Bye Bye, Beirut

This is my last blogging day in Lebanon until September, which frankly is so far away that I feel like I'm never coming back. And let's face it. I might not come back. Ever. Over the past two-ish years I often wondered if I'd ever miss Beirut at some distant future point. For quite a while it didn't look promising. I was sick of everything broken, everything dirty, everything disorganized, everything Lebanon. Then there was the war, the horribly mismanaged evacuation, the gut-wrenching uncertainty and powerlessness, the aching sense of loss. Loss. There are the people that I became attached to in spite of myself and hopes that I never managed to let go of. There are places that have become the wallpaper of my existence. There are smells, sounds, flavors that I found here and have learned to rely on. This has become my home. Love it, hate it, want to see it leveled to the ground but don't you dare change it.

That's my Lebanon.

Don't Jump on the Art

One of our favorite public parks in Beirut has a bit of a sculpture garden along its southern ridge. We were there recently and the girls were doing their thing.


Look! I caught Dandelion mid-jump!

Star discovered the joys of jumping on this "thing" two years ago, and once Dandelion learned to jump she joined her. It's actually quite springy.

Not that I usually advocate jumping on art, but I have never seen anything wrong with this. The other sculptures in the park are equally accessible for climbing and indeed are climbed upon.

I've always wondered about the shape, and recently I figured out why it looked familiar. It looks familiar because it is familiar. Duh. It's the drawing of an elephant that has been swallowed by a snake in The Little Prince. The Prince would have been disappointed in my ability to spot snake-swallowed elephants.

I was right about the elephant-inside-a-snake thing too. If you look carefully you can just barely read HOMMAGE A ST. EXUPERY on the end where Star is jumping. I wish I could tell you more about this. Who made it? When? What else are they up to now? No idea. Maybe if I clear away some of the scrub growing around the edges I'll find more clues.

Oh, and I intend to let my kids keep on jumping. I doubt the Prince would mind.

Arman Beirut

A long, long time ago, Del put up a picture of Arman's 1995 Espoir de Paix.


Her picture is a good deal better. Its hard to get a good picture of it, and anyway, I wasn't really trying. Go see hers. It shows it from a different angle.

Anyway, ever since her post, I've been wondering exactly where to find it. Since directions are impossible here and basically don't exist I was so pleased to happen upon it by chance one day as I was driving home from my husband's ancestral village in the valley. With the pesky location problem solved I'd been waiting for the right day to go visit it. And today was the day.

If you click over to Del's blog, you'll see that there's some negative sentiment about this monument to the Lebanese Army. It's ugly, sure, but that's not really a problem for contemporary art. Ugly is our old standby.

It it has an important flaw and this is it: the Espoir de Paix in an ineffective memorial. This was comissioned for the 50th anniversary of the Lebanese Army. So, lets ask ourselves what an army ought to be. Well, at the very least it should not be stuck, encumbered, weighed down, static, literally made up of obsolete equipment that is trapped in cement anyway. None of the associations are good.

Well, Arman's reputation is a good association, but only for the art-obsessed. They know that it is significant that something like this is here in Beirut. But that's something for the culture crowd to cheer about, not the army.

The Birthday that Wasn't

Today, Star ought to have had a little birthday party at school, but there was much ado about nothing in Beirut today and school was canceled. But I wasn't to know that last night when I was preparing for the festivities. Star decided that bubble-blow would be a great party favor for all her little friends at school. I liked that idea, except for the fact that bubble-blow is exactly the kind of thing that gets branded all the time. You can't just get bubbles, they're going to be barbie, pooh bear, dora, or diego bubbles. That's bad. Yes, it is. I think kids ought to be free from that kind of thing, especially when they’re blowing bubbles.

So, I got out my wrapping paper and covered up the labels. I did a nice job too, see?


I've got all 25 of them ready (oh, I don't think there are that many kids in her class, but I figured better too many than too few) and waiting. Just as soon as the "mood on the ground" stabilizes and people go back to their day-in day-out, Star will have a great class party. This weekend of course, there will be two parties. Dandelion on Saturday, Star on Sunday.

See and be Seen

I'm about half way through the first book in the Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz. Why am I reading the trilogy? First, because Mahfouz is the only Arabic-language writer to ever receive the Nobel Prize for literature. Second, it came highly recommended. Third, it is well written. Not even being translated into English could ruin the quality of the writing.

