A Collective Diatribe on Lebanon's Predicament

New book compiles raw expressions of love and dissatisfaction with problem-plagued country
By Bojan Preradovic
Special to The Daily Star
Friday, September 07, 2007

Review

BEIRUT: "The idea is to portray our frustration and feelings about the current situation in Lebanon," says the introduction to "The Book of Closure." "It's the arguments and the debates we have between ourselves, our friends and with God." Newly published with a spare white cover completely devoid of text or even a title, the book opens up as an anthology of poems, short stories, drawings and other cathartic expressions of dissatisfaction with Lebanon's current (and ostensibly perpetual) predicament.

The contributors are local authors from all over the demographic spectrum - one is a sixth-grader, the eldest is about 70 years old - along with visitors and immigrants with first-hand experience of the paradoxes and ailments that afflict Lebanese society. Some of the material is new; some is reprinted. Some selections have been written in English; others in Arabic and one brief entry is penned in French.

"The Book of Closure" was compiled by P.INC, or Prodigies Incorporated, better known as a graphic design house and advertising agency. P.INC's services are employed by a roster of clients including the Virgin Megastores, Fashion Television Arabia and the American University of Beirut.

The company was established in Beirut in 2002, and has branches in Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. The members of P.INC's team pride themselves on offering customers a range of services beyond just graphic design, such as events management, media research and 3D-animation.

The book opens with "Lebanon During 1870," authored by a Protestant minister over 130 years ago, a brief yet tremendously effective demonstration of how little the Lebanese polity has changed over the past century: "There is no common bond of union ... but an endless number of dislocated fragments, faults, and dikes, by which the masses are tilted up in hopeless confusion, and lie at every conceivable angle of antagonism to each other."

Nancy Jamaleddine, one of the contemporary writers published in "The Book," attributes Lebanon's problems to "our credo, talking about pride, patriotism, and bragging up high different insignias that veil reality," while adding that "each one of us attached to a manifesto is nothing better than a petty warmonger."

As Henry Saliba's contribution "Closure?" demonstrates, there seems to be consensus among the authors on the belief that uncompromising devotion to religious or political principles is counterproductive: "I pray for prosperity, but they pray to their hollow ideology," he writes, in reference to Lebanon's aging political class of familiar faces. "I am sorry, but I cannot give you closure."

Maria De Lourdes offers a similar verbalization of anguish: "I prefer war in Lebanon with Israel to this horrible present situation."

Others, like Ralf Cremona (the title of whose piece demands "For the Love of God Wake Up!"), grieve over what has now become a literal exodus of domestic young talent, who, in the face of an acute shortage of prospects for employment, are leaving the country en masse: "My dear Friends, Relatives, Citizens, and Leaders ... I left the country for you because you are so blind to see!" Such sentiments recur. Ronda Hassen's contribution is aptly titled "Why Did I Have to Leave?"

Older contributors with children voice concerns about the values that will filter down through the minds of the next generation. Soha Chehayeb discusses the importance of teaching "our children to accept others regardless of their origin or affiliation." Her resentment is unequivocal: "I hate it when they come to me asking about the meaning of Christian or Moslem. I want them to be Lebanese and only Lebanese."

On occasion, nevertheless, some writers explicitly convey their love for Lebanon, instead of expressing it through acrimony. As Joseph Hoyek romantically declares: "I love Lebanon, I love life, the life of dignity."

The name of each author is printed below a barcode, an allusion to the "feeling that we are all just numbers; just items in a supermarket," says Diana Jarmakani of P.INC, who wrote the book's introduction. She explains that the project was "done for the sake of doing it - it was to exercise ourselves in our free time, and was the result of my colleagues' constant complaints to me about the national situation."

The idea behind the spare white cover is to allow buyers of the book to personalize their purchase with stickers found inside the front flap.

In yet another attempt at ingenuity and interactive experience, the publisher leaves the closing four pages of the book blank, nudging readers to articulate their own grievances and exasperations.

"We wanted to make it look like it has nothing to do with graphic design," Jarmakani says of the book. The method by which the material was compiled was also simple: "I just sent out a group email, and the book is actually the collection of what I received as replies to that email in the next few days," she says.

"Everything in the book is completely unedited - we just copied and pasted what we received," she adds. "And I have to say, everyone who sent us something said that they ended up feeling much better because they were able to voice their frustrations."

That said, one wonders whether or not P.INC has overstepped the boundaries of entrepreneurial eclecticism. Granted, the many contributors to "The Book of Closure" unanimously highlight the themes of bitterness and dismay at what has become of the country they call (or used to call) home.

Because the material was left raw and unedited, some of the texts find the grammatical principles of the English language rather elusive. Words like "un-understanding" and "r" (as an abbreviated substitute for "are") find their way onto the page and agitate.

Nonetheless, through this outpouring of emotion, the authors seek to therapeutically rid themselves of the anxiety they feel, and focus instead

on the love and passion they have for Lebanon. Their collective diatribe may fall short of offering real solutions to the ills of Lebanese society, but as Jarmakani states: "The book offers an outlet and a channel for expressing the anger that we may feel, so that we can be able to look past it and try to think positively."

