Letter From Beirut, Vol. 3

October 14, 2009

Here I go again, beginning with the quotidian and working my way toward utter profundity in near record time:

Fill It To The Rim
In case you were wondering why Nescafe is still "manufactured" (or whatever the hell you call what a company does to convert coffee beans into "crystals") look no further. You can blame Lebanon. Many Lebanese, who you'd think would know better, knock this stuff back like it's 1977 all over again. You can order a "three-in-one" just about anywhere and you will have a hot instant coffee with condensed milk & artificial sweetener in front of you in no time. In the supermarkets, Nescafe accounts for far more than half of the already abundant coffee choices.

Eating
Just about every meal I eat here goes down in the book as the best meal I have ever had. There is a locally made bread here that is sold on the streets every morning. The shape of the bread is reminiscent of the crescent design on the Turkish flag, which is to say reminiscent of an Italian handbag. The poor Syrian vendors push their custom bakers-rack-bicycles through Muslim neighborhoods calling out an eerie sounding kaihik! and selling this surprisingly delicious treat for about 60 cents.

Fattoush is a local salad of cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, tossed with pita chips. It is so incredibly tasty and fresh and I eat one nearly every day so please stop pestering me. I have yet to try (or even see) the traditional fava bean dish foul, though it is a common Lebanese staple, eaten here three meals a day.

We Exceeded the Water Ration for Our Apartment
When it finally happened there was much running about in a near panicked state. We muttered to ourselves "the water ration ran out, who should we call?" (alas, our landlord speaks only Arabic). Nobody could think to do much else. As that behavior was ramping up, someone pointed out that our office-style water cooler had also run out as well.

UPDATE: We all pulled through; the plumbing came back on in a few hours without anyone doing much of anything about it. Rami the Water Man delivered two bottles of drinking water the next morning. UPDATE NUMBER TWO: Yesterday (Monday) the plumbing shut off again, only this time it happened just as I had completely lathered up during my morning shower. This was an all time first for me, but even though I am an upbeat person I did have to admit that there was almost no way to put a positive spin on the situation.

Getting Around
I am still shunning taxicabs as much as I can, which is difficult in a city in which you are much safer inside a cab with a maniac driver than you are on a sidewalk where said maniac might run you over. Most days I walk a mile and a half each way to the production office. The weather is still warm but very humid, so I sweat quite a lot. This becomes especially troublesome when there is no running water at home for days on end.

I Promised I Wouldn't Bring It Up Again
Having studied the particular brand of vehicular insanity which makes up Beirut traffic, I have of late been revisiting the bicycle idea. I spent much of last Sunday searching for a place to to buy one that suited me. (During this excursion I approached a man named Rafia who is a professional photographer and who was out and about in the downtown area taking photos for a large multimedia art installation at the Unesco Palace here next month. Rafia is Lebanese and very friendly. When I told him I was out scouting for a store at which to buy a bike, his eyes lit up and he said this is a very good idea, I will go with you and rent a bike today as well. Rafia wanted to ride through the empty Vegas-like sprawl of downtown Beirut, a one-mile by one-mile area now called Solidere--named after the corporate real estate conglomerate that manages all of its development there--but neither of us could find what we wanted. I plan to attend his photographic exhibit.)

Anyone who has spent time with me in New York City knows enough not to get me started on the Moses Effect. Robert Moses was a famously misanthropic urban "planner" and for almost half a century one of the most powerful New York City officials of all time. Years before I was born, and in what Moses supporters claim to be the man's highest achievement, the neighborhood I now live in was cleaved in two by the Brooklyn-Queens-Expressway -- italics meant to highlight a misnomer if there ever was one. Beirut suffers from many such divisions as well. Overpasses, underground highways, eight-lane bridges. All of these have divided and destroyed communities to make smoother passage for automobiles. Add to this the culture of what I have dubbed pedestricide, and the quality of life for a diehard walker begins to feel limited.

The neighborhoods I pass through on this walk are varied, but most striking are the remnants of recent warfare. It is tough to get used to seeing bombed out buildings. Who invented bombs anyway, and why would anyone do that? What explains our ability--our propensity even--to sit calmly on our home turf, designing and constructing devices intended to be lobbed into our neighbor's home so that it kills him or maims him or (if he happens to not be home at that moment) rearranges and disrupts his surroundings and belongings in such a drastic way that he will be forced to focus only on his basic human needs for quite some time, thereby rendering him less likely to get all up in our business? It is the definition of barbarism, surely, and yet extremely popular the world 'round! Those are the kind of thoughts I tend to have when facing modern human-made ruins.

