Category Archives: Blog

This summer, when I was studying gender music in Indonesia with my gamelan guru in Java, some of my gamelan friends took me to Mangkunegaran Palace–where I marveled at this delightful representation of Javanese gamelan rendered in stained glass…

A new $8 million endowment at the American University of Beirut has been established by Kamel Abdel Rahman, a Palestinian AUB graduate and businessman, to support tuition scholarships for Palestinian students from refugee camps. To read more about this generous gift, please click here.

This humorous video was made by the Lebanese NGO Sakker el-Dekkene to promote “The Country’s Shop”–a fake shop set up in Beirut to satirize the country’s infamous corruption problems. On the shelves of the store, one can find fake university diplomas, ID cards, and driving permits. Corruption in Lebanon is deeply embedded in networks of patronage that “govern everything from education to the judiciary, healthcare and jobs.”. To watch the video above with English subtitles, please hit the play button and then click on the small screen icon in the bottom right hand corner.

When Hafiz’s coffin comes by, it’ll be all right
To follow behind. Although he is
A captive of sin, he is on his way to the Garden…

— Hafiz
(as translated by Robert Bly)

HELVETIC ZEBRA
Curated by Donatella Bernardi
STATION

October 7th – November 9th, 2014

STATION presents Helvetic Zebra, an interdisciplinary group exhibition featuring contemporary artists from Switzerland, Lebanon, Turkey and Morocco. The exhibition takes as point of departure the richness of Lebanon’s polyglot culture as a common and inspiring thread shared with Switzerland, a country characterized by its cultural diversity and political neutrality. The artworks challenge the limits and overlaps of visual, audio, textual, figurative and abstract languages. Starting with The Most Beautiful Swiss Books design award, Helvetic Zebra extends into hybrid forms of artistic languages, drawing connections between Latin typography and Arabic calligraphy, radio art, cinematic and optical art, graphic design and music. All these formats and their materiality will recall, reiterate and play with different artistic movements and traditions often associated with Switzerland, such as constructivism, surrealism, Dada and design.

Here’s a video of Cheikh Lo & Youssou N’Dour–two of my favorite Senegalese musicians–performing the song “Guiss Guiss.” Cheikh Lo wrote “Guiss Guiss” (which means “vision” in Wolof) to sing the praises of his Sufi sheikh (Maame Massamba Ndiaye Borom Ndigel), and to offer his own vision of what matters most in life–family, friends, and spiritual knowledge…

Don’t you feel a change a coming
From another side of time
Breaking down the walls of silence
Lifting shadows from your mind…

At least 13 Syrian-based militants and two Hezbollah fighters were killed today in Lebanon, after members of the Nusra Front (and, according to some reports, ISIS) attacked two Hezbollah posts. For more information on today’s violence, please click here.

Here are two short excerpts from the poem A Vista of Buddha, written by Czech poet Sylva Fischerová and translated by Stuart Friebert.
Buddha’s eyes are closed,
behind them days
like columns or candles
boiled up in a cauldron of the universe,
of all-encompassing love—
only not just a thing,
a man, a flower!

Asia! Orient of Orients, of all sunrises looking for
an exit from the circle of the Rises,
the sun rolling over
the sea of Nippon,
Buddha, Confucius, and the Master of Tao
sit on it,
dangling their legs, waving at me,
brothers, masters!
Thus the old emperors intervened at the right time,
doing ten thousand things.
But I need to do
just one single thing,
right here, right now.

My function as a musician, in the history of mankind, is to announce the next spiritual stage. I think of humanity today as a transitory phenomenon – somewhere between the apes and the saints. And humanity will develop very quickly; not everyone, but those who have caught on to the significance of the universe…

— Karlheinz Stockhausen

The documentary Stockhausen at Jeita Caves chronicles Karlheinz Stockhausen‘s 1969 concert in the crystallized caves of Jeita in Lebanon. The footage features two of my favorite places in Lebanon: the colossal ruins of Baalbek, and the majestic stalactite sanctuaries of Jeita Grotto. If you don’t understand French, you can read an English translation of the film here…

There is enough room on this Earth for everybody: there is enough food on Earth for everybody, there is enough freedom on Earth for everybody. Even if a group of people thinks they have the right, or think they are right, the truth is: one is never right. One is only right when one has reached unity…

–Karlheinz Stockhausen

Here’s a holiday postcard that John Lennon and Yoko Ono sent to Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1969. Stockhausen’s image appears on the “Sgt. Pepper” album cover–top row, fifth from the left…

I passed by this graffiti last night on my way home from tai chi in Beirut. When Karlheinz Stockhausen was in Lebanon in 1969 to perform a concert in the crystallized caves of Jeita, he spoke the words written above in response to the political conflicts taking place at the time. “Personally,” he added, “I am looking for a spiritual life that reaches far beyond the political aspect.”