"The Name of Desire"

The Holiday Inn Vanderbilt, Nashville 

After the many-colored but mostly blue
Seasons of our two solitudes—the hours
Of longing and the flight from longing, the years
Spent remembering as if memory were true—
We stand together on a balcony
Above the city of losses, the city of lights
Bouncing back off a starless sky, the city
Where we'll try to save this night from the death of nights.
Ours has become a life in which the self
And the self's other begin to anticipate the chances
Taken in the name of desire. Desire:
That sweet song the body sings to itself,
Or under the best of circumstances
The song two bodies sing to each other.

--Joe Bolton

Mahmoud Darwish, "The Smell of Cities" محمود درويش, رائحة المدن

“المدن رائحة: عكا رائحة اليود البحري والبهارات. حيفا رائحة الصنوبر والشراشف المجعلكة. موسكو رائحة الفودكا على الثلج. القاهرة رائحة المانجو والزنجبيل. بيروت رائحة الشمس والبحر والدخان والليمون. باريس رائحة الخبز الطازج والأجبان ومشتقات الفتنة. دمشق رائحة الياسمين والفواكة المجففة. تونس رائحة مسك الليل والملح. الرباط رائحة الحناء والبخور والعسل. وكل مدينة لا تُعرفُ من رائحتها لا يُعوَّل على ذكراها. وللمنافي رائحة مشتركة هي رائحة الحنين إلى ما عداها... رائحة تتذكر رائحة أخرى. رائحة متقطعة الأنفاس، عاطفيّة تقودك كخارطة سياحية كثيرة الاستعمال إلى رائحة المكان الأول. الرائحة ذاكرةٌ وغروب شمس. والغروب هنا توبيخ الجمال للغريب.”

 'محمود درويش, 'في حضرة الغياب―

“Cities are scents: Acre is the scent of marine iodine and spices; Haifa, the scent of pine and rumpled sheets; Moscow, the scent of vodka on ice; Cairo, the scent of mango and ginger; Beirut, the scent of sun, sea, smoke, and lemon; Paris, the scent of fresh bread, cheese, and the derivatives of intrigue; Damascus, the scent of jasmine and dried fruits; Tunis, the scent of night musk and salt; and Rabat is the scent of henna, incense, and honey. And every city not known for its scent is not worth mentioning. And lands of exile have a common scent, which is that of longing for elsewhere… A scent remembering another, a scent of intermittent breaths, emotional, leading you like a tourist map that’s been used too often to lead to the scent of the first place. Scent is a memory and a sunset. And sunset, here, is beauty's rebuke to the foreigner."

―Mahmoud Darwish, “In the Presence of Absence” (translated by Ashraf Osman)

"In Spring (2)" by Joe Bolton

You do what you can
to be modern in a country
of fields stitched together
with barbed wire the hunters cut through
before it has a chance

to rust, fields
mapped off by gravel roads
that refuse to swerve,
that make paths for the sun to follow each day.
You do what you can.

But you are late
or early for stylishness,
and all the cities and affluence you will know
are delicate tendrils the white motion
of your slender hands
can raise from the thawed earth.

(By Joe Bolton from"Uncollected Poems" in The Last Nostalgia)

Self-Sabotage

 

Last year I interviewed an artist (Tania Bruguera) who'd played Russian roulette as an artwork—not once, but twice! No one I spoke to outside the art world seemed to get it, piling on incensed superlatives of outrage and accusations of insanity. Tania, very appropriately, called her performance “Self-Sabotage”. And recently, with what’s happening in Lebanon, I could think of no other work that sums up the situation there so succinctly and powerfully: the entire country is playing Russian roulette! Not once, not twice, not three or four or five times, but… But how do you even count this? By cars? By people? By days? And where do you even start? Every time I hear about another car bomb in Lebanon I feel like another gun went off at my temple. But it’s not my life that’s at stake here; it’s the lives of my loved ones. This time they’re safe, and the last time they were, too; and the time before that… But how many times can we all play this insane game of collective Russian roulette before we all lose together?

