A Common Misunderstanding of the Speed of Light

“And once again, here I am telling you to go look for the truth and its beauty in the words of dead poets, in the little tales of ravaged cities, in aborted dreams, in the melancholy of the ruins of tomorrow, in meaningless plastic totems, in the enigmatic end of restless fools.
I’ll be here long after you all disappear.”

These are the first and last sentences from Charbel Haber’s latest offering, A Common Misunderstanding of the Speed of Light: a multi-media musing on the chronic and the chronological, the subversive nature of time. This combination of a record and book observes the slow passing of life and the illusion of retrogradation in his every day. Simply by documenting—via image, text and tune—Haber assigns value to everything that is cast in amber by this project. There’s an acceptance and appreciation of the destitution he witnesses, it is an homage given in overlapping forms.

Chapters:

1. Pedro Paramo on his way to meet the dead
2. I was convinced that an atom of your love could keep me goinng
3. Sometimes a day can last a lifetime
4. The tune of Titan 3
5. John Coltrane and John Fahey crossing the Danube
6. So long lover