The 'Cultural' Selection

There are two parallel concepts over history that describe life; one which says it is deteriorating for the previous generations are higher in class and race-and psychologically we always encounter nostalgic old men or women to the "better past"-, and another which says that survival is for the better as it is explained in the evolution theories such as the natural selection, adaptations or the genetic drifts. Another example to that can be explained socially as the sudden change in a group of people from uncivilized to civilized according to a current standard of such description. I read such relationship in a book and was stimulated.

The following day, in the early morning, I was waiting for my colleague when I took this photo above. At the same evening, I attended a lecture which started with the early European perceptions of Damascus, and how there were lots of flaws and inaccurate determinations and facts either illustrated in maps or drawn on canvases. the lecture ended with photos of the "remains" which very much reminded me of the evolution theories which made it a sensual exploration of thought.

The remains shown in the recent pictures were very fragmented, yet they identify virtual lines. The remains have different positions and value in the city of Damascus nowadays, but everyone is saying that it is a deterioration of culture. I see it more as a deterioration in realization, because even the images of the past are struggling manuscripts from the memory of geographers or explorers. and then real facts of natural deterioration of certain places in the city caused from fire or earthquakes. Then comes different eras and functions in the city that assert some new configurations.
Once "realization" overcomes the highly judged as "deterioration", the term then will transit into the recent vision in a better understanding, and therefore a better description than "good" and "bad" will emerge. Consequently, what is visually sensed as bad is invalid, as long as reason is our good. The bad therefore is a hyper active sensor for the good.

The displayed image is a practical exercise of such theory, when you see a blocked door, you really feel bad about the beautiful entrance to be treated in this manner; blocking it and ruining the overall shape of the building. In reaching the realization level you can view that whomever live inside the building couldn't care less about it or at least have thought in a logical valid way. in needing the air condition inside this old building they either have to dig a hole in the wall of the facade or find an opening, the building has no windows, so the other option is closing the door, to a little opening to allow for the unit.
and the world will always be additive, in both physical and virtual senses just like this door, it will always remain "a door" in our virtual mind added from the physical details like the steps , dimensions, and the border. Yet physically, another additive process is applied, which is "a door filled with bricks to allow for the window unit".

Thus photographers are not shooting weird or even ugly things because they are artists who find beauty in everything. It is a long process of realization that requires somethings in the world to be frozen for a while to be thought about longer than the moment they saw it.

First Rainy Day!

A few minutes after midnight, coming back from a friend's wedding. Getting off the car, I looked as usual to the dark sky but it is not dark anymore. "Clouds! Clouds!" I said happily to my mother but she was a bit anxious because we're having some construction work on the roof. For the few last days I was having a sense of rain, even though the sky was clear. I felt so great that a sign of it appeared.
with the morning I woke up and went to my mother's window, I looked to the sky and said: "Cloudy day!".
"Rainy day!" said my mother, I looked to the ground and wow! the beautiful wet ground. so excited that I wanted to dance. I went out to our courtyard to smell the scent of rain, and then to the roof. I love the white sky!

I feel myself altogether.

Even though my mother was anxious yesterday, she seems in a wonderful mood loving the weather and opening all the windows..

Happy Rain for all..

يوم جميل تستحي أن تقول فيه يا ليت

يوم عرفت فيه أني في نعيم لأن لدي صوت به أتكلم، وطاقة أرسم بها، و أرض أمشي عليها

إني على قيد الحياة

رغم أن الجنيات يرغبن في شنقي، و جوع غريب يعتريني، فلم أعد أقرأ الوقت، و لا أفهمه

زوال الخوف
زوال الليل من عيناي
و ضجيج المكتبة كل يوم

اليوم عرفت أن الحرب طبيعة، يشعلها الرجل بأسلوب مباشر، مريح، يقتل فيه عدوه
لكن المرأة حين تحارب، تقتل كل شيء.. و لا أحد ينكر الطبيعة في العدم، مكروهة المرأة حين تحارب، حين تذهب، حين تبدأ في الكلام

كنت مخلوقا نائما، موؤدا لا يراد مني يقظة، كائن الانتظار الذي ينفث قصص الحب و الظلم و الزوال، من محض أحلام
و الآن استيقظت خائنة لذاتي، أبارز الريح لا أرجو سكنا لها، و لا خنوع للغبار الهائج بيننا، اصدحي موسيقى السيوف و انسلي من هاويات الحياة. لا تهدئي، أججيها صيحات من تراب، و ضحكات عظام، تنثر الأفراح في جرف كسيح

أعلم أن لن تدحري يا ريح فما هذا مرادي، أريدك تكرهيني، تبعديني أكثر إلى زحام لا أرى فيه أحد
فأنت وهم رعب مندفع، محظية من محظيات الروح آثرت العزف على أوتار الجسد
غضبا تعزفين بألحانك الأبدية، أعلم أنك لن تموتي و لكني مُسَيّرة أقاتل

Singing with Majda!

