El Dounya heik - such is (not) life

They don't make them like they used to!... After Jonas Brothers stealing Kim Wilde's "Kids in America" and the pityful faux-remake of Fame and many other instances, here is the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation doing an ugrade (or is it a downgrade?) of the classic "El Dounia Heik" which trnaslates into "Such is life" and was a major TV hit on TeleLiban in the 70s and early 80s.
The original followed the adventrues of Zmorrod (Feryal Karim) her husband Aziz Salamanki (Elias Abou Rizk), her friend Warde (Leyla Karam) her husband Belbol (Majed Afiouni) and her sun Coucou (from a previous marriage to Belbol). There is a mayor (who is the writer of the series Mohammad Chamel), and his son Alloush (his real son in life) who is enamored with Chwaykar (Amal Oufeich, who prior to being stuck in the stupid girl image that Chwaykar gave her showed exceptional dramatic potential in other series on TeleLiban).
The series started losing its sparkle when the writer began shifting the plot and the emphasis on his son leaving the two female leads (who probably had the character written for them so much they inhabited it) to just gravitate pointlessly around Alloush.
With Karim dying of a heart attack which she was on stage (she was Lebanon's first monologist), and Karam dying after a major stuggle with dementia, Abou rizk commiting suicide in the aftemath of the death of president elect Bachir Gemayel and Afiouni succumbing to natural causes, the only surving original cast are Alloush, Coucou and Chwaykar with none of them aging well.
One could accept slasptick from a young reckless man, but getting old and still remaining this silly is a sort of an impediment in front of Alloush and Chwaykar. Coucou, who in the original series was starting to show signs of acute effemination, now treats every scene as an audition to "la cage aux folles" - however, in the old and the new series he has been given a girlfriend mostly to indicate to the audiences that his mannerism is no way related to his character's sexuality.

In the new adaptation Layal Daou playing Zmorrod and Betty Tawtil Warde, while their male counterparts have been filled in by respectively Michel Abou Sleiman and singer-songwirter-producer Ghassan Rehbani (who brought with him the 4 Cats - a girl band which also includes his wife). Not even the immense talent of Tawtil manages to save the day!

Tawtil who performed a close role to this in terms of composition in the now long dead sitcom on Murr Television "tlet banet" (three girls) was playing opposite Julia Kassar at the time and managed to hold her own with flying colors. But with nothing making sense in this new series she is forgiven for trying her best and not making it!

The irony is that TeleLiban reruns the original on Saturday morning which even some two decades down the line still manages to be crisp, ironic, smart, and its female leads as much in character as one can be. A new adaptation of "El Dounya Heik" does not mean that such is life!

Loubnani: A la recherche du temps perdu

Anyone who has seen my "masmou7 lasek el e3lanat" will know that I am a sucker for good archive material. I am glad the guys at Leo Burnett agree. For the launche of the Loubnani card by Banque Audi which deals exclusively in Lebanese currency, they have produced a wonderful ad based on archive footage over a very lovely voic over. Now, if Lebanon was so perfect back then, how come the war erupted? Still there is not harm going back to something that unites us - no matter how fictional it is... Especially when well shot and well produced....

Lost, found, sort of.

As speculated in the earlier post, this was not a real missing ad but rather one for the Act for the Disappeared. I can't say I like the way this is going. First there was the ad "Who killed Samir Kassir? We will reveal the killer in a few days" the revealer was "Samir Kassir's pen killed him. Freedom of the Press day." That too I didn't like. Although I support both causes strongly, I think this is the kind of ads that is pushing me not to participate in these manifestations. Thanks Joseph for showing me the facebook link.

How low the moon!

I have promised never to comment on Clementine ads in Beirut/NTSC but this compilation landed in my lap courtesy of Milad. Remember that song "how high the moon"? Well, Clementine brings it down to rock bottom!... They used the moon for practically ALL their clients, and what's best is that they used the SAME moon!... They flipped it though for some of the ads, and blurred it for one and titled it for another, but  essentially... it is the same moon!...

Zaatar w zeit s7our

"S7our" or the traditional meal enjoyed by fasting people during Holy month of Ramadan before daybreak and the start of the fasting is offered in certain outlets around town... But as the slogan of Zaatar w Zeit goes "our s7our is waking up for"... Zzzzzzzzzz (sleeping) ZWZ (Zaatar w Zeit) Zzzzzzzzzz (go back to sleep). GENIUS!

Missing

As seen on the street of Achrafieh. There is no phone number to contact though... I am not sure what to say, such announcements are virtually inexistent in Lebanon. I hope this helps.

"Carcheology" by Herbert bos and Tarek Joseph Chemaly on 7UPstairs publishing

Open publication - Free publishing - More buick

... And here it is...
Dutch photographer Herbert Bos teams up with yours truly to give you a book very much in line of "archewallogy" only it is about vintage cars. While always playing on that small divide between personal and collective memory, it also give a visit down memory lane for a chance to visit these classics. The book was designed by Elsy Nohra based on a template by Farah Samman, and features some of my own artworks on the cover (just for the info: I unearthed the fuel station for Matchbox cars we had as children and filled it with some of the gems I still collect).
We all belong to a generation where cars have been insturmental in our memory (anything from getting your driver's license as a passage to mahood, to losing your virginity in the back seat of one....). With the hope that this new release from 7UPstairs publishing will be as successful as those that came before it, all I can say is: Enjoy the ride!

