, and told Alya that she should come over for tea to meet his wife, and that he will take her up on her offer to play the harp at his grand daughter’s wedding “it would mean so much for us, a famous Russian harpist playing at my little Dee Dee’s wedding…”
Later, Alya asked Zeus about anyone giving harp lessons, and exclaimed “how difficult could it be after all? in any case I could just say that I’ll be out of town that weekend…
Do you want to go to the Cape? My family owns this marvelous summer house by the beach, it’s…”

(how much rentals are this time of the year at the Cape? she wondered.)

2006-10-30T23:44:00.000-05:00

Baladko eh?

Some untranslatable charm from the Middle East that’s never lost in my heart is in expressions I've learned since… ever.
Here are some I remember:
Noor 3ayneh – 7ayeteh – roo7 2albi – to2borneh – metl el fel – yee 3layeh (ana could be added for emphasis) – misk we 3anbar (old school) – alla ykhalik – yerda 3laik – khalisneh ba2a (ba2a is optional, when added you'd better... let them be ) – wlo, wlik, wleh (and any variation thereof) – 2abl el daw (tiz el sobo7 in a more casual setting) – khayy (favorite, used to express… pleasance) – malla model (when used with indignation) – gheir shikil (... a good thing).
More complex ones (could be considered proverbs, but who knows):
3a sooss w ne2tah (she7tah could substitute ne2tah depending on where you’re from) – matra7 ma khereh shana2oo (which I never understood what it means) – she7adeh we bentah (don’t remember what it means, but I guess it has to do with something being very early in the day)

PS: I wanted to have them categorized but found out that most are multivalent, for instance “3ayneh” could be used to express endearment, anger, or even hard-bitten cynicism…

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2006-10-29T11:47:00.000-05:00

Message in a bottle…

Your eyes…
My eyes? N’ont jamais vu la couleur de ta peau.
Your lips…
My lips? N’ont jamais touché le bout de tes doigts.
All I have is a bottle washed ashore…
message que quelqu’un ailleurs une fois de plus a pensé à moi…
et je me souviens qu’avec le temps…
“va tout s’en va… on oublie le visage… et l’on oublie la voix… le cœur quand ça bat plus… c'est pas la peine d'aller chercher plus loin… faut laisser faire, c'est très bien…”

2006-10-24T19:38:00.000-04:00

One moment's life

- This is what I want you to do: tell me everything you know about one moment in your day, or in your life at that…

- You mean to describe a moment.

- Yes. precisely. From the elements that create the moment, to the effects of each, to the general color of it…

- Like a day-to-day tragedy.

- No. not tragedy. nothing emotionally charged. nothing about departures, break ups… or any heart wrenching moments. None of this she-gazed-across-the-garden-at-him kind of business… Tell me about a simple uncomplicated moment. You see, here lays the challenge: to always be able to find something, even in the ordinary. Kundera wrote a novel once based on a single gesture, a coquettish gesture of an old woman by the pool…

- I see. Well, maybe this moment right now. your gesture. your voice. the harsh clatter of your Arabian bracelets while swinging your arm. your soft gaze from behind your…

- No. stop. don’t describe what your eyes can see. I have eyes and ears and could see all you’re talking about. You should bring me inside your head for a moment. I want to read you and be able to be you for a second. It’s important to be attentive, yes, but what’s more important is to convey the color of the moment. No sweet words, no love and softness… do you really use the word ‘gaze’ in your head when thinking?

- No.

- Exactly. So start again.

- OK. This moment, now… here: we’re having coffee in the afternoon. I’m talking to you. your plants. I feel you’re a little patronizing. It’s slightly turning me on, only slightly though for I still feel comfortable, confident and in control – maybe the attraction is a deviation from being offended – up to a certain point where I still don’t feel the need to seduce… the color of the moment would be excitement, a little sexual, but not smugness… also I am not taking you totally seriously, yet I find this conversation interesting. your draping silk gown. The clatter of your bracelets caught my attention. It’s captivating. so oriental. So.. you. the color of the moment is very oriental… because you are in it. yet I don’t feel foreign, I easily belong in it. because your body language is welcoming. You freely touch my thigh while talking. Your womanhood is very… uninhibited now. you feel like your talking to your child. This gives the moment a touch of tenderness, you’re not covering your language with any niceties, and this colors the moment with authenticity, you’re not wearing a mask, as if you are sharing your inner self with me, and you want me to share mine with you, hence your request… the Turkish coffee and the brown furniture add an earthly feeling, yet the color is still very spiritual. I feel more connected to Earth around you, right now…

- Good… Finish your coffee now and then leave. I have an appointment shortly.

“One minute in the life of the world is going by. Paint it as it is” – Cézanne.
Pic: Paul Cézanne. Maison au Toit Rouge (1885-1886).

2006-10-23T16:32:00.000-04:00

Laughter is contagious.

During the ‘80s, she had a small recording machine, on which she had her last husband’s laughter, right before he left her… it was one of those gadgets shaped into parted lips, which start playing hysterical laughter when pushed together… she used to listen to it, sometimes compulsively, as if capturing some lost memory, maybe holding on to the past, and used to laugh… later on, the more the war ravaged through her city, the more she felt detached… when survival becomes the first thing on mind, memories become irrelevant.
Years later, among other things the laughs were passed on to me…
I listen to those old laughs now. Laughs from happier times, aged, faded, like old pictures yellowed by two decades, the clothes are out of style, the names are barely mentioned… but the laughs are still as contagious as ever…

2006-10-15T12:29:00.000-04:00

Romance sans paroles…

Do you remember when you used to be scared of ghosts? You used to crawl under my sheets in the middle of the night… I sometimes used to wake up and hear you praying for both of us to make it through the night.

What’s more passionate than someone praying for you? Two innocent hearts unsullied by life. Praying for each other in each other’s arms… it’s not the praying part, it’s this genuine desire for the other to be safe and happy… to ask the highest reference in your psyche for that… it’s more than romantic… it’s pious. I am speaking theoretically of course, I was just praying that may and madiha wouldn’t possess you during the night so I wouldn’t wake up with a poltergeist next to me in bed…

I know… even though I am an atheist, I still believe in what you said… someone to place you between himself and god… it’s so unconditional, so private a feeling… like when they say we remembered you in our prayers, it’s so fulfilling to be remembered at such time when the soul is naked and nothing is… contrived.

I pray for both of us to make it through these times…

Thank you.

2006-10-15T11:09:00.000-04:00

A dream I had last time…

I stood with my friend at the side of the building… at the side of a building, for it wasn’t somewhere I’ve known in my memory, it was somewhere I knew in my heart. The road was of red sand and dust, a desert. The sun was blazing. Hot. Humid. No one to be seen in miles. Just a desert of red sand. I couldn’t help but admire who constructed such a building on the outskirts of a desert… of a memory.
The roaring of a car was heard in the distance, and then a dark blue Mercedes appeared, going up the road in a cloud of red dust. I approached the car while my friend waited by the building leaning against the wall, protect from the sun by some tattered awning of an abandoned store.
When I approached the car she opened the window and pocked her head out. It was she. Mixed feelings of passionate longing and reserved greetings overwhelmed me. I wanted to… she gave me an air kiss, and told me that she’s going to park at the end of the road, and come back. I saw her son sitting on the passenger seat. He’s supposed to be a grown up now, but I still only see the child in him. He grinned. I waved.
I walked back to my friend to wait for her there. I told him it was she. He blabbered something about how sexy she used to be and how he sometimes fantasized about her. I dismissed this conversation with a stern look. It always made me uncomfortable when anyone talked about her this way, justified by her provocative appearance … and thought that I am not going to partake in this. We’re not bonding over this. In any case, I was so engrossed in the idea of seeing her again. It has been what it felt more than a decade, or was it a decade… I felt nervous, and decided to walk down the road to meet her half way. I took my shoes off for some reason and decided to go barefoot on the hot sand. It relaxed me.
“what a surprise. I haven’t seen you in ten years” I said
“I know. You never came back to visit” she said with a beaming smile.
Guilt passed through me. She was someone memory safeguarded for years, there in my heart, with an unwavering feeling of… friendship. Guilt of not returning to see her again, guilt of not returning at all, guilt of moving on… I wondered if I did actually move on, or that it is my old life that simply abandoned me altogether. I tried to give in the usual rhetoric about being busy, and how life gets in the way, but I couldn’t…
“You’re son is a grown man now” was all I could muster.
“Yeah, he’s in college now,” the proud mother in her spontaneously replied.
“You look great,” I said.
“Yeah?” she answered with a little bit of surprise and a little bit of satisfaction.
“You look the same.” I added.
She lowered her eyes and said almost apologetically: “This weather… this humidity.. it makes me look 52.”
I looked at her and was lost at words…
“I colored my hair this morning,” she said coquettishly…
I was then overwhelmed by a feeling of loss. Because maybe she did look older. And maybe her words that it’s the weather that made her look older were to console me. That it’s just the weather. The same way we blame everything on the weather… And it was not because she got older, it’s because I was not there when it happened. Because I would have liked, when I saw my past again, that it would still look exactly the same. Not a day older. I felt selfish thinking that… because after I left, people went on with their lives… and I couldn’t help thinking about her life without me. Not that I was a significant part of her life. I was just a friend. A close friend. But still. At that moment, her whole life – at least from my perspective – flashed in front of me. Getting her medical degree in a different world… in a world I constructed in my mind from Kundera’s novels during the communist times… traveling across countries to settle in a country of war. To make a family, a career… some worked out some not… but I couldn’t help thinking that years were wasted in dead ends.. with her career, with a husband… a lot of idle years passed by… and then I realized that this is life, not just her life… but Life. No regrets. And all my pitiful looks transformed into admiration for her as a woman. An accomplished woman who had it all. Maybe not all, but who at least had a life, blissful, tragic, painful, dreadful… a life.
And I couldn’t help thinking about how some of us perceive life… we think we should take all the chances, play all our cards at once… go after the unattainable.. and I remembered Brel singing at the Olympia, wearily like a tired traveler “Rêver un impossible rêve… tenter, sans force et sans armure, d'atteindre l'inaccessible étoile… telle est ma quête”
And I felt tired myself…
And I felt silly…
And I woke up.

