The Secret of Maya

Star: Maia (Pleiades Open Cluster)

Mood: Celebrating

Song: The Blower's Daughter * Damien Rice

Maya is the person I cherish most in the Universe. If I didn't meet her, I'd have invented her, as cliché as it may sound. And it's her birthday time.

Everyone knows the wonderful civilization of the Maya. But to tackle that, I'd need ages. Just so that you would know, Maya has just as much of a civilization.

She's everything one could want, and everything one could not want.

She is moody. She sometimes gets angry. She fights with whoever is serving her or bringing the bill in restaurants. She is always right (that's a problem)...

Though Maya is the sweetest. She is too sweet I get afraid to overlap her sweetness. She is generous in her emotions. She is of an extreme intelligence, and highly cultivated (kicking everyone's ass at cultural questions). She is the perfect Cook. The perfect Painter. The PERFECT FRIEND.

We always fight, sometimes I break chairs (hehe) and sometimes she breaks into a demon you don't want to see.

But that's temporary. For I cannot have a normal week if I didn't get to call her or share with her whatever random stupidity I was having.

That makes her a first-magnitude star in my own catalogue classification. And she has a long path to go yet while spreading her light over her numerous fans.

In astronomy, Maia is one of the 6 apparent Blue-ish stars in the Pleiades Open Cluster (or the 7 sisters) in the Taurus Constellation. This clearly visible to the naked eye cluster, is the nearest to the Earth. It holds several hundred stars.

Mythologically, Maia is believed to be one of the 7 sisters that form the Pleiades cluster (Maia, Electra, Celaeno, Taygeta, Merope, Alcyone, and Sterope).

They are the daughters of the Titan Atlas and the nymph Pleione. In the sky, the 7 stars are visible (with Alcyone being the brightest). They are represented with their parents, Atlas and Pleine who are on the farthest left.

To get back to Maia, since she is the topic of interest, she is the eldest of the seven Pleiades. According to the Olympian pedigree, she used to be one of Zeus' lovers, and from this relationship, she gave birth to the god of travelers, Hermes.

(In the picture, Maia is the most brilliant from the 4 upper stars)

'I Found Out... at Zero Point'

Satellite: Triton
Mood: Down
Song: Aloysius * Cocteau Twins

Triton. Look at that beauty. It's Neptune's largest satellite. And in the mythology, Triton is Neptune's son. This is a great spot since it has an intricate geological history, lush and varied landscapes and it is actually the coldest place to have been witnessed yet in the solar system.
As you can see, it takes some time to wonder from the darker spots of Triton to its lighter ones. And that's what it takes to walk over a tough week we have lived in Lebanon.

Everything here could have reminded me of the 15-year civil war. The burning tires. The dead. The injured. Snipers (Can you believe it? Snipers?). The scathing attacks from pro-Syrians to pro-Americans and vice versa…

Horrendous.

So this setlist is based on how I viewed these days. And how I want to look at my country… Pretty insightful actually.

01. Zero Point (Tori Amos) – from A Piano – the collection [2006]

This is the track I have been listening to most since last December. It is actually everything Tori Amos was not in the last couple of albums, and that's why I love it. This is a mash-up of sounds, which harks back war resonances I have heard back in July, through a staccato of electronic and acoustic drums with some drilling guitars. And Tori's vocals remind you of the alarming situation. The piano intro/outro of this song is like a look on what happened during this week, and a recall of the civil and July wars to me.

02. Recuerdos (Murcof) – from the album Remembranza [2005]

After retailing what actually happened during this week through Zero Point and its bombastic sounds, we enter the deep reflective mood. This is a really gorgeous dark track. Minimalism meets a somber orchestra. Murcof is a pure genius. So this track gets you to think about what happened actually. Why it happened. And will it happen again? At the end, you're not but confused. Though this tracks keeps stirring in your head for a long time.

03. Center of the Sun (Conjure One feat. Poe) – from the album Conjure One [2002]

After the thinking, comes the anger. This is the anti-climatic churn out of the angriness through an immensely breezy song. "When I close my eyes, I am at the center of the sun, and I cannot be hurt, by anything this wicked world has done." Quite the perfect way to erase (temporarily) last week's events from my mind, and elevate myself into another level. Wonderful track.


