Monthly Archives: April 2011

Sweet spontaneous spring @ Boston Public Garden

 sweet spontaneous earth how often have the doting   fingers of prurient philosophers pinched and poked   thee , has the naughty thumb of science prodded thy   beauty, how often have religions taken thee upon their scraggy knees squeezing … Continue reading

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Back to Stunning Boston

After a grueling 12-hour flight from Amman to NYC, a frenzied time in the codes and terminals of JFk Airport (which was strangely reminiscent of the check-point checkered landscape of Jerusalem and the Occupied Palestinian Territories), a four-hour wait for … Continue reading

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April 24: Armenian National Day of Mourning

Michael J. Arlen, Passage to Ararat: A picture began to from of yet other fathers and other sons.  I thought of all the Armenian fathers who had been drafted into the Turkish Army in that year of 1914: men who … Continue reading

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The tears of Jerusalem

Tear gas has an acrid, corrosive taste. Onions are the antidotes which are most commonly used here.  You hold the onion close to your nostrils and inhale.  If you’re lucky and there’s a grocery store nearby, the shopkeeper will pour … Continue reading

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Vision in Al-Khalil (Hebron)

Today, we are in al-Khalil (Hebron).  The weather is simply stunning–clear sky, a determined wind, and cool weather which takes your breath away so light is its touch. And nothing else is as beautiful as the climate here–well, perhaps the … Continue reading

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At Checkpoints

The word itself may sound innocuous, but checkpoints are neither points nor places where people are checked for this or that possible infringement. Checkpoints are military zones–formless, ugly– where the mechanisms of humiliation try to turn human beings into tiny … Continue reading

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Cupped hands

Every place here—from the checkpoints, to the classrooms, to the streets—is a mixture of two contradictory impulses.  On the one hand, everything matters here, and matters deeply for the entire population is in a state of double occupation.  Every action … Continue reading

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In the gentle wind of Jerusalem with the Palestine Festival of Literature

I am in Jersualem, finally.  The whole passage from Amman took us seven hours, from nine in the morning till almost four in the afternoon.  And in the midst of the long hours of waiting, I realize that I have … Continue reading

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Reading “Father Land”, a book of text by Vahé Oshagan and photographs by Ara Oshagan

~~Ara Oshagan is a documentary photographer.  He is also my cousin.  His father, Vahé Oshagan, and my mother, Anahid Oshagan Voskeritchian, are brother and sister.  I must mention our familial tie in the spirit of full disclosure as I am … Continue reading

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Mourning Juliano Mer Khamis (29 May, 1958-4 April, 2011)

~~Two tributes~~ ~~Anthony Alessandrini, Jadaliyya~~ http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1108/juliano-mer-khamis ~~ ~~Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz~~ http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/gideon-levy-remembers-juliano-mer-khamis-an-arab-a-jew-a-human-being-1.354100 There are revolutionaries in the theatre–people like Peter Brook, Grotowski, and earlier, Artaud and others.  They work on well constructed stages, with well-trained actors, in  European cities. They receive … Continue reading

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