Officers and gentlemen

You can read about their release somewhere else. They were officers... and gentlemen. And we did them wrong.

You can do.... what?

And let's hear it from this new campaign for the Lebanese forces!... "You can do nothing," (Man in front of destructed building - most likely this has to do with hizbullah in some way) "you can do nothing" (Girl in front of a photo of Hizbullah fighters), and in the third part, a flag is being put in the ballot box (Exactly like the last instalment of the March 14 ad saga!)... It is actually the headline that disturbs me the most.... "and you can do" - a lame punch line which fails to move or entice.

The war of the words....

It's a full-fledged war outsite that's for sure!... Following the Sois Belle et Vote ad by the FPM and deluge of ads was all over the internet. The Lebanese Forces replied with the subtle "Sois beTe et vote Tayyar" (Be stupid and vote for FPM), to which the FPM itself replied with "Sois jins atel et vote shou esmo hayda" which is a direct parody of the LF's current ally Walid Jumblatt whose recent video cursing the Maronites (Of which the LF think they are the current flag holder) as "jins atel" (A bad breed) and referring to their leader Samir Geagea as "shou esmo hayda" (What's his name?).... In the starring role of the ad is Neyla Mouawad running in the same coalition as Joumblatt and what's his name... Now of course, this being the internet, there is already a site entitled www.soisbelleetvote.com (Which also contains some home made images of the FPM as orange sperms fertilizing the Future Movement's blue egg - both colors have now become trademarks of the parties in question - and of an orange bowling ball striking figures of Michel el Murr, Saad Hariri, Walid Joumblatt, Chou esmo hayda, and Amine Gemayel). Now, you will not believe this, but there is also a website called www.shou-esmo-hayda.com which contains a photo of Samir Geagea with starlet Haifa Wehbe during a party with her hand pointing to his genitals with the caption "that's him!" - photo provided above as downloaded from the website.

Marriage proposal gone wrong!

Remember the marriage proposal of Cedric and Sara? Well, forget being invited... It turned out to be a teaser/revealer for Sleep Comfort - a furniture store in town... How sad! Just for once we thought someone was actually not selling us anything on these billboards!

Plus ca change....

The more it changes, the more it becomes the same... And so here we go for some more! The new MTC ad celebrating the fact that the cell-line provider now has hit the million mark, needed to say that "we are now 1 million voices" (Or "ballots). But the winner, without any question, goes to Kafa association dedicated to protecting abused women with the very punchy line "The candidate needs your vote. You need a law that protects you." The trade-off is so honest that it simply throws in the garbage all other political claims. For once - elections are what really are - an exchange of services. The visual shows a woman looking in the window of a shop with the mirro image showing her all bruised and battered. Well, moving on to the Academy Awards who, in the last few years replaced the expression "And the winner is" by "And the award goes to" under the pretext that all the nominees are already winners. Well, this is not the case in Lebanon, which is why we say "And the winner is" Hagop Pakradounian who managed the incredible feat of being the only Armenian candidate for the only Armenian seat in the whole of the Metn department making him the de facto winner even before the elections. His party is still hoping for a high turnout from its Armenian voters just to prove to the electoral list that since their own candidate has made it they still want the whole list to make it. Yeah, right.... Now let me make this clear: Georges Forides ranks high on my list of campaigns!.... He is running in Achrafieh against the still competition of Neyla Tueni and Issam Abou Jamara both Orthodox and aiming for that one hot seat in that department. One of Forides' ads goes "Neither a young woman nor an old man, we know who to chose" (A perfect rhyme in Arabic) - the old man is Abou Jamra and the young woman is Neyla Tueni. Another goes, "neither by elimination but by the right choice." "Right" is also the way the free patriotic movement to which Abou Jamara belongs has been marketing itself. So Forides deserves top marks... But does he deserve a seat in the parliament?

Massoud Achkar: Legally blonde

Massoud Achkar, candidate in one of Beirut's districts, stikes gold with his campaign. Achkar, known to be sympathizer of the Phalangists and the Lebanese Forces has switched sides a while back - albeit unofficially - to the Aoun camp. Now the transition is official. However, Ackhar (Whose family name transaltes into "blonde" in English and who is a lawyer by profession) played his trump card and rocked the house as he headlined his campaign with "Achrafieh el bidaye" which means "Achrafieh is the beginning." Achrafieh - long known to be the stronghold of the Lebanese forces - and which stood against heavy Syrian shelling in 1978 in what was later known as the 100 days war marked the "beginning" of the dream of the Lebanese Forces" of liberating Lebanon. Ackhar, then an active LF, draws on this famous sentence (Which still resounds deeply inside every LF member) to highlight his origins, his principles, but also his new rebranding to the Aounist side. For my money however, Achkar's original campaign, homegrown and made with cheap layouts represents him much more than the fierce billboards that are being displayed on the roads. These billboards say "Achrafieh is the beginning and in the end not for sale." The English billboard refers to the money being spent in buying votes - but I did not know that votes were also bought in Euros as well as Dollars!