 

"Bombing in Beirut Kills Four: Blast Hits Southern Beirut District"

(Originally posted on January 21, 2014)

Another Day in Paradise

Another day of pretending it didn't happen: it's just news on the TV, only as real as "reality TV"… Another day of counting blessings: they're alive, it was close, but they're all okay; all those I care about made it through… Another day of moving forward: everyone's okay, move on, next; there's a project to work on, a symposium to organize, the things of the civilized world, the world where people voice their misapprehensions instead of bomb them… Another day behind the impregnable borders of this world, this safe grey world of rules: try as they may, desperate outsiders can only dent the peace of its gates by their insistence of dying against them every now and again…  Another day, another reminder of mortality, of distance, of the frailty of life, the futility of our endeavors, the silliness of our humanity…

Terror strikes again in Beirut southern suburbs, five dead

(Text originally posted on November 19, 2013)

Excerpts from "Departure"

"Left utterly alone, there is nothing
The heart can invent to numb itself.
All around you on the hardwood floor,
Your old life darkened in cardboard boxes.

...

If love is an awkward, scriptless scene
To be played out between two people,
I cannot write it: I am a pattern
Of breath and sleep that city will outlive.

And if poetry is a bond between
Two hearts, it is a bond too frail:
That night words failed, I too, was lost--
To whiskey, memory, a photograph.

East of that city, the green fields
Are winding away beneath your gaze,
And here, west of that city, there is
No water deep enough to let me forget.

If I could look forward, I could see us
In Houston, in Atlanta--that South
No train will take us to, that South
We lost ourselves in so long ago.

And those cities, so far removed
In distance and time--can our small stars
Survive those bright lights? Our language
Be heard above the din of the million?

Tonight, a hundred miles away,
Our city, made of circles and squares,
Must be much the same as it was:
The bars, the buildings, the streets empty of lovers.

It is a city we can never
Return to--a dream, a green light,
An unfound door closed upon the past.
Our words echo through it and fade."

--Joe Bolton 

Bottle Caps

(To Joo)

Bottle caps all over the floor;
some of us leave something behind.
Smile, dear; sunshine is nothing
if not that twinkle in your voice.

It was a sad day when she realized she was mortal.
“A hundred years from now,” she said,
“I won’t be around.”
And I’ll be sure to miss you, dear,
from wherever I am not then.

Underneath the scaffold papered with life’s residues,
on this frigid night, with life passing us by,
hurried on its Saturday,
blowing warm breath into its cupped hands
trying to capture some fleeting warmth,
I told her, I would never inflict this life on anyone.

It’s not the misery, I said,
It’s the boredom, the anticipation of nothing.
She smiled, knowingly;
caressing, if smiles ever could.
And I wasn’t so sure anymore.

(Originally posted on February 11, 2007)

Monocle's Lebanese Affair Continues (Part 2 of 2)

I've been digging deeper into the recently released and gorgeous Monocle Guide to Better Living, and much to my delight I continued to find features on Lebanon, enough to warrant a follow-up post to my first one on it. I scanned the (first) pages of each feature, which can be viewed here:

And I thought I'd share some of the text here as well.

First, Beirut is featured as the 4th of 10 Cities to Call Home:

If Beirut were to be measured on metrics alone it wouldn't stand a chance: its infrastructure is less than adequate, political instability is chronic and inflation is a problem. But Beirut is not the kind of city that likes statistics. Aided by a cosmopolitan population all too happy to show off its city, Levantine charm still operates in the Lebanese capital. Its patina, refined over centuries of tumultuous history, has given it a unique cachet. The Romans, Arabs, Ottomans and French: all of them stopped by Beirut to admire the snow-capped Mount Sanine and partake in the dolce vita.
Add to all of this the remarkable topography, the sparkling Mediterranean sea, the glorious weather and the succulent food and you can understand why so many have fallen for Beirut.
Meanwhile, shortcomings are almost always turned into opportunities and the can-do attitude is palpable. The gap left by a weak government has led entrepreneurs to provide basic services, while artists and designers have come up with creative solutions to everyday difficulties.
There's also an unmistakable whiff of freedom in a place where no political force really dominates. This gives freer rein to the sexy pop singer recording her new video clip, the printer bypassing censorship or the young activist lobbying for gay and lesbian rights. In an increasingly conservative region, Beirut is decidedly on the tolerant side.
The city also has its everyday perks. You can keep an open tab at the grocer's, leave your car to be parked with the valet working for the restaurant nearby or call the hairdresser to come and fix your hair at home. If the Middle East was a gentler neighbourhood and Beirutis had a slightly stronger civic sense, this could be the best city to live in.

Second, Musar Wine (Ghazir, Lebanon) was 9th of 21 Companies to Learn from.

Third, is Papercup (Beirut) which was featured in the Culture section, The Newsstands, under Print Charming.

