Random posts

• Seed of Zicco: Zicco House is much more than just the poetry readings and concerts at the Samra Bar: it's a launch-pad for the country's most prominent movements, and has become a hub for thinkers and dissidents who dream of change.
• The gypsy emperor: Michel Elefteriades – guerilla fighter, artist, musician –doesn't even consider himself Lebanese, rather the Emperor of Nowhereistan, a state with no land and where everyone is welcome. Provided they pass the test. Where do we sign up?
• Run: Founder of the Beirut Marathon, May el Khalil is an advocate of the simple life and of sporting spirit. We'd be lucky to have half her spirit
• Chocolate cake: The pub was crowded and loud, and there was chocolate involved. I know this because cake was rammed into my mouth before I sat down.
• Business beef: I generally tend to avoid potentially violent confrontations in closed environments, especially when said environments float at around 50,000 feet.
• Grass and kufta: Somewhere in my late twenties I joined the Time Out family, and within a year I had built a mental database of cheeses, meats, oils, herbs and plenty of things that I’d never before let into my stomach.
• Road pigs: The leader of the pack (cue 60s music) raised his hand in a fist, and the procession came to a halt. He dismounted his hog like it was a horse, and walked towards the bunny with the largest bosom.
• Garage days: One of the most active organizers in the music industry, Jyad el Murr busies himself with his Instruments Garage, two music stations, and a host of concerts and musical events.
• Bless the rains: The 30-year-old Lebanese-Canadian singer, producer and songwriter Karl Wolf has had a couple of successful visits to Beirut, and promises more.
• Twinkle, twinkle: I’ve always had an overactive imagination, and scaring myself half to death with, say, a mental image of Willie’s teeth and bubbling stomach was apparently insufficient. I had to give him a glowing, red eye.
• Cotton candy: Zena el Khalil doesn’t create; she reacts to Beirut. Take the mind of a war-child, mix in the memories of an immigrant, and season with pink. Lots and lots of pink.