CPL - on the offensive again.

So here are the new installments of the CPL campaign... One that says "there is a change" although initially it said "there is a chance" and with a sprayed orange "tick" the c become a g. It is a return to the graffiti pattern that the CPL sympathizers were famous for when the movement was banned. The second, a direct offspring of the ongoing campaign says "the third republic sticks" which is a reference to the local idiom that goes "the third attempt sticks"... At least this interpretation was very loyal to the overall tone of voice the campaign has adopted so far. The thrid photo is the now infamous "Sois belle et vote" but reintepreted by rivals Future Movement with a bit of spay.

Deprived.... no more....

Photos copyright Rami of plus961.com Just in case anyone thought that only Hizbullah are doing the marketing on behalf of the Shiites, Amal is here to remind them that it is the other part of the equation. For a long time Amal (Afwaj al Mouquawama al Loubnaniya - AML or HOPE) have branded themselves as "deprived" or "mahroumin" (From the services of the states and all other things). Amal has joined the current media battle with the above photos. One of them shows children with the logo of AMAL (Hope) which forms the letter M.... And the second is the word "Tadamon" (solidarity) with again the logo forming the letter M - interestingly the solidarity in question is between Christians and Moslems (In the this case referring to their new ally General Michel Aoun). Not earth shattering but good enough to carry the message.

New crop of artists get "Exposure"

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(c) Jennifer Maghzal, Karine Wehbe, and Raed Yassin On the second outing of the Beirut Art Center, "Exposure", which is an exhibition designed to encourage emerging artists, the organizers managed to produce a small gem, which - honestly - by far outbeats its earlier much-more drummed and hyped "Closer" opening exhibition. A jury chose seven up and coming artists and financed the production of their work to produce the final result which in terms of scenography showed the people behind the Beirut Art Center now much more in command of the inner geography and feel of their space. This year’s chosing committee was: Jacques Aswad (writer), Joana Hadjithomas (visual artist and filmmaker), Christine Tohme (director of Ashkal Alwan), and Kaelen Wilson-Goldie (journalist). The chosen artists are Tamara Al Samerraei (Before Dark, animation), Nadim Asfar (Innenleben, photography), Sirine Fattouh (Lost and won, video and photography installation), John Jurayj (Untitled (I'll be your mirror), oil on colored mirrored plexi-glass), Jennifer Maghzal (Terminus (I can't tell where I end and you begin, installation), Karine Wehbe (Tabarja beach 1, photography), and Raed Yassin (The best of Sammy Clark, installation). To be honest, all exhibited works deserved to be there and get their ligitimate "exposure." Actually, the Arabic title of the exhibition is "Atabat" which means "stepping stones" which seems even more moving and adequate than its English counterpart. Yassin's installation is a coup of collective memory of Lebanon in the 80s through the evocation of Sammy Clark Lebanon's pop star par excellence back then (Whose major credits probably include singing the Arabic version of the title track of Japanese-Anime Grendizer, but that's a different story). Sirine Fattouh simply asked women "What have you won?" and "What have you lost?" and went on to record the answer in a rather deceptively simplistic way, which in effect is very deep and leaves much to the imagination. Asfar took pictures of webcam transmission for three years trying to locate his pictures somewhere between public and private, erotic and morbid, real and fictional. Which only fits with what he says about photography: "Beyond seeing, it is about imagining, moving, assembling and transporting. It is about folding and unfolding images… Images contain what one shows, and what one hides. Statements and secrets. Fictions." Jennifer Maghzal takes the name of the Roman god of boundaries (Terminus) and creates a self-contained enclave of 16 second-hand doors embodying thus the concept of binary vision of the world we all function through "you/me", "inside/outside" or "open/shut." But the one artist who manages to hijack the exhibition is Karine Wehbe... Long confined in the realm of her graphic design (She graduated from the very prestigious Ecole Supérieure des Arts Graphiques (ESAG) Penninghen, Paris) Wehbe limited herself to graphics, illustration and painting earlier in her career. Her much-welcomed conceptual development started to emerge with her exhibition "Young Women" at Espace SD but it was her work on cinema as a colletive memory in 2006 (Also at Espace SD)that saw her emerged from her self-imposed cocoon. Wehbe once told me that she "didn't like working with concepts," thankfully this stage of her thinking is now far gone. Her video with Philippe Azoury "Suspendue" was shown at the 6th edition of the Né à Beyrouth Festival and at the Jeu de Paume for the 36th edition of the Festival d’Automne à Paris. Her tipping point came when she has participated in the workshops as long as I’m walking led by Francys Alys and The ruin in the city by Lara Almarcegui and Cecilia Andersson, both of which were part of the project 98 weeks. "I learned how to function in groups, how to work with others, how to communicate with media I have not known before and was afraid of before," confided Wehbe. The photos that Karine Wehbe exhibits in "Exposure" are about the beach resorts which cluttered the seaside of Lebanon and mushroomed illegally during the war creating a haven of safety and cosmopolitanism for the riche and nouveau-riche and became the words to drop to indicate status (Tabarja beach, Acqua Marina, Rimal, Portemilio, Les residences de la mer....). "Today, these happy-go-lucky resorts have faded away to become nothing but ghostly blocks of reinforced concrete and pools of Chlorine. In the summertime, few subscribers or owners still venture there," continues Wehbe. In the Tabarja beach 1 series sees Wehbe staging herself near the Jet Set discotheque, now nothing but a delabrated space, shooting the now empty bungalows "by the turf" (Which were the most expensive), and meeting someone at the cafeteria - again, now very empty and hollow. But the photo that is most haunting is that of her (And her cousin Ansoula who co-models in all photos except that of the bungalows) sunning in their 80s bathing suits (Wehbe is a major 80s revival in terms of fashion) near the totally empty pool filled with small debris with rusting metallic parasols in the background as witnesses to fading glories of the past. "In those empty spaces," comments Wehbe, "I try to live out, one more time, even if for a few seconds, m first night club experience or a long chat I had by the swimming pool on dreams that were still possible. In a country where places from our memory are vanishing, I hold on to my adolescence.... or it is maybe holding on to me?" Beirut/NTSC prays for Wehbe never to find the answer, as the questionning is leading to an artist blossoming at her fullest potential.