2006-10-12T23:03:00.000-04:00

When feelings die and… tea

Her hair open to the wind. She stands on the top of the stairs. Strands of gold cover her face. She pushes them away. She looks into the night settling down in the neighboring gardens. The moon caught in her eyes, they sparkle. She feels ridiculous in her big dress, stranded; stranded from running wildly in the night. A tigress caught up in a swan. She is aware of her splendor though. She looks magnificent. And it’s not just me thinking that, everyone at the party did. She touches the pearls around her neck. She let slip the slightest of smiles, then promptly regains her countenance. She gathers the folds of her dress, and slowly makes her way down the stairs. Behind she left a dinner. A party. Music. Laughter. Chatter. Life?

Behind, she left life.

She crosses the garden to the gazebo. She holds her head high, wipes her cheek with the back of her gloved hand, and asks me if I minded her joining me for some tea. I nod. She sits down. She holds my hand, leans her head on my shoulder, and sighs. With her sigh, the evening dissolves away. The guests. The glamour. The music. The laughter. The valse seeps through the garden like foreign notes suspended in the air. She pulls her shawl tighter around her shoulders. I slide my hand behind her back and pull her closer to my heart. She sobs silently in the dark. I wipe her tears. She looks up at me and says:

“Wouldn’t you take me home now?”

My parents died last summer… and all I have is her weary voice pleading to return, an immeasurable feeling of freedom, and my hand pulling away. Once again I drift toward a new life with dead excitement but alert eyes eager to devour pleasures… and life.

… and life?

She, who once was running fields barefoot, who once told me that life is never to be eaten slowly, once again leaves a single shoe at another party… an immigrant Cinderella… trailing shoes all around.

… and no one finds them… here.

2006-10-11T14:10:00.000-04:00

Dies slowly

Pablo Neruda

Dies slowly he who transforms himself in slave of habit,
repeating every day the same itineraries,
who does not change brand,
does not risk to wear a new color and doesn't talk to whom doesn't know.

Dies slowly he who makes of television his guru.

Dies slowly he who avoids a passion,
who prefers black to white
and the dots on the "i" to a whirlpool of emotions,
just those ones that recover the gleam from the eyes,
smiles from the yawns,
hearts from the stumbling and feelings.

Dies slowly he who does not overthrow the table when is unhappy at work,
who does not risk the certain for the uncertain
to go toward that dream that is keeping him awake.

Who does not allow, at least one time in life, to flee from sensate advises.

Dies slowly he who does not travel, does not read,
does not listen to music, who does not find grace in himself.

Dies slowly he who destroys his self love,
who does not accept somebody's help.

Dies slowly he who passes his days complaining of his bad luck or the incessant rain.

Dies slowly he who abandons a project before starting it,
who does not ask over a subject that does not know
or who does not answer when being asked about something he knows.

Dies slowly he who does not share his emotions, joys and sadness,
who does not trust, who does not even try.

Dies slowly he who does not relive his memories
and continues getting emotional as if living them at that moment.

Dies slowly he who does not intent excelling,
who does not learn from the stones of the road of life,
who does not love and let somebody love.

Let's avoid death in soft quotes,
remembering always that to be alive demands an effort much bigger
that the simple fact of breathing.

2006-10-04T13:39:00.000-04:00

What would you do if I sang out of tune?
Would you stand up and walk out on me...

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2006-09-27T10:04:00.000-04:00

Letters from Guantanamo
BBC Wednesday, 27 September 2006.
from Sami al-Hajj... a man of peace.

In one letter Sami imagines cells like those at Guantanamo at the foot of the Statue of Liberty: "Inside there are creatures wearing orange clothing. It hardly seems possible that they are human (but) they breathe, just like we breathe, they have feelings just as we have feelings, sentiments and emotions..."

"Will one day the world stand for a moment of silence beside that colossal wreck saying, 'there used to be a stone statue here - a statue called Liberty?"

2006-09-23T12:44:00.000-04:00

ARABESQUE

One of the best albums I've heard in a long time: Jane Birkin - Arabesque (live).

2006-09-22T15:52:00.000-04:00

blessed.

Scene.

She cleared the table with furry, mumbling unflattering comments under her breath.
From the hills came the sun, strode down the paysage like a liberating army… shaking life from its slumber.
She looked out of the window, and felt… a little bit content perhaps, for her simple life, for her vineyard, for the quiet, for the sun… her minimalist existence.
To picture the world without her, and realize it would be exactly the same, weighs on her soul… even a fleeing flock of birds would leave more behind…
Insignificant. Light? Light? Free spirit. A little fairy wondering in the woods. Lonely. Rejected. Soon to be old.
She followed the sun to the ocean. Why do we love the ocean? Is it because it gives us the feeling of unlimited possibilities… how could we continue without possibilities… the possibility of something happening, someone coming, someone from the other shore, someone on the other shore… someone in the sky. Someone out there. On Mars, or beyond. Isn’t this why we are building space stations? She pictured herself running down the runway at Kennedy Space Center. running after the returning shuttle, waving a white handkerchief and asking “did you see him? Did you find him yet?”

Silence.

She cleared the table with furry, mumbling unflattering comments under her breath.
Unintelligible chatter flowed in from the TV. She turned it off, silencing and darkening the room.
Bright red light and monotonous light buzz broke into the room from the neon sign across the street. The room looked like a movie projection of her life.
She pictured people scrutinizing her in her living room, eyeing every object every line on her face… suddenly she felt compelled to feign happiness in front of her imaginary audience. She threw her shoulders back, wore a maniacal grin, and disappeared in the bathroom. Under the yellow brightness of the light above the mirror, she inspected her face looking for new wrinkles. She grimaced a lot trying to assess how many would appear in all possible facial expressions she might attempt during the day. Too many she reasoned, and started studying how and what she could conceal with the artful use of cosmetics. She pealed off her shirt, examined her breasts… suddenly, she realized that she is trying to salvage her youth. Salvage her youth.

Fear.

Furious mumbling. Table cleared. Floor crackled. Breathless.
He downed the rest of his coffee. grabbed coat and bag. and ran to start his day.
He stopped one second to think about the vineyard. about her dead body swinging from an olive tree, near a shore… another shore. No matter how deep he bares the scare… no matter… he thinks about her everyday, at least once… at least for one second. The sun running down the hills. Her body limp. Her breasts limp. swaying with the breeze… a white handkerchief clenched in her hand. She had a satisfied impression on her face… content, really… so serene… just like the vineyard… on a lazy summer day…
He shrugged off her memory, and brought back his thoughts to his wife… the image of her body last night, stretched out naked on the couch in the shimmering red light of the neon sign from across the street.. she looked so fresh. so young… and beautiful…
He felt… simply, blessed.

2006-09-09T23:52:00.000-04:00

Fire.

Time
once again,
closes its grip
on my broken world…

You wrapped my dreams
in a blanket, and took them
tenderly by the fire, by your fire…
and you waited… for the next morning.
The fire dies, mornings pass, and nothing
remains of that night but some ashes, a dream
and you… and I.

I can never forgive myself for making you cry…
I try but I cannot. For hardening your heart over the years
For all the screams. For the fights. For life. For you… and I.
For my hand on your back, for my hand on your chest,
keeping you erect,
while I slip away in the folds of another life…
another city…
another river…
another…
another…
another…
For you are the curator of all what we have…
and a lot we have…
to share with the others…
and we only have each other…
and a dream wrapped in a blanket by a dying fire…

For what once was… and will always be… US!!

