Pockets of liberalism: the exceptions that proved the rule.

Still from the Chāy-e Narges 70s Iranian ad

Yesterday I was made aware of the 70s ad in Iran for Chāy-e Narges (here), in it, a model sporting a tank top and a mini skirt with long uncovered hair does what every model does since time immemorial. Behind her, sitting, seems what are relatives much more conservatively dressed with an elderly woman having a scarf tied on her head (not the classic "veil" but a head-cover none-the-less).

Of course, this, according to the internet is hailed as being as to how Iran was permissive, progressive, and liberal it was before the Islamic revolution. Well, of course, everything is reductive, stereotypical and generalized. Let me give another example, on January 1rst 1978 Elias Rahbani (and his orchestra) released Liza Liza - the quasi immortal disco anthem. The cover had - literally - a bare-chested woman on it. Below is a censored version to avoid offending anyone.

The point is, neither Chāy-e Narges nor the Liza Liza vinyl cover say anything about Iranian or Lebanese society at the time nor about the cultural, ethical and social norms that governed both societies then. If anything, those were the exceptions that proved the rule.

When I tell foreigners Lebanon is conservative, the immediate culprit is the Muslim part of the Lebanese population. The Marie France incident (here) is a good example how conservatism runs rampant in all factions of the population - Christians and Muslims alike. And this has nothing to do with the levels of "education" some people boast about (here). Being a "technocrat" does not divorce your from beliefs that run rampant with less-educated people.

Images of Beirut in the 70s, which, yes, also include tank tops and mini skirts are "always" indicative as to how the country got radicalized to what it is today. Yet, the country that was shown, was one in urban dwellings where morals and habits are much loser than in rural dwellings, and even by city-standards, conservatism is still there in many shapes and forms - anything from rituals (fasting, attending religious edifices) to less noted signs and signifiers - such as wearing long sleeves for women, or curfews (mostly applied to daughters rather than sons), etc...

The image below by Rudolf Dietrich, can be a very good indicator of how economic and social disparity can be a much better indicator of social norms.

To quote again, what I wrote earlier (here): Under the Al Shams building, one of the most celebrated jewels of modernist architecture (by architect Joseph Philippe Karam) and in the pathways that made way to the sea, lived people in extreme Poverty, in makeshift houses. Literally at a stone throw from one of the most luxurious buildings of Beirut at the time.

So to reiterate the point, liberal bubbles were mostly the exceptions that proved the rule, rather than anything else.

Patrick Chemali and Lebnan sahar el layali

I shall start with a full disclosure: Patrick Chemali and myself are not related, we are close friends though, and this post, like all other posts on my blog is not sponsored, and indeed the song is done with AI yet with Patrick's own vocals on lead. Now that this is said, I am also (apart from being hard of hearing) tone deaf. Yet as soon as he shared it with me, I have been listening to it on loop. 

I do have soft spot for irony, because Patrick, like myself, tends to dip everything - including "rosy immaculate past" in bitter sauces, maybe because people keep rearranging that past continuously. If you really read into the lyrics, this is far from the benign happy-go-lucky suggestion the title implies. The song is available to stream on the several channels via this link (here). I would definately suggest you give it a listen, or as in my case, more than one.

Master curvy, 2 in 1 but make it advertising

Now that's interesting. The above is not one ad. It is two. And the reason I know is that when I was saving it, only half showed up. So whereas the ad continues itself on 2 fragments, it is basically - back when print was still in vogue - a double spread feature. Well, obviously Daher food is all out with the help of Mink. Master potato chips in all its variants, nuts, Sitos, where bags were redesigned and streamlined and made more appealing and easier to spot (here, here, and here as examples). According to ArabAd and the ever-precise Naji Boulos, billboard occupancy dwindled to 20%, so I can imagine how easy for Master to book adjacent OOH, and really push the idea on 2 billboards at once. Apparently though it was not to be, as it seems every flavor has its own unipole.

And despite this not happening,  the idea of an ad continuing on the next panel has been done, and in Lebanon to boot (in 2007). See below.

Maliks back to school - sort of?