When the independents do it better than the establishment!

So there it is! A proof that independents are more efficient than the establishment! Rami El Khoury a student in graphic design about to graduate has done these CPL-supporting ads as a private initiative. The first, in the same spirit of the official CPL campaign is targeted against the Lebanese Forces with the same torn wrapper witht he CPL colors beneath it and the words "their days are over." The second, a yellow sun instead of the logo of the future movement with an orange background and a copy that says that Aoun's sun will shine in Achrafieh during the elections.... Whether one agrees with Rami is besides the point, the creativity and the effort displayed in itself is worth it!

Beauty is in the eye of... who?

In the latest installment of an ever-dwindling saga, FPM reveals its new ad targeted towards women. Based on the French saying "be beautiful and shut up" they turned it into "be beautiful and vote." The whole ad is out of touch with everything: Its target audience (If it's for the youth, it doesn't work. If it's for middle aged housewives, why isn't it in Arabic?) the layout does not resemble anything previously released in the campaign, the language is foreign (even if it includes the play on words now a trademark for FPM).... Why on earth would they release such an ad is beyond me... Beauty is indeed in the eye of the media bookers!

Je est un autre

So there's a new website peading the case of originality it seems!... www.iammyself.me has posted some creative media (On the sidewalks, underneath plates in restaurants, etc....) provocative enough to visit the site.... Judge for yourself but when it comes to being one's self, I can only refer to Arthur Rimbaud's "je est un autre" - I, is another..... But to those who know who they are... Well, maybe it is time to requestion! PS: It was later revealed that the www.iammyself.me is nothing but a teaser campaign for Le Mall - a department store focused on fashion. iam(beside)myself(indisappointment).me should be the next website.

Oui... the people!

"Harakat el chaab" (People's movement - a leftist party led by chain-smoking ex-MP Najah Wakim)have entered the election fray with an ad that refers directly to late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish "Sajjel ana arabi" (Take note, I am an Arab) and headlines: "Take vote, I am an Arab" (Sawwet ana arabi) emphasizing thus their pan-Arab tendencies. Another poster by Harakat el chaab says "vote, because your vote will not be spare change" (Sawwit, hatta ma ykoun sawtak fark 3emle) - in direct reference to the political money that will be injected to buy votes. One third exectution says "vote, because your voice matters" (Sawwet, la2anno sawtak bi2addem w bi2akhher). Maybe the most interesting aspect of the whole campaign is its title "raise your voice" (Which also reads as "raise your ballot) with even a website to accompany it.