2006-09-06T11:30:00.000-04:00

For you A.

Polonaise "Heroique" - Chopin - Rubinstein

2006-09-04T23:42:00.000-04:00

La chanson des vieux amants...
O mon amour
Mon doux mon tendre mon merveilleux amour
De l'aube claire jusqu'à la fin du jour
Je t'aime encore tu sais je t'aime

Edith Piaf - padam padam

2006-09-01T15:19:00.000-04:00


edith piaf padam padam 1956

2006-09-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

Of Rupert Murdoch...

and My Space...

2006-08-31T11:50:00.000-04:00

Trucks loaded with rubble queue on a coastal road south of Beirut, Lebanon. They are transporting the remains of buildings destroyed in the southern suburb of Ouzai (BBC).

2006-08-30T23:26:00.000-04:00

The Worst Kind of Terror

Murder on Rucarb Street

By ELIZA ERNSHIRE

Ramallah.

August 29, Pre-dawn.

It is only now that the gun-fire saluting the killed young man has become sporadic and no longer constant, and that the verses of the Koran, chanted in farewell to him, has ceased. But the streets are full; and full too are the hearts of all who had to witness an attack that should only have been imaginable in the darkest back alleys of some underworld city.

At 9 pm, the 28th, undercover Israeli Special Forces walked down the main street of Ramallah. They wore civilian clothes and Palestinian police-caps. They carried M-16s as all the police force does. No one looked at them twice. They walked straight past us where we stood at Al-Minara discussing work with a third colleague.

They walked straight passed the Palestinian Police Force as well who is always stationed there.

They continued walking straight down Rucarb Street until they were opposite the famous Rucarb Ice-cream shop where families gather every evening in the summertime.

Then they opened fire.

They opened fire after they failed to catch two 'wanted' men who were also in Rucarb Street along with half the population of Ramallah. The two men wouldn't come when called and so the undercover Israeli Officers opened fire.

It is not easy to explain the horror of seeing the cold-blooded murder of the young man who had turned to escape on realizing the situation.

It is not easy to explain the horror of hearing the name of the killed youth spreading from mouth to mouth until the whole of Ramallah knows that the young man killed was A. from the village of Deir Ghassan. Nor is it easy to explain the horror of rushing with everybody else who knows an A. from that village or a nearby one to the hospital.

The relief if the body pulled from the fridge is not your A.

The anguish if it is.

Grown men falling on the ground to beat at the dirt and cry.

The parents of the killed man stumbled into the hospital at midnight. The father could not even see his son because he was temporarily blinded by the shock and the screams of the mother could be heard from the street.

Young men were also in shock, wandering around and wondering why they had not even had a chance to fight back. There was an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness.

Palestine has been so reduced and so humiliated that it is now a country where the Occupying force can walk into a main city on nightfall, can walk down the main street of that city and kill a man and then walk away again as if that is a damn right of theirs and no one is going to blink an eye at it.

It is not their damn right to come and terrorize the people of a city night after night after night on some hyped up 'security' reason! This is no human being's right.

I have been accused of not understanding how people are feeling on the other side of the Wall. People have written to me 'You don't know what it is like to be driving behind a bus when it explodes' and I say this is true. But I do know what it is like to see fifteen thugs walk down a main street of a city at nightfall and murder in cold-blood outside a family restaurant and then walk away again.

I call that the worst kind of terror.

The boy they killed was just a village boy, and the children who witnessed this killing were just children. As in all parts of the world, children who had begged their parents for an ice-cream before going to bed.

Nhow they must live with this violation of their sensitivity forever.

And the thugs could just walk away! They did not even need jeeps to perform their action of terror.

These men were not desperate. Not one of them would tie an explosive belt around his waist.What I am most afraid of is that they enjoy what they do. To them and to too many others, the lives of Palestinians are, at most, only countable.

There was a three-second coverage of this news item on BBC. 'Three militants killed in the West Bank. One in Ramallah and two in Nablus; all were from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.'

One second for each man killed.

I won't begin a discussion on why, by naming the Martyrs Brigade, the West is somehow justifying the deaths, because the purpose of this article is only to register horror at the nighttime terror that came in so particularly a disgusting way to the streets of Ramallah four hours ago.And also to say that now the city is angry.

The young men who have been gathering for hours in groups on street corners are angry. Some have been crying, and all have been voicing their disbelief at how on earth Israel can continue to get away with their inhuman actions; not only nightly midnight raids and arrests but also this gangster plot that has left the main street of their city stained with blood again.

In the past two weeks Israeli forces have come to Ramallah every single night. There is now a vigil in the dark hours of these nights; from 2am till 5am half the city is awake watching and wondering where Israel's eyes are turned and what neighborhood they are targeting.

In the past week Israel has made daily incursions into Nablus and has destroyed houses and killed 16-year old boys in broad daylight, and has raided the city every night. For the past month the whole village district of Ramallah and Nablus have been enduring invasions and raids, house-searches and arrests.

While Olmert is taking a few blows about his conduct of the war in Lebanon, the Palestinians are having to endure being his 'dog-under-the-table'.

How on earth is he and Israel getting away with it?

2006-08-30T16:39:00.000-04:00

Did you know that Salim El Hoss was part of the Axis For Peace conference last year?
well, he was one of the main panelists...

Salim Al-Hoss stated: “Any person who takes up arms to defend the freedom of his people is considered a “terrorist”. In turn, we must clearly state that when the sovereignty of a State is violated, it is then a terrorist act”.

Former German Minister Andreas von Bülow detailed the staging of the September 11 attacks in 2001. He explained how they took place in the very United States in order to legitimize the current military operations. U.S. journalist Webster Tarpley indicated that “it is impossible to understand the current U.S. policy if the real scope of September 11 is underestimated. The attacks perpetrated at that moment were a coup d’état. The war on terror is based on a myth and has become a compulsory state religion since such developments took place. The only way to fight against neoconservatives is by destroying this myth.”

The implication of the Anglo-Saxon secret services in the creation and use of Islamic terrorism was presented by the former agent David Shayler. “I resigned from the British secret services when the MI6 decided to finance Osama bin Laden’s associates”, he said in an outstanding speech. “I tried to warn them but it was me who went to prison”, regretted Shayler, who explained that “this terrorism is coordinated by the MI6 and CIA”.

The chief-editor of Brecha, the major weekly newspaper of the Uruguayan left wing, Yvonne Trías, expressed her indignation about the accusations of anti-Semitism against intellectuals who oppose Israeli policy. “They put me on the black list of people who are considered as “anti-Semitists” by a Jewish intellectual”, she regretted. “My newspaper has been accused of anti-Semitism because it has criticized the Israeli policy. It has been the object of a major humiliating campaign. We have been treated as “anti-Semites” and even as “negationists”. When the campaign started, we received pressures from everywhere. There was an avalanche of e-mails. There were readers who said they would cancel their subscription. Left wing people came to suggest that we should give up our criticisms”.

During the round table on Syria, participants compared the accusations made against this country regarding the assassination of Rafik Hariri to the “evidences” of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction presented by Colin Powell to the UN Security Council. In the Final Declaration, participants denounced that “France, which had opposed the invasion on Iraq, had backed the threats against new preys” and welcomed Russia’s mediation which defends the implementation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and presumption of innocence in international relations”.

and their final declaration...

2006-08-29T17:21:00.000-04:00

A certain Sadness...

"...Now the rain has gone,
but something lingers on...
There's certain sadness here,
now that the sky is clear..
And it's so clear;
yes, it's all so clear
to me now...
And I can't help but feel..
That certain sadness's here
to stay..."

2006-08-28T09:28:00.000-04:00

"When independent, thinking people (and here I do not include the corporate media) begin to rally under flags, when writers, painters, musicians, film-makers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the 'Nation', it's time for all of us to sit up and worry." Arundhati Roy (Come Septembre)

TRIPLE CROSS
Bin Laden's Spy in America (Link to preview on National Geographic Channel)

2006-08-25T13:01:00.000-04:00

A cat in Beirut with its legs covered in oil from a slick which has spread 150m (93 miles) along the Lebanese coast, after an Israeli air strike on a power station during the recent war. (The BBC)

2006-08-25T12:34:00.000-04:00

do you see where I'm heading with this?

2006-08-25T12:31:00.000-04:00

Russia rejects sanctions against Iran

2006-08-24T14:47:00.000-04:00

Israel blames Russian rocket launchers for its setbacks in Lebanon.

Hmmm...

