ABCDE

saturday , september 3, 2011

Style
My new life includes two girls, both yellow Labradors. ... Brandy and Duchess are part of my family; it is not a joke.
A Carolyn Hax reader, C4

EZ

SU

COMIC RIFFS ONLINE

COMING SUNDAY IN STYLE

The woman behind the Huffington Post

The writer of a new Arianna Huffington comic book sums her up with a single word: survivor. washingtonpost.com/ comicriffs

Adult novelists borrow tricks from kid lit

Motifs popularized in books for younger readers are cropping up in page-turners designed for a more mature audience. Section T

BOOK WORLD

International intelligences meeting of the minds

BY

A RT T AYLOR

irst-time novelist Matthew Dunn brings an impressive background to the world of espionage fiction: A veteran field operative for MI6, Britains intelligence service, he ran covert operations around the globe, boasting 70 successful missions. Surely such behindthe-scenes expertise would translate into grippingly realistic fiction, right? At times, Spycatcher delivers just that: terse conversations infused with subtle power plays, brutal encounters among allies with competing agendas, and forays into hostile territory orchestrated for clockwork efficiency but vulnerable to deadly missteps. When Spycatcher opens, messages intercepted by the National Security Agency reveal an imminent assault against SPYCATCHER Western interBy Matthew ests. A joint enDunn deavor between Morrow. 418 pp. the CIA and MI6 $25.99 pits British agent Will Cochrane against the plans mastermind, the shadowy Megiddo, a top-ranked officer in Irans Revolutionary Guard. Cochrane sets out to lure Megiddo into the open or else be captured himself and likely tortured whatever it takes to get closer to his prey. Catand-mouse games ensue, with no certainty as to whos playing whom. Cochranes chief asset is a Paris-based journalist who was Megiddos lover during the Bosnian War. Cochrane is also joined by a quartet of American operatives whose collective rsum includes stints with the Navy SEALs, the Green Berets and Delta Force providing the jaws of a ferocious mousetrap. Cochranes past haunts and complicates the unfolding action particularly the murder of his father, himself a British agent. He also risks being compromised by a budding appreciation for that Paris-based journalist. Is it fair to use her as bait? To sacrifice her for the greater good? Reluctance and regret imbue nearly every action.

DISSENT FROM THE OUTSIDE

PHOTOS BY AMANDA VOISARD/THE WASHINGTON POST

AN EXILE SPEAKS OUT: Radwan Ziadeh, right, a Syrian democracy and human rights advocate, joins a Codepink protest in front of the Syrian Embassy in Washington.

MAINTAINING TIES: Ziadeh, working from his home in Falls Church, connects with Syrian contacts via e-mail, Skype and phone while son Omar, 3, plays.

A member of the Syria diaspora helps fight for change

BY

A LICE F ORDHAM

Cat-and-mouse games ensue, with no certainty as to whos playing whom.

But while building this compelling storyline, Dunn falls into some unnecessary exaggeration. Not just a special agent, Cochrane has to be a super agent the sole member of a top-secret Spartan program. As one handler tells him: You are the ultimate killer of killers, the man who terrifies his enemies and allies, the man who can start wars and end them, the man who is the Wests deadliest and most secret weapon. Similarly hyperbolic, Megiddos plot promises a huge massacre the likes of which the world has never seen before, and Megiddo himself is cast as some dark overlord: Not one major terror act against Western or Western-allied targets can take place without his implicit or explicit authorization. Even groups that are the sworn enemy of the regime of Iran find themselves working for him, usually without knowing theyre doing so. That unevenness stark realism meets cartoonish excess, male fantasy mars persuasive credibility undermines what otherwise stands as a stylish and assured debut.
bookworld@washpost.com

I
BY

t is Friday morning, and in a 14thfloor apartment in Falls Church, 3year-old Omar is tearing around the living room, drawing on the walls, while his father, Radwan Ziadeh, is bent over his laptop, calling Syria. The apartment overlooks the wide highway to Washington, and suburban America McDonalds, a church, a pool is spread out below, but Ziadeh is oblivious to it as he takes calls and reads tweets and instant messages from his

far-off homeland to piece together the days events. There are 15 people killed already today, he says, and we have heard nothing from Hama [Syrias fourth-largest city] because all the electricity, telephones and Internet have been cut off. After putting the numbers he considers reliable into his database of the death toll, he updates journalists and human rights groups. Since the uprising in Syria began five months ago, and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on com-

munications as well as public protests, Ziadeh has gone from an obscure rights activist and academic to a full-time and prominent advocate for a vociferous opposition-in-exile. As part of a group in Washington that could play a key role in Syrias future, Ziadeh dreams of returning to his homeland and forming a democratic political party. But he fiercely rejects comparisons with American-backed exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi, who returned to a political role in Iraq, the activist continued on C2

