some guy in lebanon

I was up late this evening, faced with the sudden urge to watch “Casablanca.” I can only imagine it has much to do with my longing to get bored at 2:30 in the morning and wander over to Captains Cabin, for a beer (or several).

But I have an awful, frightful, terrifying secret that I must get off my chest – I had never seen Casablanca all the way through. Only in bits and pieces, here and there. I know, it’s sad.

However in retrospect, I’m sort of glad I hadn’t – At least this way nobody could accuse me of trying to, well, you know, be Humphrey Bogart.

I guess I’ll just have to be more careful now. That pained expression I get when I’m talking about women I’ve loved over many rounds of scotch at 4 in the morning in any dive in Hamra? Well, now you can assume it’s just my way of pretending we still live in a world where one can run guns to the resistance in Ethiopia and pretend that, if it’s said a smoke-filled-bar where the men speak Arabic and the women speak French, it makes one a protagonist. Only in the movies, I’m afraid – although, it seems, love still finds a way to hurt us more in real life than on celluloid.

Rick's Cafe, Casablanca

No matter. There’s something magical about the movie – I think it’s sort of incredible that it was filmed prior to the American invasion of North Africa. I think that the character of Rick and the love triangle, and his actions, must have had an enormous impact on the American viewer at the time. The movie does not scream “love triumphs over all.” If it did that, it’d just be foolishness. Instead it says, “love is a uniquely free thing. Fascists don’t feel love, rebels feel love. Bar men feel love. France feels love, and God dammit, Americans feels love. And the only people who aren’t having any fun are the Nazi’s, and we’d best keep it that way, because we’d rather be in more pain from love than not love at all.” The movie beautifully orchestrates the viewer into a position where they must equate rebellion, intellectualism, sympathy for the underdog, good music, gorgeous women, and smokey saloons with love, the opposite (an absence of love) with the Nazi’s. The Fascists are here to take your fun and your love, and by God, if even this drunken angry murdering love-struck chain-smoker can do the right thing, why can’t we all?

I was rather harsh on Americans in my last post, I admit. I am prone to that. It’s perhaps fair to say that the emotional orchestration of the American isn’t so bad after all when it’s done with such flair. Hard to say – Let’s just say that the slippery slope begins after the Nazi gets shot in the chest. All in the name of love!

I admit, watching Casablanca this evening, just twelve days before I am scheduled to return to Beirut, put a great many things in perspective. Not the least of which is the fact that I couldn’t help but feel a parallel to my recent love life. I’m happy I hadn’t seen the film all the way through until tonight, and I’m happy I took the time. It was too much fun, and I felt at home.

Perhaps there is a “Karma’s cafe americain” on the the horizon. Just, Karma, one favor – I just can’t understand why everybody kept drinking ‘champagne cocktails’ the whole movie – please don’t serve those. Ever.

The Dao that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not true.
The Dao manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.
-Dao De Jing