2006-08-23T17:59:00.000-04:00

2006-08-22T16:41:00.000-04:00

Ask bombed-out residents in Lebanon
(They will be answering your questions throughout the day on Wednesday 23 August via a LIVE laptop link-up.)

2006-08-22T11:05:00.000-04:00

(Requiem)

I learned to say your name again, with two vowels again…

I heard the soprano whispers coming from deep into the stage, what a world they created! Like some mystical chatter coming from a cave; relentless whispers… would they stop? How riveting, and ceaseless… like little fairies moving in the darkness… “O la mortelle injure… et c’est toujours de même, et c’est ainsi toujours”… I know every inflection in their voice now, I know all their cadences, and look for them to.. fall.

And I fall.

I heard your name again on the news today, and I learned to say it again… with two vowels.. the ‘I’ took me down a fall, and then the ‘A’ elevated me to heaven… I giggled like a child on a rollercoaster ride. What a strange name you’ve got!

The whispers… I love the way they say their ‘S’s! like the rustling of dead leaves… (SSSsss) is that what they’ve become again? dead? I know they go to Limbo if they died elsewhere.. or to heaven… in you they go whisper in the dark. They haunt the living for eternity.. as they always have… perhaps that’s why hearts flutter when hearing tender whispers in the dark… and what’s better than carrying innocent laughter in your heart…

I love your children as they die…
you give them fairy wings,
elf ears and send them whisper in the dark…
and all I hear from your side
is the ever fading sound
of a playground…

2006-08-11T10:59:00.000-04:00

Terror Arrests Play in Political Arena

2006-08-10T21:43:00.000-04:00

G.W. learned a new word: Kleptocrats.

2006-08-10T16:35:00.000-04:00

How cheaply they manipulate the public opinion...

"they want to destroy us and harm us... because they hate our values".
(downright we do! as if he has any values!)

It was not enough with Zarkawi's enchanting speech (which was almost cartoonish - I still believe that Bush bought both Bin Laden and Zarkawi in the same media package, and that Al-Qaida is the best PR company a western leader could get), timed after the war on Lebanon started, just to 'put things into perspective'.. because Lieberman DID lose the elections, and people ARE talking about the israeli attrocities... let alone Iraq.. and of course, Gaza. so they needed another reminder of the terrorists, naturally to refresh people's memory about why all these wars are being fought, as it were...

I could picture Hillary calling Bush earlier this week saying "Georgie do something! they might wake up to the truth if we go on like this!"; so of course the best way to do it is to make the general public directly affected... and what's more atrocious than having to 'volunteer' your shampoo and perfume at the security checks in airports.. so the public would eventually feel involved in these wars:
- I had to give away my bulgari perfume bottle at JFK today! and carry my stuff in... a PLASTIC bag! Ah, the horror... but it's for a good cause, of course: we are fighting terrorism, you know!
- oh! darling, they almost wanted to take away my saline implants today.. but I told them terrorist women don't have breasts like us!

I read all the news to yet find anything tangible about this 'conspiracy theory' that took place today.. nothing. only that they arrested 21 people from around the UK (and of course they didn't fail to mention that this is most probably a plot 'a la Osama', and that all the terrorists are British muslims)... now how did all this unravel only today? no one knows or even asks! why did they wait till the same day (the day before they are supposed to vote on a UN resolution to stop the massacres in the middle east - which coincidentally falls a whole month after the war started - as if any UN resolution is of any value untill Israel is good and ready) to stop air traffic and go around arresting people..
They terrorize their own nations... 'into oblivion'; all the same policy since September 11... all the same.

Meanwhile people are still dying in Lebanon, and I still go from paper to paper looking for some hope, contemplating what would be the shock to find someone I know on the news.. among the rubble. (just like I found my friend's family house in the south on Reuters)...

So please, stop this charade, it's become disgusting!

(pic: courtesy of the BBC)

2006-08-08T22:54:00.000-04:00

Fog of War Is No Cover for Causing Civilian Deaths

2006-08-08T11:37:00.000-04:00

After Bomb Kills Loved Ones, Life Turns Ghostly

2006-08-07T19:06:00.000-04:00

From Beirut... to those who love us.

2006-08-07T16:07:00.000-04:00

notes of mine. stashed in a drawer. from 10 years ago.

"J'arrive dans le noir et ils me donnent de lumiere... Je vois leurs epees qui me niaient l'existence."

"ils representent une vraie incarnation de leur decadence."

"weapons that denied me Existence... I gave back my light and shut my face from humanity."

2006-08-01T14:50:00.000-04:00

RECLUSION...

2006-07-30T17:03:00.000-04:00

Israel Harvests Death in the Fields of Lebanon
By Genevieve Cora Fraser

A spider’s web
Of electrical lines
Hovers over deserted
Streets awash in drifting
Dirt and rubble dust
A child’s blackened
Body sleeps in eternal
Peace Israel uses death
To pacify children
Cleansing cities
And villages of life
Apartments sheared
Expose rooms tilting
Down spilled contents
Chairs, tables, books
Beds tumble in a slide
Downward crash
Against the pavement
Cushioned by roof tops
At the bottom of the pile
Ghostly clouds billow
Brown against a patch
Of blue the weather
Of war is predictably
Bleak a growing season
For martyrs sprouting
From the rubble hands
Feet, a leg, an arm
A new crop of death
Watered in blood
Emerges as a blanket
Of bombardment
Spreads across Southern
Lebanon covered
By the tissue of lies
America fabricates
To protect her most
Precious Partner
In war crimes
Israel
From taking
The heat

2006-07-29T13:03:00.000-04:00

Lebanon’s Passage Lit by Israeli Hellfire

By Genevieve Cora Fraser

The charred remains
Of a child’s skull
Propped on mutilated
Shoulders broken
Splayed by Israeli
Missiles withers
While white
Phosphorous
Glows bright
In the night
Ignites a family
Longing for life
Into mutilation
And death
Not far a fig’s
Molten gold ripe
Belly drops on a table
Top coffee dregs
In blue cups intact
Despite the attack
The dead speak
Of martyrdom
Life blown
From kingdom
Come to the valley
Of visible death
Against the ruins
Of antiquity
Proud marble pillars
Erect a lion’s mouth
Gasps an icon
Surveys once again
Lebanon’s rubble
Rebels refuse defeat
The swift retreat
Of the living
To a mountain
Pass hidden
From the smoke
Earthen billows blown
From the depth of hatred
Prevail against the winds
Of change hoards
Through centuries ripple
Through millennia enforce
Ruling Empires come and go
Among the ancient ruins
Arrogant vibrating with rage
Filled with false pride
They come to slay
To win the day
But have never captured
The soul of Lebanon

2006-07-26T12:32:00.000-04:00

It must be so taxing for her, to hear one more time about all these 'atrocities'...

AFP/FILIPPO MONTEFORTE

2006-07-22T15:07:00.000-04:00

I called Beirut yesterday...

I wanted to ask her how she is doing, how many scars she could bear, how many of her children died, how many left her to her fate... to ask her how she is taking all this. what can we do to... she cut me off right away and asked me to just tell all the Lebanese who would read this:
"ma 2alkon gheir ba3ed ya 7abibeh. Iza metet, khaloneh moot mettameh... khaloneh moot w 2albeh mertei7 enkon 2aleb wa7ad, enkone eed we7deh... enkone ra7 terja3o sawa, t7atooleh wardeh 3ala 2abreh, w t3amro men jeed"
(you have no one but each other, my love. If I die, let me rest in peace knowing that you are all one heart, one soul... that you will all come back together, put a rose by my grave, and start building your country together, once more...)
I heard another missile shredding through her flesh. I felt her wince from the pain. She told me she has to go, and hung up...

2006-07-22T11:01:00.000-04:00

U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis
By DAVID S. CLOUD and HELENE COOPER
Published: July 22, 2006 (The New York Times)
WASHINGTON, July 21 — The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday. [...]

2006-07-20T21:14:00.000-04:00

Paradise Lost: Robert Fisk's elegy for Beirut
Published: 19 July 2006

Elegant buildings lie in ruins. The heady scent of gardenias gives way
to the acrid stench of bombed-out oil installations. And everywhere
terrified people are scrambling to get out of a city that seems
tragically doomed to chaos and destruction. As Beirut - 'the Paris of
the East' - is defiled yet again, Robert Fisk, a resident for 30
years, asks: how much more punishment can it take?

In the year 551, the magnificent, wealthy city of Berytus -
headquarters of the imperial East Mediterranean Roman fleet - was
struck by a massive earthquake. In its aftermath, the sea withdrew
several miles and the survivors - ancestors of the present-day
Lebanese - walked out on the sands to loot the long-sunken merchant
ships revealed in front of them.

That was when a tidal wall higher than a tsunami returned to swamp the
city and kill them all. So savagely was the old Beirut damaged that
the Emperor Justinian sent gold from Constantinople as compensation to
every family left alive.

