Category Archives: Blog

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror…

— Khalil Gibran

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings.
Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move…

— Rumi

A few friends/musicians from my Javanese gamelan group will be performing with our gamelan guru Pak Harjito at the Brooklyn Folk Festival on Saturday, April 19th at 8:45 pm. If you’re in New York that week-end, listening to some meditative music from Indonesia might be a lovely way to spend part of your Saturday…

After I asked my Egyptology students in Beirut if they would prefer to enter King Tutankhamun’s “real” tomb in the Valley of the Kings, or a replica of his tomb (so as not to damage the original), we got into a spirited debate about authenticity and cultural heritage preservation. To read more about the facsimile being made of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, please click here.

The Road to Jajouka
Metropolitan Museum of Art
June 14th at 7 pm

The music of Jajouka (in Morocco) is trance music, ecstatic music, a music narcotic. [T]his magical music has migrated around the world, moving like clouds, like water, like smoke-flowing through the collective consciousness of its appreciators.

— Jim Jarmusch, film director

Tickets are going fast for an upcoming performance at the MET celebrating Jajouka’s rich musical and cultural traditions. The concert will feature musicians Billy Martin, Marc Ribot, Shahzad Ismailey, DJ Logic as well as Jajouka musicians. For more information, please click here.

Vara: A Blessing
Tribeca Film Festival
April 21st-26th

Raised in a sheltered village, young Lila yearns for a life devoted to Hindu worship, like that of her devadasi mother, but she begins to encounter worldly obstacles to her spiritual fulfillment. Guileless, Lila agrees to model for a lowly village boy who hopes to become a sculptor, unknowingly endangering both of their lives under the ever-present gaze of the villagers, especially the village landlord’s son.

For more information, please click here.

I shall live beyond death, and I shall sing in your ears
Even after the vast-sea wave carries me back
To the vast sea-depth…

— Khalil Gibran

Gone are my people, but I exist yet,
Lamenting them in my solitude…
Dead are my friends, and in their Death
my life is naught but great Disaster.
The knolls of my country are submerged
By tears and blood, for my people and
My beloved are gone…

My people and your people, my Syrian
Brother, are dead….What can be
Done for those who are dying? Our
Lamentations will not satisfy their
Hunger, and our tears will not quench
Their thirst; what can we do to save
Them between the iron paws of
Hunger? My brother, the kindness
Which compels you to give a part of
Your life to any human who is in the
Shadow of losing his life is the only
Virtue which makes you worthy of the
Light of day and the peace of the
Night…

These poignant verses are from Khalil Gibran‘s poem, “Dead Are My People,” which he subtitled:
“Written in Exile during the Famine in Syria.”

The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word “Mother,” and the most beautiful call is the call of “My mother.” It is a word full of hope and love, a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart. The mother is everything – she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness…And the mother, the prototype of all existence, is the eternal spirit, full of beauty and love…

— Khalil Gibran

As for your statement, “How happy are you, you who find happiness in your art” – this made me ponder for a long time. No, May, I am neither happy nor content. In me, there is something that can never be content, but does not resemble covetousness; something that can never know happiness but does not resemble misery. In my depths there is a continual throb and an incessant pain, and I desire to change neither – a man in such a plight cannot know happiness or recognise contentment, but he does not complain because in complaining is a certain comfort and transcendence…

— Khalil Gibran

This week-end, I teamed up with some young Syrian refugees for an artistic project on the streets of Beirut. Their capacity for joy and creativity, despite all they have been through, is astounding…