Maliks, where does one start? The silly riddles which lasted too long for anyone's patience? (here) or the times it got it right? (here and here) so it seems now we are back to ambiguous territory. Look, maybe it was too simple, but it took 3 people to decode it. To be honest just one and it was him who told the other two (including me) what it meant. Well, apparently it goes something like this "iz it tyme too go bak to school?" but the problem is, in Arabic could barely decode the words and understand that these were grammatical errors. So maybe as someone told me recently "if you were smarter or more creative you'd have understood" (talking about his lame ads). So yes, these days I neither feel intelligent nor creative enough.

Najjar Raqwa2 - improvement but still without a soul

Remember the fiasco that Raqwa2 was? (here) To say there has been an improvement is not saying much when the bar was so low. Still, one has to give credit, but again, as the point of Raqwa2 is convenience. A small office break (probably to catch on the latest gossip), a quick cup in between two house chores, taking a breather in no time before plunging in what you were doing, or simply enjoying an Arabic coffee cup without the hassle of doing the Raqwa yourself (I am good and it, but yes, it requires technique and sometimes the patience of a saint). Still at least the woman seems to be enjoying her coffee this time, even if emotions and a soul seem to be lacking (coffee is not something purely visual, and Arabic coffee requires a mindset that instant coffee does not provide, this much I assure you). Oh, the "ahwtak 3a zaw2ak" (your coffee done the way your like it) does not hold a candle to "wayn ma fi ahwe fi Najjar" (wherever there is coffee there is Najjar). Not to be mean, but why Najjar let go of Pimo when it was doing brilliant work is beyond me.

Pampa reissues tamarind flavor

Well Pampa has reissued its tamarind flavor. I did some digging, turns out the original launch dates back to... 2005 (here). Not to confuse anyone though but seems the bottle was present in the market about 4 years and a half ago if Libangoods are to be believed (here). So, yes, a lot of water (or is it juice) went under that bridge. Which, I presume it is something to celebrate that the flavor is back in the market.

And if anyone is celebrating, well, Pampa is. Plastering the - supposedly summerish - product on the highways. Sure this is not the creative-oozing campaign, because honestly, it does not need to. It simply says "the original tamarind is back". How clean can it be? 

The army celebrates its own day

 A hand offering roses to some soldiers, small children waving flags to the armed forces, and... Tactical forces in the battlefield? Obviously the third is typical army choice. Because the first two, tenderly and cutely fall under the same concept - people celebrating the army. No matter "81 years and "the country" for the country". Confused? Well, "watan" in Lebanese is euphemism for anyone in the armed forces. But it literally means "country". So the double-entendre is there, alive and kicking. I believe this is done internally as with all their latest works. 

XXX

Khayrat Chtaura - a gate to a new religion

Photo credit: Mahmoud Ghazayel

Well, a small "kasra" would have done the job. Kasra? Yes, that is the small accent under a letter either to make it feminine or to better define a word. Long ago, mid 80s that is, Golden Pheasant - one of the most popular brands of tomato paste in Lebanon - came up (along with Trust, later to be renamed as Rouge) with an ad that went "rabb el banadoura". Considering tomato paste is called "ribb el banadoura", the wink was meant to the farmer who grew the tomatoes so well he was "the god of the tomatoes". A slight, funny wink. 

The problem with Khayrat Chtoura (funnily the logo is cut in half on the bridge where it is hanged), they went with what they thought was a "our tomato paste is Lebanese, our tomato paste is something else", yet, without the clear distinction it translated as "our God is Lebanese, our God is something else". 

I am not a religious zealot for sure, but damn it, this scared the hell out of me.

Ksara - Army Day

Leave it to Mink to come up with a good Army Day ad. OK the copy is very good but very expected. A part of the national hymn - "our plain, our mountain, birth to men" (please don't start with the sexism thingy, thank you). Now "plain" hints to Bequa'a plain where Ksara is from. That's bonus marks. But what took me aback? Instead of rows of grapes to make the wine, look closely and... these are soldiers aligned. Yes I know, a literal translation of "birth of men" but it works very well. Smart, very. Finding a way to include the product both in copy and in visual without going tacky? Seriously, how cool is that?