Some cities seem forever doomed. When the Crusaders arrived at Beirut
on their way to Jerusalem in the 11th century, they slaughtered every
man, woman and child in the city. In the First World War, Ottoman
Beirut suffered a terrible famine; the Turkish army had commandeered
all the grain and the Allied powers blockaded the coast. I still have
some ancient postcards I bought here 30 years ago of stick-like
children standing in an orphanage, naked and abandoned.

An American woman living in Beirut in 1916 described how she "passed
women and children lying by the roadside with closed eyes and ghastly,
pale faces. It was a common thing to find people searching the garbage
heaps for orange peel, old bones or other refuse, and eating them
greedily when found. Everywhere women could be seen seeking eatable
weeds among the grass along the roads..."

How does this happen to Beirut? For 30 years, I've watched this place
die and then rise from the grave and then die again, its apartment
blocks pitted with so many bullets they looked like Irish lace, its
people massacring each other.

I lived here through 15 years of civil war that took 150,000 lives,
and two Israeli invasions and years of Israeli bombardments that cost
the lives of a further 20,000 of its people. I have seen them armless,
legless, headless, knifed, bombed and splashed across the walls of
houses. Yet they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity
amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any Westerner to shame,
and whose suffering we almost always ignore.

They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-coloured skin
and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their
women are gorgeous and their food exquisite. But what are we saying of
their fate today as the Israelis - in some of their cruellest attacks
on this city and the surrounding countryside - tear them from their
homes, bomb them on river bridges, cut them off from food and water
and electricity? We say that they started this latest war, and we
compare their appalling casualties - 240 in all of Lebanon by last
night - with Israel's 24 dead, as if the figures are the same.

And then, most disgraceful of all, we leave the Lebanese to their fate
like a diseased people and spend our time evacuating our precious
foreigners while tut-tutting about Israel's "disproportionate"
response to the capture of its soldiers by Hizbollah.

I walked through the deserted city centre of Beirut yesterday and it
reminded more than ever of a film lot, a place of dreams too beautiful
to last, a phoenix from the ashes of civil war whose plumage was so
brightly coloured that it blinded its own people. This part of the
city - once a Dresden of ruins - was rebuilt by Rafiq Hariri, the
prime minister who was murdered scarcely a mile away on 14 February
last year.

The wreckage of that bomb blast, an awful precursor to the present war
in which his inheritance is being vandalised by the Israelis, still
stands beside the Mediterranean, waiting for the last UN investigator
to look for clues to the assassination - an investigator who has long
ago abandoned this besieged city for the safety of Cyprus.

At the empty Etoile restaurant - best snails and cappuccino in Beirut,
where Hariri once dined Jacques Chirac - I sat on the pavement and
watched the parliamentary guard still patrolling the façade of the
French-built emporium that houses what is left of Lebanon's democracy.
So many of these streets were built by Parisians under the French
mandate and they have been exquisitely restored, their mock Arabian
doorways bejewelled with marble Roman columns dug from the ancient Via
Maxima a few metres away.

Hariri loved this place and, taking Chirac for a beer one day, he
caught sight of me sitting at a table. "Ah Robert, come over here," he
roared and then turned to Chirac like a cat that was about to eat a
canary. "I want to introduce you, Jacques, to the reporter who said I
couldn't rebuild Beirut!"

And now it is being un-built. The Martyr Rafiq Hariri International
Airport has been attacked three times by the Israelis, its glistening
halls and shopping malls vibrating to the missiles that thunder into
the runways and fuel depots. Hariri's wonderful transnational highway
viaduct has been broken by Israeli bombers. Most of his motorway
bridges have been destroyed. The Roman-style lighthouse has been
smashed by a missile from an Apache helicopter. Only this small jewel
of a restaurant in the centre of Beirut has been spared. So far.

It is the slums of Haret Hreik and Ghobeiri and Shiyah that have been
levelled and "rubble-ised" and pounded to dust, sending a quarter of a
million Shia Muslims to seek sanctuary in schools and abandoned parks
across the city. Here, indeed, was the headquarters of Hizbollah,
another of those "centres of world terror" which the West keeps
discovering in Muslim lands. Here lived Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the
Party of God's leader, a ruthless, caustic, calculating man; and Sayad
Mohamed Fadlallah, among the wisest and most eloquent of clerics; and
many of Hizbollah's top military planners - including, no doubt, the
men who planned over many months the capture of the two Israeli
soldiers last Wednesday.

But did the tens of thousands of poor who live here deserve this act
of mass punishment? For a country that boasts of its pin-point
accuracy - a doubtful notion in any case, but that's not the issue -
what does this act of destruction tell us about Israel? Or about
ourselves?

In a modern building in an undamaged part of Beirut, I come, quite by
chance, across a well known and prominent Hizbollah figure, open-neck
white shirt, dark suit, clean shoes. "We will go on if we have to for
days or weeks or months or..." And he counts these awful statistics
off on the fingers of his left hand. "Believe me, we have bigger
surprises still to come for the Israelis - much bigger, you will see.
Then we will get our prisoners and it will take just a few small
concessions."

I walk outside, feeling as if I have been beaten over the head. Over
the wall opposite there is purple bougainvillaea and white jasmine and
a swamp of gardenias. The Lebanese love flowers, their colour and
scent, and Beirut is draped in trees and bushes that smell like
paradise.

As for the huddled masses from the powder of the bombed-out southern
slums of Haret Hreik, I found hundreds of them yesterday, sitting
under trees and lying on the parched grass beside an ancient fountain
donated to the city of Beirut by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid. How
empires fall.

Far away, across the Mediterranean, two American helicopters from the
USS Iwo Jima could be seen, heading through the mist and smoke towards
the US embassy bunker complex at Awkar to evacuate more citizens of
the American Empire. There was not a word from that same empire to
help the people lying in the park, to offer them food or medical aid.

And across them all has spread a dark grey smoke that works its way
through the entire city, the fires of oil terminals and burning
buildings turning into a cocktail of sulphurous air that moves below
our doors and through our windows. I smell it when I wake in the
morning. Half the people of Beirut are coughing in this filth,
breathing their own destruction as they contemplate their dead.

The anger that any human soul should feel at such suffering and loss
was expressed so well by Lebanon's greatest poet, the mystic Khalil
Gibran, when he wrote of the half million Lebanese who died in the
1916 famine, most of them residents of Beirut:

My people died of hunger, and he who

Did not perish from starvation was

Butchered with the sword;

They perished from hunger

In a land rich with milk and honey.

They died because the vipers and

Sons of vipers spat out poison into

The space where the Holy Cedars and

The roses and the jasmine breathe

Their fragrance.

And the sword continues to cut its way through Beirut. When part of an
aircraft - perhaps the wing-tip of an F-16 hit by a missile, although
the Israelis deny this - came streaking out of the sky over the
eastern suburbs at the weekend, I raced to the scene to find a partly
decapitated driver in his car and three Lebanese soldiers from the
army's logistics unit. These are the tough, brave non-combat soldiers
of Kfar Chim, who have been mending power and water lines these past
six days to keep Beirut alive.

I knew one of them. "Hello Robert, be quick because I think the
Israelis will bomb again but we'll show you everything we can." And
they took me through the fires to show me what they could of the
wreckage, standing around me to protect me.

And a few hours later, the Israelis did come back, as the men of the
small logistics unit were going to bed, and they bombed the barracks
and killed 10 soldiers, including those three kind men who looked
after me amid the fires of Kfar Chim.

And why? Be sure - the Israelis know what they are hitting. That's why
they killed nine soldiers near Tripoli when they bombed the military
radio antennas. But a logistics unit? Men whose sole job was to mend
electricity lines? And then it dawns on me. Beirut is to die. It is to
be starved of electricity now that the power station in Jiyeh is on
fire. No one is to be allowed to keep Beirut alive. So those poor men
had to be liquidated.

Beirutis are tough people and are not easily moved. But at the end of
last week, many of them were overcome by a photograph in their daily
papers of a small girl, discarded like a broken flower in a field near
Ter Harfa, her feet curled up, her hand resting on her torn blue
pyjamas, her eyes - beneath long, soft hair - closed, turned away from
the camera. She had been another "terrorist" target of Israel and
several people, myself among them, saw a frightening similarity
between this picture and the photograph of a Polish girl lying dead in
a field beside her weeping sister in 1939.

I go home and flick through my files, old pictures of the Israeli
invasion of 1982. There are more photographs of dead children, of
broken bridges. "Israelis Threaten to Storm Beirut", says one
headline. "Israelis Retaliate". "Lebanon At War". "Beirut Under
Siege". "Massacre at Sabra and Chatila".