04. Lay of the Land (Plej) – from the album Electronic Music from the Swedish Leftcoast [2003]

Just when you think everything fell back to order, the chaos and tensions kick in again. This is a track this invokes some haphazard wildness somewhere in a field. I feel myself running from everything and just losing myself in this track, until night comes. A breakthrough in a dark wood where I would be running over and over, only feeling the airstreams invading me.

05. Aloysius (Cocteau Twins) – from the album Treasure [1984]

Which leads us to the complete state of bliss. This is a sublime song that makes me think of Sky Blue and some birds running away. Here are the lyrics of the song. The beauty lies in the fact that there is nothing to understand, but just feel the splendor of the moment through the wraithlike vocals.
Silly silly saliva.Sassy shear near.She should've.She sighed the grove.Ska pop.Sa pum.Sa po.

Deciphering the Word 'Civilized'

Star: Naos (Puppis Constellation)
Mood: Fuming, Angry, Enraged ... you name it
Song: The Waitress [live] * Tori Amos

To team up with this exceptionally HOT day, I chose one of the most exceptionally HOT stars.

With a spectral class of O5Ia, Naos, or Zeta Puppis (the Stern), is a real threat, since it is more than 21,000 times more powerful than the Sun!
This very deep Blue star is indeed a supergiant one, with an absolute magnitude (its actual luminosity) of -6.0, making it one of the brightest of the Milky Way. (It apparent magnitude of 2.21 – how we see it through the naked eye – makes it a second degree star).

So why Naos?
Because as you might have seen on telly, today was one hell of a hot day. Burnt tires on all Lebanese roads meant to block circulation and to prevent people to access their jobs.
This pro-Syrian instigated strike, intended to be peaceful, was the latest in a series of attempts to overthrow the pro-Western Prime Minister Fuad Siniora The much-criticized plan of Siniora is to raise the taxes on the Lebanese in order to gain he support of a doners' conference to rebuild the country after the July War.

But what we ended up having was Naos visiting us on the ground.
More than 150 wounded and three killed.
Burnt tires everywhere. Smoke everywhere. Violent clashes erupting everywhere. Security everywhere.
The closing of all roads leading to the airport and coming from the airport. Which means all flights to and from Beirut have been cancelled.

How peaceful is that?
How CIVILIZED is that?

Late in the night, the protest was called off. None from the pro-Americans nor the pro-Syrians assessed the situation. A failure? A success? If you know then probably we would know.

Naos left us late in the night, leaving a deep wound on all the main roads. What has not been destructed during the July War has been devastated yesterday.

If the country was turned upside down yesterday, then so was everyone's state of mind.
And nothing could have made me feel better than listening to the live version of the Waitress from the album 'To Venus & Back' by Tori Amos.
She becomes hunted in the song to reach a paroxysm with the end, screaming

'I believe in peace, BITCH…'

Mira: Variable or Invariable?

Star: Mira (Cetus Constellation)
Mood: Hyper
Song: Kilmi Kilmi * Fairuz

Mira. In Latin it means 'Wonderful.'

It is one of the most renowned variable stars. It bathes at the heart of Southern-sky Cetus constellation (the Whale). Also known as Omicron Ceti, Mira is a giant binary red star.

What I mean by variable is that this star can drop from a 2.0 magnitude to a 10.1 magnitude in a scale of 331.65 days. So from a very bright naked-eye visible red star, it has the ability to shrink to a microscopic sky creature.

That's the name of the only person I kept 'real' contact with from my university days. It's not any contact. We shared so much memories from the laughs while studying, to the days of her making her diploma film, the various 'death' rides we had (since she drives her BMW in the craziest unimaginable way)…

And while she's a star, she's not a variable one. What I love about Mira is that she is right to the point; she knows what she wants and is very direct in life. That does not mean she is harsh or anything, for she has the biggest heart one might love to have.

