"Vieni" (libera versione italiana di "Bo")

Vieni, disperdiamo la cortina di nebbia;
vieni, mettiamoci alla luce e non all'ombra.
Fino a quando continueremo
con questi giochi di forza?

Ogni tanto puoi piangere,
quando qualcosa si spezza dentro di te.
Raccontami dei tuoi momenti di paura:
è più facile se si è insieme a temere.

E quando i venti freddi soffieranno là fuori,
io ti manderò un fuoco che riscalda.
Un giorno forse smetterai di fuggire
tra le ombre
nella tua anima.

Vieni, disperdiamo la cortina di nebbia;
vieni, mettiamoci alla luce e non all'ombra.
Fino a quando continueremo
con questi giochi di forza?

Ogni tanto puoi gioire,
quando qualcosa di meraviglioso accade dentro di te.
Raccontami dei tuoi momenti di gioia,
fino a che l'alba si posi su di noi.

E quando i venti freddi soffieranno là fuori,
io ti manderò un fuoco che riscalda.
Un giorno forse smetterai di fuggire
tra le ombre
nella tua anima.

Raccontami dei tuoi momenti di paura:
è più facile se si è insieme a temere.

E quando i venti freddi soffieranno là fuori,
io ti manderò un fuoco che riscalda.
Un giorno forse smetterai di fuggire
tra le ombre
nella tua anima.

"Bo", Rita

Bo, Rita.
(Lyrics: Miri Feigenboym; Music: Rami Kleinstein)
In 2001, Ivri Lider realized a cover version which was included in his album Ha-anashim ha-chadashim ("The New People") and in the movie Yossi & Jagger.

בוא נפזר את מסך הערפל
בוא נעמוד באור ולא בצל
עד מתי נמשיך לברוח
אל משחקים של כוח

מותר לך לבכות לפעמים
כשמשהו נשבר בך בפנים
ספר לי קצת על רגעי הפחד
קל הרבה יותר לפחד ביחד

וכשרוחות קרות יסערו בחוץ
אשלח בך אש חמה
יום אחד אולי תפסיק לרוץ
בין הצללים
בנשמה

בוא נפזר את מסך הערפל
בוא נעמוד באור ולא בצל
עד מתי נמשיך לברוח
אל משחקים של כוח

מותר לך לרעוד לפעמים
כשמשהו נפלא קורה בפנים
ספר לי קצת על רגעי האושר
עד שיעלה עלינו הבוקר

וכשרוחות קרות יסערו בחוץ
אשלח בך אש חמה
יום אחד אולי תפסיק לרוץ
בין הצללים
בנשמה

ספר לי קצת על רגעי הפחד
קל הרבה יותר לפחד ביחד

וכשרוחות קרות יסערו בחוץ
אשלח בך אש חמה
יום אחד אולי תפסיק לרוץ
בין הצללים
בנשמה

Bo nefazer et masakh ha-'arafel
Bo na'amod baor velo batzel
'Ad matay namshikh livro'ach
El mischakim shel ko'ach

Mutar lekha livkot lifamim
Kshemashehu nishbar be-kha bifnim
Saper li ktzat 'al righeh ha-pachat
Kol harbeh yoter le-fached be-yachad

Uksheruchot karot yis'aru bachutz
Eshlach be-kha esh chamah
Yom echad ulay tafsik larutz
Ben hatzlalim
Ba-neshamah

Bo nefazer et masakh ha-'arafel
Bo na'amod baor velo batzel
'Ad matay namshikh livro'ach
El mischakim shel ko'ach

Mutar lekha lir'od lifamim
Kshemashehu nifla korech bifnim
Saper li ktzat 'al righeh ha-osher
'Ad shey'alech 'aleynu ha-boker

Uksheruchot karot yis'aru bachutz
Eshlach be-kha esh chamah
Yom echad ulay tafsik larutz
Ben hatzlalim
Ba-neshamah

Saper li ktzat 'al righeh ha-pachat
Kol harbeh yoter le-fached be-yachad

Uksheruchot karot yis'aru bachutz
Eshlach be-kha esh chamah
Yom echad ulay tafsik larutz
Ben hatzlalim
Ba-neshamah

Rita

Israeli singer Rita, whose real name is Rita Yahan-Farouz, was born in Tehran on March 24, 1962. She immigrated with her family from Iran to Israel in 1970 and started a successful career as singer and actress. She is married to popular composer Rami Kleinstein.