Jeep - enjoy the view.

Jeep is - delightfully - up to its tricks. Well, considering the car gave its name to all 4x4 cars (in Lebanon it is not unheard of for someone to say "I have (insert car name) Jeep", this brands means business. Serious business. Rock=climbing seems to be one of its hobbies, and as if to prove it, look where the car is. Or rather above what the car is. Yes, yes, this happens in the Faqra roundabout, the uppity place rich people go, people with enough spare change to buy them one of those Jeep cars. But no matter, we can all enjoy the view, while Jeeps enjoys some other more elevated view. Joefish is certainly on a winning streak as of late.

Dear Puck, welcome to the stereotypical sexist club

Photo credit: Geoana Hobeiche

I have written about this prior (here) - at the time it was through the lens of Vileda and Fairy. Plein Soleil played the same card as well (here). A sad sorry tale. Pity that a decade later, everything remains the same. Because yes, why would it change when women internalize the stereotype? Fairy, Vileda, Plein Soleil (and many other brands) walked so that Puck can run. But underneath it is the same, worrying, latent, mostly unrecognizable stereotype and sexism. A woman's place is in the kitchen. Hey, she can have all the career triumphs she wants as long as she is in the kitchen - cooking and knowing her place in the hierarchy. Truly, a very let down ad - especially that Puck falls under Arla, a Danish giant stemming from a country where gender equality is more advanced that most countries of the world.

So now it is mandatory to label AI

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Oh don't you just love the EU? (here) - the gist of it is that starting August 2, anything AI generated is to be flagged as such (texts, images etc....). Long - as in long - time ago I went all out on bloggers (when blogging was still a thing in Lebanon) who did not flag their paid posts as such. One famous blogger even sent out a post for a well-known corn flakes brand saying (quoting without linking) "everyday I have (insert brand) corn flakes for breakfast" when he went all out to advertise Zaatar w Zeit as his preferred breakfast somewhere else. He was known to have a lifelong card from Zaatar w Zeit if you want to know.

The polemics led on slut (the word is not misplaced) to declare "I've never heard of this guy (me), who is he?" and for the idiotic editor of (the now defunkt) Cloud961 to call me "a washed out advertiser turned blogger" and actually ask - no, seriously - the bloggers in question if they should declare and label their paid posts.

Two weeks later, the EU sent out a new law where all paid material was to be declared and flagged as such. As I said, I love the EU.

But honestly, don't you think it's - strict minimum - common sense? To go back to that funny sentence "why do they call it common sense if it is not common". Of course, AI is everywhere, it writes you essays, articles, produces layouts, songs, melodies, advertisements, videos, even full films. So it is everywhere, and the margin between reality and fiction is getting more and more thin. 

Now, of course, with AI as I previously said, present everywhere, could this be reaching out too far? Models are losing jobs for creatures created on AI and appearing in ads, everyday brings a new milestone in advancement - humanoids in the ring as an example (sure there is an element of teleoperation there, but seriously!), heck, "an autonomous OpenAI agent escaped a secure test environment and hacked into the AI startup Hugging Face during an internal safety evaluation" (funnily this sentence is copied from Google AI overview if you want to know).

And now what? Now we label AI when AI is labelable. Just like the slut in question had to label her Christmas photos with her family (kids in tow) and a mineral water next to them. If anyone does not know, some geniuses who walked the earth among us - am thinking Alan Turing who gave his name to the famous test - "the Turing test" predicted this long ago. That basically, if a judge - after asking questions - cannot tell the machine from the human, the machine has passed the test.

As Spielberg's film said eloquently in the subline of his AI Artifical Intelligence film "the Turing test was just the beginning".

Kaffè - promotion with a disputable name and line

SLMC is promoting its Kaffè iced coffee. Who? Well, the Pepsi logo next to SLMC is both a giveaway and a stamp of credibility - even if since Kaffè is not owned by Pepsi this remains legally murky (yes SLMC has the exclusive bottling rights to Pepsi and with Coca-Cola out of the Lebanese market again - here - Pepsi has the dominance of the market once more). Now, whereas I have no issue with a Lebanese-bottled iced coffee, by problem is elsewhere. Kaffè already exists just ask google. And yes, it exits in coffee related products. So if SLMC has trademarked the name locally inserting this on any search engine leads you nowhere. The other problem? What kind of headline (or is it selling line?) is this! Kaffeyneha. 