(those reasons are in chronological order, not priority order. Nobel Prizes have not redeemed other authors I’ve picked up in the past)

So, like I said, I'm about half way into the first book, Palace Walk, and I just (literally 5 minutes ago) read the passage where Amina, the mother in the story's central family, has been persuaded by her children to venture out into the street for the first time EVER. This is a very traditional family, with a very authoritarian, unkind, and distant father. He leaves for a short business trip when her teen-aged and adult children convince her that there is no sin in visiting a nearby mosque/shrine (Amina is devout). She covers herself with her maid's shawl, veils her face, and is accompanied by her male sons. We get a third-person omniscient description of it:

As she crossed the threshold of the outer door and entered the street, she experienced a moment of panic. Her mouth felt dry and her pleasure was dispelled by a fit of anxiety. She had an oppressive feeling of doing something wrong. She moved slowly and grasped Kamal's hand nervously. Her gait seemed disturbed and unsteady as though she had not mastered the first principles of walking. She was gripped by intense embarrassment as she showed herself to the eyes of people she had known for ages but only through the peephole in the enclosed balcony. Uncle Hasanayn, the barber, Darwish, who sold beans, al-Fuli, the milkman, Bayumi, the drinks vendor, and Abu Sari', who sold snacks - she imagined that they all recognized her jsut as she did them. She had difficulty convincing herself of the obvious fact that none of them had ever seen her before in their lives.

I've often thought about what the veil does both to the one veiled and to the one seeing it. It certainly sets up an uneven relationship, one in which I would guess that the concealed party has more power. Sort of like the soldier in camo--there's a degree of protection in being able to vanish.

I've also thought a lot about my relationship to the fact that some women cover (to varying extents). Our neighbors on the floor below are Muslim, and the wife covers her head and wears clothing that covers her from neck to feet (pant-suits, but the kind that reveal nothing). Inside the house though, she dresses just like me. My husband has never seen that. He's also never seen her hair, the way it compliments and softens her face. He has no idea that she is beautiful. I, because I'm a woman too, have access to a part of her world that is not available to any man who isn't blood-related to her.

Appearances, what we allow others (and which others at that) to see is ultimately about control. You can't stop others using their eyes to judge the world. The best you can hope for is to really get what it is that they might see in you.

Love Hate

At about 3:30 this afternoon I decided to drive the kids to their favorite park, and about half way there plowed into the back of a car stopped ahead of me. It was embarrassingly stupid of me. I had taken my foot off the pedal for a split second to mess with my sock, and then couldn’t find the brake pedal in time. Quite likely the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Ever. (Which I suppose is comforting. Stupid goes downhill a long way from there, but still.) It took more than an hour and a half to sort everything out, and it was an even bigger mess that it might have been because our insurance had lapsed. Yes, it had.

Star fell asleep like a little cherub, while Dandelion played contentedly in her car seat. Karim appeared at the last minute like a deus ex machina, and prevented any further bungling of things by me, and sent me home with a wave of the hand and an “I’ll take care of it.”

I swear, I’d hate this place if I didn’t love it so much. Or maybe I’d love it if I didn’t hate it the way I do.

Lebanese Mother's Day

If there has been a downside (which is not a foregone conclusion) to WHM here at Impart Art, it is that I have blogged nothing about Lebanon, and nothing about my kids, which are big parts of my world. I'm going to try to bring all that in today, since this is our Mother's Day.

Yesterday, Star's preschool had a party for all the moms. I walked in 15 minutes late, which is nothing in Lebanon. Late happens all the time. So it should bear some significance that when I arrived late, my child was the only one without at least one maternal figure sitting close by (yes, some kids had mom and Grandma). All the other moms where there. All of them. They had quite obviously already started the crafty-portion of the day's festivities. Star was totally unconcerned by my late arrival, but I got enough dirty looks from the other moms to make up for it.

It's a big deal here, Mother's Day. My husband keeps track of holidays by the banner ads online. But with only 15% of the Lebanese online, advertisers are sticking to billboards. For the past week or so, many billboards around town have been given over to suggesting anything from shoes to luxury watches for Mom. Some of these have been absolutely fascinating. Oh yes, I will elaborate.