Same ad, photo for photo and pound for pound....

Not only did they steal the line from the Ministry of Tourism but also (thanks Fadi for the tip) they stole Charles Hajj's photo from the net... Is there no end to theft?... I am not bringing Charles any of his financial or moral rights when I post this, but at least I am helping unmask a thief.

Beirut, now and zen....

(c) Walid Zbib

These two postcards (still available to this day in the Way In bookstore in Hamra) remind me of my AUB days - as these posters were all over the place back then.... Both are the works of Walid Zbib - who from internet info was 22 at the time (since one of them dates back to 1987, "Beirut have a nice day") the second goes back to 1990 and is called Beirut v/s Beirut because it was set at the Museum crossing which was the demarcation line between East and West Beirut.... The Dochca in the Hamra one refers to the now defunkt Modca cafe (replaced by Jack Jones)... How can one love a city in ruins as much as we have loved Beirut, I wonder - the words of poet Nizar Kabbani go back to me (speaking of Beirut): We have given you a knife instead of a rose...

Same ad, pound for pound....

What does the Ministry of Tourism ad say? It says "so that they come in their smile worth a pound, and they go out their smile worth two." It has been running since the beginning of summer on the road. And what the Le Charcutier Aoun ad launched last week say? "So that you come in your smile worth a pound, and you go out with your smile worth two." I am not sure what the rationale is behind Aoun's ad (because it does talk of touristic sites), but all I know is that one does not copy another ad (specifically while the other is still running around town) no matter how rampant this practise is in the profession.

A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs.

Found on the staircase known a Vendome staircase (though cinema Vendome does not exist anymore): Several A4 papers written by a man calling himself Zizi because his beloved is Zaza (nee Camille as we shall later discover). Neatly pasted in the morning, they were torn all over the place in the afternoon. Apparently Zaza might not have appreciated the exposure. All of this, in the age of facebook and text messaging is a touching reminder of what it was to write things on paper and be a teenager in love. Beirut/NTSC wishes the couple lasting happiness (which in teenage years equals surviving till Christmas as a couple, breaking up for New Year's eve and then getting back together before Valentine's day and definately splitting sometime in early spring - preferably before the Easter break).

See you on Thurday night at 7:30 pm at Empire Sofil for the screening!!!

Soon on 7UPstairs Publishing....

Carcheology soon on 7UPstairs publishing - photos by Herbert Bos, editing by Tarek Joseph Chemaly... Vintage cars like you've never seen them! Stay tuned for the new release.

When it comes to people from Barbarian countries

(c) Christopher Wool
Ever since I have published "Portraits of people from Barbarian countries" the switchboard of Beirut/NTSC has been abuzz with comments and calls and whatever all else. I have tried to answer both privately and publicly some of the outcries - some of them logical, well-intended and good-natured and some of them not. But frankly this is getting beyond the ridiculous, I guess some people don't recognize humour even if they read it. On all accounts the above work by Christopher Wool replies to one and all... Indeed, if you can't take a joke get the %$&* out of my blog.

Masmou7 lasek el e3lanat to be screened on Ne a Beyrouth film festival

Mark your calendars - my movie Masmou7 lasek el e3lanat will screen on Thurday 19th of August at 7:30 PM at the Ne a Beyrouth film festival. Would be lovely to see you there... Thank you for the Ne a Beyrouth team, but also to Deborah Fares for the Voice Off and to Fayad Saab for the editing.

Yours truly in Nick Flynn'sbook.

A friend of mine sent me the following statement taken from Nick Flynn's "The Ticking is The Bomb" on page 139:
"The television is tuned to CNN, and live from Lebanon I see the same scene I'd just seen the night before - a building reduced to rubble, a child carried from the wreckage, a woman crying. My friend Tarek was emailing me from Beirut with updates, and to let me know that he was okay." The Tarek in question is moi!
For those of you who do not know Nick, he is the author of one of the most incredible books ever "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" his poignant memoir about his homeless father. If you notice the photo above you will find that he autographed the book for me, and not in some silly "to Tarek with appreciation" but with a more personal statement:: "For Tarek who came to Portland as the bombs fell. This again is another offer for respite."
On all accounts, it is interesting that Nick ever mentionned me considering the way we met. It was the first day of the Tin House workshop in Reed College in Portland - Oregon and we were all holding a file with the name of our worshop leader, as we sat in the huge amphitheater a tall man sat in front of me and trying to strike a conversation I said: "Oh, I see you are with Nick Flynn, I am with Doug Powell." To which the man replied: "I am not WITH Nick Flynn... I AM Nick Flynn!"

Portraits of people from Barbarian countries *

Wheelchair - Amsterdam definition

Car seat in the rear.... Only in Amsterdam!

When I went to Amsterdam in 2000 I wrote this article. Last week I was there, and found that not a lot has changed! Enjoy....

