Category: Poiesis

by jad

Montréal: Orange Julep

One of the very last and most unexpectedly delightful things we did in Montreal was stopping by the famous “Big Orange” on our way to the airport. The place is apparently a hotspot for retro fans driving classic cars and carrying vintage cameras, but I think I was the only actual hipster there that rainy afternoon, though there was an older gentleman who purchased some merch – I don’t think his suspenders were ironic though. x I didn’t expect the orange julep itself to taste so good either! Apparently, “the fruit juice is deacidified by the mixture of skimmed milk … Continue reading “Montréal: Orange Julep” →

by jad

Let Us Compare Mythologies

Leonard Cohen’s first publication was a book called “Let Us Compare Mythologies,” a phrase that kept nagging me as significant to my trip to Montreal. What if we compared mythologies? Settler versus indigenous; English versus French; Expo 67 versus FLQ 70—what would we find at the other end of that trigonometry? That line comes from the slim volume’s second poem, I would learn, one with a most elusive title of its own: FOR WILF AND HIS HOUSE. The poem itself is a touching testament to the harsh contrasts of Jewish agency within Christian structuration. You can find it online read … Continue reading “Let Us Compare Mythologies” →

by jad

Montréal: Postscript

As someone from someplace oft described as “a land of contrasts,” I understand at a visceral level how asinine descriptors like that are; for what is a city but a mixed multitude and condenser of opposites? There are cities where this mixity is thrown in stark relief as harsh lines of stratification, it’s true – San Franscisco comes to mind right now – but we rarely use the language of “contrasts” there; haves and have-nots are not the kind of duotone that capture our imagination. No, lands of contrast excite the eye like a splash of modern art. It’s the … Continue reading “Montréal: Postscript” →

by jad

Montréal: Cohen & Kateri

On our first night in Montreal, we tried to watch a documentary called “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen,” but we were so tired that we started drifting off a few minutes into it. That was enough time, however, to catch a Leonard Cohen refrain from an old interview from his youth that would play in my head as we huddled under the world’s smallest umbrella in the world’s most terrifying sneak-attack thunderstorm. After asking Cohen what concerns him, and after Cohen laughed and demurred, insisting that he hasn’t the faintest concern, the interviewer pressed the poet to share what … Continue reading “Montréal: Cohen & Kateri” →

by jad

Birthday Polaroids ’23

I very rarely acknowledge my birthday beyond mandatory staff cake and some social media posts (though apparently not every year, as I noticed scrolling through this app last night), but it has happened maybe 2 or 3 times in my life. The very first birthday party I threw for myself was in 1999, at the Fuddruckers in Kuwait, where I made sure I’d planned plenty of games and activities so no one would get bored, and we didn’t have to dwell on how it was a combination going-away party as well. The next time I let myself be celebrated was … Continue reading “Birthday Polaroids ’23” →

by jad

Doomers in the Metaverse

It’s weird how the internet has made so many people think more highly of the Unabomber, as was evidenced by his recent passing. It’s weird and it’s ironic, given his whole off-the-grid anti-tech thing. What’s weirder than overly-online young people cleaning up the image of a self-important terrorist wackjob, however, is that you’d think they’d choose an anti-hero that speaks more to their actual lives. A person like Nasim Najafi Aghdam, for example, who in 2018 walked into YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, CA, and committed arguably the first act of terrorism against the creative economy. Nasim’s hatred of YouTube … Continue reading “Doomers in the Metaverse” →

by jad

Search Engine Optimism

I saw a reel this morning that detailed some moves at Meta to push people away from hashtags and towards “SEO” as THE way to get people to see their posts. I don’t know how this person got their information and I don’t care, but they did claim some level of insider knowledge that piqued my interest. But what motivated me to write these words was a reply they gave to a comment about wanting old instagram back; they said, and this is almost word for word because it’s seared into my brain: “it never will! the best thing to … Continue reading “Search Engine Optimism” →

by jad

Chase the Light ’23

Last Sunday, I took part in a global photography event for the first time, one that helps raise funds for @photocenternw. People had 48 hours to “chase the light” and submit their photos for inclusion in a pop-up exhibit and sale. I didn’t realize it on Sunday, but this time last year I was sharing my very first explorations in film photography, posting the results of a randomized photo walk (literally- I used @randonauticaapp) I’d set myself, trying expired film and an old APS-format Canon someone had gave me. So yeah – a lot has happened in a year! Without a theme … Continue reading “Chase the Light ’23” →

by jad

Megapixel Memories

This last batch of recovered files from 2011 is probably my only and very modest foray into #urbex, apparently taken on an old Nokia phone. The space would feature in a @suzieselman music video, so all credit to finding the location and having the guts to “trespass” goes to her. I love how weird and ghostly the image rendering is in all of these. The metadata says that these were taken on an N97 mini, and yet, for the life of me, I can’t remember ever owning one of those, especially when it was supposed to have a 5 megapixel … Continue reading “Megapixel Memories” →

by jad

GEO+NAFSIYA: GREENING THE GREY

Another set of photos from Beirut that I found as old attachments is this series I’d apparently taken for the long-defunct outlet “Hibr.me.” It depicts GREEN THE GREY, a “public intervention” in June 2011 meant to celebrate green spaces in a city in desperate need of them, or what @beirutgreenproject‘s co-founder Dima Boulad would later call a “peaceful protest” to coincide with World Environment Day. Patches of grass were laid out in car-centric Sassine Square and we spent the afternoon hanging out. It was as simple as that. It pains me to reflect on just how utterly prosaic the politic instantiated … Continue reading “GEO+NAFSIYA: GREENING THE GREY” →