On August 4, 2020, Beirut’s central neighborhoods were obliterated off the map following the detonation of some of the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored at a port warehouse. Within a two-minute timeframe, two hundred lives were lost, seven thousand individuals sustained mild to life-threatening injuries, and over three hundred thousand were […]
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Number, Price, and Knowledge
A century and a half ago, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq reminded us that Arabic words were formed according to a system of derivation and paronymy. Words decline into other words, all emanating from a root with which they share a conceptual connection. To think about words in this way is to incessantly map out the web […]
Have you written anything lately?
It is said that the occurrence of certain events generates vibrations that penetrate the body, meandering through it, never fading away completely.It is said that this infinite pulsing inhibits the formation of thoughts and memories.It is said that writing is an attempt to reach out to those echoes, to grasp them, and to make them […]
An Appendix for Resonance and Touch
NOTES: The following drum patterns are taken from the passages with time changes, in “the variable” section F, of the score Sonic No. 7 & No. 10, for solo derabucca, written by Egyptian American composer and performer Halim El-Dabh (1921-2017). This text is an ekphrasis riff, an appendix to an extended study on the score […]
Tumultuous Convolutions
My ceiling fan morphs into a helicopter My ceiling fan morphs into distant gunshots My ceiling fan morphs into the dense soundscape of a city in rebellion Tear gas Rubber Bullets Water Cannons Helicopters Traffic lights Street Vendors Endless construction noise Church bells A sonic invasion from the past The habitual soundscape of the city […]
Hypochondriacal with the World*
Ill (noun): Old Nors illr “Lost in the mists of time”. Sick (adjective): “Ill, diseased; troubled, deeply affected”. “Tired or weary, disgusted from satiety”; “Mentally twisted”; seocmod “infirm of mind”. What of suffering (noun)? One time during a pandemic, I felt ill. Really ill for months. They tell me I’m always sick. They tell me […]