Comfort Zone

There is a steep west-southwest gradient in the Manara neighborhood from trafficked, new, upscale, to desolate, unkempt, forgotten. Saudi embassy and luxury flats to empty public schools and abandoned buildings. A few hundred meters down the gradient from here, smack in an almost no-man’s land, a blank area in my mental map, I found this cat napping on its throne. It brings to mind that just like politics, comfort can be local.

These last few weeks have been a strange time caught between horror and hope, fear and fatalism. The final approach to the Beirut airport (BEY) is about half a kilometer west over the sea, and every time I hear a plane, somewhere churning in the back of my mind is an analysis of whether it is a normal jet delivering passengers or a military jet delivering munitions. In one of the first few nights of the Gaza war, there was an electrical storm, and not expecting any weather, I awoke trying to determine if it was the airport being bombed, which everyone expects will be an early event.

Sound can travel very far under some conditions and over water. Jets, explosions, and thunder can sound quite similar at the edge of hearing. Especially at night, I catch myself listening to very distant rumbling. It is sometimes shelling in the south, yet fortunately, it is usually an arriving passenger jet far to the north whose low rumbling slowly becomes recognizable, dissipating the feeling of dread and memories of the July War. I need to take some inspiration from this cat.

A Peculiar Institution

This part of the world has a profusion of barriers, obstacles, walls, et cetera. Growing up in a rural (almost wrote “feral”) area, what we would call barb wire fences, electric fences, and cattle guards were to prevent domesticated animals from passing. Locally, human equivalents are profuse, though the only electric fence I have seen was at the southern border to Dixie (local euphemism), and I was not certain, but I changed my mind and voided my bladder elsewhere to be safe. Cattle guard equivalents are those red-and-white, tire-shredding, spiked beams on rollers waiting at checkpoints. Walls are even more common than cyclone fences, and for good reason: a pair of pliers or stout snips allow a cyclone fence to be dismantled in minutes, and a five-meter concrete wall and supported steel hoarding can exclude determined rioters for weeks.

It brings to mind the Berlin Wall, which I visited first a decade after it ceased to function. Some sections still stood, and I would see stacks of the segments in Kleinmachnow on my way to work. Stored for emergencies? For resale in the middle east? One might recall some brave words of day. Presumably, JFK had it in mind with, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Thatcher had it correct with, “Every stone bears witness to the moral bankruptcy of the society it encloses.” Reagan, not my favorite, but here rising to the occasion, “…tear down this wall!”

On this subject of anti-human barriers and more broadly, human bondage, Gaza comes to mind. I imagine the structure surrounding Gaza has different technical designations by different parties representing various ideologies or squirming attempts to not. Perhaps “border structure,” “fence,” “barrier,” “separation,” or “boundary,” but I will call it a wall or enclosure. Thatcher’s words need a simple correction to, “Every stone bears witness to the moral bankruptcy of the society that closes it.” Hard to imagine how JFK’s statement would modernize, as he was speaking on the side of the free.

Discussing these ideas with a colleague, the January 2008 breach of the wall separating Gaza and Egypt by Hamas came to the fore: it was audacious and non-violent (I believe), and the Gazans came out in enormous numbers to exercise their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by shopping for groceries. I said, “can you imagine if on 7 October, Hamas breached the enclosure and all the Gazans emerged in the hundreds of thousands with their belongings and tents and reoccupied their ancestral villages, squatted Tel Aviv, and claimed refugee status under the appropriate internationally recognized conventions? He said, “Maybe next time.”

The Plot Reddens

EU and US consulates have been sending increasingly alarming emails to their nationals residing in Lebanon. The US has escalated its typical, low-level admonitions to be careful, and now urges us to depart as soon as possible. I have heard there are as many as 50,000 US citizens, mostly dual-nationals, residing here. That would be quite the logistical challenge to ‘vacuate, considering that, unlike during the July War, taking a taxi to Damascus or a bus to Istanbul is not an option.

The Dutch presumably have many fewer (nice oxymoron) citizens here, so few that they can invite them all to Koningsdag and Sinterklaas receptions. They have communicated their concerns very clearly, even for we non-Hollands-praaters [?], with color-coded maps. The first, received 7 October, looked to be the usual advice. I have not been in the red for some years, other than that the freeway to the airport south of the city tunnels under the red. We were possibly thinking of visiting Rashaya the day after, and Baabek later with foreign visitors, but with the change of climate, experiencing the Palestinian and Pan-Arabic honk parade blaring triumphally through our neighborhood, and hearing the southern shelling from the summit of the Shouf Cedar Reserve, we refrained.

