Tania Saleh's Child's Play signing soon in Lebanon

Image credit - Tania Saleh

So Tania Saleh is back. Not that she has ever left mind you. But now she has a full album for children with a coloring book out. Child's Play. Or in Arabic لعب ولاد زغار. See the video here. Educational? Check. Artistic? Check. For the kids? Check - but honestly "c'est complique de faire simple". Saleh will be signing her book in Batroun soon and then eventually in Paris (where she is currently stationed). Above is a few of the images in the book - also present in the book are the lovely, simple poetry of the songs which mind you is not simplistic. Lebanon certainly needs a certain dose of optimism. A dose of innocence. Saleh delivers both in spades. 

Belvento, the book that fell through the cracks

Yesterday, within the euphoria of rehousing my books (here), one book fell through the cracks - simply because it was published while we (that would be my digtial advisor Patrick Chemali - no relation - and myself) were right in the middle of the technical jumble.

Called "Belvento" (which alongside McCondo, is up there with those mythical places in literature) and obviously inspired by Georges Schehadé (or Chehade, there are many variations to writing the name), and a visit to the very long time rental he lived in Beirut. Just to be clear, if you do not understand Chehade it is not fault of yours, either you do or you don't.

So "Belvento" (the mythical village from his play "L'emigre de Brisbane") is just as absurd, and hopefully just as fun and oblique as the great playwriter and poet's work.

Originally the project dates back to 2013, and just as always, I go back to my own archive or someone else's and reinterpret it. Please have a glance at Belvento here.

A new link for my books

In 2003, in Saudi Arabia out of all places, I self-published a poetry anthology by the name of "The Wit and Wisdom of Arty Stotle".... Then in 2009 came the first tome of Archewallogy which made it to the cover of the best selling Danish newspaper on its Sunday edition - the book was free of charge and many (as in thousands!) of copies were distributed. 

This has launched the floodgates of my self-publishing (for a while it was under the banner of 7UPstairs Publishing). There were many books I published for other people, several collaborations, a lot of accompanying videos, and each book remains lovely to revisit.

For a long time the books were housed on a different platform, but now came the time to reorganize them under my own website. Yes, some culling was necessary - no poetry anthologies, no plays, only graphic and visual books remained. But what a joy to look at them some after years of their original publication.

Surely, sometimes I say "oh I used too many colors here", "I should have sacrificed this page", but by and large, I look at them with (biased, I know) enormous pride. They remain a testimony of someone working tirelessly, recklessly, and strenuously with a touch of OCD to boot. Most of these books were self-made from cover to cover (save for 3 volumes of Archewallogy - the first, second and Archewallogy San Francisco).

Do they look self-made? Probably. Does it matter? Not in the least.

I am indebted for my digital consultant Patrick Chemali - no relation - for putting up with me (a pseudo-luddite because all the self-made books were not made on Photoshop but.... on Paintbrush!) and - just for my credit - I could be the only client in the world who has asked "to make my logo smaller" (as it was ginormous on the original page!).

Please enjoy all the books on this link here! 

Dear Dr. Farid El Khazen, we need to talk

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

There are in Lebanon two politicians of the same name, Farid El Khazen. Both hail from the same village in Kesserwan. To distinguish them the locals call them "Farid Elias" and "Farid Haykal" after their respective fathers' name. The former is originally an academic, the second is continuing his family's political history. I shall concentrate this article on Dr. El Khazen and specifically his book "Lebanon: The breakdown of the state 1967-1976" - 1976 being already a year into the war that would end in 1990 or what we call "the great war" as there were many other mini-wars after it in Lebanon.

In 2005, I met with Dr. El Khazen in a social function. At the time he was an MP in Lebanon representing the Free Patriotic Movement (please do glance at his Wikipedia entry here), and I asked him if we are - again - at the breakdown of the state. And he point blank answered "no".

I wish I can speak to him once more and ask him the same question, because at this stage, I do feel his answer might be different. Are we at the breakdown of the Lebanese state - again? I believe we are. The public sector is barely functioning, their salaries are a pittance. However increasing those salaries, will require printing more money, and printing more money will increase the already through-the-roof inflation, which means their salaries will go back to being a pittance because goods are too expensive to buy (and at this point am talking basic goods).

We have at this point no president of the republic since General Aoun's term finished at the end of last month, our caretaker government has been hanging by a thread (a new government should have  been formed back in May immediately after the new parliamentary elections but in Lebanon the process takes ages, and the government became a de facto caretaker since then). The armed forces, like the rest of the public sector, are now earning barely anything despite some "financial reinforcements" that came from the US at some point to encourage personnel to keep attending their positions.

Oh and the "oil and gas" thing? Well this years and years down the line. Right now this is just a fallacy, a dream. The education system, which already was under immense pressure - and here I am speaking of the official educational system with the Lebanese University included - is now in complete tatters with the pandemic and all other factors only increasing the stress on is fragile structure.

If I am writing all of this it's because I feel all this is a repeat (as a tragedy or farce to go back to the Karl Marx quote, I know not) of the dreadful experience that Dr. El Khazen has spoken of in his book. The shape of the Lebanon that will come from this experience is still unknown. I mentioned this quote prior (here and here as examples) but Russian writer Alexander Herzen did say "the departing world leaves behind it not an heir, but a pregnant widow".

As I write these lines there is still no expected delivery date.

Kinokuniya has quantified your social media time - in books

Facebook: 35 books.
Instagram: 43 books.
Twitter: 22 books.
Tiktok: 42 books.
Youtube: 42 books.
That's the number of books the average person can read in one year with the time they spend on social media - which averages at 8 hours.
This revelation comes from  Saatchi & Saatchi MEA who worked with Kinokuniya analyzing data around the time that customers spent scrolling through social media. This data is now being taken and visualized across channels, including this installation, encouraging more time spent reading of books.

Unfortunately all this does not apply to me - I read too voraciously and need to slow down.