Fourth, a residence in Batroun, Lebanon is featured in the Home section under Space and Light. In the same section, a feature titled Our breakdown of the perfect home ingredients by culture has as the 2 main ingredients:

• 9% Swiss cabin hardware and durability
• 9% Beirut mid-century elegance and grandeur

Last but not least, Dragonfly (Beirut) is featured in the Service section, The Bars, under Where everybody knows your name.

So, Madonna Wants to Start a Revolution...

...In case you haven't heard. It's called Art for Freedom, and she launched it with a video called SecretProjectRevolution (spaces are at a premium in the age of Twitter):

The video is interesting and well-done, but—here comes the naysayer crashing the party—I have so many problems with it, I’m not even sure where to start. For one, it fails miserably at what it tries to be: revolutionary. It’s a well-produced reel of soft-core S&M / torture-porn, replete with idealized writhing semi-naked bodies in corsets, leather, and fishnets—hardly revolutionary in this day and age. (Even the suffering is rendered gorgeously; the only ugly thing left in the entire video is her voice. But Madonna does believe in the rights of fat people!)

The main problem with the video, however, is where it’s coming from: Madonna. She says it: she wants to start a revolution but nobody’s listening. Why? Because she’s “not a black man with an Afro or an Arab with a hand grenade”. People, apparently, only want to see her ass (well, maybe some people). Madonna may have been revolutionary in the 80s, and maybe even in the 90s; but when was the last culturally-significant (not to mention revolutionary) thing she’s produced? Some generous souls would say “Ray of Light”. Regardless, Madonna has become in recent years the epitome of big business in pop music, corporate music personified. She was 2013's top-earning celebrity, according to Forbes, and was one of the most prominent people to actively campaign against Napster. So for her now to criticize big business and partner with Bit Torrent is disingenuous to say the least, if not outright hypocritical.

Is the message inspiring? Perhaps; but it’s so trite and bland it’s almost irrelevant—it might as well be “We are the World”! (And with a message this bland, quoting Godard and Sartre simply won't save it.) Can she make a difference? Sure, she’s one of the most powerful women on the planet. But this aging jaded cynic sees it simply as another ploy of even older star (she's a year older than my mom) trying to regain some cultural relevance and a bit of the spotlight she craves (by her own admission). It could be worse, I guess; she could have been swinging on a wrecking ball. But is it groundbreaking? Hardly.

Monocle's Lebanese Affair Continues (Part 1 of 2)

Fresh from my recent visit back to Lebanon, I dropped by Monocle's new store in Zurich today only to discover that the brand's love affair with the country shows no sign of waning. Monocle's second fragrance (with Comme Des Garçons), Laurel, was inspired by the country. According to their website:

We wanted our second fragrance to capture the same smell and sensation enjoyed while staying with friends in Batroun, Lebanon. While many wonderful smells drifted through their ancient garden, it was the distinctive scent of laurel that punctuated an early spring weekend in the eastern Mediterranean. It's warm, inviting and at times a little sharp - just like the country itself.

Another account, featured at the shop and on Barneys' website, tells a slightly different story:

Inspired by a trip to the Bekaa Valley, it's a fresh, clean scent that has warm laurel notes. Developed by the same team that launched our Hinoki scent, it will remind regular visitors to Lebanon of the country's hand-made laurel soaps and fragrant gardens in Byblos.

The second volume of Monocle Live, titled “From Stockholm To Rio Via Beirut,” also features Beirut via Zeid And The Wings' "General Suleiman," for which Zeid Hamdan was arrested for the defamation of Lebanon's President, General Michel Suleiman. 

Monocle also featured Beirut as one of its 25 Resort Cities, saying:

Beirut has always stood its ground as a kind of playground for Arabs and Europeans in search of oriental frisson. With a return to political stability new hotels such as the Four Seasons and Le Gray have opened their doors and high power fashion names like Hermes and Louis Vuitton are now gracing the new Souks. Beirut is back on the tourist map (though no one knows for how long). Add to the mix, legendary hospitality, a famed party scene and layers of history, and you have a city with a unique patina that visitors and locals cannot seem to get enough of.

And finally, their first book ever, The Monocle Guide to Better Living, features Beirut as one of "10 Cities To Call Home". The preface reads:

On paper it shouldn't really work. But, despite everything, the allure of the Lebanese capital remains thanks to its cosmopolitan buzz, dazzling Mediterranean setting and the irrepressibly positive spirit of the locals.