Yes, how easily we forget these earlier slaughters. Up to 1,700
Palestinians were butchered at Sabra and Chatila by Israel's proxy
Christian militia allies in September of 1982 while Israeli troops -
as they later testified to Israel's own court of inquiry - watched the
killings. I was there. I stopped counting the corpses when I reached
100. Many of the women had been raped before being knifed or shot.

Yet when I was fleeing the bombing of Ghobeiri with my driver Abed
last week, we swept right past the entrance of the camp, the very spot
where I saw the first murdered Palestinians. And we did not think of
them. We did not remember them. They were dead in Beirut and we were
trying to stay alive in Beirut, as I have been trying to stay alive
here for 30 years.

I am back on the sea coast when my mobile phone rings. It is an
Israeli woman calling me from the United States, the author of a fine
novel about the Palestinians. "Robert, please take care," she says. "I
am so, so sorry about what is being done to the Lebanese. It is
unforgivable. I pray for the Lebanese people, and the Palestinians,
and the Israelis." I thank her for her thoughtfulness and the
graceful, generous way she condemned this slaughter.

Then, on my balcony - a glance to check the location of the Israeli
gunboat far out in the sea-smog - I find older clippings. This is from
an English paper in 1840, when Beirut was a great Ottoman city.
"Beyrouth" was the dateline. "Anarchy is now the order of the day, our
properties and personal safety are endangered, no satisfaction can be
obtained, and crimes are committed with impunity. Several Europeans
have quitted their houses and suspended their affairs, in order to
find protection in more peaceable countries."

On my dining-room wall, I remember, there is a hand-painted lithograph
of French troops arriving in Beirut in 1842 to protect the Christian
Maronites from the Druze. They are camping in the Jardin des Pins,
which will later become the site of the French embassy where, only a
few hours ago, I saw French men and women registering for their
evacuation. And outside the window, I hear again the whisper of
Israeli jets, hidden behind the smoke that now drifts 20 miles out to
sea.

Fairouz, the most popular of Lebanese singers, was to have performed
at this year's Baalbek festival, cancelled now like all Lebanon's
festivals of music, dance, theatre and painting. One of her most
popular songs is dedicated to her native city:

To Beirut - peace to Beirut with all my heart

And kisses - to the sea and clouds,

To the rock of a city that looks like an old sailor's face.

From the soul of her people she makes wine,

From their sweat, she makes bread and jasmine.

2006-07-20T11:58:00.000-04:00

http://mirvat.blogspot.com/2006/07/united-for-peace-and-justice-please.html

2006-07-19T23:06:00.000-04:00

KOULOUNA LIL WATAN

I haven't seen so much unity. so much love. so much caring for one another in my life. in my Lebanon... the Lebanon I carry in my heart no matter how far away I drift.

"how is your family. inshallah bkheir?" "3aysheen" "sho talee3 be eedone"
Today we had our peace rally in Boston. we had one voice. one heart. and an immeasurable longing and fear for everyone back home.

People stopped. questioned. photographed. cheered. and cried.

-b7ebak ya lobnan ya watanee b7ebaq.

-Ya BEYROUTH ya set el donya ya beyrouth! komee men ta7t el radmee. koomee.

-raje3 yet3amar raje3 raje3 lebnan, raje3 met7alee w aktar akter ma kan.

-sa2aloonee shoo sayer be balad el 3eed, mazroo3a 3al dayer nar w bawareed, eltelone baladna 3am yekhla2 jdeed lebnan el karame wel sha3b el 3aneed.

-ghabet shams el 7a2, w sar el fajr ghroub, sadr el shams ensh2 w sakaret el droub.

Bnerfod na7na nmout. eloolone ra7 neb2a...

2006-07-18T22:33:00.000-04:00

Peace Rally for Lebanon

The humanitarian situation in Lebanon, already catastrophic, is rapidly deteriorating. Civilian death toll is currently in the hundreds and continues to rise, many of them families and children. Because of the Israeli siege on Lebanon, food supply and medical aid to innocent Lebanese civilians is unreservedly obstructed. Destruction of civilian infrastructure, major roads and international highways prevents anyone from leaving or accessing sinistered areas.

The Lebanese-American community of Greater Boston, in support of the people of Lebanon, is organizing a peaceful demonstration and candlelight vigil Wednesday July 19th at Copley Square, Boston. The rally will begin at 5pm and will progress into a candlelight vigil until midnight.

We urge everyone to attend and help us voice our message to the world:

“STOP THE VIOLENCE!”

Please check the following website for more information (including contacts, dress code, flags and slogans): http://www.justiceforlebanon.com

2006-07-18T10:54:00.000-04:00

www.justiceforlebanon.com

2006-07-16T13:15:00.000-04:00

وحدن بيبقوا متل زهرِ البيلسان

وحدهن...بيقطفوا أوراق الزمان

2006-07-16T00:29:00.000-04:00

2006-07-09T23:55:00.000-04:00

A moment in what might have been…

a place that no one might have seen
a word that someone might have heard
but a promise that was never learned
and a part, deep in a heart that will always stay with you…

2006-07-07T13:39:00.000-04:00

And so is life… and time.

He picked up one stone to see what’s under it. He found another stone. Several actually. He removed them to see more. Then more. Then more. And that’s how he started digging a hole.
For years now he has been picking up stones, throwing them away, to see what’s underneath… he doesn’t know that what’s underneath the stones is more stones. He doesn’t know that what he is throwing away is what’s waiting for him once more. He doesn’t know that yes he could find something precious buried deep in the earth, but only rarely, and that earth is earth, and every grain of dirt is as valuable as another, and that he can’t keep on throwing away stones waiting to find a diamond…
And who could help him now find all the stones he’s thrown away…

2006-06-30T07:11:00.000-04:00

L'air du temps...

2006-06-23T11:46:00.001-04:00

And so it goes…

Only if you knew how it happened… you would never judge me. But why should I say? I never did and never will. How is it that you could pour your heart out to a homeless stranger in the park, but not to your heart?
That’s how it has always been… you see me in the whirlpool of everyone’s attention. But I.. I sink, and when I sink, I sink alone… like a stone.
I ran away from home as a child. I found you by my side. I ran away and you ran after me. You want us to go back home now. I don’t have a home.
Know I will always have your smell. And that stays in my heart.
Only if you knew how it happened though. Only if you knew how and why my heart is made of stone. Empathy, you say? I feel every heartbeat of every soul that passes through my door.
But I don’t associate with any of it.
I am no one. And no one knows me.
And then, there you are. I... I found you there inside.. here.. too much here. What will I do with you? I don’t know.
Go home now.
and always remember what I used to say, when one faces one’s own demons, one faces them alone. So don’t come back looking for me once more.
But it’s fine. What can I say? sometimes it’s dark, but I am used to it now. The blind smell their way to happiness. And I’ve always been a good nose.
And this time, I tell you love, next fall will smell of gold…

2006-06-21T12:27:00.000-04:00

A Puccini state of mind... absolutely!

Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore...

2006-06-20T18:33:00.000-04:00

When mania visits…

He walked in the kitchen, went to the fridge, and systematically took down all the photos from the magnet clips.
One by one. He stuffed them back in the envelope, and put them back in the drawer where they were before.
He wondered why in the first place he bought the clips earlier this afternoon.
He stared at the clips, empty, hanging idly… waiting to grip a moment, to commemorate a face on a fridge door… eager to display a smile, a parent, a friend… he tried to spell out the letters ‘N’ and ‘O’ with the clips, but there weren’t enough of them… so he scattered them back, randomly, and stared at them again… Why did he do that?

He does not have any single picture displayed in his whole apartment.
Is it the faces? Does he find them too… obtrusive? too ‘there’, with him, living moments that are supposed to be of solitude?
Did he reach that level of ‘aloneness’ that he cannot share his space even with a picture?

Or maybe he was simply unable to decide which pictures to display.. people.. parents.. friends… there are too many of them.
No, not that.
Maybe he thinks that no one should be present. ‘present’…
‘All passed’ echoed in his head… All go back to drawers with time, or sit in closed albums at best. As if of their own will.
Or wasn't it? Was it his will. Well, yes maybe it was. But was this cruel? (He thought).
Maybe, but this is his memories and actually… his fridge door!
He brightened and felt justified by the idea (he thought this ‘out loud’ in fact, with a shake of the head to mark defiance… but against whom? he had no one, so he laughed at the thought as well… with much more merriment than you think).
Did he feel sad? yes. a little, of course. Estranged? perhaps. Odd? but how? How could one feel odd to oneself? skin to flesh to bone… to the very soul.

She visits unaccompanied…

2006-06-19T14:11:00.000-04:00

The cow parade is in Boston and it's... adorable!!

2006-06-17T12:46:00.000-04:00

When wine turns to blood...