Scrambled Eggs on the back burner: Beirut's post-punk pioneers take five (months or so)

Members will use hiatus for studies in America, possible shows in Europe, new material
By Bojan Preradovic
Special to The Daily Star
Friday, August 31, 2007

BEIRUT: When the local post-punk outfit Scrambled Eggs took to the stage at Basement last week, it was to play their last show in Beirut for some time to come. The band, made up of vocalist and guitarist Charbel Haber, guitarist Marc Codsi, bassist Tony Aliyeh and drummer Malek Rizkallah, is putting itself on self-imposed hiatus for the next few months, pending Rizkallah's return from studying in the United States.

Scrambled Eggs has been a prominent member of Beirut's alternative rock scene for a solid decade now, and, despite the band members' taking a much-needed break, there seems to be no end in sight as far as their creative antics are concerned.

"The band will pick up again around January," Haber says, "but we may do some concerts in Europe in the meantime."

Haber and his bandmates are generally delighted to offer a long list of obscure, experimental ambient-electro artists as their influences, but they are also equally careful to mention that most of their writing is done through improvisation, evocative of the technique spearheaded by jazz legends such as John Coltrane.

The members of Scrambled Eggs are, however, renowned in Beirut as partisans of now-classic acts such as Sonic Youth, who, among other New York groups in the 1980s, pioneered the so-called "no wave" movement in art and music (a special brand of indie underground music permeated by a re-evaluation of punk rock credos).

The band's love affair with experimentation, improvisation and, more notably, with atmospheric resonance and feedback, seems interminable, at least for the moment. In addition to those shows in Europe, Haber has his record label Those Kids Must Choke to think about, and it is likely Scrambled Eggs will take advantage of some down time to start assembling material for the band's next album.

"I am too busy right now to even think about the label," Haber admits, "but I can do 500 records, and they'll all be the same twisted underground stuff," he says, laughing. "I don't want it to grow beyond that or diversify - that's the spirit of the label and that's what I'm sticking to."

In terms of the band's music, he explains: "We are currently heading in the same direction, but at the same time, we never know for sure where the next album will take us.

"It should feature the familiar punk vibe, with our own brand of ambient, but again, the way we compose in rehearsal is by improvisation, which obviously implies unpredictability, so you never know.

"I draw the inspiration for the lyrics from human relationships and the spirit of the times - the songs are about people you love, those you hate, and those you don't hate," Haber says.

When asked what he is currently listening to, Haber exclaims, with a mischievous smile: "Nothing, zero!"

Scrambled Eggs' concert last Thursday began more than an hour behind schedule, but the band's repertoire for the night certainly lived up to its reputation: Aliyeh drove his fingers across his bass for the improvised opener, generating a haunting, oriental-sounding melody, which was repeatedly drowned out by the howling feedback from Codsi's and Haber's guitars. If those in the audience who had never been to a Scrambled Eggs show before were at all thrown off by the plush sonic sounds that filled the room as the band sank deeper into the proverbial maze produced by their instruments, the entrance of Haber's vocals dispelled any doubts with respect to these musicians' punk credentials.

Haber's meaningful yet somehow sarcastic wails signaled a break from the singing style he employed on such Scrambled Eggs releases as "Human Friendly Noises" from 2002. But at the same time they positioned him clearly as an heir to the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten.

Haber's lack of inhibition in expressing his sensitivity as a songwriter comes out in lyrics such as "I don't want you to see me cry," displaying a covert vulnerability parallel to a show of strength, itself synonymous with the brave face most young Lebanese performers have had to put on during these taxing times the country is enduring.

Haber reinforced that point with a defiant allusion to Lebanon's current situation: "See you in Beirut, whatever happens," he said, before launching into a song bearing the same name, showcasing an industrial-sounding mid-section and a twisted, anthemic chorus.

During the instrumental sections of songs, Codsi shredded what appeared to be a Fender Stratocaster, a guitar typically played by puritan rock and punk musicians. The simple yet overwhelmingly potent single-note guitar solos, played at a pace reminiscent of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, supplemented each song with an appropriately authoritative closing statement.

"Murder" opened with an organ sample that sounded like a musical excerpt from a horror flick. Then Rizkallah took over the rhythm section. The drummer's startlingly simple set-up - consisting of just the basic toms, snare drum and one or two cymbals - reverberated throughout the club in a sequence that most accurately resembled the sound of war drums.

The band rolled through the night's musical menu, with songs such as "Bleeding Nun," "Salt and Sugar" and "Lightning Bolt" finding their way onto the set list. "Russian Roulette" featured a straightforward two-note progression in the verse played by Aliyeh, with Codsi occasionally harmonizing to Haber's vocal lines.

Offstage, Haber lamented the intractability of some members of the audience: "It's difficult to move them, and I would attribute this to the 'culture' of the audience and how in touch with rock music they are, as well as how many live shows they've been to.

"It wasn't always like this, but generally, the younger people in the crowd are the ones jumping around," he adds with a smile.