Safwan Dahoul 4
Some of my favorite works by distinguished Syrian artists.
Starting with Carmen; Ending with the Flying Dutchman
Once back from Damascus last February, I spent two hectic weeks in America, with activities including, among others, four different lectures: at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, the American University in Washington, a meeting of the Young Presidents Organization, and at a church – the United Methodist Church in Alexandria.
The worst thing about those two weeks was intensely missing Rafif and Sidra who preceded me to Damascus. The little devil has completely dominated my thoughts and dreams. Her absence hurts. However, the separation was soon to be replaced by the excitement of a trip back to Damascus, my second visit within twenty days.
In Paris, I had my usual lengthy walks along the quais of the Sein, had lunch with Raja Sidawi at his splendid penthouse in Avenue Fosch, continued my strolls in the evening with Dima and Sama (Rafif’s sister in law and her niece) in the Quartier Latin.
Damascus: Meeting Rafif and Sidra was sweet and rapturous. This time we are not staying at a hotel, but in our apartment house in Barzeh.
Lunch in al-Rawda: the next day after my arrival we headed toward the Syrian-Lebanese border to have lunch at Bashir and Ouhud Munajed’s house, with all the usual friends: Amr and Huda Armanazi, Bashar and Hala Azmeh, Khaled and Fafo Azm as well as Imad Sabouni and Buthaina Shaaban.
Opera in the evening: I was lucky enough not to miss the fourth and last performance of Bizet’s Carmen, as part of the activities of the Damascus, Capital of Arab Culture, 2008 festival.
Family, family and family: Sidra’s grand parents, all four of them, were competing with us on spoiling Sidra. Every day we would cross the city three to four times between al-Mazzeh where my parents live, and al-Tijara where Rafif’s family house is. I think we have done our share in exasperating the already fiendish, traffic problems of Damascus. We also visited Ranwa, Rafif’s sister, at her new home in Dummar, where she had just moved in.
Dinner with Safa at Narinj: Safa Rifka, aka al-Hakim, decided to pop-in for an evening in Damascus, so we went out with his sister, his brother-in-law, Rafif’s father and Muhsen Bilal for a fabulous dinner at the newest gastronomic craze in Damascus, Narinj, where an authentic Aleppo cuisine is served. However, reaching the restaurant in the labyrinth of Bab-Sharki, constituted a singularly adventurous experience.
The indefatigable Michele Samaha: My dear friend Michele Samaha whom I am very proud of (to the chagrin of President Bush), heard that I was in Damascus, and drove from Beirut to meet with me. We had lunch together at La Fontana, along with Yarub Badr and Imad Sabouni. Next day we also had lunch together in Buthaina Shabaan’s house. It was so good to listen to his views on the Lebanese political scene.
An interview with al-Manar: Despite the fact that I was not planning to do any media activities, I couldn’t resist the invitation from al-Manar TV to give the Bush administration a piece of my mind. I actually enjoyed the interview tremendously. It was fun.
La Symphonie Fantastique: We also attended a concert presented by the Syrian National Orchestra. The program was totally French: Debussy’s Claire du Lune, and Berlioz’s masterpiece La Symphonie Fantastique. Rafif and I agreed that it was one of the finest performances of our national orchestra since the hey-days of the late Solhi al-Wadi. After the concert, we went with Nabil Asswad, and the board members of ECHO, the Syrian NGO that supports and promotes music and musicians, for dinner at Whispers.
Dinner at the Art House: What can be more exclusive as a setting for dinner than the awesome Art House? Our dear friend Amer Ajami invited us for dinner with his charming mother and a small group of artists and intellectuals: Hammoud Shantout, Sara Shamma, and Sami Mubayed. On entering this most beautiful of art galleries, we were totally surprised to bump into Marwan Kassab-Bashi, arguably the most important living artist from Syria. Marwan lives currently in Berlin, and it was such a pleasant surprise that we met him without any previous arrangements. Before sitting around the table we visited the main hall to experience the extraordinarily beautiful paintings of Jabr Alwan, the famous Iraqi painter, who is currently living in Damascus. Rafif was besotted by his works. But she did not fancy the price tag on them.
