Conversations with Ricardo Karam Ricardo Karam

In this episode, Ricardo sits down with Salah Tizani aka Abu Salim El Tabel. Salah Tizani is a Lebanese comedian and TV actor, known for his sense of humor, who began his long career with the launch of Lebanon TV in 1959, producing many comedy series with his band on a weekly basis until 1975, when the Lebanese civil war broke out. In the 90's, he resumed his distinguished work. Take a listen.

Today’s message is about wars and atrocities. Ricardo talks about a pregnant woman died in Mariupol in Ukraine  as a result of the bombing of a maternity hospital where the expectant mother was meant to give birth.

Today's message is about family and its precious value which we often tend to forget or take for granted. Here are Ricardo’s thoughts about this topic.

Today's message is about Aging  There's no such thing is aging, but maturing and knowledge. Here are Ricardo’s thoughts about this controversial topic.

In this episode, Ricardo meets poet, essayist, and painter Etel Adnan 2 years before her passing. Etel Adnan expressed her prodigious creative and intellectual vision in many forms. In addition to being a visual artist, she is a renowned poet, a prominent journalist, and the author of one of the defining novels of the modern Arab world. Adnan’s biography is notable for its rich convergence of cultural influences. She was born in Lebanon to a Greek mother and Syrian father; grew up speaking French, Arabic, and Greek; and as an adult lived for extended periods in Lebanon, the United States, and France. She began to paint in the late 1950s, while working as a professor of philosophy in Northern California. It was a period when, in protest of France’s colonial rule in Algeria, she renounced writing in French and declared that she would begin “painting in Arabic.” While Adnan’s writings are unflinching in their critique of war and social injustice, her visual art is an intensely personal distillation of her faith in the human spirit and the beauty of the natural world. She once stated, “It seems to me I write what I see, paint what I am”. Etel died on November 14, 2021. 

In this episode, Ricardo unveils a 25-year-old interview he conducted with Sabah, one of the Arab world's best-known entertainers, who has released over 50 albums and acted in 98 films as well as over 20 Lebanese stage plays during her more than six-decade-long career. Few artists in the Arab world enjoyed the level of glory and stardom of Sabah. Her incredible signing talent, especially in the so-called mountain folk style, was discovered at a young age and she released her first song at age 13. With beauty and pleasant personality to go with the voice, this winning formula caught the eye of producer Asia Dagher, who encouraged Sabah’s family to bring her to Cairo for a three-film contract. Her family agreed and the young woman never looked back.  Sabah was among the first Arabic singers to perform at the Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Royal Albert Hall in London, and the Sydney Opera House. She passed away in 2014 at the age of 87 and remains considered as one of the holders of the artistic memory of Lebanon and the Arab world.