1. There's a huge billboard on the costal highway from Exotica, the local fancy-schmancy (expensive) florist. The advert's only text is the company name and 'Mother's Day'. It shows a child's hand holding up a cut flower, and a woman's hand lazily half-inclined toward it. I swear, the positions of the hands are exactly out of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. In Michelangelo's image, God is about to give Adam life, through the touch of both beings' gently reaching fingers. How interesting, to put the mother in as God, the child in as Adam, and reverse the giving role. Are children who appreciate their mother essentially giving her life? Does a child repay the gift of his/her life by showing devotion to the mother (in the form of an annual flower)? What does it mean?!?

2. All along the road to Damascus, another billboard will greet you again and again. It shows two women seated, one on the right and the other on the left half of the image. Both are young, pretty, smiling. The one on the right is dressed in a suit with hair nicely done. She's a woman ready for the office. Her gaze is directed at the woman on the left whose clothing is comfortable, a t-shirt and knit pants, obviously not an office type. We see these two women just as the comfortably-clad one has unwrapped her mothers day gift--a lovely pair of shoes. Text running along the top reads: It's Mother's Day, Not Yours. Huh? Women who wear suits aren't moms? Or is it women in the work place aren't moms? Or moms are dowdy, so get them fancy shoes! Or what? What does it mean?

I'll get pictures when I can. Our camera is currently spending time with Matthew in NY.

Feb. 14

This is the second anniversary of Hariri’s assassination. Our family has been instructed to stay home, which we are mostly doing, and it seems that no one else is. Massive demonstrations are going on down town, and I admit that I am worried about what might happen today and in the coming weeks. I’ve heard honking, yelling, sirens, etc. all morning. There is nothing quite like the threat of civil war/disturbance to nullify my interest in writing about art. It seems that everything is ok at the moment.

The girls and I made these hearts for Valentine’s Day.


Yes Kathleen, that’s the scrapbooking paper you gave me. Thanks again. Star also decided that we needed a cake (since all holidays require cake, didn’t you know that already?), so I made one with peaches and cream. If you know someone I love, kiss them for me.

Tragic Consequences befall PFVP

Beirut--Recent reports confirm that the P. Family Video Project (PFVP) has been brought to an abrupt halt. Sources close to the family have confirmed that the video camera was rendered non-operational by the youngest P., Dandelion, less than a week ago. Eyewitness accounts place the camera with the child mere seconds before it plunged downward, violently colliding with the composite-stone and marble floors of the family’s dwelling. Yet the family chose to take no immediate action, a choice that certainly did nothing to prevent tragic consequences. “I honestly didn’t think anything of it. We’ve dropped that thing a hundred times and nothing ever happened to it. I didn’t even consider that it might be broken,” the family’s disheartened matriarch confided. “Later, when the girls were finger painting, I thought it would be great to capture that moment—but the camera definitely wasn’t functioning.” It was at that point that she noticed the camera’s cracked casing, damage surely caused by the impact.

The PFVP began early in 2004 with the family’s purchase of a Sony Handy Cam. After creating the project’s first 15 DVDs, the camera began to emit a high-pitched whine, and was promptly replaced with the higher-end Panasonic ?? in October 2005. Five DVDs later, the camera was abducted from the family home on March 6, 2006. It remains at large. Since that time the PFVP has relied on the very JVC Digital Video Camera that met its demise less than a week ago.

Of course, the family has only begun to consider how they will cope with this most recent loss. “It was a good camera. Even though it was inexpensive, I was very pleased by the quality of the video output. I don’t know what we will do without it, and I’m not sure how we will replace it. All of our previous cameras were purchased in the United States. The Lebanese technology market is a joke—so we won’t buy one on location,” a family spokesperson said.

Importing a new camera is not an option and the family is not expecting to visit the US until July 2007. If they wait until then to replace the unit, it will mark an unprecedented delay in the PFVP’s production.

Inside sources have suggested that the viewers might not notice this most recent setback. “We have five DVDs waiting in the wings. We expect those disks to bridge any gap that our audiences may have perceived. By the time the as-yet unreleased disks have been distributed and viewed it is likely that we will have resolved hardware issue we now face.”

