The rites of passage....

Well, it is spring, mothers' day, the equinox, the approach of Easter, you name it! Everyone is jubilating for one reason or another. Let's do the countdown:

Pikasso media company (billboards et al) send their pick up truck to collect whatever ads to recycle on their billboards - on the pick up is the very smart sign that goes "So that your ad won't go to waste. Pikasso. We recycle." Groovy indeed.

Then, with mothers' day being celebrated in Lebanon on March 21st, and in the plethora of boring ads came an unnoticed gem (plastered on top of a building behind a huge clothing store ad) from Class sport: A woman carrying a basketball ball on her belly as if she were pregnant. To make matters more funky, it turns out the selling line of Class Sport is "go for it" which might seem an invite to any unpregnant female to "just do it" (Ooops! Wrong sport brand!).

Believe it or not, rip off there will always be. Remember the wonderful cartoon Cow and Chicken? Well, their ripped-off counterparts on Sassine square are opening a shawarma store under the name of Chicken and Cow... Will theft ever end? I wonder.

Then comes another blunder. Recently, the government decided that annuniciation day (the day Virgin Mary was approached by the angel to tell her she will be the mother of God) is going to be an official holiday (added to the other 18 official holidays in Lebanon! And since those are equally split between Christians and Moslems, this one is supposed to be a go-between as both faiths honor the Virgin). Now, the blast came from a right wing Sunnite party from the north "Al Tahrir" announced that "(P.M.) Saad Hariri has gone too far" with this move. Which maybe explains this series of unsigned billboards other versions of which stress "together for honoring the Virgin."

Well, Easter has become as commercialized here as anywhere else, but this does not hinder the creativity with City Mall's breaking news gimmick....

And then last but not least, the passing away of Antoine Choueiry Lebanon's own media mogul. But it seems "legends never die" as the haphazardly posted unipoles stress. Maybe they don't, but when they start competing with ads about Mothers' day, Easter, and all that, suddenly the billboards having his image disappear quicker... than his legend.