WEBVTT

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I feel like I have to return
to O because I still have time.

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Let's read this one.

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This is a fun one.

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This is for a show in
cabaret-ish place in Beirut

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called Metro Madina.

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They do many shows.

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One of the shows is
called Bar Farouk

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and it goes back in time
to trace Lebanese songs.

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I don't know how much
back in time they go,

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but it's such a beautiful show.

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And I wrote this after
I watched the show.

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It's titled Everything
Here Is An Absolute.

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Bar Farouk, Beirut,
2016 perhaps.

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Look at where this
nostalgia has brought us.

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We go down the stairs and
order frozen margaritas.

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It's been years since
we've lived here.

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The waiter shows us our table,

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hopes we don't mind two
American boys sitting with us.

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There's no space for them
elsewhere in this cabaret

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called Metro

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in a capital without metros.

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We say we don't mind.

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We are used to the
city of small spaces

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into which everything fits.

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The foreign students are our age

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about a decade ago.

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[LAUGHTER]

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They tell us their
names and I decide

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to call them Ahmed and Faysal.

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[LAUGHTER]

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True story.

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[CHUCKLING]

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They agree.

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As the performers go on stage,

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as the songs and smoke rise,

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we raise a toast and Ahmed and
Faysal smile and clap non-stop.

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They've even learned the
Arab shoulder shimmy.

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Once I've margarita'd enough,
I start explaining song lyrics:

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she's warning him he
will regret and it's

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no disaster if he leaves,

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and yes, motor is
pronounced motore.

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And suddenly I
discover I don't really

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know who Zayn al-Abideen is

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though I've been singing
for him all my life.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, needs
no interpretation.

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Neither do the colorful costumes
and feathers and all this

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going back in time.

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I want to shout, "No one
eats hummus with carrots

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and no one calls
this pita bread.

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It is just bread,

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khobz, because everything
here is an absolute.

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Then Faysal says thank you

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and I remember one
expression for thank you is

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"may your hands be
safe and sound."

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And then I ask, doesn't
Beirut remind you of New York?

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His silence is polite.

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To which I argue, there
are no fire escapes here,

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but there could have been.

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Some cities, they burn
faster than others.

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I Beiruted East
Houston at first sight

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and my friend disagreed
and said streets

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were making me delirious again.

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What I mean is, if you
write your name on a wall

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and find it gone

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you say my name has left.

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Would you feel abandoned?

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Would you trace it again?

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What I mean is there are songs
where the fallen don't have rope

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enough to climb out of wells.

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And there are songs
where the lovers

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return when the night deepens.

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[APPLAUSE]

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