"A few years back, a friend of mine was taking up Spanish courses. At one point, I was skimming throughher illustrated beginners’ book and I fell upon how the word “skirt” - falda - translates differently into different Spanish speaking countries. After several enumerations, the last sentence read “In Argentina una falda e una falda”.

Few things in life are this obvious.

Some of the less obvious things can be found in Amsterdam and include:

Any two men walking together are labeled as gays, but it does not matter because almost all the rest are gays anyway.

Construction workers take thirty minutes breaks between two ten minutes working intervals.

A transvestite can be easily mistaken for a beautiful, rather tall, woman.

A girl with yellow hair, and a tattoo on the neck, with a beehive hairdo and sixties blue glassed eyeglasses, sporting a very short black dress and skyscraper high platform shoes can dine with a man wearing earrings, with a map on the forearm, dressed in his cleanest flannel sleeveless shirt, in a chic Chinese restaurant and decline to take the rest of the food as take away because it is vulgar to do it.

Two adjacent coffee shops can have two different terraces, one is for heterosexuals the other for gays. If you are not stoned you may notice this.

The trams are extremely expensive but boat rides are for free.

A whole family can fit into one bike.

Moving apartments is a national sport.

Most of the furniture in apartments actually comes from other people’s apartments who were practicing the national sport during the weekend.

It takes thirty minutes to dismantle an electrical stove and replace it with a gas one, and another twenty minutes to transport it to the nearest dump.

It takes three minutes for the same stove to be assembled in somebody else’s apartment.

The three minutes in question were the time that took the “dismantling” party to get back to the apartment and get rid of the barbecue set which of course went to another lucky winner.

A beautiful bird cage complete with an empty nest and watering plastic buckets was retrieved from trash, though not the same one where the stove was placed.

In the flea market, an empty metallic cigar box costs as much as brand new used couch. Metallic cigar boxes cannot be found in the trash, brand new second hand couches can.

If you help somebody move, you are most likely to receive brand new leftover items which cannot fit in the new apartment. An executive black leather case in my case.

On Monday, work starts at 1:00 P.M. because everyone deserves a rest from the weekend, where everybody was resting anyway.

Everyone loves the queen, or is too stoned to give a damn she exists.

You have more choice in hash than in carbonated orange juice.

And that’s just a representative sample of the less obvious things. If in Argentina una falda e una falda, in Amsterdam una falda is a convenient item to wear for the gay parade, daaaaaaaaaaaarlinnnnnnnnnnnnng."

* Name inspired from a series of paintings commissioned by a Dutch king sometime in the 17th or 18th century and which depicted daily lives in Dutch colonized countries.

Ya chawish el karakon: Feyrouz is not above the law.

I suppose everyone has so far heard about the feud that has stopped Feyrouz from singing. It all boils down to this, Feyrouz, widow of Assi el Rehbani, did not pay royalties for the heirs of her late brother in law Mansour before singing the "Ya'ish, ya'ish" operette - so they have sued her and stopped the operette which was written by Assi and Mansour otherwise known as the "Rahbani brothers". It all sounds simple and legal, except that the rift runs far deeper than that.

Mohammed Abdel Wahhab the great Egyptian composer once said: "to call themselves Rahbani brothers is an injustice to Assi," and so there are many who argue that it was Assi's genius that was the driving force behind their popularity teamed with his wife Feyrouz's voice. Actually, when Assi died there was a proposition to call a street in Antelias the town where they hail from under his name, the proposition was contested by Mansour and the street was called "The Rahbani brothers". Lately, after Mansour died there was a decree to include Mansour's works in the official art curricula in schools, it was the heirs of Assi who contested and so the works of the brothers are now to be tought.

In another episode, Rima Rahbani just released the DVD Kanet Hikaye (so hastily done in trubute to her father that she forgot that there was incompatibility in the typo of the subtitles which made every appostrophy look like %^#...), and the message boils down to this: Assi and Feyrouz were the tandem not Assi and Mansour, Assi's musical genius made people recall songs while going out of the Piccadilly theatre whereas Mansour's plays (according to Feyrouz but implicitly said as) "today's plays leave people with no word or musical note to remember".

I am not picking sides here, just recounting stories. Let me say that I love Feyrouz as much as the next man - no, I love her MORE than the next man, I even translated the lyrics of some of her songs into English ... I went to the famous concert she did in Downtown Beirut on September 17th, 1994 - her first after the war in Lebanon. I saw her in Baalbeck and in Beiteddine... I say all of this to drop the bomb now and say: She is not above the law!....

As someone who writes lyrics to songs, who creates and publishes books and whatever, one of the things that pains me the most is when someone steals my work. Or publishes it without giving me credit. I have not earned any royalties from my songwriting yet, I admit, but I did once spend 2 full hours in a cafe signing legal documents in triplicates that confirm me being the author of around a dozen of songs. And when the time comes, I want my money out of them.

Well, if McCartney and Yoko Ono can find a civilized way to make amends, I hope Feyrouz and the heirs of Mansour will do the same. But what can you say of a woman who sued art critic Abido Bacha for saying he did not like her concert? Maybe just sing "ya chawish el karakon" (Oh offiicer of the jail!)...