Tomorrow is Mira's birthday. We went to a club to celebrate that event. A picture is worth a 1000 words as they say …

Mira's favorite artist is Fairuz. And I chose to dedicate my favorite Fairuz song for her birthday. So here is a toast for 'The Wonderful' Mira!

The Newer Mysteries

Planet: Earth

Mood: Active

Song: Building a Mystery * Sarah McLachlan

Since my wonderful friend Manuel will be visiting Peru – one of my premium travel destinations – in a couple of days, I thought I'd write this entry.

The 7 Wonders of the World… A mystery within many mysteries...

6 of them have long been forgotten, since they are no longer in place (the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis in Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria). Only one is surviving, the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt - in photo.




But this coming July, a brand new range of Wonders will be unveiled in Lisbon, Portugal. The candidates for the new 'Wonder 7' include many top tourist spots, such as France's Eiffel Tower of France, USA's Statue of Liberty and Australia's Sydney Opera House (In picture).
I bet those will end up winning the cake prize.

Yet the true ones, for me, are the forgotten ones … While the ones mentioned above are at a crossroad between the newly architectural designs and vacant beauty, I tend to prefer the old-fashioned ones, holding some sort of mystery. Here's a quick look at some of the list's nominees (and some travels tips for you!)

There are the Eastern-flavored ones like Japan's splendid Kiyomizu Temple (built in 798 A.D. - in photo), and the China's Great Wall (the longest man-made structure is also the only visible structure from the Moon), as well as the enigmatic temple of Angkor Vat, symbol of the Khmer Empire in Cambodia.



Moving West, we'll find India's Taj Mahal (built by a Mogul Emperor to his deceased wife), the Cathedral of Hagia Sofia in Turkey (which later became a mosque under the Ottoman Empire), and Jordan's Petra (a city carved in a rock - in photo).




Of course, the three Great early civilizations are all here. The Egyptians are represented with the Pyramids of Giza, the Greeks with their Acropolis (in photo), and the Romans with their Coliseum.




Europe has another share with the earliest dolmens of Europe in Stonehenge (UK - in photo), the Alhambra Palace (Spain), the Neuschwanstein Castle (Germany) and Saint Basil's Cathedral (Russia).



Africa is solely represented with the dual mosques of Timbuktu (Mali) – if you don't count the Egyptian Pyramids.






The most fascinating ones however reside in Latin and South America. Fabulous monuments – which are actually my three favorites – are located there, like Mexico's inscrutable Chichen Itza pyramid (in photo), Peru's land-like Machu Picchu and Easter Island's gigantic statues. A Statue of another kind – the Christ Redeemer Statue in Brazil – wraps the 21-site selection.


If you made your choice, you can vote online through this link:
http://www.new7wonders.com

Like a Comet

Object: The Comets
Mood: Reflective
Song: We'll Meet Again * Johnny Cash

People come in an out of your life every day.
Many of them enter it and leave it faster than they came in.
Some are general acquaintances, which is not the real issue here.

The true concern is about the people whom you've known from quite some time – or you think you've known for quite some time, you've built a bond with, and, for a reason or another (generally unknown), they decide to dash away.
Like a comet.

They leave a fingerprint in you, an unfinished portrait of them, some wonderful memories, but most of all, bitterness and a handful of unanswered questions.
And every single day, they pop like a ray of light into your uncomfortable mind.
Like a comet.

You automatically review all the moments you've had together. The real view, the feelings, the cake you've shared, the laughs under the blue yet cold skies…
And how everything faded away.
Like a comet.

So what's a comet? One might call them "dirty snowballs," formed of particles of ice and dust that sporadically come into the center of the solar system. Most of them reside in the far ends of our system, way beyond Pluto. Millenniums ago, the sight of a comet inducted misfortunes, as it was noted during the middles ages with the arrival of a comet as an equivalent to the arrival of a forthcoming war, or even the plague.

Yet many of these comets have repeated visits to the Sun, that have been calculated over the course of the years. The most famous comet, Halley, was first traced by the Chinese back to at least 240 BC. Comet Halley has an orbital period of 76 years – which means it will be seen by 2061/2 after having been visible in 1901 and 1986).