On a recent afternoon two Lebanese twenty-somethings from our crew--Jana, the office coordinator, and Jimmy, the locations manager--were telling me, in somehow side-splitting detail, how in years past they would pattern their socializing around the explosions going off around the city. They would sit home, waiting for an explosion, and then venture out to meet their friends in whatever hip neighborhood was farthest from where the blast occurred. Car bomb in Hamra, go to Gemmayzé. Rocket fire in Achrafieh, go to Hamra. And so on. They were laughing to the point of tears.

These same young people spoke of how downtown Beirut (now called Solidere--see above) has been destroyed and rebuilt seven times in recent history. They claimed since World War II--though I am led believe the place was leveled at the end of the First World War when the French wrestled the keys to the city from the Ottoman Turks. The most recent bombardment in 2006 drove the Hezbollah Party into the suburbs mainly to the south of Beirut, though in effect that organization is scattered about the way any political entity might be.

The Languages
France's "involvement" in Lebanon dates back to before World War I. In certain areas of the city French culture is quite prevalent and many Beirutians speak French as their first language. Almost all of my local colleagues here are fluent in French & Arabic, and more than proficient in English as well. A French speaker would find it much easier to get around here than an English speaker. My only question for all of French culture is: how is there time for anything besides greeting one another and saying goodbye when you must kiss three times on the cheek?

In Beirut it is not uncommon to encounter pockets of people who speak no French or English at all, especially in the predominantly Muslim neighborhoods like where I live near Sanayeh Park. As a woefully monolingual American, it's easy to feel left out of many interesting conversations.

Bruce Lee Meets Bob Fosse
Our production team has learned that there are no stunt coordinators within the tiny Lebanese film industry. Nor for that matter are there professional grade walkie-talkies. (There seem to be no harmonicas for sale either, but that fact has naught to do with my work.) The production is looking into hiring a local martial arts instructor and a choreographer to work together to help with several stunt sequences in our movie, and we may borrow some walkies from the military.

Trouble in Paradise
Our two lead actresses flew in for rehearsals this past weekend. We are still several weeks out from shooting and they will be here with us for the remainder of the project. Production made the rather serious mistake of putting the "talent" in the apartment in which I had been living so blissfully up until right about then. Product galore clutters both bathrooms now but there is nothing called simply "soap" or "shampoo" for me to pilfer without fear of smelling like berries afterward. There is actually a bottle in my shower whose label declares it contains an "ex-foliant". (Wasn't Agent Orange an exfoliant?) There are dirty ashtrays in the kitchen and we are always out of toilet paper. I plan on murdering one of them on my day off this weekend, partly for revenge and partly to send a message to the other one.

[UPDATE: After forwarding the above paragraph to one of the producers who I go to for help with spelling, I have since been told that I will be moving upstairs to my own apartment this Friday.]

What To Do, What To Do?
In general I am slightly overwhelmed by all of the cultural options here. The other night I was forced to decide whether to attend a screening of Jim Jarmusch's latest feature at the Beirut International Film Festival or go to a series of concerts at a local Jazz Festival. I went to the movie and loved it. The local line producer wrangled me an invitation for tonight's closing ceremony, also at the Unesco Palace, which is how I find myself in the predicament of needing to find a jacket and tie in Beirut. I'm actually a little stressed out about it. The event will include a screening of Ang Lee's brand new film Taking Woodstock as well as an open bar, and you have no idea how happy one of those facts makes me.

In addition to the Jarmusch film, I also saw an Iranian-French-Lebanese co-production called Niloofar, about a young Iraqi girl who runs away from an arranged marriage with a murderer, and who can blame her? I also watched Food, Inc., which I call a documentary for people who either don't know how to read, or would for some reason choose to watch cattle be cruelly pushed around by men driving forklifts rather than read about it. Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) are the main talking heads of the film.

Last night I saw a very good and uplifting film by a Palestinian American. It was called Amreeka and it might be coming to a theater near you.

What I Am Reading
The father of our local production manager is the famous Lebanese novelist, Elias Khoury. I have so far read his early novel, City Gates, and I hope to get to his acclaimed Gate of the Sun while I am still in the country. I often have no time to read once shooting begins. Mr. Khoury came to the screening of Amreeka and was kind enough to sign the copy of City Gates I had with me. I felt as though I was meeting the Lebanese Norman Mailer. It was a truly proud moment--for me, not him. Also on deck is a novel called Midaq Alley, by Naguib Mahfouz, another author I have never read.

Next
The electricity just went out so I will sign off. After my last letter, which I thought pretty much did the trick, many of you asked me "But what's it really like there?" to which, having recovered from my sense of total failure as a writer, I reply that's what I've been trying to tell you. Next time I will talk more specifically about what I see when I'm walking around here in the different types of neighborhoods. And as always, I take requests.

Kaihik!