Washington, photographed in the minds eye

D ANIELLE O S TEEN
Special to the Washington Post

For over 40 years, Kenneth Wyner has photographed Washingtons more enchanted private homes for architectural firms and shelter magazines. Now its his turn to build. For his exhibition Structure of Spirit, Design of the Heart at the American Institute of Architects, Wyner has taken his collection of images depicting interiors worth coveting, as REVIEW well as monuments and public institutions and transformed them, digitally enhancing the photographs to create a fantastical version of the citys architecture. Using Photoshop, he has turned these structures into an architects wild dream, offering a possible future of architecture that is both expressive and expansive, with buildings that occasionally have the ability to float. Washingtons architecture, for many, is review continued on C2
COURTESY OF KENNETH WYNER

DOUBLE TAKE: Kenneth Wyner uses Photoshop to reinvent the city, as in this mirrored image, in Structure of Spirit, Design of the Heart, at the American Institute of Architects.

Taylor frequently reviews mysteries and thrillers for The Post.

C2

EZ

SU

KLMNO

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2011

Syrian exile yearns for change

activist from C1 country he once fled. Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who presides over Near Eastern affairs on the Foreign Relations Committee, has met several times with groups of dissidents, including Ziadeh. Like State Department officials, Casey is keen to see the exiles form a coherent opposition group that can function as an alternative government not easy in a country where political activity has been effectively banned for more than four decades. We have got to provide them with as much support as possible, the senator says. Theres much work to do in preparing for the next phase. Assuming that phase is reached, Syrian activists in Washington could have a more direct impact on the course of Syrian events. They include Ammar Abdulhamid, who was a fiery Muslim religious leader in Los Angeles in the 1980s before becoming a secular, ponytailed rights campaigner today. Ahed al-Hindi, a confident student in his early 20s, says he was far closer to his American friends than the Syrian community until the uprisings began and he joined the campaign. Mohammad Abdullah works in technology, and his background as the son of a famous and often jailed political activist in Syria lends him credibility with the activists back home. For now, they protest, campaign and brief lawmakers about the uprising that has left at least 2,200 dead. But in terms of political influence, it may be Ziadeh who has the most leverage. He is not so much a person as an institution, Abdulhamid says. Ziadeh counts the dead, helps smuggle satellite phones into his homeland, publishes videos of protests and because it is hard to reach people in the country puts himself forward to explain Syria to everyone from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to members of the U.N. Human Rights Council and politicians in Russia, Brazil and India. I spend every morning for three or four hours speaking to 30 to 35 people on the ground, he says. I never feel that I am out of Syria. As he speaks, Ziadeh receives an e-mail from someone who has escaped Hama, which has been retaken by government forces from protesters. The message says human rights advocate who does not represent the Syrian people or their aspirations. The writers rail at him for addressing the American Jewish Committee and mock his reedy voice and uninspiring speeches. Such criticism is common. Some protesters in Syria express anger that the people representing their interests to the Obama administration, other governments and the United Nations are English speakers who live in the West and are not risking their lives at demonstrations. They say I am like Ahmed Chalabi, says Ziadeh, referring to the Iraqi dissident whose political party received funding from the U.S. government and who lobbied hard for the removal of Saddam Hussein. This is nonsense. I am not calling for military intervention . . . but, of course, people, when they want to discredit us, say this. He says he receives no money from the government and instead relies on income from his writing and funds his travel with donations from the Syrian business community. Even the State Department recognizes how counterproductive obvious American backing can be. P.J. Crowley, who until recently was Clintons spokesman, said State is keen to engage with caution with the diaspora, which has an influence on decision making. Theres the abject horror of whats happening on the ground in Syria . . . but weve got to be very careful about choosing which people we support, he says. Politics is about relationships, and it is difficult to build bonds when one group is on the streets in Syria and the other is in meetings in Washington, he says, so the opposition is an incoherent bunch at the moment. At a recent gathering of the Syrian opposition in Turkey, the difficulty of unifying a group divided by distance, faith and ideology was clear as the group argued bitterly. At the end of the day, Ziadeh goes back to his place in Falls Church. He lays out plates of traditional food fried meat dumplings, little pastries called fatayeh. The sky outside darkens. Ziadeh talks a little about his family, growing up in Damascus, the way it smells of jasmine round the ornate Azm palace in the old city. His mother is in hiding in Syria. The authorities will lift her travel ban only if she signs a paper condemning her sons work, which she refuses to do. He would like to go back to visit her and see his two brothers one of whom was arrested this week. He speaks of the next step testifying before the U.N. Human Rights Council and more international travel to lobby countries such as Russia and Brazil to condemn Assad. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, Syrian families bury the days dead. Although he worked for this change for his whole adult life, it still seems unbelievable that a country in which dissent was crushed for so long has risen up. I never expected this day would come, he says.
fordhama@washpost.com

COURTESY OF KENNETH WYNER

GREAT PERFORMANCE: The Filene Center radiates energy in this manipulated image by architectural photographer Kenneth Wyner.