So with some specific comets coming every now and then, one might think he'll be able to see these dear persons at least one in his lifetime after them being gone.

If not, and with the arrival of a comet after his death, he might have to meet them in one of his post-life reincarnation cycles.

To end this on a positive note, and as the late Johnny Cash says in one of his songs: "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day!"

The Awakening of the 'Twin'

Satellite: The Moon
Mood: Reconstructing my Psyche
Song: Tears from the Moon * Conjure One Feat. Sinéad O'Connor

First post of the year.
We'll kick off with 'The Moon'

Did you know that there a side of the moon that is always hidden from the Earth? A side that is never seen by us, humans, except from the space.
That side is called the 'far side' of the moon, while the apparent is the near side. While the near side is richer in Maria [31.5%] (Seas in Latin – since these surfaces are relatively plain-like), the far side, photographed for the first time in the late 50's by a Soviet Probe, only has 2.5% of 'maria.' One of these is the main feature, Mare Orientalis.

What has this exploratory moon-trip to do with me?
Well, I believe each of us has two sides, just like the moon. One is clearly visible, the other is hidden from the others, until you want to show it.

Let me put it this way. Many times, the 'far side' is usually the 'waking of the devil' inside you. But that's not the only feature! Maybe it's time for you to unveil something else about you to the others.

I have had a beautiful afternoon yesterday. I was having a nice talk with a very dear person to me when all of a sudden, and without noticing, everything became perfectly clear. Sometimes it takes only a hint for you to discover you inner psyche. And that is painful.

I think I am tired of the nice Rabih, Rabih is wonderful. Rabih does everything. Rabih never says no. Rabih is the sweetest.
I don't want that anymore. It sticks on my skin.
"I want to live. I want to give. I've been a miner for a Heart of Gold" as Neil Young would say.
I don't know why it's tough on me. On my own life. Why am I that sensitive? Why am I always nice to people, I make them enjoy themselves in a time when I do not enjoy my own self?

If I had known, maybe I wouldn't have been asking myself these questions!

Voila. These are my newest thoughts. Maybe I am a burden on myself and I need to change that. Maybe I should see the 'far side' of my being before others see it. Maybe I just need some refreshing breeze.

For now, 'change' is the keyword.

The Wonderful 2006 Creatures

Galaxy: The Cryptical Galaxy
Mood: Still Sick

Happy New Year 2007! In this particularly tough passing 2006 year, I would like to take a moment to thank those who still made it enjoyable and healthy for me.

My lifelong orbiting planets: Bechir, Maya and Mira
My always shining stars: Aleksandra, Mayaroun and Tania
My wonderful constellation peers: Cynthia, Eliane, Emile, Jad, Simon, Zahra, Zeina S. and my charming boss Hania.
My newly found (met) 2006 exoplanets:
- The Tunisian sphere: Adlane, Amel, Belhassane and Sarra.
- The circle of fantastic out-there creatures: Chalu, Ricky and Yannis
My superfunky satellites: Andromède and Manuchito

I would also wish to thank the following astronomical 'friends' who made this blog possible. I hope I have shred some light on some of these, and you enjoyed getting to meet them and hopefully know them better.

For the year 2006:
The Planets:
Earth,
Jupiter,
Neptune,
The Exoplanets.

The Spots:
The Natural Bridge on Mars,
The Great Red Spot on Jupiter.

The Asters:
Pluto,
Sedna.

The Constellations:
The Hare Constellation,
The Indian Constellation,
The Painter Constellation,
The Peacock Constellation,
The Scorpion Constellation,
The Southern Crown Constellation,
The Table Constellation,
The Virgo Constellation,
The Winter Constellations (The Charioteer, The Bull, Orion, The Twins, The Lesser Dog and The Greater Dog).

The Stars:
Betelgeuse (Orion Constellation),
Polaris (Ursa Minor Constellation),
Spica (Virgo Constellation)

The Celestial Beings:
The Crab Nebulla

The Objects:
The Hubble Space Telescope