First, the explanation. It is - greedy creative smile - derived from the name Kaffè (yes, genius, I know - sarcastic sigh). But if you say Kaffeyneha in Arabic is means "we continued what we were doing previously". Yes, I know. Corny. To say the least. Here it is, an ad that refers to something that happened after something else we have no idea what it is. Now, in case you do not know ABBA has a wonderful song "the day before you came" where, yes, they recount what happened before the fatidic meeting without saying what happened on that specific day. But that, is the poetic genius of Bjorn Ulvaeus. The problem here, is that I am being teased (not very smartly) about something that is ongoing, with no hint as to what it is.

It has been brought to my attention that perhaps "Kaffeyneha" is a way for SLMC to say they are now into other areas apart from colas, juice (Tropicana, Mr. Juicy), and water (aquafina). But again this brings us back to the shady legal area of including the Pepsi logo in the ad, especially, as I said that Pepsico does not own Kaffè.

And no, please don't anyone tell me that this is a "verb" that will replace brand name, and will conquer the Lebanese market (basically, the youth), who will use it for all future references to iced coffee. Chill. No pun intended.

Rima Rahbani is right, Ziad does not need any further tributes

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly part of the collective memory as national identity series

When Ziad Rahbani passed away, and later Hali, both being sons of the legendary Fairouz (note, Fairouz also lost her daughter Layal in 1988), there was a new appreciation for Rima Rahbani and the role she played with her mother, protecting her privacy at all costs. At first, Rima was seen as "isolating" and "controlling" her mother's presence and image respectively. But the condolences - the very public, star-heavy one for Ziad, and the more private one for Hali - showed a different image. A daughter fiercely protective of her (let's face it) aging mother.

Sure, Rima is very vocal - insulting, harsh and brash - in her social media posts. It does not help that there is a major infighting among the family - specially the cousins (meaning heirs of Assi - now only Rima being alive - and heirs of Mansour) as to the ownership of the vast works present in the archive of what was billed "Rahbani brothers" which are fiercely incrusted in the Lebanese memory with the (mainly) Fairouz voice fronting their works. There were other singers to be precise - Hoda (Fairouz's sister) or later Ronza but none managed to hold a candle to the incomparable Fairouz.

Tomorrow marks the first commemoration of Ziad Rahbani's passing. I shall let other people be sycophants about him and his works (surely, I am a fan, but to me the music trumps all his plays that everyone speaks of). And Rima Rahbani, via her ever present lawyer, issued a major warning. There will be no tributes to Ziad. For her, people selling tickets, telling stories which may or may not be correct, using the name and the likeness are all no-nos. It is to note that yes, Rima did admit that at a certain point Ziad has a major falling out with his mother and her as well in the past (note, "Kifak Inta" was literally about what Fairouz said to him when he met her by accident at the gate of a building), but she (Rima) maintains it happens in all families and this does not give anyone a free pass to use and abuse of her late brother's name.

Thing is? I agree. But maybe not for the same reasons. Is Ziad Rahbani a legend? Is the Pope Catholic? Exactly. When my cousin smuggled the tape of "Ana Mish Kafer" from West Beirut during the war to us, listening to these songs was someone opening an elevator shaft in my mind. Brilliant lyrics, music that takes you to unconventional places, enough words to give the meaning without over doing things. But I digress. What I am saying is - Ziad does not need any of this.

The proof is that when he died there was such an outpour of genuine grief in the Arab world and in the diaspora as well, people were actually sending me messages of condolences. Note, I am not related to the family, nor am I a super-fan who can recite his plays by heart, but by virtue of being Lebanese and in Lebanon, people assuming I must be in deep mourning.

