Over the last few months, I’ve been noticing some nice new graffiti here in Beirut, so I thought I’d show you a couple of my favorites.

The first one is a stencil of Umm Kelthoum saying “kiss the booboo” (bous el-wawa), which is a reference to Haifa Wehbe’s song of the same name. So you have the (Egyptian) Arab diva, par excellence, and the current most popular Lebanese sex bomb linked together in a clever piece of graffiti.

This piece is a little harder to see because of the texture of the wall. It’s a picture of a man and a woman, and underneath each is written “emigrant,” bringing up Lebanon’s problem of brain drain, where everyone leaves for the Gulf or Europe or America (or even South America or Africa) to find their fortunes elsewhere.