Rita launched her first album Rita in 1985, followed by Days Of Innocence (ימי התום) in 1988, Great Love in 1994, Milestones in 1996, Tiptach Chalon ("Open The Window") in 1999 and Time For Peace in 2000. Her latest releases include Oxygen in 2003 and Erev Kachol Amok in 2005.

Scenes from Italy's electoral campaign

* Alessandra Mussolini (granddaughter of "il duce" Benito Mussolini, niece of world-famous actress Sophia Loren and leader of the extreme right-wing movement Alternativa Sociale) roars:

"I'd rather be a fascist than a faggot!"

Drag queen-turned-politician Vladimir Luxuria had been questioning Mussolini's rather clumsy stance on gay rights during a televised debate.


* Umberto Bossi, founder and master of the Northern League, says:

"The program of the leftist opposition tastes of vaseline."

It is not clear whether he was referring to the leftist vague proposals to recognize "civil unions" (a sort of common-law partnership status for registered same-sex couples), or if he was referring to the leftist vague economic policy plans, implying there will be more taxes. Touché, anyway.


* Incumbent Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi storms out of a TV studio after interviewer (and former RAI chief) Lucia Annunziata gets on his (many) raw nerves. Watch the video here.


* Silvio Berlusconi later clarified his own concept of Q&A session when he attended a meeting of Confindustria, the association of Italian entrepreneurs and manufacturers. Watch his very embarrassing show here.


* Silvio Berlusconi asserts that Chinese Communists used to boil children as a substitute for manure. Beijing did not appreciate.


* In the first televised debate between incumbent Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his opponent Romano Prodi (the former President of the European Commission), the latter says:

"He's been in government for five years and yet he talks as if he were in the opposition. Is such a deceit of the public admittable? What has he been doing in these five years, with a parliamentary majority of 120 seats? Did he only pass bills that suited him well?"

* (Update, March 29: Silvio Berlusconi against former EU Commissioner Emma Bonino of the Rosa nel pugno alliance. Watch the video here.)


* (Update, April 4: Silvio Berlusconi says:

"I esteem so much the intelligence of the Italian people that I cannot believe there are around so many assholes who could vote against their interest."

Enjoy the Prime Minister as he uses this "playful" wording here.)

George vs Khalid: choose one

I don't know if it's just my imagination, or if anyone else finds a certain resemblance between George Clooney in Syriana and Khalid Mash'al, the Hamas representative who recently met Russian Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrov.

Opposition ahead in Italy's opinion polls

The latest opinion poll, realized by IPR on March 6 and 7 and published by La Repubblica, shows that the left-leaning opposition alliance has a lead of more than four points over the incumbent right-wing majority. The poll suggests the estimated number of parliamentary seats that could be allocated to each party according to the proportional system introduced by the new electoral law.

L'Ulivo 32.8% (230 seats)





Rifondazione Comunista 5.5% (39 seats)






Rosa nel pugno 3.3% (23 seats)





Verdi 2.6% (18 seats)






Comunisti Italiani 2.0% (14 seats)






IDV 1.7% (12 seats)






UDEUR 1.3% (0 seats)






Südtiroler Volkspartei 0.5% (4 seats)




Other minor left-wing groups 2.5% (0 seats)

Total L'Unione 52.2% (340 seats)



Forza Italia 22.0% (138 seats)






Alleanza Nazionale 11.5% (72 seats)






UDC 5.5% (34 seats)






Lega Nord-MPA 4.0% (25 seats)






DC-NPS 1.3% (8 seats)





Alternativa Sociale 0.5% (0 seats)




Other minor right-wing groups: 2.7% (0 seats)

Total Casa delle Libertà: 47.5% (277 seats)

Others: 0.3% (0 seats)

Total: 100.0% (617 seats)

Undecided: 15.0%

The general election is scheduled on April 9 and 10.