- Who cares about what happened in Drafour?
- Darfur.
- Tell me something tender… Something sweet!
- You are crazy, you know.
- Life is sweet, love, only when you are a little crazy.
- A little, yes. But not head in the clouds all the time.
- My head is on your lap now… and besides life is less bitter when you care to dream…
- And the pain goes away with a gentle kiss, right? mmm…
....................“Le chagrin est vite apaisé,
....................et se console d' un baiser”
....................(sang in the background).
- Not the pain I saw today… not the pain of Drafour…
- Darfur, love... No, now you tell me something sweet.
....................“Parlez-moi d' amour,
....................redites-moi des choses tendres”
....................(sang in the background).
- Du cœur on guérit la blessure, par un serment qui le rassure…
....................“Vous savez bien
....................Que dans le fond je n' en crois rien
....................Mais cependant je veux encore
....................Écouter ce mot que j' adore”
....................(sang in the background)
- Bon, malgré Drafour… je crois que je t’aime encore.
(she said this with a beaming malicious cat-grin, unzipping his pants while fixing her gaze on his fatigued face)

2006-06-08T12:13:00.000-04:00

and it does go on…

Her lifetime gatherings stuffed in boxes waiting to be moved one more time…
She feels apprehensive about where she is going, about where life is taking her next, but she tries not to think about it. She tries to think of her little city, tries to remember what has already begun to fade away…
How strange memory is! How we filter our lives through the sieve of everyday-realities.
Later, she knows she will sit down… in a new house, by a new fire place, sipping wine from the last surviving glass… she will sit down and bring out the memories… only when they lose their power to hurt, do we bring them out. one by one. eagerly, like unfolding a story to a child. like opening a long-waiting present. we tear off the wrapping paper and begin to play, to tell our story. the story of where we came from, of who we met and what they did… we talk of how we are writing a new entry, a new chapter…
But for now, she looks at her boxes, casting monstrous shadows on her white walls… well, the walls are not hers anymore, only the boxes, and her thousand memories put away safely in the back of her mind, for a better time to come… for a fire place, for a glass of wine, and a friend, eager to share his stories of what had happened before.

2006-06-07T12:30:00.000-04:00

Message in a bottle…

On the way to extinction…
my tolerance
my calm
my anger
my reaction

A thank-you note…
for a hand
for a call
for a smile
and a heart of gold

Nostalgia resurfaced…
I missed the smell of fixer
my photos are digital
and Adobe adds my filters
(lethargy)

A note of self-consciousness…
I could smell my own smell
When would I desensitize
to life, to pain
to lose my own name

Prêt à porter individuality…
My identity is a burden
I like the uniqueness it has
but tired of your wary glance
I’ll vanish in the crowd now

Amputated memories…
what happened didn’t happen
start concealing evidence
from impromptu murder scenes
What didn’t happen happened

2006-06-06T16:31:00.000-04:00

Shiva at Sanayeh square...

2006-06-05T16:06:00.000-04:00

Let me be your prey… one more time.

“When was the last time you heard her voice?” was whispered.
‘I can’t hear! I can’t hear!’ Chocking with tears he cried out.
(more whispers. more voices. faded. Indistinguishable.)
‘I heard my name among the voices! I begged for my hand to be held. But she, once more, disappeared in the folds of my imagination…’
He launched himself across the room, started banging on the door, rattling the knob, screaming ‘let me in’…
‘LET ME IN!
I need my voice to be heard.
I want you to see my scars.
Let me in; I want you in my life.
I need you to pet my cat.
I need you to share my bed.
Let me in.
My flesh left once more
streaks of blood on your gate
but they don’t scare me anymore.
They don’t scar me anymore!
I have no more bones to break
no more fingers
no more nails
to scratch the wood of your door
to burrow my way through your walls..
All I have are muffled screams
they come to you between sobs
Let me in
I need food and drink
I need sex
I need a bed
Let me in
You are my home…
Let me in’
She opened her ribs like a peacock,
like a peacock butterfly,
spread her flytrap in the sky.
Venus. de Milo? Venus In Furs?
Her kiss on his lips once more,
froze his heart in her grip.
“I told you to came back…
I can never have enough
of the taste of your flesh.”
In her lilting voice she said
while taking another bite
of what was left of his heart…

2006-06-01T22:40:00.000-04:00

Sufism on the six train...

I heard a sad melody on the subway tonight. a wailing violin.
The kind of music that seeps through your brain, then your body, then… leaves you emotionally paralyzed.
blood slowly dripping from your body.
drip.
drip.
drip.
until you are selfless. you are no more. until you feel melting.. amalgamating with the rest of the car.
you stop having personal boundaries. you f.. fuse. you merge. slowly.
titillating it was. a mystical orgy.
no more bars, no more seats, no more people, just a little blob of existence. of nothing. shapeless. more intimate than sex with someone you love. more tender…
quiet.

2006-05-27T00:24:00.000-04:00

Playing piano in his running shoes…

He left the party late that night. He doesn’t like it when they come back home with him. He doesn’t know what to do with them, or himself after the sex is over… they sit in her bed. He pretends to be sleeping…
Tonight, he left alone. He didn’t even flirt with anyone there. It was one of those nights when one feels invisible. uninvited…
Home. alone. at dawn… he plays.
Chopin. Prelude numero 2.
Pam. rest. pa pam pam. rest. paam.
And he stopped. He closed the piano, and stared at his reflection on the shiny wood, his face slightly distorted by the words ‘Steinway & Sons’… he carefully dropped back the crochet throw over the keyboard cover, and silently muttered something about these ridiculous things that’d upset her if not done the way she wants. He didn’t mind though. not then. not since she left. he even centered the dried flowers on the body and smiled, knowing how this would please her… but thinking how much he hates to put something on the lid, and how much he likes to open his concert grand while playing…
He’s put on his jogging gear. but came back to the piano. he continued the Prelude. he played it again. then again.
Pam. rest. pa pam pam. rest. paam.
And again he stopped. He closed the piano and saw her reflection on the shiny wood, her face distorted by the words ‘Steinway & Sons’… she’s here. she’s back. But only to take her dried flowers, her crochet throw. to pack them with her things and leave… He felt a twinge of guilt for he was happy for a second… yes, a trace of happiness. because now he could play his piano open. But he immediately understood his pain, his loss… he would have no one to listen to him playing.
Silence. a pause. his running shoes squeaked on the pedal. she left.
he continued the prelude.
Pam. rest.
he thought about how much goes on during a note of silence between two lovers.
pa pam pam. rest.
he thought about how much was said during two notes in a prelude.
paam.

2006-05-26T13:56:00.000-04:00

From a mother to her son: I WAIT.

I wait for you…
I wait for you my love.
I wait for you to come back.
for your brother to come back.
I wait..
I talk to a picture. I cry to a wall.
I sob in silence. Wait for the call.
And I wait… more and more.
I count the days. I count the hours.
the seconds for your call…
love,
no matter how long you go
how far away,
know
you will always stay
right here in my arms
near to my side
in my heart..
know
I wait for you
My heart with you
I wait for you
With all the longing
of all the lovers
put together…
I wait for you
wistful. drained.
alone and aged..

To this extent I don’t matter?!
and my tears don’t matter?
and my love doesn’t matter?
I am afraid
this distance will take
a bite of my love
every day
you longer stay
away…
why did you stop..
asking about me?
why did you stop..
calling me?
all this while you plan to stay?!
to stay away
from where hearts sing your name?
from where tears wash your pain?
for how long would I live?
and you are..
still very far..
Come back.
‘Come back!?!’ I cry
My love calls you
My heart calls you
Come back!
Come back my son.
I wait for you
I wait for you
I wait for you every day…

(pic: El-Mama; Rawsheh, Beyrouth 2003)

PS: this post is inspired by Azzeza Jallal’s song ‘Mistaniyak’, which Mar’s latest post reminded me off. The story goes that my parents were out on one of their usual, long Sunday road trips, and my father put on this song in the car (Mistaniyak) for my mother to listen to it. She burst into tears, and was so embarrassed when my father relayed the story to me on the phone.

2006-05-24T18:37:00.000-04:00

ROACH BROOCH!?!
(for fz...)
Science 19 May 2006:
Vol. 312. no. 5776, p. 979

Madagascar giant hissing cockroaches make fun pets, as some bug aficionados know. But Salt Lake City, Utah-based fashion designer Jared Gold has taken cockroach appreciation to a new level. He recently released a line of live, bejeweled hissing cockroaches, complete with several leashes that can be attached to a pin on a person's clothes. Austrian Swarovski crystals are embedded in the roaches' "hoods."
The glittering insects go for $80 online at blackchandelier.com, and Gold reports receiving about 25 orders a week. With proper care--the cockroaches come with instructions, which include cleaning their aquarium regularly, ensuring they receive a fruit-filled diet, and keeping them warm and moist--the insects can live about a year.

