THE TYPEWRITER GIRLS 

Blair requested that I post something on the forum about my adventures abroad. After Paris and Istanbul, I arrived to Beirut to find a completely different city. The most authentic place that I've ever been in my life (Windber is right up there, as well). I hope you enjoy reading this. It's a little write up that I posted on the typewritergirls myspace blog. 

I arrived in Beirut, Lebanon at 12:55 AM, May 4 safe and sound--surprising considering the fact that I couldn't possibly have been more unprepared for my days in Paris and Istanbul. However, as is usual with me, I pulled some tricks out of my ass, asked the powers that be for some help, and managed to get around pretty well. 

Paris, honestly, kind of sucked. Over-prices, over-rated. The Opera House was amazing...I even managed to cause some trouble while I was there. Opened a ceiling to floor window, just to see if it would open, and it wouldn't shut again. Some Japanese tourist were there watching me, in shock so I gave them the "shhhh" sign and tip-toed away. They laughed and everything was cool. 

Istanbul is hands down the coolest place in the entire world. The people, the sea, the sights, the food, holy shit it's like a dream world. AND ITS CHEAP AS HELL! You can haggle for absolutley anything from belly-dancing outfits to coffee and corn on the cob. I spend like no money. I highly recommend that we move our entire operation to Istanbul. Apparently there's cheap real estate in the mountains...this dude who sells rugs was telling me about it. 

Beirut is the most fucked up place I've ever been. It's a mix between a night-mare, a Norman Rockwell painting, a rave, Paris during the Nazi occupation, and Carlow...yeah that about sums it up....oh, well you have to throw in the mosques...yep that's it. 

There's guys with machine guns on every corner, but they're just kind of chill. My first day here, I was flirting with them, until I realized "holy shit I'm flirting with a guy holding a machine gun...I don't think that's cool." There's gun fights to be heard that last about five minutes at a time, perhaps a mile or so away from the university. Helicopters fly overhead pretty frequently--today a lot more than usual, I guess. And then of course, throughout the night you hear tanks go along the streets (they sound a bit like someone doing donuts in a parking lot). 

However, the people here are the happiest people in the entire world--I'm absolutley positive.The families here spend their evenings on the cornishe (the coast). I've never seen more serence family units. No squabbling or disgruntled couples, no crying babies, no spoiled children, no fighting siblings, but almost complete bliss. Couple holding hands. Teenagers roller blading, children pushign eachother on trikes, little girls holding hands and skipping along, young men in deep discussion with their hands on eachothers shoulders, and the most beautifully decorated food stands that I've ever seen (roses, babies breath, and white lights). 

I would swear it were a dream, but the walkway is torn up with piles of concrete and dirt in piles sporadically, the the blown up building in the background, never cleaned from the civil war twenty years ago, and of course, the military stands and barbed wire. These people know that every day there is a fifty/fifty chance of war, they walk beside others who they know would destroy their entire race, if given the chance. And even still, they're twenty times happier than those with all the security (financial, physical, and otherwise) in the world. 

On a lighter note, this place is a lesbians playground. The ratio of men to women is one to five and the ladies are drop dead gorgeous! Maybe after the bombs are done dropping and the gun fights have settled to a few a week, we can bring a long a much needed revolution here for the women of Lebanon, I've got a couple ladies lined up to help us get it going. 

Love and Duende 

-Crystal Hoffman 
(AKA Typewriter Girl) 

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I was going to post another outline of my adventure, but then I realized I could explain my travels much better by posting a few of the poems that have been born of my journey Here are three that show the transmutation of my feelings toward this country and Beirut, more specifically. 

Fin De Siecle 


Why would you come here— 
This is the end of the world. 

I have no death wish, 
but I was born in the barbed 
wire of the West— 
Scars still on my thighs 
from climbing above 
and crawling beneath. 

There’s no room for horses 
here and prairies are laden with bombs, 
barbs are saved for cities and cowboy hats 
worn atop head scarves. They look 
me up and down, Why would you 
come here, this is the end of the world. 
The Salvator Mundi painted 
on my back and Paradise Lost 
on my lips— 

I betrayed my kingdom 
long ago. From tree tops as ancient 
as your cedars, I’ve seen all the hatred 
of Hezbollah enemy eyes. 

It’s the end of the world, where 
will you stand? 

Jeita, in your caves— 
I’m sure that they run to Hades. 
I’ll pay my fare in Livres, Euro, 
Dollars, or Pounds. 
I’ll say my prayers Arabic, French, 
English, or Dutch. 

Why have you come here— 
It’s the end of the world. 

Please let me pass, 
though I know no Greek. 



The Girl in the Cowboy Hat 

She walks past me on the Corniche, 
cowboy hat on top of head scarf. 
She sizes me up—looks at my shirt, 
my jeans, my shoes. 

She hates me for my uncovered 
blonde head, and the fact 
that I can wear my pony tail 
just this high. 

I’m nothing to envy— 
jeans too loose, saggy, 
worn three days straight, 
shirt stretched thin, hair 
uncut in eight month, a dirty 
blonde that looks good on no one 

She’s three shades lighter, 
fresh, clean skin, and an outfit 
that would look good in LA— 
even beneath her ankle length overcoat, 
but she needs more than that fresh fashion 
and Muslim clean skin. 

She needs my English mouth, 
my American blonde, 
and my head that looks good 
in a cowboy hat. 


The Gods of Lebanon 

She’s a deity, never sculpted or destroyed, 
never worshipped yet always feared—has been 
here for millennia, sitting cross-legged 
just off of a Ras-Beirut side-walk on top 
of piles of concrete from a bombed-out building. 
She’s sat here amongst waves of hooded serpents, 
and watched the inscriptions of sarcophagi change— 
once Phoenician, once Greek, once Latin, now gone. 

She’s seen the eyes of statues transform, their faces 
turn from limestone, to ivory, to marble, to steel. 
The only things left to her are this young boy asleep 
beneath her black robes, his head resting on a trash bag, 
her eyes that fade from green as she stares at passers-by, 
and her hands like death on the small of the child’s back.