Still, the PFVP’s critics and fans alike have expressed concern about the future viability of the project. In a telephone conversation yesterday, one critic questioned the family’s commitment to the project. “At some point, you have to consider what these folks are up against. They live in a war-torn wasteland that can barely keep the power on and the sky from falling, and you wanna tell me that they’re going to find the kind of technology they need? Ok, ok, sure they can find it, but c’mon. These people are cheap. They aren’t going to shell out $200 more than they would pay at Staples.” Although prospects are grim, PFVP fans met in candle-light vigils through out the country to sing and pray. “We are here to give people hope. To tell them not to give up. PFVP is forever. It isn’t just a fad or a dream. Matthew and Mary Ann know that. They know we are counting on them, and we know they will never let us down.”

Trompe L'Oeil

Here's another installment extolling Beirut's artsy side. Two years ago I strollered Star to and from pre-school each day, walking a route that took us right past a little shop called Trompe L'Oeil. Looking through the big picture window on their storefront, I could see that the shop was full of children's things. Tiny stepping stools, hangers, toy boxes, book cases, kid-size table and chair sets, etc. All wood. All painted (usually with animals and plants). I loved it, but I knew it wasn't going to come cheap, so I waited. And waited. Waited some more because that is what I do. And bought!


If they had a webpage, I'd link to it, but since they don't, here's a scan of the business card they left with me. That black streak is my hand turning the card over while the scanner took it all in.

So, back to buying things. Star and Dandelion have (for about half a year now) been in a phase where just about everything has to have a nap time. Spoons, scrubbrushes, shoes. I have even been scolded for interrupting said naps unintentionally. So I requested a doll size cradle in an effort to create less trauma for my dear little mommie-daughters. The second purchase had less to do with the girls and more to do with war-induced shortages. After the summer-war, plastic storage boxes (big ones) have been hard to come by. When you find them, they're likely to be totally expensive and flimsy. Anyway, I need more even though I already have lots. They were all in use, and the only one that I could imagine repurposing to hold other stuff was the one serving as the girls' toy box. So, to free up the tub for other storage, I got the ladies a 'real' toy box. It is exactly what a toy box ought to be: huge with a lid, and hinges that prevent said lid from smashing fingers. Ah, perfection.

Version Inversion

Just over four months ago, the summer's war ended and we returned to Beirut with a big fat layover in London. With the kids in tow there wasn’t much to do but wait and keep them happy, which we did. By the time our flight boarded I was kind of brain-dead, but not too much to appreciate a rather insightful ad-campaign by HSBC, a British bank self-proclaimed to be “the world’s local bank.” That they have branches enough in Beirut seems to indicate that they’re managing.

Anyway, because of this international focus, their advertising frequently highlights the differences among the cultures of the world. The implication is that because we humans are such a diverse bunch, you really do need HSBC to navigate all the madness for you. But let’s put their conclusion aside for the moment and just focus on the first clause—we humans are such a diverse bunch. Returning to the scene in the airport, where I first saw the ad-series, I had to agree that there was wild disagreement among many of us about lots of things. Consider these two examples, which I think are ideal illustrations.



As I walked through the jet way I saw probably a dozen of these. I was impressed. The ads each reduce a debate—each one a matter of taste—to its most irreducible form.

Simple images and words show this flawlessly and concisely. There are quite a few ways this “irreducible form” can be expressed in English: one man’s trash is another’s treasure, to each his own, etc. People aren’t crazy for liking shoes we don’t or for loathing the food we adore. But imagine if this idea was elevated to something more significant than one’s taste in music. Ooh, look, you don’t have to imagine.

Here’s one I created based on the HSBC originals, none of which were controversial. But you could do this with a seemingly endless number of hotly debated subjects, and I think the end result would be the same. Well, except that at some point, most of us would opt out of the “to each his own” reaction. In complete honesty, I would doubt the sanity (well, more likely the intelligence and exposure to information) of anyone who thought either Nasrallah or Bush was any kind of hero. In both cases, I’d be much more sympathetic to (though unconvinced by) the terrorist argument.

Art Lounge, Beirut

Back in October I went to the Art Lounge here in Beirut to see a friend's show of photographs from all around Asia. The rather large prints of her work were impressive and I now own three of them (christmas presents from my very put-upon spouse. I mean really. Who would want the task of buying me presents?). While I was at the show, I picked up a freebee postcard to go with the invitation to the show (left).