Not everyone is gung ho about the latest trend. Michael McGraw, spokesperson for the animal-rights group PETA, observes that "Mr. Gold is essentially mutilating [the animals] to sell them." Entomologist Shripat Kamble of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, adds that they may not be the ideal accessory: "Hissing cockroaches secrete certain irritants a lot of people are allergic to."
Credit: Maendi Brooks

2006-05-23T18:29:00.000-04:00

Isn’t Pyrex supposed to be heat resistant?!?!
(complaints)

The week started.
Monday.
I walked into the lab.
“hey, what’s up?”
“I’m waiting.”
“waiting for what?”
“For Friday.”
“good one.” (But I know what he means!)
The day progressed with phone calls from the international office, saying that my visa application is missing a document. delays. crap. more carp. a $1000 fee (WHAT??)
Manuscript. more revisions. more revisions. (just more! I’ll be dead before publishing it – postmortem publication, how avant-garde!)
Work. I don’t have cells. (didn’t I ask for cells?!)
American Express. another bill. (didn’t they receive my last – this change-of-address thing is so bogus.)
Fedex. They lost my shipment. (insurance? are you serious?)

Alright then. The best way to deal with a bad day is to end it. period. no more. I am going home.
“I am not leaving the house again!”… not even to get dinner. I’ll prepare something. I only have some frozen vegetables. Well, that’ll do. not leaving the house.
I put the frozen stuff in a Pyrex tray. Now that tray has been in the oven a few times before at pretty elevated temperatures. So I thought, “well, I’ll put it on the stove to melt the stuff a bit, then transfer it to the oven”… “ah, let me shake it a little”.. so I hold the tray in both hands, wiggle it for a second, and then.. and then… the whole thing EXPLODES IN MY FACE (thank goodness I had my glasses on). I got cuts all over (small cuts.. but still they hurt), and glass shrapnel and my pathetic vegetables all over the kitchen and me.
I examined running down the street screaming and flapping my arms (like one does), but judged against it and got take-out…

And it didn’t stop today!!
The pain from one of the cuts on my left foot turned to numbness. I got my first cell culture contamination. My experiment is delayed. and…
OK. I’ll go work at home now…

(thanks for listening)

2006-05-22T12:25:00.000-04:00

MY OUTER CRUST:

I am not obsessive compulsive, but I am appalled when people use different ‘random’ fonts in their presentations, shocked beyond belief when they do it in a manuscript, and dissolve in tears if published unnoticed.
I have a bizarre sense of humor, and would like to live a caricature of my own life.
I enjoy editing my friends’ papers.
I use black for ‘control’ in a graph while everyone else uses white.
I don’t understand why people put the flap of the toilet paper roll facing the wall, while it clearly should be facing away form it.
I am an atheist, but I like to listen to prayers sometimes for the emotional experience.
I am eccentric.
I don’t like babies.
I love old people, and always think about how much history they’ve made.
I never cry, and wish I could. The only thing that could make me cry is self-pity.
I hate overly plaintive people.
I have a really bad memory (I once forgot the pin number for my ATM card).
I hate the subway.
I think I have agoraphobia. I love big parties though.
My ultimate most severe phobia is from cockroaches (writing the word makes me wince).
My elementary school teacher envisioned that I would become a movie director when I grow up. I became a scientist, and I never did grow up…
I have a huge metal brace with 12 screws implanted in my back. It makes metal detectors go off in airports.
I hate the vulgar. and I think people should always be polite and proper even in a casual atmosphere among friends.. even during an argument.
I am embarrassed if I am spoken to in a language I don’t understand, and I didn’t understand.
My parents are a couple of good friends to me, I love visiting them to catch up and gossip.
My brother is my parent.
My cousin is my brother.
I live out my fantasies and think that it’s good to do so.
I have absolutely no sense of direction and get lost all the time.
I am romantic, but not sensitive, and people have difficulty understanding that.
I love the ocean, and believe that I directly evolved from a fish.
I get severe lower back pain and I learned to ignore it.
I think I am developing some sort of manic depression because of the weather in Boston.
I love to check the etymology of words. a lot.
I truly abhor celery, but when my friends secretly add it to something they cooked for me I don’t usually take notice.
I wake up everyday at 3 in the morning to eat then go back to sleep.
I don’t have a TV. and can’t stand watching it. I love to watch movies though.
I can’t drive a car, and don’t think that it’s a necessity.
I am maniacally obsessed with balconies, yet I didn’t have one for the last 5 years.
I love rooftops, and get so thrilled when I go out on one.
The cello is my favorite instrument.
I paint while listening to music.
I love going to solo recitals.
I think my sense of smell is more advanced than the average person.
I want to retire in Montevideo, or Buenos Aires when I am old. I started learning Spanish.
I love modesty yet some people think I am arrogant.
It’s extremely difficult to offend me. And I usually have to consult with a third person to know if what had been said is actually considered ‘offensive’.
I am not confrontational, yet I always have to speak my mind even if it killed me, and one day it will.
I hate having fights with people, and never understand the reason why people should. yet I have enough fights on my hands to prove that I do instigate them sometimes.
Edith Piaf was my favorite singer during my early teen years.
My violin teacher, when I was a kid, told me that I suck. My parents used to beg me to stop playing when I was practicing. So I guess my music was painful. I wish I could play though.
I do not own a single piece of clothing with anything written or drawn on it. this is completely unintentional (I just noticed it few days ago).
I hate propaganda even when constructive.
I hate revolving doors, they make me nervous, especially when there're a lot of people and you have to synchronize your pace with theirs otherwise you'll get squished.
I used to think it’s extremely difficult to talk about one’s self, but I guess it’s not… hehehe.

2006-05-21T23:44:00.000-04:00

Meet me at Mulberry street...

(having fun at photoshop)

2006-05-20T18:05:00.000-04:00

Since last time you saw me...

She was saying that she misses me…
-yeah, me too.
-No I still miss you right now.
-but I am right here!
-you don’t understand. I miss you even when you are here next to me.
-…
-I remembered now how I always missed you, even when we were together.

She always bewilders me with a new concept… still manages to feed me a new impression whenever I see her… a new notion of us. separately and together.
A new longing that we concealed since that conversation, has been growing within me. within us. a restored desire. a revived lust. and how strong lust is when starting anew!

2006-05-18T21:49:00.000-04:00

Auburn...

Hysterical laughter
Louder than thunder
Broke the silence in the room…

When his gaze wondered outside the window, he noticed that he could only see the people in the building in front.
He wanted more.
He wanted to see a tree, a sea… a horizon.
He had no horizon looking out of his window.
He could see the sky, but that doesn’t thrill him anymore.
Not since he cruelly discovered that he cannot fly. He still makes flying noises flapping his hands, running across the room or jumping on the bed, but he knows that it would only hurt if he jumped out of the window again.

He heard from the warden that the woman in front has burnt her entire apartment building one night, before coming to live here.
There was no moon at all, and she wanted some light that night.
She was so provoked by the gloom of her apartment, that she’s put fire to the curtains.
Since then he knows how fascinated she is by the glaze of a flame.
He knows and he understands. After all aren’t we all willing to pay any price for a good fire when we really want one?
He wanted her. Although he never met her.
He pictures her with flowing red hair… ‘burning with desire’.
But she was very loud today.
Usually she doesn’t say much. But when she incarnates her persona, as he likes to say, she wouldn’t stop singing. A shrieking soprano that wouldn’t stop until tranquilized by some dose of morphine.
He also heard that she used to be a house wife, from aristocratic origin. That she killed her two children before setting fire to the house.
She was performing Medea today. Again.

He gazes listlessly out of the window, staring at the people in the building in front.
He feels he knows them by now. He does. He doesn’t know their names, or what they do during the day. But he knows their nighttime habits. He feels their feelings and watches their fights. He knows them.

He pictures himself in their apartments. As his apartment. With his red hair woman. Bickering over the dinner table, then pushing the dishes aside and having the most meaningless feelingless sex…

He jerked off at the window, engrossed in his reverie.

2006-05-17T10:47:00.000-04:00

Club des fatigues de naissance...

Growing up I had (along with my cousins) a list of things to do or to be to belong to the ‘Club des fatigues de naissance’. I don’t remember all of the rules, but here’re some that I do:
- Never do today, what you could postpone for tomorrow.
- If you get the urge to work, sit down, take a deep breath, and it’ll pass.
- If you see someone resting, help him/her.
- We are born tired and we live to rest.
- A lot of resting never killed anyone.
- Love your bed like you love yourself.
- Rest during the day to sleep well at night.

(pic: The Siesta, Paul Gauguin - The Met)