Cool Upcoming Events in Brotown (Dearborn area)

www.galeriecamille.com

MARCH 16-31
at the Arab American Museum www.arabamericanmuseum.org
Adnan Charara: JUXTAPOSED

Adnan Charara (friend and neighbor to otherart.org) exhibits his unique art.
The exhibit features new artwork that explores the challenges of immigrating to the United States, and the process of becoming American. Drawing upon the firsthand experiences of an immigrant artist, this work will reflect upon the ways in which people retain their traditions while assimilating to a new culture, and how these traditions contribute to a broader American identity. These themes speak not only to the Arab American experience, but also to the experiences of a number of immigrant communities in America.

www.elff.com
www.detroitunleaded.com
MARCH 21-29
East Lansing Film Festival & the Lake Michigan Film Competition

Schedule is not yet announced but if you’re in the area check out the LMFC for my good friend Rola Nashef’s entry and the best short around Detroit Unleaded

www.arabamericanmuseum.org

MARCH 29-APRIL 1st
DIWAN: A Forum for the Arts

Annual artists conference at the Arab museum I was part of it last year, now I’ll just relax and enjoy it
Diwan unites Arab-American artists, scholars and performers from throughout the United States, representing myriad academic fields and artistic genres. Activities include presentation of new research into Arab-American arts; poetry and prose readings; film screenings, and musical performances. This three-day dialogue reinforces AANM’s commitment to providing a place for community members and artists to meet, exchange ideas and exhibit their work. It also encourages audiences to explore the boundaries of art in addressing social and cultural issues related to Arab Americans and to the community at large.

www.marcelkhalife.com
APRIL 5th
Global Thursdays: Marcel Khalife with Absolute Ensemble

My fifth Marcel concert going with about 20 friends. This one may already be sold out.
Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center
One night only! Global Thursdays moves to the Max M. Fisher Music Center as AANM and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra present Marcel Khalife with Absolute Ensemble at Orchestra Hall. Khalife is renowned for his signature blend of poetry and lyricism, while Absolute has made a career of crossing musical boundaries.

www.rawi.org
MAY 17-20
RAWI 2nd National Conference

I’ll be speaking on a panel there. Arab writers, my kind of group, I think I’ll join. the Radius of Arab American Writers, Inc. - is organizing its second national conference in Dearborn, Michigan on May 17-20, 2007 at the Arab American National Museum. The conference welcomes RAWI members and others who are interested in engaging in the Arab American literary community. The conference will provide a venue to present our writings and ideas to one another and to the Detroit and Arab communities. Our gathering will offer an opportunity for colleagues to share strategies for publishing and circulating our work and also for confronting academic, community, and political barriers.

JUNE 22-24

www.alliedmediaconference.com
9th Annual Allied Media Conference
Otherart.org participated last year at Bowling Green, now it’s on our turf, should be great. Tower was designed by a fellow Otherite Joe Namy www.olivetones.com
The Allied Media Conference is an annual, weekend-long gathering of influential alternative media-makers and committed social justice activists, a unique cross-section of media workers, community organizers, daring filmmakers, ambitious radio producers, serious publishers, skilled web designers, and artists whose work makes revolution irresistible. This year's theme focuses on participatory media that transforms the producer and receiver, "Breaking Silence, Building Movements."

www.americanarab.com

JUNE 15-17
12th Annual Arab International Festival

I’ve covered this event every year, it’s exhausting. But you’ll see people from all over the world and reunite with old friends.
The estimated number of visitors is 300,000 filling about a mile of Warren Ave. for three days. The usual festival atmosphere with an Arab-America flare.

pics for above posted events

The Clash

Why didn't Lebanon invade Israel and bomb the hell out of them after this border
clash? Is that defence reserved only for Israel? Well thankfully, it ended rather quietly; however this is only a minor tease compared to past Israeli incursions and violations. Past, more severe, violations have been brushed aside with no accountability. I guess, there shouldn't be any surprise, It's not like there is a peace keeping force on the border. What is the UN anyway?

Don't know what to make of it

I got the news that my Grandparents are coming back to the US from Lebanon. Even though excited to see them, I found it strange that they would visit in the middle of a Midwestern winter, also strange that they would leave there village now after they were so set on staying during the war. (an Izraeli missle just missed their car as they were leaving their bombed Tibneen neighborhood for Beirut).