So, since I'm all interested in the arts and I'm here in Beirut, and the two intersect oh so infrequently, I thought I'd write about the experience at the lounge. First, they aren't kidding about being a lounge. It’s basically a bar/night club with art on the walls. I've never been to any show there except my friend's, so I don't know what else they have had there, so I can't tell you about the general quality of the art side of the "Art Lounge" business. Knowing that there is a lot more night-clubbing than art-going happening in this city, I'd have to guess that they are definitely an ok lounge and as for the general standard of the art . . . who knows.
They had a nice little book/gift shop, but without any art games I went away a bit disappointed. As for the location, it is fairly easy to get to, which is not a given in Beirut. They're right off the Dora highway right at the edge of the Beirut city limits, in just the kind of place that looks just the way dangerous places in the US look. Funny how my whole visual lexicon of places to avoid has been turned on its ear in this place.
Anyway, as a viewer in the gallery/lounge, I was very aware that I was being watched. People lounging with their drinks who might glance over at the exhibition would not be able to help glancing at me too. In a dedicated gallery, you've basically got a definite visual focus--the stuff on display. Everyone is there to see it. But start putting out chairs, tables, finger food and drinks, and all of a sudden, my viewership is being included in the viewership of others.
So, its sort of a strange place--a strange viewing experience. But the lounge makes art a little less rare around here, and that's a step in the right direction.

A Nation Divided Against Itself

In two months and 10 days, Lebanon will certainly commemorate the death of Rafik Hariri, whose assassination marked the beginning of the turmoil that has gripped Lebanon for the past two years. From the beginning, it was assumed that Syria was to blame for Hariri’s death. One month after the assassination, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese descended on Beirut’s central district to express their anger at the Syrian-backed leadership of their country. They called for the immediate withdraw of Syria from Lebanon. With the help of the international community acting through the United Nations, Syrian troops were removed from the country, but their influence lingered. If the UN investigative body is to be believed, Syria’s influence in the country has been evidenced by a steady trail of assassinations spread over the past two years.

Why then, is the current political climate pro-Syrian? Why are there hundreds of thousands of Lebanese demonstrating in favor of the very leadership that was blamed for Hariri’s death? Well, lets not forget the summer’s war. Although the United States was quick to express concern for Lebanon when Syria was seen as the culprit, they turned a blind eye when Israel came knocking. The UN peacekeepers at the boarder did not prevent or intervene in the hostilities. There they were, doing nothing.

So Hezbollah was the closest thing to a defender that the south had. There was every appearance at the beginning that Israel was going to do to Lebanon what it had been doing to Gaza for weeks—strangle, starve, and suffocate. And it didn’t happen. Israel essentially gave up the fight. No wonder Hezbollah has claimed a divine victory. No wonder so many Lebanese see it that way.

But there are many others who don’t. Every day, I see people in number heading downtown to continue the ongoing protests intended to bring down the western-leaning government. And every day, as I walk or drive through the city, I see Lebanese flags hanging from balconies—the sign of those who despite the war are still against Syrian interference.

Recently, the New York Times reviewed an art exhibit here in Lebanon, aimed at identifying what it is to be Lebanese and what their country ought to become. The author observed, “all of the main . . . confessional communities (Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Druse), want a Lebanon united by their definition of what Lebanon should be.” Each sect believes they are the real Lebanon.

The article made some valuable observations on contemporary divisions within the country, and for that it was worth a read. But I’m not sure the art at the center of it would be worth looking at. There were only a few, bad photos of the show and the descriptions given by the author were lifeless.

How old am I?

We are Safe

But here's why that's news today.

Here's your art idea for the day:

“a picture of a dead dog shows a dead dog. It only becomes difficult when you want to communicate something beyond that, when the content is too complicated to be depicted with a simple portrayal”
Gerhardt Richter (Harrison and Woods 1037)

Age-value and Art

Back in early October, I went to an antique dealer in town who I knew sold old pointed-arch window frames. The man selling them wanted $150 for the ones about a meter high, $200 for the larger ones. As is. And they were a mess. They had obviously been left out in the rain, there were chunks missing, no or broken glass, peeling paint, etc. I pointed all that out to the man and offered him $20.

