Looking for clues in a piece of fruit....

NOTE: PLease be sure to check out the updated links I've added for Zena's artwork and the Oil Spill Working Group....

I am about as jacked up on caffeine as I could possibly be, considering that at home I drink decaf, and since arriving in Beirut, I've launched an unofficial cold-turkey campaign to free my self from the obsidian elixir that, when at home, can lure me from beneath my toasty down comforter on a snow-covered morning, with little resistance. Lesson learned: do NOT use the street vendor’s produce stand as an ad-hoc classroom to learn Arabic. It seemed the perfect opportunity (with phrasebook in hand) to decipher the filigree script citing the names and prices of the various fruits and vegetables, but only if you have the time (and the nervous system) for the ritual of sharing bottomless cups of Turkish coffee.

After Nina & I spent another day negotiating the labyrinthine Ministry, a repository of snippets of knowledge (none of them centrally located), followed by too many hours playing fixated drone at the keyboard, I simply needed to play the odds with Beiruti drivers, get my legs moving, and breathe in a bit of the toxic urban cloud that passes for air in too many of the world's hubs. At least my days in Hanoi prepared me for the pedestrian's "disposable status that prevails in this city. Interestingly, it's a relationship of deep trust between complete strangers, each with their own agenda, the driver's most likely to get quickly to his or her destination (and note necessarily with side view mirrors and bumpers intact) and the pedestrian's to avoid leaving this world as road kill. Lebanese drivers tend to use other vehicles and concrete buildings - and even people - as bumpers, banging into them as if they were mere shrubs, and blissfully driving off with yet another dent in the evolving grafitti that differentiates one vehicle from another.

Hence, I wandered towards the Port of Beirut, hoping to catch an art installation at ESpace SD (http://www.espacesd.com). I'd read that this gallery was an excellent place to view emerging Lebanese artists, and was dying to check it out. Since I have a penchant for never taking the same route twice, I again found myself further north, south, east or west of where I'd planned to be. It was an interesting detour, which landed me in the Armenian District, made obvious by the numerous shrines to the Virgin on street corners, lit by compact fluorescent bulbs (2 points for Armenian virgins!) rather than candles, and visited by several of the devout during my brief pause on the street corner. So this is how I happened upon several produce stands along the street side...

Opting to squint at the produce signs from several meters away, I was able to decipher several words in Arabic script, including burtuqaal (oranges) and jazar (carrots). After a few moments, the produce vendor came over to see what I was up to, which I was at a loss to explain with my barely-decipherable dog-Arabic and his lack of English or French. Eventually, he walked me through his entire inventory, showing me the items in my book and saying the names as we walked by each, handing me samples of the various fruits and vegetables to hammer the point home: baadinjaan (eggplant), inab (grapes), koosa (zucchini), khiyaar (cucumbers), and baSal (onions). The Arabic numbers are easy to read, and mimic the Latin somewhat, but finally seeing the winding Arabic alphabet resolve into words that I could recognize, or at least look up in a phrase book, was a relief, a welcome exhalation after spending the past week listening to Beirutis slip easily between French, English, and arabic, often within a single sentence, with no more effort than easing on a sweater against the evening chill. After selecting a bunch of grapes from the vendor, Ali, I was abducted into what is likely one of the oldest Arab rituals in the market....sharing coffee. Ali's produce stand was equipped with a tiny shack that house a bed, TV set, a few personal items, and the requisite propane hot plate for cooking a thick black Turkish brew the consistency of molten lava...but delicious nonetheless. Extracting myself from this process proved difficult until I accepted the grapes and some oranges free of charge. This must be more of that Lebanese hospitality I've experienced since my arrival.

Several hours into my evening walk, I finally managed to find ESpace, which was sobering, amazing, heart-wrenching, eye-opening and yet again reinforced how sheltered a life it is that I've lead, safe from the quiet emptiness of combat. Several pieces drew me in for some time, particularly a 3-photo triptych, "they can't take that away from me: evacuation in 3 steps," by Christophe Katrib. In it, a helicopter lifts refugees to the ships offshore, amidst a smoky canvas of clouds on fire with the late afternoon sunlight. I couldn't help thinking how it is that so many disasters, be the from man or from nature, create the most stunning sunsets. Perhaps it's a small gift to focus on despite the devastation around us...

Interestingly enough, Zena put this installation together, which put me another degree closer than six of separation...Last Friday, she and Wael were opening a show, for which he tended bar. I had hoped to join them, but got a little lost in my wandering through town, so was too late; they had already left. The other day, I mentioned to Zena that I was hoping to visit Espace, and that I had passed the gallery and looked through the windows, but had not gone in. At which point she told me, it was the very installation she & Wael had worked at on Friday...and the world keeps getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller....