My friend Husam got himself a Harley, I got myself a camera, a couple of strobes and a light diffuser that seems to have been a shower cap in a previous life. I’ve been fiddling around with a hybrid photography/graphic style that’s often referred to as hyper-realism. The style is identifiable by its clean, contrasty look, sharp details, vivid colors and usually large depth of field. Is it a good thing?

They asked what love is I asked what life is We looked at each other like children in a playground asking questions we couldn’t answer We giggled we loved we lived That is all we did that is all we needed that is all That is all

Once, there was a moment that surrendered to eternity. Like all moments before it, this particular moment was not made to last. At least that’s what everyone thought at first. In a medley of love and hate, defeat and triumph, lies and retribution; the moment came about. It looked at the blue sky patched with fluffy white clouds and asked, “what is it that makes me so…so momentous?” The sky of course, being a sky, didn’t answer.

I’ve recently been reading Fromm, as in Erich Fromm. Here’s a gem: The principle holds that no citizen loses his property or his rights of citizenship and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which (Palestinians in Israel) have much more legitimacy than the Jews…If all nations would suddenly claim territories in which their forefathers lived two thousands years ago, this world would be a madhouse. Jewish Letter, February 9, 1959

It’s funny how when asked about their view of the world, some people will take a rather sardonic and cynical view. “The world is in shambles…mankind’s end is nigh…there’s more trouble than peace…we’ll all kill each other,” and so on, they would say. The truth is, the world is a wonderful place. This is what I believe. This is what I see. This is what I know. There are so many good things in this world; too many to simply reduce to a few examples here.

Ladby Larabee (which some of you mistakenly read as Lady Larabee) was an ordinary man as far as ordinary men went: he was not dashingly handsome in any sense, nor was he hard to look at; he was not talented in any way, nor was he an idiot. Ladby Larabee was simply average. His outlook on life, though, was not average to say the least. In the morning, Larabee woke up his soul with a prayer and his body with a shower.

I’ve had these thoughts running through my head for some time now. Thought I’d let them out before they got too worked up… What is silence but that moment in which one’s heart beats intently, screaming to be heard? While some matters in life make immediate sense, other matters require time to seep into the mind, heart and soul until meaning arises from them. Bearing the passage of that time entails faith.

The winds of change will shift the sands of time but will never, ever blow out the candles of love Sleepless, I lay in bed wishing upon a white ceiling to have you set free and for my heart to capture you Set sail to the stars let your ego drown let your hope surface let your humility take charge Without light a heart is dark and in disarray Let me take you

Jim Masri decided that today was a good day to die. There was nothing better than having a clear blue sky, or a starry night, on one’s day of death. “It’s better than watching television. I’ll watch the sky. That’s what I’ll do. Might as well get ready for up there,” he said to Melissa, the day nurse. “Enough of such talk, Mr. Masri. This morbidity of yours will not get you any better,” she said.

Marwan stretched across a couch in the lunchroom of the Al-Wasat daily, pen and notepad in hand. On that day following the Eid holiday, there seemed nothing more serene than the silent rush of traffic as observed from a double-glazed window. The setting sun poured down its golden light in bucket loads across the road to Budaiya. I began writing my column in this daily with the idea that I could say something that might, or might not change the world, he wrote_.