A Lecture at the Kalamoon Univeristy: Finally I fulfilled an old promise and went to give a public lecture at the Kalamoon University. Sami Mubayed accompanied me there, where I was humbled by the warm and enthusiastic reception that I received. Talking to Syrian students and faculty members after a long long period of absence was refreshing and even riveting. I loved every moment of it.
Rafif’s Father on Arabic: We also attended a lecture given by Rafif’s dad, Mahmoud al-Sayed, at the Assad National Library on the Arabic Language. We found it very educating and insightful. Very few people can speak with similar eloquence and passion about the Arabic language as Rafif’s father can.
An Evening with the Elders: Dr. Mahmoud al-Sayed also insisted on inviting us for dinner with a group of his friends; almost everybody there was a former cabinet minister: Iyad al-Shatti, the former Minister of Health, Hani Mortada, the former Minister of Higher Education, Fouad Haddad the Former Minister of Oil, and Wathek Shahid, another former Minister of Higher Education, my father-in-law himself is the former Minister of Education and of Culture.
Artists and a Composer: Asmaa Faioumi, the prominent painter and her husband Ghassan Jabri the TV drama director insisted on having us for dinner as well in their house in al-Mazzeh. This unforgettable evening included two of the most outstanding young talents from Syria: the painter and sculptor Fadi Yaziji, and the music composer Zaid Jabri. The editor of the Arts Quarterly Abdullah al-Sayed, himself a renowned sculptor and his wife the ceramic and pottery artist were there as well.
Laila Nseir: One day before leaving Damascus we also attended the solo exhibition of Leila Nseir, described as one of the pioneers of the modern art movement in Syria. We sat with her for a while and exchanged a couple of thoughts about art and her work. She kindly donated a work of hers to a charity Gala Rafif is organizing on behalf of Basma, the Syrian charity that caters for children with cancer.
The Mesmerizing House of Khaled and Jiji Samawi: Visiting the house of the Smawis is an unforgettable and exquisite experience. Khaled and Jiji Samawi gave us a tour of their house, where in every room, even in their private chambers, works of art dazzled and enchanted us. The greatest masterpiece was Louay Kayali’s: Then What? A strikingly dramatic and powerful depiction of the bewilderment and loss felt by the people after the defeat of June 67. Other prominent artists on display at the Samawis’s include: Abdullah Murad, Youssef Abdelki, Fadi Yazigi, Sabhan Adam, Safwan Dahoul and Mustafa Ali. His latest addition was a fiery, albeit romantic, painting by Jabr Alwan. The only thing I regretted was not bringing along my camera.
Friends, Friends and a bunch of Friends: As usual in Damascus, one needs legendary fortitude, and time and space of mythological dimensions in order to visit and see all the friends and loved ones -an absolutely impossible feat to achieve. However, in this short week we also visited Jumana and Walid Abdul-Kareem, and had dinner with Basel and Siba Khushi. We also had another dinner at Fafo and Khaled al-Azm’s house. Rafif met with tons of her friends as well, however, we know that more friends are upset with us than not, and we do understand. But what can one do? The whole trip to Damascus passed like a passing glimpse of the eye.
We were back in Washington in time for Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman at the Kennedy Center. A strong antidote to what had started with Carmen.
Hammoud Shantout 2
Some of my favorite works by distinguished Syrian artists.
Atonement
Yesterday, I went to the cinema with Halim and Hayat Barakat. It has been a very long time since I last went to a movie theatre despite Rafif’s and my own love for the cinema. The reason is simple: since Sidra was born we could not bear the notion of leaving her alone with the nanny while we go to enjoy a film.
