Beirutista

The other day, I bumped into an old acquaintance I’d met in Paris a dozen years ago. After some quick catch-up and gushing over each other’s kids, she asked me about the blog and whether I was still penning as Beirutista. I told her I’d become far less prolific the past year on account of “being uninspired.” The moment those words left my mouth, I felt insufficient and foolish. A deluge of thoughts swept through my mind as I braced for a personal awakening. Does one really need inspiration to get a word out on paper? Even if one commits to writing about what one might perceive as mundane nonsense, the very thought process that engages the gears in the noggin would qualify for a fruitful writing exercise. Right? We can’t possibly attribute a perpetual flow of inspiration to the celebrated early 20 th -century author William Faulkner, for example, can we? Have you read – nay, attempted to read – The Sound and The Fury ? It is a lesson in "stream of consciousness," or unfilte...

You haven’t heard from me for some time. Five months, to be exact. Well, the truth is, juggling two children, namely an infant and a toddler, is pretty darn time-consuming. Add to that the highly novel, highly unusual circumstances gripping our world, and the inspiration to write from a positive vantage point quickly vanishes. I’ve never navigated bleaker times. Quite often, I find myself mentally dictating a blog post, gathering all my distraught thoughts into some form of comprehensible prose as I keep a wary eye on the kids. But by the time they’re both sound asleep and the household tasks completed, the magnetic pull from my bed invariably wins out over the appeal of my reticent laptop. And I succumb to slumber. But tonight is different. There are a myriad of sentiments coursing through my veins as the entire world – because this is much greater than merely one nation – wrestles with notions of racism.  The name George Floyd has gained overnight fame. Floyd was a 46-year...

Nearly one week ago, just a few days into the protests animating Lebanon, a Lebanese-American friend residing abroad texted me to see how we were faring. “Still hell-bent on that dump of a country?” he inquired. Maybe if he’d asked me that same question a week before, before the catastrophic fires tore through the Chouf, Metn and Akkar regions, ravaging the lush greenery of the Lebanese mountain ranges; before we learned of the three Sikorsky helicopters, each equipped to carry 4,000 liters of water to douse fires, that had been grounded for years on account of neglect; before heads of state despicably proposed a fee of USD 6 per month for WhatsApp VoIP calls, a technology that is entirely proprietary and free to the public worldwide…maybe I would have conceded ashamedly to his logic. “You’re right,” I’d have concurred. “This country is a veritable dump, and we’re idiots to be wiling away our livelihoods here.” But something has happened in the wake of those fires and t...

It’s painfully easy hating on Lebanon. No matter where you look, there’s incessantly a blatant reminder of how archaic the country’s infrastructure is. We still suffer from electricity outages day and night – where else in the world does that happen? Many a country reflect a lower GDP per capita than we do, and yet they’re not living in the dark (pun intended). Forget the countryside, you’d be hard-pressed to find a smoothly paved road devoid of potholes anywhere in the capital. If you’re ever reeling from indigestion, just get behind the wheel and go for an excursion. That’ll solve your tummy troubles in no time. How about the air and water pollution and the seeming indifference to ameliorate either? What of the historic ruins that are open to the public to trample upon and abuse, rather than being the objects of painstaking preservation and care? We count as one of the oldest civilizations in the world, laying claim to Roman and Byzantine ruins from tens of centuries ago...

A few weeks ago, I was invited to deliver a free-form lecture to third-year banking students enrolled in  l’institut supérieur d’études bancaires at Beirut’s prestigious Université Saint-Joseph in Monot. I jumped at the chance to address the next generation of Lebanese bankers. The only stipulation was that I weave in my working knowledge of social media, blogging, and communications in the context of a corporate institution, namely a bank. I’d recently become aware that today’s students don’t come from the same cloth as us, their predecessors. We may be separated by a mere decade, but the academic environment that dominated during my collegiate years would be wholly foreign to these fledglings. How did I know? During my tenure at Bank of Beirut, I helped spearhead and implement a novel MBA program in Banking Operations at another local university. Based on my direct interaction with students in that program, in addition to the input I gleaned from colleagues delivering c...

In the fast-paced digital world we currently inhabit, it seems certain our creativity is stifled. You rarely see people scanning the landscape around them for inspiration, whether they’re hustling from point A to point B, or idling in the passenger seat of a car – can’t really reference public transportation in this country, can we now? – or even enjoying a coffee break beneath the shade of a tree. Everyone’s invariably yielding a smartphone and completely riveted by its contents. How do you create if you’re utterly caught up in consuming? How will we breed the next generation of artists and creatives if our society doesn’t foster any appreciation, let alone recognition, of the beauty surrounding us? Sami Basbous belongs to what perhaps might be an endangered breed of artists. He is a Renaissance man to the full extent that he is a multidisciplinary artist, painter, composer, lyricist, performer, poet and writer. Embodying just one of those vocations is an admirable feat, p...

Today is International Women’s Day, and I’m sure all the men are muttering under their breaths that every day is her day, isn’t it?! Well, to be fair, this world would not go round without the contribution of both women and men, so any day dedicated to honoring either is utterly fantastic in my book. I was lucky to be raised in a household that doesn’t discriminate between male and female, even though our Lebanese culture is historically steeped in patriarchy. My parents treated my two brothers and me equally. My mom accustomed us to chores around the house – traditionally marked as the woman’s realm – and my dad made sure we learned how to write a check, examine the transmission fluid, shop for groceries, and wash the car. Tasks were never segregated based on gender, nor was our expected level of achievement in school, which is perhaps why the three of us ranked at the top of our classes, snatching up full-merit scholarships in college and completing at least one graduate ...

Do you realize we’re already knee-deep in January? Just yesterday, we were ushering out 2018, welcoming in 2019, and dreaming up impossibly lofty resolutions. How’s that gym membership going? I ended last year with a reflection on what I’d learned , so I’m jump-starting this one in similar fashion. Because believe it or not, these two weeks have already left an indelible mark on me. Bake joyfully and frequently . I’ve earned a reputation as a food writer, which means I’m an avid admirer of the culinary arts. But do I know my way around the kitchen? If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you’ll find I’ve been dabbling in baking quite a little bit of late. The idea is simple: I love experimenting with recipes using healthy ingredients on hand. A few days ago, I eyed a tub of Greek yogurt in my fridge, along with a couple of fragrantly ripe navel oranges. Surely there was a low-guilt cake out there that fused the two in happy harmony, and Google led me to it. I whipped it ...