Beirut on August 9, 2006

Da7yeh boomboom on the highway to baabda


Da7yeh again from baabda


Da7yeh from road mkalles/ain saade


Da7yeh from mkalles/ain saade road. u can c the formation of a new blast.


we were comin back from beirut. i had spent the whole day there. and boom boom.

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i was waiting for alf to pick me up from Riad el solh. i waited for him in front of the belgian embassy. there were people waiting to get in; either for their papers or for visas, am not sure. i decided to sit on the bench, facing the street. i was filming, and i realized that each and every passer by—whether on foot or in the car—looked, glared and fixed that crowd. they would turn their heads until they twisted their necks, fixing the people under the embassy.
we have a habit of being very curious in this country. but this was not curiosity.
it most definitely was not curiosity. the look was not inquisitive. it was not prying. it was not envy. it was most probably questioning. it was wondering whether they should go wait in front of an embassy too.
are we making the right decision to stay here?

i was reading aya's blog, and she mentioned her boyfriend going to london. and was talking about how she dreaded the idea of having to come back to our country after this war, to find it completely destroyed.
and i realized that was it. it is that the most dreadful. come back to a country in shambles. completely disconnected from its reality. aya would come back to a country, it will not be the one she left. it would be a new version of it. she would've left it as a 1.0 version and came back to a 2.0. whereas to me if i stay, i would be in a 1.2 or a 1.9 or whatever. i would've lived with it. i would've enver disconnected. i would've grown with it. and it would be one with me. change is only scary when u do not live its process. and i would live it.
i will live it.
and i came to the conclusion right now, that i will not leave. and i will stay. and i will wait to re-construct, to re-do, and i will re-lebanon, without ever have left it, without ever disconnecting. it would be the same lebanon. the one i always knew, that has matured and lived through the heavy raids, and gained from it its experience and is more and is better becoz of it.
we would be one. it would run in my veins, and without it i would not live.

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i had the luck of seeing most of my buddies when i got to beirut. i was so happy to see them again. we had lunch in gemmayze. it was good.
i bid bello farewell. he will be back. he said so. i have him on tape. i have proof. he will be back.

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i also ran by cd-thèque. i saw zeez and tony. i wanted to buy the new thom yorke, turns out thom couldn't make it. the war had prevented him to reach our shores. goddam this war. israelis have ripped me of my music fix.
i wish the humanitarian aids that are reaching lebanon would include new music...
cynical, zoozoo, very cynical... u r gonna burn in hell, not any hell, the one with no new thom yorke... oh wait! i'm already there... am burning! am burning!... burn baby burn!!!

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reminiscent of my early posts
a décor above the entrance of a printing press. i dunno if it shows well but the white paint has been laid over the objects. looks cooler in real life.

Museum area, Beirut, Lebanon.