"For Frodo"

"For Frodo"

2023

The Men of the West were trapped, and soon, all about the grey mounds where they stood, forces ten times and more than ten times their match would ring them in a sea of enemies. Sauron had taken the proffered bait in jaws of steel. 

-"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", by J.R.R. Tolkien

There are two great, epic battle charges in Return of the King: the Ride of the Rohirrim is the first one, and this is the second. The Fellowship of the Ring, gathered with what little remains of their forces, making one last, defiant stand in what can only be described as the gates of Hell itself. Not for themselves, but for Frodo and his Quest at the heart of the Enemy's land. 

I have seen some book purists complain that Mount Doom and Barad-dûr should not be discernible from the Black Gate, but I for one love this change. It makes it more daunting to have the Dark Tower loom high above Aragorn and his army, with the Eye of Sauron staring right at them. Subsequently, it makes their charge right towards it all the more brave, and epic, and badass. 

"The Grey Havens"

2023

... the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.

-"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", by J.R.R. Tolkien

My tribute to the Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy ends, fittingly, at the shores of the sea. The Grey Havens scene has become the epitome of bittersweet endings everywhere; it's breathtakingly sad, but also wholesome, tender, and comforting in its sadness. And it is elevated by one of the most beautiful yet underrated musical themes in the films, which is also melancholic but carrying within it a powerful sentiment of hope. And I don't know how, but Howard Shore made this tune sound like the sea, if that makes any sense.

This scene also notably contains one of my very favorite LotR quotes ever, uttered by none other than Gandalf himself: "I will not say 'do not weep', for not all tears are an evil."

"Self-portrait"

2024

Figured I'm due for a self-portrait. Featuring a beautiful black and gold keffiyeh that I got at a pro-Palestine protest earlier this month.

"Motaz"

2024

My first artwork of the year is dedicated to the incredible Motaz Azaiza and to all the heroic Palestinian journalists of the Gaza Strip: to those who, like him, continue to report bravely, steadfastly, the horrific situation in their homeland; to those who have made the difficult but also brave decision to leave for safety; and to the all too many who have been unjustly killed in their line of work, murdered by the Israeli State in a cowardly attempt to cover up their crimes.

An unfair burden has been put in the shoulders of these journalists, a lot of whom are shockingly young and just fresh out of university. Not only do they have to struggle to survive during a veritable genocide of their people, but they have to do so whilst reporting on it, whilst serving as spokespersons of all the suffering and grief inflicted on themselves and their kin. Multinational media conglomerates with overwhelmingly more power and resources have consistently and actively refused to treat the Palestinian people with the transparency, truth, and dignity that they deserve. So it's been up to these brave men and women to do the job that others will not do, to arm themselves with their own cameras and their social media pages and their unparalleled courage to tell their own stories and their own realities, to use languages foreign to them so that the world might better understand and sympathize with their plight. I cannot overstate what an enormous, heroic effort that must be, and I am in complete awe and admiration of them; but I also feel sorry and ashamed that these folks, many with their whole lives in front of them, have so unjustly, so cruelly, been thrust into this position. Yet through it all they have never failed to carry themselves with the passion, the dignity, the strength, and the zest for life that I've come to learn so characterizes the Palestinian people, and for that one can't help but admire them even more.

"Proud"

2024

This Pride Month my heart and my thoughts are with Queer Palestinians, whose existence, too inconvenient for Zionist propaganda and western liberal imperialism, has often been minimized, hidden and denied. And yet they exist, and like queer people everywhere, they struggle, they overcome, they love, and they dream.

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The state of Israel has gone to great lengths to paint itself as a haven for gay rights in the Middle-east; a bastion of civilized, liberal values in a region filled with barbaric, murderous fanatics. And like most of its propaganda, this argument is based on a complete distortion of reality, if not flat out lies.

Homosexuality has been legal in the West Bank since 1951. Efforts to re-criminalize it or to ban LGBTQ advocacy groups have been successfully opposed by civil society. In Gaza homosexuality is illegal (from a law dating back to the British Mandate, I may add), but it is punishable by imprisonment, not death, and this is rarely enforced. By contrast, homosexuality is legal in Israel, but same-sex marriage is not. The rise of the far-right in recent years has coincided with a spike in homophobic hate crimes. Israel has also a notorious record of blackmailing queer Palestinians into becoming informants, threatening to out them to their relatives if they don't cooperate with the occupation.

All this to say: whatever taboos remain to be overcome by Palestinian society, neither them nor their governments make it a habit or a priority to go block by block, house by house, looking for queer people to round up and kill. And however gay-friendly Israel may seem in comparison to its Arab neighbors, it is far, far from what western liberals have come to expect from a "gay paradise", to say nothing of their treatment of Palestinians, queer or straight. In fact, if anyone seems to be the one going out of their way to target queer people, to use them for their own ends, to threaten them with punishment, it is Israel. They use their own LGBTQ community to pinkwash their crimes, and they weaponize the identities of queer Palestinians to turn them against their own people.

Indeed, queer Palestinians face far, far greater danger and oppression from Israel than from whatever Palestinian government nominally rules over them. I imagine things like Pride flags and Pride parades, same-sex marriage, coming out even, are not the first priorities on ones mind when one has the entire apparatus of a colonial nation-state suffocating them; when there are bombs raining down from the sky, and you don't know if you're going to live, or have a home, or a future. It's frankly absurd to be expected to see the absence of rainbow flags as a greater evil than the bombing of cities, the murdering of families, and the destruction of an entire society...or worse, to use it as justification for such crimes.

Because ultimately, it doesn't matter if the fantasy concocted by Zionist propaganda were true or not. It doesn't matter if Palestine really were a hub for murderous homophobic fanatics, and Israel a wonderful gay utopia: occupation is still wrong, apartheid is still wrong, genocide is still wrong. Period. The cheerleaders of this genocide even undertand this on some level. They use the lack of gay rights in Palestine as justification for the killing, but you never see them apply the same reasoning for homophobia in the West, of which many of its proponents are far more vitriolic and draconian than Palestinians actually are. Yet as always, white western people are given leniency for their crimes, no matter how monstrous, while Palestinians and other racialized societies are savagely punished for their flaws, real or imagined.

My hope for the people of Palestine, queer or otherwise, is for them to be free of the crushing weight of Zionist oppression, and to not let anyone else dictate the terms of their own freedom and their own dreams.

Happy Pride 🏳️‍🌈 and Free Palestine 🇵🇸

"No Living Man"

2023

Out of the wreck rose the Black Rider, tall and threatening, towering above her. With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace. 

-"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", by J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien's stories are teaming with examples of heroic characters who, against all odds, manage to triumph against foes far greater than they are: you see it in Bard and Smaug, in Sam and Shelob, and also in Éowyn and the Witch-king. Her immense courage in facing down an enemy that is terror and despair personified cannot be overstated; and it was her bravery, her love and devotion for Théoden, her bond with Merry, and a wee bit of help from prophecy that carried the day.

I much prefer the timing of the fall of the Witch-king in the movies than in the books. In the novel, the Witch-king is destroyed shortly after the arrival of the Rohirrim, with a lot more battle left to fight. Here he is destroyed almost at battle's end, at the very same moment that Aragorn's reinforcements arrive to turn the tide. Despair is vanquished at the very same moment that hope is restored.