Everything is fair in love and election war!

Whereas the law is a little shady as to allowing competitive ads in Lebanon so much that cheeses only can say "lower salt that others", the new episode of the elections saga wars promises to spice things up as the Free Patriotic Movement has attacked the Future Movement right in their own territory. By using the blue background, tearing it to reveal the almost trademark orange of the FPM and declaring "there is no future without change" (Also in reference to the list of the FPM called "list of the rehabilitation and change") the blow was indeed hard as this will up the ante in the tone of voice of all subsequent communications.

Mix and (mis)match

And so here we are, some more of the same!... Elmarada (the giants) are "East of Eden" proving to be a "giant" and a "rebel with a cause." OK, too much James Dean puns, but they fit!.... Their ads are deptively simple: "You voice is a giant" (Sawtak mared) or "05: they stole your voice. 09: Make your voice heard." (O5 in reference to "independence05")... Straight to the point. He who dares argue will be treated in pure "northern" fashion (Which we call "shoot him and go out, we don't want any fuss!)... Free Patriotic Movement get light humoured - a welcome change from all those "right" or "wrong" ads - and they say in reference to the local idiom "the mistake of the rightuous is worth a thousand" that "the mistake of the rightuous is worth two thousand and nine." Another ad inspired by the elections comes courtesy of Caritas. "Give them a voice" or "give them a shout." In other words, do not forget them. Every year Caritas does this wide donations campaign and the donations box looks so much like the ballots' box. So by saying "give them a voice" is means, "vote for them" - the needy and under priviledged ones. Not bad, and a good ride on the elctions' bandwagon. Finally, and out of nowhere, we have a marriage proposal! Cedric wants to marry Sara... But like a good telenovela, we will only know the answer in the next episode!

One hand cannot clap!

In one of those reare moments where things are "staged" by themselves, Karl Zeeny picked up this photo at the local Virgin megastore.... One hand cannot clap, so one ought to be borrowed!

MTV - we will rock you (Once more?)

In a previous post, the forced closing of Future Television was
discussed in addition to the original closing of Mtv, now Murr Television is going to be back on the airwaves as of April 7th. The ad - although understated - tends to say it all. After a long silence (As shown by the fact that she got a tan on the rest of her face but not under the peeled "silencer") free opinion will be heard again on Mtv. Whether in the the meantime it will regain the luster it once had before closing is a different matter. But getting the voice back could never be a harmful thing.

Pause cafe pour pause cafe

To take a break from elections why not check out this ad for the
renovation of "Cafe Najjar - Maison du cafe" which brilliantly proclaims that "a coffee break? Well, we need it too...." and promises to return to its orginal revamped location although right now, they are only 30 meters away.

Nayla Tueni - the iron maiden?

Unrecognizable in the photo, Nayla Tueni, heir of the mediatic empire of Annahar in addition to the political legacy of her grandfather and her late father Gibran, is attempting her own entrance into the political world. She looks awash in blue, the color of the Futre Movement with whom she is allied. The only interesting thing about the ad is the slogan that goes "In defence of great Lebanon" which is the line before the last from the "oath" that her father proclaimed (Followed by the million plus people gather in Martyr's square) on March 14th whereby "Christians and Moslems would remain united until the end of times in defence of great Lebanon."

Mom! He's done it again!

What a pity! It turned out that the whole campaign for the Free Patriotic Movement was based on the concept of "right" (Sa7)... In this new instalment the reference to Christianity - the people who are going to vote for the FPM anyway - is only too blatant: "Let your vote be a right right or a wrong wrong," in direct reference to the bible according to St. Matthew, specifically chapter 5 verse 37, "Simply let your 'yes' be 'yes', and your 'no', 'no'."

Al mustaqbal: The full monty

As commented before, this is the first outing mediatically of the Future Movement, the result is philosophical to say the least. "The future is promising for sure," "the future is where you spend the rest of your life," "to know the future you have to make it," and "the present only exists as a function of the future." Interestingly, in the north of Lebanon - another fan base of Al Mustaqbal - there are other two ads "time was asked: where you are going? To see my future he replied," (Sa2alou lal zaman lawayn raye7, allon raye7 chouf moustaqbali) in addition to "roll up your sleeves and build the future" (Chammer a3an znoudak w inbi el mustaqbal)

March 14th: 12.3 and 5

Either it is me who doesn't get the concept or there's something missing! Teaser: In your hand is libery, with your ballot comes independence 1: Lebanon first 2: We both win 3: Liberty, sovernity, independence 4: ? 5: The decision is in your hand Revealer: A ballot with the Lebanese flag on it But where's the visual with the four finger?