Looking back on it, I think he was probably offended that I, a foreigner, would dare to think that one of the region’s treasures could be worth so little. After all, these are not really being made anymore, apparently came from palaces and their origins, age, and relative rarity adds value. But I disagree. The window frames were in terrible shape. They might as well be garbage or firewood and nobody pays even so much as $20 for a few scraps of wet wood. I still can’t believe that he thought $150 was a possible price. He offered to lower it to $130, but that was his final offer. So I, very satisfied with NOT buying one, went home.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about age-value and art and wondering what it all means. The assertion that age=art comes down to everything eventually becoming art if you just wait long enough.

In some cases, age does add value. Like Greek vases, hand made lace, etc. Especially when a craft is lost it has a much higher chance of becoming an art. But alas, the carpentry of making a pointed arch is not lost at all, and arguing that an old, decaying window frame is somehow worth more because it is too broken to possibly serve its purpose is crazy.

Flight into the Wilderness

We are in Amman Jordan, in a very lovely hotel. If there ever was a time to stop worrying about our safety, it is now. We will be fine, and very likely, soon in North Carolina.

Our hotel is located at the edge of the Dead Sea. It is about as super luxurious as the one we left.

The drive here was completely awful. We were not informed of our departure plans until 4:15 on Monday morning, at which point we were told to be packed and ready to board busses at 7:30. We were not told our destination or any other details. Travel was safe, but it took us several hours at the boarders (Lebanon/Syria and Syria/Jordan) for every part of the process to leave/arrive.

I now have a lot of new and really great stamps in my passport, but we paid dearly for them. Being stuck in a bus for 24 hours was part of that payment, but the toll all this has taken on the girls is also significant. And about the girls; we were expecting to handle our girls together and we were expecting the journey to take about half that long , but that task fell almost entirely to me. Matthew was asked to manage our entire Bus. He was almost constantly busy (coordinating with security control, communicating with the other busses, gathering and transmitting information about the passengers, desperately trying to get the people to fill out their transit paperwork properly, etc. etc.). He did a great job. And frankly, so did I.

So we got here shortly after seven, I think, and we have a nice room that is sadly without any accomodation for babies or children. We have no idea if we will even stay the night here. When I bought the internet card that is making this post possible, I heard the UN Security people request use of a conference room in our Hotel for today at 4. Maybe there will be news of the next step. But for all we know, they are interested in getting the Staff out of here to their end destinations as soon as possible. It is my understanding that as soon as a flight to the US is available, they will put us on it--whether or not we have gotten any sleep.

I am having a hard time reconciling the very five-star expereince I have had during this blocade/war/evacuation with all the stories I've heard about how these things have played out in the past. I've been inconvenienced and quite a lot, but nothing more extreme. I find myself very worried about our things, books, art, dishes. I wonder if I will ever see my own bed again. Will our things be there when we get back? Will we be robbed again? What if they take my wedding china? Does it even matter? I hate that the thought of losing these things bothers me so much, but it really does.

Not at all about Art

Its been about 6 hours since the airport was bombed--all three runways are out of service. Part of me is laughing at all the rich Lebanese with foreign passports who always talk about how lucky they are. If anything happens, they say, at least we can get out of here. Not now! Of course, I’m in the same boat they are but I still think its funny (schadenfreude, moi?) to know that we are all underdogs now.

Anyway, someone asked me in early 2003 if I really thought that Iraq posed a threat to the US. Well, back then the whole “Oops, gee, looks like there aren’t any WMDs” had not come out. Not knowing better, I thought maybe Iraq did pose a threat. That doesn’t add up to a pre-emptive war, but I thought there was a trouble brewing that turned out to be a carefully crafted illusion.

Now some words about Israel and the current skirmish they are having with Hezbollah/Lebanon. Lebanon is weak and poor, and Hezbollah exists because Lebanon’s government is too weak and poor to do anything about their existence. Israel has therefore decided not to differentiate between the impotent government that can not control Hezbollah and Hezbollah itself. Hezbollah probably does pose a threat to Lebanon’s government, but the more pressing question is: does Hezbollah pose a credible threat to Israel? Frankly, Israel is not a nice neighbor and their actions really strike me as arrogant, heavy-handed, and unjust. Israel is a rich, powerful, aggressive nation. Hezbollah isn't a nation at all, and barely has the capacity to launch puny little attacks over the southern boarder. They like to show that they can manage that. But that really is where it ends. They can’t take out Israel’s airports. They can’t do anything even remotely on that scale. Not in a million years.

