Viva O 25 de Abril sempre

Grândola, vila morena

Terra da fraternidade

O povo é quem mais ordena

Dentro de ti, ó cidade

Dentro de ti, ó cidade

O povo é quem mais ordena

Terra da fraternidade

Grândola, vila morena

Em cada esquina um amigo

Em cada rosto igualdade

Grândola, vila morena

Terra da fraternidade

Terra da fraternidade

Grândola, vila morena

Em cada rosto igualdade

O povo é quem mais ordena

À sombra duma azinheira

Que já não sabia a idade

Jurei ter por companheira

Grândola a tua vontade

Grândola a tua vontade

Jurei ter por companheira

À sombra duma azinheira

Que já não sabia a idade

Grândola, swarthy town*

Land of brotherhood

'Tis the people who command the most

Inside of you, o city

Inside of you, o city

'Tis the people who command the most

Land of brotherhood

Grândola, swarthy town

On every corner, a friend

In every face, equality

Grândola, swarthy town

Land of brotherhood

Land of brotherhood

Grândola, swarthy town

In every face, equality

'Tis the people who command the most

In the shadow of an holm oak

That none now know its age

I swore to have as my companion

Grândola, your will

Grândola, your will

I swore to have as my companion

In the shadow of an holm oak

That none now know its age

Portuguese fragments for Intimacy

1) Porto in the first moments of the sunrise. The first rays of light are graciously caressing the way of the soothsayer to Sao Bento: Palacio do Cristal, Cordoaria, Praca de Republica and Batalha. I knew these streets since eternity; I came here to visit in every previous life. I live in Porto and Porto lives in me. We are both familiar to each other like restless seagulls. The Douro takes the Light to the Atlantic under the careful gaze of Raul Brandao. And there the river meets the ocean. Indifferently and since ever.

2) The smell of the Portuguese coffee is plainly strong. The smell of that unique and forgotten café on the way to Foz was way too strong. The air carrying the salty droplets of sea water kept spraying my face and that of Raul Brandao. He stood there staunchly guarding the Lighthouse. And I was compelled to return to the land of the pale sun.

Porto ’s trilogy often visits me in the land of the cold. A mighty Light spelled with the breaking of dawn, a crushing smell of burning stones and a helplessly intense coffee- all these look as real as a guided tour in the Serralves orchestrated by Elsa on a Saturday afternoon.

3) My heart is still flying above Lisbon : Blessed be this stranger, plowing right now the streets of Lisbon and deliciously steeling a first look into a small book of verse by Alvaro do Campos .

Leipzig April 2007

Plastic surgery loan

I went to Lebanon terribly haunted by the idea that the country was on a knife-edge track. From the land of the pale sun (i.e. Germany), the country seemed to be sliding into some scary unknown. I arrive there only to find out that the country was still nearly the same and people seemed to care less about what's going on around them( whether you call it absurd carelessness or irritating ignorance ). The occupation of downtown by the honorable men of the divine victory (and their pro-Syrian allies: Michel Aoun's group, etc) only fueled contempt among the owners of the shops of that area. The Solidere's neighborhoods have been mostly deserted ;but few meters away the souk of Gemmayzeh is buzzing like never before. Indeed and on a Saturday night you could barely find a place to put you feet in that street. The same applies to the neighborhoods of Kaslik, Jounieh and Verdun. And even Abul-Abed could solve this conundrum: Masa'iboo qawmen 3inda qawmen fawa'idoo- and rightly is so!

But some people have a different opinion on things."I never saw a country functioning this well without a government", told me one of my (old time) AUB philosophy professors. It is only functioning because it is a mixture of wild capitalism and a perennial but talented mercantile mentality, I kept on saying to myself.
I mean after all the status quo could be summarized in the following:

Everybody lashing out at everybody. The Saniora's government wanting the tribunal to be created, the parliament speaker has stalled on convening the legislature (to discuss and/or approve the tribunal,etc), and the Syrian-backed Lahoud (whose mandate's extension was coerced by the Syrians in September 2004) has daily memoranda in the newspapers reminding the Lebanese people that their government is unconstitutional since November 2006. The country looks more and more like the "3asfoorieh" (madhouse) as the visionary Mahmud Shreih pointed out once to me.

Still I couldn't believe that it was a real "3asfoorieh" (like the one overlooking Jal-El-Dib) until I saw these billboards (please see below) scattered all along the highways of the happy Beirut.