Contemplation

I spent the greatest night in Bahrain, so far, last Friday at the Jazz Night event organized by Elham. I had tried to practice playing a few numbers, but unfortunately I’ve not managed to play anything reasonably well enough. I guess I’ve always been too hard on my playing, however, this changed after having attended these jazz sessions.

I’m faced with a great difficulty now. I already find it hard translating my thoughts into words, and to attempt translating music into words is well beyond my ability. Let alone jazz music. Let alone great jazz music. So, I will be selfish and won’t share the eventful night, and instead, I will share my thoughts about how it transformed me.

At the end of it, everybody had already left, and the event host was already cleaning up. I stuck around for a while, along with a young and brilliantly pleasant piano player whom I had the opportunity to be a fan of (even for only one night). He was at the corner of the main hall, lightly stroking the keys. Slowly walking towards him, not wanting to distract him from playing, he noticed me and invited me to play something with him.

Now, the first and only time I’ve touched a piano was a few years back, at university, sitting next to someone I dearly admire. She taught me a few chords. This time was my second. The young pianist slid to the side, inviting me to sit down and play “what I felt sounded right”. I told him that I wouldn’t know what to play. He showed me a secret chord and told me to “have at it” and play whatever keys within the scale.

And that was the best I’ve played on a piano in my life, so far at least.

I woke up the next morning, scatting while I got out of bed, skipping down the stairs in alternating intervals, and finally running a tea spoon on differently sized tea cups while making breakfast. I was humming throughout the day. Today, I’m going to get my own music keyboard. I’m swapping the rock and pop CDs with jazz and blues ones. And, like jazz, I won’t be too hard on myself. Like jazz, I’m going to be colorful. Like jazz, I’m going to be quite unpredictable.

Finally, I would like to thank the host for delivering one of the greatest nights I ever had.

Yesterday I attended the Elham event at Albareh Art Gallery and Cafe. Performances of “punk folk” acoustic music, photography, poetry and paintings filled the evening with muse. It is quite difficult for me to describe it in
detail, so you will probably have to go to one to really get what its all about.

But, what really left a great impression on me was Laurence Brown’s segment on digital photography. Laurence teaches at university, and that is exactly why his delivery appealed to me. Whatever subject one is speaking about, it sounds more compelling and engaging when the delivery is entwined with passion and love for the subject.

Even when speaking in technical terms, which most take as boring and confusing at certain times, I felt such immense interest that I thought I will end up buying a camera first thing in the morning the
very next day.

The love for colors and light showed in his stories; the trouble that one needs to go through to reflect the right amount of light, provide the right amount of saturation, and achieve the all so sweet depth in
the final print. This light, this saturation and this depth, is also what I search for in text.

I can barely remember the last time I had so much passion for what I do.

Some of the Arabic poetry written by some Bahraini poets, that is. I ought to be blunt about this, mainly because I’m really the linguistics enthusiast, and I have to make a stance; some of what is written is hardly poetry.

I’m not the renowned critic, but I take the matter to heart. Of previous conversations with colleagues and friends, I always made the point of using language, first and foremost, as a tool to convey meaning. And, when someone starts to speak without meaning, let alone it being poetry, my ears start bleeding.

It was at an event I attended last night. An artist, a poet, and a number of translators were present. I had to reserve my opinion regarding the artist because I haven’t seen her work, or much of it at least. The poet, I believe I made my case regarding his work, however still, for some to argue that the lack of meaning is with the modern trend in Arabic poetry is embarrassing. Shamefully embarrassing I tell you, Shamefully!!

Perhaps the translators are the ones that I least victimize, although some also made an embarrassment of the language they translated the material to. Others, surprisingly, admitted attempting a translation of the meaning; well done!!

I do not know whether it is the excessive Arab pride or the lack of quality assurance (but we stopped caring for that a long time ago, haven’t we), but when you, the artist, whatever sort you are, think that you “got it” first time, you are greatly mistaken. It takes a long time to find your vision, and it takes a long time to find your voice. Until you do, all that you do shall be considered noise.