Israel has decided that their best tactic is to come down on Lebanon like a ton of lead. I have to say that bombing the airport was an effective strategy on their part to shut down the Lebanese capital and government, but that in NO way does anything to Hezbollah. Israel’s actions, if anything have weakened the capacity of Lebanon to deal with Hezbollah. By damaging the airport, the infrastructure that supports Arab tourism in and around Beirut, they are damaging the only people who really have a mandate to rein Hezbollah in. Which then begs the question of why Israel is doing what it is doing.

The politics of a rich, powerful nation bullying a weak, poor nation are really on my mind. Should the scale of power, money, strength, etc. matter? Israel is doing this not because it is right, but because they can. Lebanon is a sitting duck, a fantastic whipping boy. Israel likes to spin this as a hard-line approach to terrorism, a zero tolerance policy. But I fail to see how damaging the government and infrastructure of Lebanon makes Israel safer from Hezbollah. Why not restrict the conflict to the forces in the south that started this?

Back to the US, I really wish we (all of us) would stop defending the mess we have gotten ourselves into in Iraq and admit that we would have been much better off securing our ports and boarders. I wish there could be a collective acknowledgement that Iraq has been a profound waste of time, money and lives. I wish that we would accept and agree that the war was ill-conceived. And most of all, I wish that we would have the decency and character to commit never again to engage in a war simply because we are big enough and strong enough to do it.

A picture to share

Lots of very random thoughts, none of which have to do with my thesis or with art or with why I have not been blogging lately. Pooh, pooh.

This is my daughter. Isn't she a sweetie? This picture was taken on one of the rare days when she has allowed me to put her hair in pigtails.

Her shirt was made buy Aunt Kat, who is a super-neat Aunt to have. That, on her shirt is a peacock feather. You can read all about how cool it is here on her Aunt's blog.

Also, the other day, there was a discussion on Aunt K8's blog about sock fashions. Compare Star's "up" style with her cousin's.

And I love that the shoes in the picture don't fit, and don't match. We were out shopping and she was trying on display shoes--a favorite passtime.

Out of Beirut

Today I read about an exhibition going on in Oxford England. It is called Out of Beirut, and features a number of contemporary Lebanese artists, who all seem to be more or less responding to Lebanon’s civil war. The civil war was a relatively recent event, so recent in fact that it resides squarely in the active memories of everyone except the very young. That reality—-that it is an event too recent to have receded into history—-places it into the domain of memory, the very topic I have been burying myself in for months.

I admit, in a moment of weakness, I thought to myself, “Hey, I’m in Beirut, I’m here in the middle of it. I could become the world’s only expert on Lebanese memory and add that dialogue to those discussing Jewish memory, American memory, German memory etc. etc. And the pain, the suffering, the working-through of it all is so present here, and I’ve got a corner on it.”

Reason set in quickly. First, I don’t speak Lebanese Arabic or any Arabic for that matter. More importantly I don’t want to, and I don’t think I would be able to really investigate Lebanon’s memory without that. But even if I did want to, and could, and would, I still think I wouldn’t.

It reminded me of something I though back when I was an undergraduate in a seminar given by a candidate for a faculty position in the Art History department. She presented an overview of her doctoral dissertation, which was up for several nation-wide awards. Her subject: sculptural depictions of women’s headdresses in ancient Palmyra, Syria. I went to the seminar because it was about modes of dress, the history of which I find completely fascinating. But as I was sitting there listening, all I could think was, “I never want to know so much about so little.”

I am not saying Lebanon’s experience of war, pain, suffering, crimes, atrocities, violence, etc. is in some way inferior, smaller than (even if it was), or less significant that those of cultures that memory scholarship currently focuses on. I have no desire to invalidate the very valid experiences or their memory. That isn’t the issue. The issue is that, in Beirut, it is easy to forget that hardly anyone outside knows or cares.