#1

The Suicidal Oud

"I'm sure I heard its sound!" she said fiercely as she was examining her broken Oud. I was wondering how she heard its sound among all the children's fuss tonight, but I was silent. I know she loves that Oud very dearly although she never knew how to use it. She instead took many photos with it, very symbolic indeed, the Oud in our feminine room.

It is pretty old, and was given away to her two years ago by my uncle who seemingly lost the interest.

After an ironic silence she exclaimed in rather a threatning manner: "It is certainly Khaled! but I will ask each and every little thing came in this room this night."

"But don't ask them altogether", I said.

"I will, but not after asking each one of them individually. In this way no one will have a chance to cheat on me, they can't fool me" She replied with glowing eyes from the action of detecting. She left the room afterward to show my parents the horrible accident. And I was still thinking how Khaled -the youngest of all- could have the strength to do such harm to the Oud? The Oud's neck was sheared and all the strings were pulled so violently from their normal tension. Besides, how come a child puts back the broken Oud right in its place after shattering it to pieces?
There was a song in an old Kuwaiti operate about a man got his broken Oud fixed and confronting his teasing wife by praising it. I thought maybe the Oud is destined with despair and unfortunate events.

6 pm, biting her nails and her eyes wide open staring at the thinking position. She was revising the order of her questions.

I was late to the court of justice so I couldn't witness all the trial, I reached the "altogether" part. What I realized is that the defendants felt really sorry for the judge, they were trying to make it easy for her. They all denied it and she gave the broken Oud to them as a memorial of bad deeds.

I heard rumers after that about 6 years old Zaina, she is more likely to lie with the ease of a professional criminal. Zaina told me once that she doesn't like to listen to songs "I only like to compose songs" she explained with pride.

Everything is calmed down.

Two days later, we came back to our room at night. I didn't open the light depending on the hall lamp. I got a gentle strike on the head!
"Hey! what was that?!" I thought it was a hang fell from a shelf. I touched it and it was no hang, but something was hanged. She came in opening the lights.

The Oud's neck was hanged by its strings from the chandelier. It was dangling like a swing after the hit. It was fastened very carefully to the chandelier. There was even a small wooden piece to prevent it from falling if the knots ever loosen up. She tried to open it, but I stopped her. I told her that I like it, and I want to take a photograph of it. While I was taking the photos, she was asking my brother and parents about who hanged it, but no one did.

We allowed it to swing over our heads whenever we open the cupboard to get a dress.

My elder sister called, they traveled away for a vacation. She said her husband was opening the curtains in the morning, and suddenly their 3 years old son screamed: "THEY OPENED ALONE! THEY OPENED ALONE!"
"What are they my dear??"
"MY EYES!"

9 am, again I opened my eyes as if programmed to open them everyday at this particular time without alarm sounds. Staring at the ceiling, there were two blue tacks stuck since I was a child, I remember tiny gulls flying there, one less crowded than the other. I used to wonder about them, how real they were, and how I loved to make them move, when my father lift me high. they touched like ceramics, and they sounded so as I wave my hand in the middle of the gulls troop. I solved its mystery when my mother cut my hair after the chewing gum had fallen from my mouth while I was sleeping, but I still wondered how they found a blue chewing gum.
"maybe it's blueberry flavor" I used to say.

The chandeliers were gone as soon as we started to sleep in this room. I didn't notice that, I only remember myself watching them in the living room of our chalet. I remember this image because I was crying and fascinated with the light coming through my tears from a yellowish lamp right behind the cyramic gulls. As I tighten the muscles of my eyes, the birds looked bigger, and even more real, though blury. Then from my place on the ground I close one eye and try to pick the birds by my two little fingers.

I knew later that our room used to be the play room for my elder siblings until I grew older and my sister was born. They moved the books to my grandfather's room, the dolls to the books room and me and her to the dolls room and finally the birds to the chalet because we could reach them easily by standing on the beds.

"Isn't it wonderful to make a birds chandelier to revive those blue spots in the ceiling", said to myself as I recalled the great fall of those gulls, they were my obsession and I wonder if I was the one who destroyed them at the end.

She woke up and sat on her bed next to me, watching me with empty eyes. "I think it is time to remove that hanged Oud" she said in a lazy voice "it's annoying, I'm not used to it, it always hits me in the head".

Two days later, it is still hanged.

October Effect

I'm starting a new chapter today. The two previous weeks were awkward between sickness, childhood, silence and staring [photography too]. Today I have the needed power to hold my colored pencils, ink and crayons.

The weather is wonderful... BEAUTIFUL! I'm speechless dear weather, I bet it's the October effect.

My feelings lessen as I get smaller and smaller but wonders are getting bigger and bigger. Thus, a story should be told in all the means of expression. until we find a way to decode the scripts of shadows.