Well, it gets more confusing to me, now is seems that my frail 97 year-old grandfather is on his way without my grandmother. She did not get a visa. It seems that even thought my grandfather has a US citizenship and they both had been living in the US for decades, and raised several children, grandkids, and great grandkids, my grandmother never recieved her citizenship. But why wouldn't the US give her a visa? With the exception of my mom (who she's staying with in Tyr) her whole family is here, half her life has been here, her husband, a US citizen, is coming here. Why would they refuse her a visa?

so I'm worried. What would make my grandfather leave his wife of 70 or more years behind now, when he didn't when he was healthy, during the war or at any other time in his life? I can only think of one thing, and its not good.


[this is where she is now, apart from 8 of her 9 children, grandkids, great grandkids, great-great-grandkids and of course husband]

pic was before the war, I'm not sure what's there now. maybe just the Brazilian flag

And now for something completely different!

Everyone needs a good laugh now and again.

Monty Python: Spam

Vortex of Pain

What can you do when there’s nothing you want to do?
How can shut it all down without ending your life?
How can you escape without being absent?
Or turn it all off without hurting the people who rely on you?
Where do you go?
I’ve tried time travel, tried geographic shifts and even treks into alternate universes.
Hell, I’ve even tried meditation and prayer.
And there is just nothing to bring on idle weightlessness. Nothing to silence the voices or bring to halt the twitching. Nothing to drown the thoughts or place them in a cryogenic state until the cure. There is nothing and nothing more.
But not the nothing I seek, this one has the incessant buzz of a low voltage leak hunting the first compromise of the shield to leap out onto my unsuspecting twitching hands attempting only relief and the fix but finding the sting of electric shock to toss me back into the cycle of cyclical thought un resolving my conflict yet compounding into a diseased strand to merge with past strands into a strain of incurable parasitic mind razors which lead me to forget what original thought thought of this torment .
And I want to shut it all down.
How do you shut it down without ending your life?
How can you escape without being absent?
How can you just turn it off before you’re the one who’s hurt?

"End Israeli Apartheid" Week

go to this site for all the info and more
http://www.endisraeliapartheid.net/

The real tragedy of death is the lives that it leaves behind
and the calculating continuation of life,
not allowing a stop not even a pause
and you must keep pace or be run right over.
You think everything ends or every thing must stop after the death.
It doesn't, it doesn't slow down or offer you a choice.
you try to stop, to ignore reality, to mourn in solitude, to remember, to think, to breath, to run, to escape, to hide, to cry, to scream, to breath, just to breath….
six months later you find yourself forgetting how to breath
then someone with a hand on your shoulder assures you that life goes on.

When bombs are not enough

It seems that the “democratic state” of Izrael has hired marketing and PR firms from the U.S. to promote tourism and to influence public perception after the very rough year it has had. Sounds funny enough.

Then I see a trailer for Smokin’ Aces and the lead character is Buddy Israel. Buddy is in trouble with many people all trying to kill him. So you get statements like “Israel is on every assassin’s hit list.” In the trailer the VO makes statements like “Everyone’s after Israel,” “Israel is constantly dodging bullets.” Every relentless, degenerate, ruthless, hitman is after him and the FBi is protecting him because the mob boss said "I want Israel dead." So if this movie is true to Hollywood form, I should walk out of the movie rooting for Israel and feeling sorry for it, um him, Israel, Buddy Israel.

Hey, does that mean that Israel is my Buddy?

Am I reading too much into it? Is this just coincidence?
The film really doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the state of the Middle East but in the film Israel is being violently chased by neo-Nazis, assassins, the mob, and bounty hunters.

If anyone has a review of the film, please share. I don't think I can watch it. It's not that I may not enjoy the film, but right now reality and fiction are too friendly.

I've heard some bizarre things lately; like Izrael sending poison ballons into South Lebanon and Izrael banning Za3tar in Palestine and Izrael spreading toy-like grenades all over Lebanon. When you hear these things the thought of "being too bizarre to be real" kicks into your head and you dismiss it, however, truth is stranger than fiction.

I may not be an expert on every fact, but I will never rule out anything.

Can you really ban Za3tar?
(if you have articles on any of these topics, please share)