Now, that Rafif and Sidra are in Damascus while I am alone in Washington, I decided to revive my old habit of going to the movies with Halim and Hayat, so we chose Atonement. And what an experience it was.
I read Atonement, the book, a couple of years ago. Ian McEwan had a splendid subject: that of the tragic consequences of one foolish act at a very green age, and weaved a beautiful plot around it. However, I found the novel to be problematic, alternating between intensity and depth on one hand, and boring descriptive parts on the other.
After a powerful and riveting start that spans the first third of the novel, the narrative slacks, and becomes really boring with a detailed description of the life of Londoners – particularly that of hospital nurses during the London blitz of the Second World War.
I couldn’t believe it. Here is a renowned and experienced author with a magnificent theme to work on losing focus and the conceptual organic unity of the work, offering us instead a treatise on the horrors of everyday life in London during the war. However, by the end of the book, McEwan remembers what he initially started with, and takes us back to the story line he had originally thought of, and suddenly our attention is reawakened, and we are back on track.
Forget about one third of the book, and you end up with a beautiful love story with a very deep reflection on the capacity of humans to destroy and inflict pain and suffering. The protagonist of Atonement is a young adolescent, Briony Tallis, with an early flair for writing, and a silly crush on Robbie, a young and dashing son of one of her father’s servants in a manor in the lush England countryside.
Out of nosey curiosity, Briony reads a love letter addressed by Robbie to her sister Cecilia. And to further complicate things, she surprises the two lovers in an explicitly compromised situation. She is shocked and disoriented. Later, when she accidentally happens upon a sexual assault on her slightly older cousin, she falsely accuses Robbie of being the assailant. She does this for many inexplicable reasons, but mostly because she cannot fully grasp the magnitude of what she was doing. The consequences were disastrous for Robbie and Cecelia. But Briony also lives to regret her deed and languish in sorrow for what she did when she was only thirteen years old.
Skipping the boring description of her life as a nurse (was that supposed to be her way of atonement?) the end of the story is equally powerful and totally unexpected.
In the past, I had, more or less, the same experience with books made into films. The film version was never capable of grasping the real spirit and powerful narrative of the book. But this was one single major exception. The film made by Joe Wright succeeded in making us live through the best parts of the book, while condensing those related to the evacuation from Dunkirk and the London Blitz to a reasonable length. Probably, films can always depict the horrors of war in a more concise and efficient way than novels.
In brief, Atonement was a joy to watch: brilliant cinematography and strong suspenseful plot. Every moment of the film was fascinating, and yet it leaves the viewer with a powerful urge to think of the implications of betrayal and atonement. I just loved it.
Talal Moualla 2
Some of my favorite works by distinguished Syrian artists.
From Tilden to Kalorama
Finally, the renovation and redecoration of the official Syrian residence has been completed, and with mixed feelings we moved back to the old/new house.
The house at 2600 Tilden place was our residence for three years, and witnessed some of our happiest memories. Rafif joined me there after completing her doctoral studies in England, and it was Sidra’s first home ever. The architecture at Tilden was modern and exquisite, the surroundings were captivating. Tilden’s residence was simultaneously in the heart of the North Western residential area in Washington D.C. while isolated inside a quite green wood as if it were in the countryside.
However, Tilden had small space for functions and dinners. Additionally, while it was quite suitable for a family living by itself, once Rafif joined me, and Sidra enlightened our life, living there and maintaining our privacy became almost impossible. While we loved the house at Tilden, we did not regret leaving it.
The house at Kalorama is totally different. It is located in a premium location in D.C., arguably the very best possible. Furthermore, it is only a five minute walk from the Embassy’s offices. Architecturally, the house itself is conventional, but has two major advantages: the functional area is considerably larger than that of Tilden’s, and our quarters are completely isolated. Close one door and it is almost like living in an apartment in a condominium. However, the view from the windows here is nothing as dazzling as we used to get in Tilden. This is something we will always miss.