It concludes with "Why it works":

1. Locals are well travelled and at ease in English and French.
2. The Lebanese take pride in their service industry. Opening a bank account, printing a brochure or producing a prototype furniture piece can all be done in record time.
3. The city offers a buzzing cultural scene with year-round music festivals, film premieres, art shows and book fairs that put other Middle Eastern cities to shame.
4. Ski slopes and beaches are less than an hour's drive away.
5. The airport is 15 minutes' drive from downtown Beirut, with Paris and Dubai fewer than five hours away.

(Part 2 of 2)

Lebanon: A Counterpoint

When this country glows, it sparkles! It makes you forget all that it is, and makes you believe in all that it could be. This is a country of the night: the dark hides all its outrageous faults and lets you see the lights shimmering in the hills and breaking over the water. You forget the checkpoints, the mad traffic, and politics of the day; all you can think about is the enchanting breeze off of the sea, the music reverberating in the midnight air, and the beat that thunders in your rib cage. You think, Who are these shiny happy people? Sometimes at night I can believe the insipid lyrics of old patriotic songs, I can remember feeling homesick to this place still. I can forget how we've cursed it, and how it cursed us all back. At night, I can smile at the dust on the windshield catching the street-lamps, the stillness of the moon through electric wires, and think, "There is hope yet."

Thoughts from a Broken Country - Day 2

We went out again today. That's often all it takes for me to change my mind about this mess of a country. I used to think the traffic was bad, the congestion and density of people oppressive, especially in this godforsaken part of the city known as Dahye, the (southern) "Suburbs" (of Beirut, a.k.a. Hezbollah-land).

But that was before it all went haywire, before the car bombs, before the paranoia... It was before the "Suburbs" went from a ghetto for-all-practical-purposes to a real official one, with enforced boundaries, a true country-within-a-country. There are now "self-enforced" (i.e. Hezbollah-manned) security checkpoints at all entrances to Dahye. The nightmarish traffic at the entrances went from oppressive to unbearable. But the indignity of the checkpoints is what's most disturbing, eerily reminiscent of the "civil" war days, something I thought we've left behind.

At the turn to our place, a bearded man in civilian clothes stops our car and pulls us off to the side; apparently we look too Westernized, not Shiite enough. He asks "Where are you from?" and demands to see ID-cards (Lebanese code for "What religious sect are you?"). My idealistic brother replies, "I'm from Lebanon. I'm secular. I crossed my religious sect off of my ID." My father thinks he's asking for trouble; he's glad my brother is leaving the country next week for another masters in the UK. I side with my brother; I tell the bearded guy, "I'm from here before you were born; where are YOU from?" He replies, mockingly, "Syria." I ask him, "By what right do you ask to see our IDs then?" He says, "I'm trying to protect you; why are you so upset?" I say, "Because we're trying to get to our house right there and every time you stop us." At this point, my mother is glad, too, I'll be leaving soon again. And I... I'm not sure of anything anymore.

I feel like Don Quixote battling the windmills: just as foolish, just as delusional, just as aimless... Soon enough, I'll be back again in the cold comfort of my life in Zurich, I hope. I'll be back to railing against the Swiss, and the Americans, and the Art World, and whatever windmills I could muster--just another foolish man and his grandiose deluded ideals. And what becomes of here? What becomes of them? I'll pretend not to think; even a foolish man can take on only so many windmills....

"Black Water" by Joe Bolton

It happens like this

   Over and over:

A light breaks on the shore

   Of a black water

Hemmed in by cliffs of red

   Stone with faces

Carved into the faces, and you

   See another face

–The face of the remembered–

   Rising from the water,

Descending from the sourceless light,

   And cannot call it out,

Because now you are the light breaking

   Over the black water,

And you are the black water, and you

   Are the face they make.

And then you wake up, and light

   A cigarette,

And you are in time again, the world

   Of time and outside

It is Tuesday, and early June,

   And 1985.

And it would be your wedding day,

   Were it three years ago;

And it would be your anniversary

   Had she not left you . . .

But it is simply a Tuesday, in June,

   In 1985,

And you have woken up alone to the life

   You live alone,

And the workmen down the block are hammering

   The last of the dream from you.

And what work will there be

   For you today,

Dreamer whose dream the world

   Of time has torn away?

—What task to occupy your hands

   That tremble?

Only this resurrection of the grief

   That sweats the drink

Out of you and makes you thirst

   For more—

Makes you dress up to go out and drink,

   Then undress to lie down.

And you will lie down, and you will be

   The light breaking

Over the black water, and you will be

   The black water.