"To Hell With Meryl Streep!"

There is nothing personal against Meryl Streep, of course. Testofil Meryl Streep (“To Hell With Meryl Streep!”) is the title of a play which is on stage at the al-Madina theatre in Beirut from March 7 through April 9.

Based on a novel by Rashid ad-Da’if (described as the Arab counterpart of Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco), transposed into a theatrical play by Muhammad Kacimi, translated into Lebanese dialect by Elie Karam, Testofil Meryl Streep has been hailed as a frontal attack against the taboos of Middle Eastern societies, with an unexpectedly frank language that exposes the grim real life of a middle-class married couple.

Mostly Mozart

The Al Bustan Festival 2006 has an impressive program (started on February 22 and running through March 26) which is dedicated to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The program includes a performance of Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Èmile Bustani Auditorium, Bayt Miri, on March 8), The Coronation Mass and Litanies (Saint-Joseph church, Beirut, on March 10), Così fan tutte (Èmile Bustani Auditorium, Bayt Miri, on March 11), and the Requiem (Saint-Joseph church, Beirut, on March 15).
During the festival, Ghada Shbeir will deliver a concert of Syriac chants at the Armenian Catholic church of Saint Anthony in Khasbao, Kisrawan on March 22.

One of the festival venues was the Saint-Louis Latin (Roman Catholic) church in Beirut. The picture was taken on August 3.

"A Perfect Day" is released in France

The Lebanese-French movie A Perfect Day has been released throughout France on March 1.
Directed by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, the movie is set in present-day Beirut and portrays one day in the life of Malek (Ziad Saad), a young man who lives with his mother Claudia (Julia Kassar). The two are still griefing after the sudden disapperance of the head of the family during the 1975-1990 civil war. Claudia has not yet coped with the idea that his husband is most probably dead and will not come back home one day. Malek, stifled by his mother, is pressing his girlfriend Zeina (Alexandra Kahwagi) not to leave him.

The atmosphere in the movie is nervous, oppressive, morose, sometimes resembling Waiting for Godot, where the interaction between the characters emphasized tedium and the meaninglessness of life. The sense of passivity and evasion from reality is well rendered through Malek's narcolepsy crises and the hallucinated nocturnal sequence where a completely bewildered Malek drives wearing his girlfriend's contact lenses.

The movie contains plenty of clichés about Beirut: B018, the 37 Degrees bar in hectic Rue Monot, the Zalqa highway at night, shopping in Verdun and morning jogging along the Corniche. However, the effort of dealing with the scars of the war and tackling the thorny subjects of oblivion and recollection of the past is certainly commendable.
Can you live, love, create if you remain trapped in the past? Is it fair to forget, as if nothing has happened? Can you endure the guilt complex and the anguish related to an uncertain future?

Born in 1969, Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas live and work in Beirut, where they teach at the Institut d'études scéniques, audiovisuelles et cinématographiques of the Université Saint-Joseph. Their first full-length film, a French-Lebanese-Canadian coproduction called Al Bayt el Zaher (Autour de la maison rose), was released in 1999. In 2000, they shot the documentary Khiam about the infamous Khiam detention camp, which had been created by the Israeli proxy militia of the South Lebanon Army with the support of the Israeli army. Another documentary, called Al Film al Mafkoud (Le film perdu), was released in early 2003. At the end of 2003, they returned to fiction stories with the medium-length film Ramad (Cendres).
A Perfect Day received two awards from the critics at the 58th Locarno International Film Festival.

On the day before everything will change, the day on which the decision will be taken to change everything.

Is that a gleam of hope or...?

This drawing was originally published on the Iraqi newspaper as-Sabah al-Jadid.

Man to the right: Maybe I'm seeing a ray of hope...
Man to the left: Nope... It's just the smoke of my cigarette...