My new Camera or “Have You Ever Tried To Get a Boy Look Normally Into a Camera Lens?”

I am trying out my new toy (Superflat Sony, just bought a 1 GB memory stick) on a rather peculiar subject, a 12-year old boy. What is it with 12 year old boys and cameras? Or 11-year old boys and cameras? Come to think of it, it wasn’t much different when the boy was 10 and 9. I have a nephew, who has shown a similar behavior since the age of five. There’s this innate approach to cameras; grimace, pulling a face, sticking out a tongue, anything but to appear normal in a picture. Will this phase pass? It should. Although, maybe not, because now that I think of it, I have three brothers, and although they all have passed their forties, I can produce recently made pictures (in the past five year or so) of each one of them with funny face. Cross-eyed, poking fingers up noses or appearing otherwise mentally challenged. And of my hubbie and brother in-law I have a picture made only last Christmas where both show as if they had escaped from a mental asylum. Is this universal?

Some street scenes in Beirut

A new billboard appeared in my neighborhood, reading ‘He lived for Lebanon, he died for Lebanon’ (‘He’ being Rafic Hariri’). It's all over town.

A very narrow house. Wonder what they have standing in the corner.

And the car rules in Beirut. As a pedestrian, you’re free game! These days we have some sidewalks, but there were days that there were no sidewalks either. Walking around town at night could be a hazardous business; you could just disappear in a manhole. You’d have to walk the streets at night with a flashlight because street lights didn’t work either. And even when there are sidewalks, that doesn’t mean much. You notice that really when you buy a baby stroller. Totally useless in Beirut, since you’d get stuck after the first 10 meters. Cars on the pavement, or billboard poles, bus stops, traffic signs and other type of iron barriers cemented right in the middle of the sidewalk, making it impossible for a stroller to pass on either side. This city is totally wheelchair unfriendly. But even as a pedestrian, you’ve got to climb over car hoods now and then to get from one side of the street to the other. Here Eddie tries to walk the dog, but got stuck between two parked cars. I should complain about this; my work is three blocks from my house and I take the car. Shame on me.