The plot thickened, the red spread, and most recently, a phase-shift occurred in the safety-danger matrix such that the entire country, including the Dutch embassy, is “niet reizen,” meaning, I suspect, based on my langsam-und-einfach German, to mean, “do not travel,” and presumably, also, “do not there reside.” Most alarmingly, the last email included an English translation. It makes me wonder if the Dutch, when speaking to people who are not listening or seem not to understand, raise their voices and speak slowly in English, just like in the old movies.

Some years ago while reading of Europe in the 1930s, I recall wondering why so many did not flee Germany as it became increasingly obviously dangerous. Simple denial? Was it like the frog in the slowly heating pot? Was it like the professor in the slowly reddening plot? Or, being humans, tied to employment, family, home, and habit? All the above for me, but the denial is weakening.

Great Sanctuary of Qalaat Faqra

In late February, a visit to a site of vivid numinosity evoked a haiku from me:

Rocks of empire

Jumbled in the winter sun

Dream of past glory

The Blank Look

The economic collapse has sometimes subtle manifestations. Very recently while enjoying the relatively free-flowing, markedly reduced vehicular traffic about town, something I will greatly miss should fuel become inexpensive again, I noticed blank billboards. Back during the boom times/the glory days/the wonder years/the golden age, the sides of the road were super-saturated with billboards unto absurdity. After seeing over one hundred billboards for mortadella in a few minutes, I would have been willing to eat some just to not see the same image again and again on the autostrat (what I hear it called, though I do not know from which language it originates). The first was taken in Raouché, and the second nearby.

This Is What Happens When Evil Reigns

To the left of the text through a photograph of a broken wall peers the portrait of Gibran Khalil Gibran. It might be a reference to the port explosion. This is on Sursock at Mar Nkoula in Ashrafieh, a short walk from Boulangerie Patisserie Ghattas, whose fantastic lenten kibbeh was our raison d’être to be in the neighborhood.

Today’s Glory Is Only for Bullet

On Jeanne d’Arc between Sidani and Makdissi, Hamra. Very interesting script. I do not recognize the phrase or understand well the intention, yet it brings to mind that the fabled Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times,” could be rephrased as, “May your life be filled with glory.”

Chicago (or Beirut?)-A Love Story

I saw this poster and thought of Beirut. Not so much is different, though I would change the rankings and add a few more than remove: in Beirut, the weather is fine (though people complain when it is not perfect), yes about “Dibs” (saving a parking spot that is legally public), potholes (though low priority), cars in the form of traffic, not bikes but scooters, beggars not bums, not rats (and we mostly like the many cats), the mess of dogs yes, not Cubs’s fans (not sure what the equivalent would be: riots, honk parades, politicians?), and trash absolutely, especially when it is not collected. Crime would not be worth listing, rather noise, corruption, banks, inflation, power cuts, banks, shortages of fuel, medicine, and bread, bureaucrats, banks, conspiracy theories, beggars, car bombs, banks, other’s sectarian parties, foreigners of “insert-your-most-hated-country-here,” and banks and politicians and banks again. But we love it.

Apologies to Johnny Sampson (I did buy some postcards)

