White Wall

There was a mid-day glare on the white wall. Time had taken its toll. The wall was damaged. It looked like it has been through several rounds of poorly-done retrofitting. Pipes crept up and down and wires hung sideways. The wall is elderly.

It wasn't always that way. Once a long time ago the building was young. Back then the wall and these windows weren't anything special. They were very likely thoroughly unremarkable features of a thoroughly unremarkable structure. That's one more thing time has changed. This architectural style is growing rarer in Beirut. Now that it is rare, this wall has become special. It's special because it is dying out.

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, But beautiful old people are works of art."

Eleanor Roosevelt said that. I think she was right. And I think it might have something to do with architecture and why old buildings pull on us the way they do.

My Favorite Plant

It's called Lantana. There are varieties with purple blossoms, magenta, or lemony yellow and the one shown here with orange, and there might be others still that I haven't heard of yet. The plant sort of tumbles over itself as it grows, and it gets bigger and bigger year after year since Lebanon's rainy season is never cold enough to kill it.

One year I tried to keep a Lantana alive through the St. Louis winter. It didn't work and when I asked an expert at the botanical garden if there was anything I could try next time she silently shook her head.

This huge one cascades down a wall near the sea beside a doorway that probably leads to an undiscovered paradise.

From Above

Brains are funny the way they link ideas together like so many dandelions in a chain.

Take this rooftop. It's crowded. There are at least 9 satellite dishes and as many antennas hovering over and around them. These are objects of utility, necessary gateway devices to bring an amazing variety of programming into the homes below the roof.

But as I walked past I considered their aesthetic quality and thought of them functioning just as well as ornamentation, didactically proclaiming the significance of entertainment, our collective mediated existence, the wonder of media transmission sent trough thin air.

Park It Here

This weekend has been the Hamra Street Festival. We dropped in on it yesterday just as everything was opening up. I took this picture as we ambled about.

Hamra Street was closed to all cars for the Festival, so nobody needed this parking lot, but I still really liked the sign.

It's been a good weekend, a much needed break from an unbelievably busy week. My 7 year old starts school tomorrow, and the 5 year old begins next week. We're doing well, making new friends, having a happy time, and were very very glad to be back in Beirut.

Blue Sky

I grew up near the geographic center of the United States. The topography of that region is hilly, sitting only a little above sea level. There's a lot of farmland there, but also plenty of wooded, forested areas.

During the summer there was usually plenty of rain, which is good for farms, good for forests. There was also plenty of humidity. Most days, the sky looked white. It was because of all the water in the air. On days with unusually low humidity, the sky was a soft, baby blue.

When I was a kid, truly blue skies existed only in pictures. I also found them on family road trips to the American West. Out there, arid and semi-arid climates went hand in hand with far less humidity and spectacularly blue skies.

This picture reminded me of the color of a clear western sky.

I took this picture near the Corniche. In the photo the area looks desolate or even forbidding, but it isn't. It's funny how a photo can do that.

New Land

It used to be that if you wanted more land you had to go out and conquer it.

Now you can just build more. That's what they've been doing in Beirut for years now, just north of downtown.

They've recently opened sections of the new land to the public. We took the girls there to ride bikes recently. Here's the view of Beirut from what was once the sea.

For those who like comparisons, here are two maps of Beirut's north shore. The one on top was made in 1912, the one below it is current. You can see the massive expansion into the sea where the old port once was.

Wait

That was then . . . an image that I took back in November:

And this is now, a picture I took a few days ago:

They've been digging and digging over there. From the look of the pit they've dug, they're going to build something really tall on that spot. Now all we have to do is wait and see.

Half in the Dark

Shadows are such fun. I like these.

But what I really wanted to capture were those amazing shutters, the way the crimson paint evaporates off them as if executing an elegant "fade to shabby" as the eye travels downward.

Looking

I love looking at this picture

I love the battered shutters, I love the remnant of decorative balcony balustrade. I love the cinder block atop that little roof which is surely there to keep it from blowing away. I love the crazy mess of wires. I love the two little palms. I love the worn, gradated color of the walls and the underside of the balcony up above.

Quiet City

The thing about Ramadan is that the city is very quiet all day long. There isn't as much construction noise, there aren't as many people out or cars on the road. Parking is like a dream come true.

As the city creeps toward nightfall everything changes, albeit slowly, like one season giving way to the next.