I’ve never been a big fan of Arabic music, not the hideous stuff that gets produced these days anyway. Perhaps the fact that writers, singers, and composers themselves can’t escape their limited scope of lame topics which range from snobbish unreasoned pride and ego to the slumps of sexually provocative outtakes.

And since I fell in love with the English language from an early age, my music taste found its match in western music (mainly within singer/songwriter genre). A few years back I was invited to a Marcel Khalifa concert here in Bahrain, and that was when I found my Arabic fix (apart from the legendary Fairoz and Co). Marcel introduce this divine looking lady, with an angelic voice, and a graceful humane presence. It was Omaymah Alkhalil.

Her performance was absolutely stripped from any form of indecency, unlike other the usual act from the contemporary mainstream bimbo. I knew then, that there was still a chance for Arabic music to have a special place in my heart.

Enjoy the song, go see Marcel and Omaymah in concert if you ever get the chance to, and if you like what you hear, buy their cds.

 

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Is it not about time that we did something about our environment? Although Bahrain has a couple of organizations that are concerned with the environment, one finds the local majority completely ignorant about issues like energy conservation, recycling, global warming and climate change.

Perhaps I would be criticized for claiming the ignorance of the majority here, and so I shall take up the challenge and bet the majority to prove me wrong on this one, for I’d be glad to lose this time.

The facts do remain though. Many people still litter, and many others leave their lights on unnecessarily, think that stand-by modes are energy efficient, crank up air conditioning to freezing levels, and cannot properly spell the word “recycle” (or any positively associated word with the prefix “re-”).

During the previous bloggers meeting, and thanks to a wiseman and a star, we had achieved the “blogger’s prophecy” (which requires the common presence of three or more bloggers at any one time and place) and an epiphany was bestowed upon us.

It was to do something “cool”; to become (following eMoodian fractionalogy) half blogger, half prophet, and half tree-hugger.

Prophecies don’t lie, and thus I found myself googling environmentalism and stumbled upon my inescapable destiny. I clicked-through to GlobalCool.Org. There, I came across one of my eternal loves, whom I fell even more in love with her after reading her following quote:

“Stop completely twatting your planet, because we haven’t got anywhere else to live.“

And so, my environmentalism mini-season begins.

Modern photography, prose, poetry, and beautiful music; the venue substituted tables for chairs as the increasing crowd settled down for the event to start. Friends and family showed, a multicultural bunch followed, and closer friends thereafter.

Elham introduced the guests, who took to the floor one after the other. Arthur D’Souza discussed his unique techniques of combining positive film and colored paper to create beautifully framed layers that speak beyond the images created.

The dazzling, South-African writer, Melissa van Maasdyk then managed to lose her essay papers, however, short to be found and read to the audience. Personally, this lost-and-found theme gave new meaning to her short essay. Perhaps, this theme will extend its meaning to her “never-ending story”.

The venue was also honored by having the mesmerizing Bahraini poet, Hameed Al Qaed, recite some of his Arabic and English poems alongside the beautiful Oud music, played by Hasan Al Hujairi, who stole the end of the show with a Japanese-Arabic fusioned piece.

Elham, that is muse, and mused I was. What was once an unappealing, and then lost, identity that I associated with Bahrain, is now replaced with a newly discovered culture. I found a new home within an abandoned one.

Coming back to Bahrain a little bit more than a year ago, I found myself becoming increasingly misplaced; disappointed by the lost hope, the mechanical routine, that most people subscribed to. While I was then surrounded by saddened, despaired and despondent people, I now found those with a passion, a glowing core, and a bright future. These artists, my heroes, they found and realized what others took for dreams.

More to what I hope, is for such culture to be bolstered anew within a re-invented brand of Bahrain; to invite designers, artists, film makers, writers and musicians, to this island; to establish a hub of galleries and “culture cafés”.