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In the valley of Kadisha where the mighty river flows, two little streams met and spoke to one another.

One stream said, “How came you, my friend, and how was your path?”

And the other answered, “My path was most encumbered. The wheel of the mill was broken, and the master farmer who used to conduct me from my channel to his plants, is dead. I struggled down oozing with the filth of laziness in the sun. But how was your path, my brother?”

And the other stream answered and said, “Mine was a different path. I came down the hills among fragrant flowers and shy willows; men and women drank of me with silvery cups, and little children paddled their rosy feet at my edges, and there was laughter all about me, and there were sweet songs. What a pity that your path was not so happy.”

At that moment the river spoke with a loud voice and said, “Come in, come in, we are going to the sea. Come in, come in, speak no more. Be with me now. We are going to the sea. Come in, come in, for in me you shall forget you wanderings, sad or happy. Come in, come in. And you and I will forget all our ways when we reach the heart of our mother the sea.”

— Khalil Gibran

One day Beauty and Ugliness met on the shore of a sea. And they said to one another, “Let us bathe in the sea.”

Then they disrobed and swam in the waters. And after a while Ugliness came back to shore and garmented himself with the garments of Beauty and walked away.

And Beauty too came out of the sea, and found not her raiment, and she was too shy to be naked, therefore she dressed herself with the raiment of Ugliness. And Beauty walked her way.

And to this very day men and women mistake the one for the other.

Yet some there are who have beheld the face of Beauty, and they know her notwithstanding her garments. And some there be who know the face of Ugliness, and the cloth conceals him not from their eyes.

— Khalil Gibran

Though most of my research on Roma has focused on the history, culture, and rights of Roma communities in the Czech and Slovak Republics, I’ve also spent time in Turkey with Roma while on the road. These Roma women and girls in Turkey got a real kick out of seeing me wear pants just like theirs. Recently, Roma in Turkey have been featured in the news because large numbers of Roma are being displaced by urban development. According to the Budapest-based Roma Rights Center, 10,000 Roma people have been displaced in Turkey over the past seven years. From France to Bulgaria and Turkey (and many places in between), Roma are constantly under a variety of different political, social, and economic pressures. If you are in or near New York and want to learn more about Roma history and culture, you might enjoy viewing a a new exhibit of pre-war (1934-40) black-and-white photographs of Roma taken by Jan Yoors–which runs until January 3rd…

When my great-aunt taught me how to make kolache–a Czech pastry–from an old family recipe, I knew that no matter how much I practiced–I would never make kolache as sweet and delicious as hers. In America, most people have never even heard of kolache, but today the New York Times did a story on how kolache in Texas is a perfect example of Czech-Mex.

When I was living in Prague, I took a side-trip to Brno (where I took the photo above) to learn more about the history of its Roma community. This photo–of a Roma mother buying her daughter something sweet–has one of my favorite Czech words in it–zmrzlina, which means “ice cream.” I have such fun saying this word, because it starts off with 5 consonants in a row. Some Czech words don’t have any vowels–like the word krk (“throat”). In fact, there’s even a famous Czech tongue twister which is a sentence with no vowels at all: Strč prst skrz krk (“Stick your finger through your throat”). Now, try saying that 5 times fast…

Said one man to another, “At the high tide of the sea, long ago, with the point of my staff I wrote a line upon the sand; and the people still pause to read it, and they are careful that naught shall erase it.”

And the other man said, “And I to wrote a line upon the sand, but it was at low tide, and the waves of the vast sea washed it away. But tell me, what did you write?”

And the first man answered and said, “I wrote this: ‘I am he who is.’ But what did you write?”

And the other man said, “This I wrote: ‘I am but a drop of this great ocean.’”

— Khalil Gibran

Like the way a garden burns in a hundred shades of orange in the fall,
a Lover’s heart shrivels for a sense of the Beloved’s touch.
Now the face of that charred garden is my field of flowers…

— Rumi

In the midst of a government shutdown, perhaps there’s no better way to re-visit the meaning of democracy than with–puppets! In November, the Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre in New York City will be staging, “THE REPUBLIC, or MY DINNER WITH SOCRATES”–and seeking to engage the audience members in true Socratic style. Questions that will be asked include: Is democracy not the ideal form of government? And was Socrates executed by a vigilant Athenian “department of homeland security”?

THE REPUBLIC will premiere on November 29 as part of La MaMa’s Fall 2013 Season, and it will run for three weeks with a series of post performance discussions. Maybe I’m biased, because I’m Czech and often play with puppets myself, but I think marionettes are a wonderful way to re-visit works from the past (like the poetry of Rumi) and ponder life’s “big questions” as a community.

To contribute to the production of this new show, please click here. And if you’re in New York in November, be sure to catch this dynamic cast of 6 actors, 50 marionettes and dozens of shadow puppets perform parallels between the Greek classics and the state of the government today…

On Facebook and Twitter today, Iranians have been busy mocking Netanyahu’s recent comment about jeans. While traveling in Iran, I wore jeans all over the country–as did all of my Iranian friends. And guess what–no big scary monsters came after me–well, except for this one hungry lion at Persepolis. Since the temperature that day was 110 degrees (F), wearing jeans to survey the ancient ruins of Persepolis hadn’t been the best wardrobe choice on my part. After a spirited hike up the hill at Persepolis, I sat down to take some much-needed rest…and to enjoy the spectacular view of the past–from a time so distant they didn’t even have jeans…

When my friends and I were walking on the Corniche today, we got soaked–even though we were standing 20 feet back from the sea. From young people exercising to Syrian refugee kids shining shoes–all of us were wearing wet clothes…

And watch two men washing clothes;
one makes dry clothes wet.
The other makes wet clothes dry.
They seem to be thwarting each other,
but their work is a perfect harmony.

Every holy person seems to have a different
doctrine and practice,
but there’s really only one work.

— Rumi

Beirut was overtaken today by waves–pounding up against the rocks and leaping over the sea wall on to the street…

We were all trying to get a good view of the sea today, but perhaps this sea perch was the best…

Today in Beirut, the waves were all the rage–with whitecaps as far as the eye could see. Like so many others, I ended up dripping wet from the waves flying over the sea wall and onto the street. Up and down the Corniche, people were whipping out their phones to try and capture one of the big waves…

When I moved to Beirut, I was surprised to find my house surrounded by snails. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I bothered to learn the Arabic word for my slimy little neighbors. When a young boy and I in the playroom at St. Jude’s were playing a computer game featuring blinking, flourscent fish–and, surprise–a slow-moving snail, I didn’t know how to refer to the strange creature slinking across the bottom of the screen–since he and his mother didn’t speak English.

“How do you say that in Arabic?” I asked, pointing to the snail.

حلزون, his mother said, giggling as I repeated it. Halazoon.

“Snail” wasn’t exactly a word she was used to saying–or hearing out of the mouth of a foreigner. As I repeated my new vocabularly word over and over again to commit it to memory, she kept her hand over her mouth–since she couldn’t stop giggling. Halazoon, halazoon, halazoon. Snail, snail, snail. For a brief and absurd moment, neither one of us was thinking about cancer–just about snails in Beirut…