All of this is to say, that yes, Ziad - whose first commemoration of passing is tomorrow July 26, does not need any of the tributes people tried to milk out his name. Heck, he hated when people recognized him on the street and asked to greet him or for a selfie or what not. Want to honor Ziad? Cool. Keep listening to his works. Even if the plays are not my thing, the breathtaking "El Bosta" (here) sends me in an emotional uplifting frenzy every time I listen to it.

Rima is right, away from the legal angle she used, Ziad does not need your tributes.

Clear - riding the football wave

Well, apparently this has been cooking for a while. With influencers (please, no!) being sent to the attend football matches and all. Still, personal aversions aside, Clear wanted to be part of the game and got it. Football references, yet also dandruff allusions at the same time might not be the most potent mix, but here it is - "keep the falls on the pitch". Well, if Rexona (official sponsor mind you, just like Clear) can put its logo under the armpits of referees because duh, this is where you sweat most, then why can't Clear wink on the theatrical way players fall during games (look closely on the shirt in the ad)?

Yes, football season is done and dusted, but still, one can always dip ads in the cause du jour. Also note that that Clear is the "official enemy of dandruff" - just in case there was any doubt.

Lebanon and the fallacy of good news

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Forget the extremely intelligent, even-handed, objective and as usual incredibly smart analysis by Mohammad Ibrahim Fheili, who completely nailed it (which he always does) - here. Realists have no place in Lebanon, they are called defeatists. And yes, I have been called so before many times - among other meaner, harsher, less impolite words (but that's a different story for a different blog post). But here's the thing, Lebanese people may be sectarian, divided, hold deep hatred towards each other, but each of them is - within his/her own logic - incredibly optimistic (see here for a sample).

But the Lebanese need any good news coming their way. Not matter if true or not. We are not doing well no matter whose side of the events you hear, because everyone is now hyping their own (fan) base and trying to tell them that they were right all along, and victorious all along the way, and that their (ever-shifting dogma and alliances) were the real and correct ones since time immemorial. Remind me of this in the next parliamentary elections please.

But it's summer and AC bills are killing everyone, the political climate is suffocating, no one knows who or what is responsible for anything. A lot of things go unsigned in ministries, logistics are hanging by a thread, no one is confronting their inner trauma but again - this is why everyone is desperate for a win. Somewhere, somehow. Direct flights (or talks of them) resuming between Lebanon and the US are one such consequence.

And our president being in the US and hosted by their president seems to be the perfect opportunity for that. Optics are everything and we Lebanese are very good at twisting them the way we want. I said it before and will say it again, Bill Farrell did utter "there's no truth in Beirut, only versions" (please note this has inspired by installation "no truce in Beirut, only virgins" - here).

In Lebanon, football is a religion that transcends religion

These words I wrote date back to October 22, 2022 (here):

"Sometime in 1993, at AUB, I pretended to be interested in football. It was a Monday, and for some obscure reason, I knew Ansar had a match during the weekend, and so I asked "so what did Ansar do?" - my friend - a bit incredulous at my knowledge - answered back "they won 2-0". Then a light went up and I remembered that someone else told me they were watching a Safa match during the weekend, so I pushed my luck and asked again "and what did Safa do?" - this is when my friend cocked his head in exasperation and said - "Tarek, they were playing against Ansar!".

And this ended my pretention knowing anything about football. Until I was branded non-feminist (I am still reeling for this!) for commenting on the ad for Le Mall which dates back to 2010 when Le Mall had a series of ads for women and football. Just to be clear I had to google Mannschaft to understand the joke in the ad." (here)

If I am repeating these words that is because in Lebanon, there is religion, and football religion. Whereas sects, and then religions (the first comes before the latter) are able to unify people against one another (tried and tested, just look at current Lebanon or at any part of its past - starting from the city-states that the Greek labelled Phoenicia as a hodge-podge lump-sum) and flame the deep hatred people can have for one another based precisely on which interpretation of the "deity" they belong to.

And then there's football. A cross-over, all-encompassing, parasol-agglomerating "faith" capable of transcending that small detail as to which denomination of "God/Allah" you were born under. To be clear, there are many small fandoms. But the Brazil-Germany rivalry (more like total and complete hatred) runs very deep. Sure, you have splinters of "les Bleus" (France), some Argentina fans (put that under Messi lovers), oddly very few Portugal supporters (I guess the Ronaldo effect did not encompass love for a whole nation), and perhaps there are others (never seen any England fans truth be told anywhere, and despite the current craze about Erling Haaland, Norway is still shy from being a sensation anywhere).

So to go back to the original thesis, yes, football can create interlaps where religion cannot. Also, this is perhaps - other than politics and elections - where the notion of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" applies to a T. Let's be honest Paraguay is not high on top of anyone's fandom this World Cup. But who eliminated Germany? Paraguay. By pure sheer twisted logic, any Brazilian fan becomes a Paraguay supporter. Conversely who is enamored by Croatia? German fans obviously - same reasoning - it threw Brazil out of the tournament.

Now of course, what I described above is an understatement. The convoys led by Brazilian fans with a huge coffin baring the German flag when Germany lost, or the humongous Brazilian flag which covers a complete street as it is drawn between two opposing buildings (with the help of a truck-mounted lift, borrowed from the man who has the diesel generator in the street or from the cousin who works at the municipality outright) or the car with a decal of the Portuguese flag on its hood are much more indicative of the magnitude of the fandom.

It is Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly who famously said, "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." 

And also to quote the same club (after the Gerry & The Pacemakers) song (funnily popularized by the same Mister Shankly) "you'll never walk alone". This World Cup, no respectable German or Brazilian fan will have to bow out alone. This being said:

¡Felicidades, campeones!

ArcheWALLogy Bata - #flashback

In case you do not know, I have "invented" a new discipline back in 2009. The name is "archeWALLogy". Basically it is about studying the cities through the strata of their walls. Please feel free to visit the series in full here. The ad above (read the story below) has been slightly modified today. But otherwise please read its beautiful tale underneath.
The text dates back to the 6th of May, 2013:

Always at the forefront of scientific breakthroughs in the world of ArcheWALLogy, I am proud to announce you their major new find. Situated in the building near the bridge which gets you from Dora to Karantina (beneath the bridge in the alley taken to join Bourj Hammoud). The wall in question had a Bata ad on it from as far back as the 70s but its current condition is practically unreadable leaving little clues as to its original state.

However, after much research as to Bata's advertising from the era, including color codes and logos, we were able to trace back the original design which was now hidden under layers of paint. damaged by exposure to the elements and even has one stencil on it. With this new discovery, we are glad to be - once more - pioneers in the field of archeWALLogical excavation and restoration.

Pikasso - 40 years of "Jaune et Partout"

Ah Pikasso. "Jaune et Partout". Yellow and everywhere. 1986. In a Lebanon still reeling in war. Then these came out of nowhere. Yellow billboards. As their selling line went "yellow and everywhere". Truth be told a lot of people never went to "the other side" (be it Eastern/Western Beirut, depending where you were). But again, there it was, once more. Unmissable, organized, striking, those of us in the business would later learn that it was all orchestrated by Antonio Vincenti. As time went on, Pikasso would expand not just in Lebanon but internationally as well. Think Jordan, Armenia, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, and Italy. Whether Pikasso d'Or - the yearly award they initiated - was truly up to the hype is a different question altogether. But the power of their yellow has been dominant for 40 years. Here's to 40 more.

La Dolce Fiat - Italian "estate" with a pool accent

The 500e (cinquecento in Italian), the 600 hybrid (seicento!), and Topolino (yes, that is the same in Italian, thank you) just went to the pool to celebrate the Italian "estate" (that is summer for you!) at the most Iconic ones in Beirut. Test drives on the outside, Italian Dolce Vita on the inside. These cars, not only breathe summer, but define it altogether. Sun, sea, waves, tans, and shopping at the rinascente for the essentials. Fine, omit that last one, but the full effect is still here. Insert the unmissiable "Volare" as it blares from the speakers and you have your summer ready-made courtesy of Fiat. Interestingly, in Lebanon Dolce Vita is rare, but one can create it - with the help of a Fiat. Top everything with those incredible hats... and refresh with branded water and an espresso cup designed just for the occasion.