Between the Easters

The title is inspired by Aravind Adiga’s book “Between the Assassinations,” a book I found by chance some years ago at the Beirut airport while waiting to depart on vacation. I confess the title alone entranced me into the purchase, yet its content is also powerful. During this long pandemic, an era of malaise and unpredictable and confusing events personally, locally, and globally, the title and themes frequently resurfaced in my mind. My normally robust ability to recall when events occurred was peculiarly and confusingly unreliable. This is likely one common manifestation of the pandemic Zeitgeist (Zeitgeist is a fascinating concept, and the recent rapid changes in the world show its utility). This week is itself between the Latin and Greek Easter Sundays, as they are known here. Two four-day weekends for me, extended holidays for children, and with the Islamic calendar precession, also Ramadan. A triple whammy in my high-school era terminology. There is also strong suppressive pressure from the economic collapse. Hence, much peace and calm to finish the last poem for my, mostly secular, ‘book of hours’ calligraphy project: “Komm, Du Süße Todesstunde” [BWV 161]. I would translate the beginning as “Come, sweet hour of death / There my spirit will eat honey from the lion’s mouth / Make my departure sweet /…” The cantata has particularly beautiful recorder roles and was an excellent venue for attempting Robert Koch’s Neuland script. That alphabet is not properly a script, as it was carved directly, but there are pen scripts that emulate it. The flat-edged approaches either require an extraordinary and challenging degree of manipulation or compromise by avoiding manipulation to an unsatisfying result. There is also a square-nib approach that was within my reach with a filed-down fude-nib pen (Duke Confucius). I will put a study page below: flat-edged pens for initial lines and the square nib for the body of the text. I am satisfied, but mostly from the learning: it is a bit clunky because of my limited skill, not because I intended to make it look like woodblock printing.

The other, very interesting development related here to BWV 161 and to being between the Easters was progress in understanding the scriptural support for the theme of welcoming death, as found in African-American Spirituals (gospel music) and also encountered in BWV 161: the raising of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17). The support seems tenuous to me, but it exists and is accepted. There is much to say on this, so let me only thank my friend and colleague for directing my attention to relevant documents and guiding my understanding of the interpretations.

My Neighborhood Parallel Universe

Last year, walking home on Mahatma Gandhi street, I stepped slightly sideways to avoid a small, inconveniently located puddle at the edge of the curb, the egress of some drain. This particular puddle is a regular hazard, as it is nearly unnoticeable by any means other than a poorly shod foot, and because the sidewalk is so narrow and the street so often occupied with splashing vehicles, I have learned to make a little sideways step right there. But on that day, there was an obstacle blocking me, a pylon, and as I could not make my special sideways step successfully, my foot got wet. Well you might imagine my annoyance, but my annoyance was overshadowed by my confusion as to the new intruding protrusion. Where did that pylon come from? I was certain it was not there the last time. Inspection revealed a tall pair and suggested the pylons had been there some time: they were scratched and dented, covered in old paint and placed in what seemed to be quite weathered concrete. Very confusing. I had been an occasional passer-by for many years, years sufficient to have learned practice the anti-gutter gavotte without conscious thought. Possible explanations came to mind, roughly in the order of credibility: the pylons were newly installed (appearing old because recycled {surely there is a market here for used pylons} and the installer poured the cement in the the rain and all sorts of crud made it look old); I had transited to a parallel universe; or my mental health was poorer than I realized (which is probably diagnostic). Pursuing the first possibility, I began inquiries. It just so happens that the narrow side-walked, short section of Gandhi is a regular thoroughfare, a veritable conduit of colleagues and diverse acquaintances, and thus, as I met anyone I knew sufficiently risk the possible appearance of eccentricity, I asked if the pylons had always been there. Two professors expressed certainty of great age, sympathetically indicating their obvious wear and tear. The local proprietor and lord of several or most of the facing buildings dismissed my explanations (with the possible exception of my mental health), and told me they had been there forever. A foreign graduate student was greatly amused, but was open to at least two of the possible explanations. He also suggested one of the short ones may have grown. By this time, I began to keep an eye out for other evidence of having transited to a parallel universe, but I could find no other discrepancies in my reality (other than prices increasing dramatically at each subsequent purchase, everyone wearing masks, and traffic reduced from routine gridlock to a trickle). Finally, I turned to the ninnernet. Google Maps and Street View showed no hits, but I finally found one that almost shows its absence (would possibly be just out of sight just behind the wall), yet bolsters my argument by showing, or rather not showing, its street-side twin.

Compare to:

This seemed to discredit the most popular explanation, my mental health (or absence of health), but distinguishing between the other two was not so easy. Perhaps the pylonist admired Pottery Barn and needed the appearance of authenticity as is all the rage these days. I triumphally told the foreign graduate student that I found a Street View discounting mental health concerns. He immediately searched, found the Street not on View and considered I had become a fabulist or lost it completely. When I next met the local proprietor and told him the View on the Street was that they were of recent provenance, he said, “Yes, I had them put in last year because the trucks could not see the short ones.” I thought not to tell him that only a week earlier his parallel self told me they had been there forever.