AMANDA VOISARD/THE WASHINGTON POST

INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH: Radwan Ziadeh leaves the Canadian Embassy after talking with the Canadian foreign minister.

A Washington kaleidoscope
review from C1 defined by neoclassical buildings heavy, limestone and marble monoliths that stretch along the Mall. Newer, modern structures such as the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue and House of Sweden overlooking the Potomac that trade classical features for glass and steel cause a stir still. But these are all stereotypes, according to Wyner. His images reveal an intimate look at the more adventurous side of the citys architecture, found in private commissions. The homes are constructed with diverse, and often environmentally friendly, building techniques that look to the future, providing the ideal subject for Wyners hypnotic, meditative compositions. Of course, its clear that a private home in Glover Park designed by Travis Price, for instance, is not suspended in air, or built with oxidized copper walls for wings. Wyner does not hide the fact that his viewers are being manipulated. Here photographs can lie, and it requires only a careful look to see how he has spliced the images. That may take away some of their mystery, but these wealthy, decadent homes still appeal to the voyeur in us all. Its easy to gape at the historic barn in Leesburg that is part of a private 500-acre estate designed by Blackburn Architects. The interior is composed with floor-toceiling windows, rehabilitated wood and plush fuchsia sofas. But the building has also taken on a bit of the fantastical: Wyner has used Photoshop to seamlessly attach a mirror image, thereby turning this design haven into a cavernous space. With Wyners digital adjustments, a house in Great Falls designed by Lorena Checa Architects for Buddhist teachers Tara Brach and Jonathan Foust seems to grow into a cathedral, as the massive windows open to the surrounding woods stretch and bend into impossible but, if achieved, inspiring forms. The structure becomes a sustaining organism, responding to the houses green features (such as the composting toilets). For the Potomac house of Dick and Jane Stoker (also backers of the exhibition), Wyner focuses on the couples art collection, enhancing a Frank Stella painting and a George Rickey stainlesssteel sculpture in view through mirroring panels that stretch the carefully composed space. Working as an architectural photographer is already a kind of balancing act, especially in private homes where achieving that still, dynamic shot requires a quick eye and a lot of patience. In his virtual constructions, though, Wyner has all the power. He adds structure to these images by using a range of unlikely materials as backing, such as brushed aluminum, recycled cardboard and No-Lite Fabric, a heavy drapery that can block out light. For a Chevy Chase house designed by Ponte Mellor Architects, Wyner prints the image on voile, a sheer, gauzy material typically used in clothing or window treatments. The result, light-filled and sculptural as it hangs from the ceiling, depicts the private nightclub in the houses basement (complete with psychedelic lighting and a faux tree) along with the clients daughters, posed on the dance floor. In using these commercial materials for printing, Wyner finds his strength, as his images take on unsuspecting textures and properties. The prints on cardboard have rugged edges; the images on brushed aluminum shimmer with holographic effects. Such variety strengthens his photographs of monuments and cityscapes of Washington, New York and Hong Kong that accompany the private interiors. A nighttime photograph of the Filene Center at Wolf Trap, split and mirrored, radiates in silvery particles on its brushed aluminum backing as light is emitted from the stage in a surge of electricity. The National Archives building itself a ripe example of the neoclassical movement picks up the same holographic effect as its image surges in a frenetic upward view of its facade. These structures mainstays of Washington culture have never felt so full of energy. The images of Washington, in particular, need this visual diversity and intensity, as their subjects are among the most familiar and most exhausted for every amateur, professional, tourist and local alike. One prime example is Wyners aerial shot of the Washington Monument and the city beyond, with a repeating effect that makes the Tidal Basin undulate in wide ribbons with unnatural colors, calling to mind old hand-tinted prints (a technique Wyner used at the start of his career). He takes a more abstract approach with his view of the Mall from the base of the monument, layering mirrored images and circling the structure with only the tops of the surrounding buildings to allow the sky free rein amid a ring of floating American flags. Wyners photographs may initially appear overly celebratory in this respect, but what they offer is a fresh view of what most Washingtonians barely glance at: their city, which can easily become background noise but is actually full of giants.
style@washpost.com OSteen is a freelance writer.

the electricity has been cut off for three days, the food is rotten and a man who left his house to buy bread for his children was shot dead in the street. He talks to a Western journalist working undercover in Damascus to compare notes of reports, then puts on a tie and tears himself away from the computer. He has a meeting to get to at State, followed by one with the Canadian foreign minister and a television interview. As he leaves, he murmurs an apology about the energetic Omar. His father is sometimes not a good father, he says. I should have more time to play with him. Born in the Syrian capital of Damascus, Ziadeh began writing about human rights in the 1990s, when the country was under the authoritarian rule of Hafez al-Assad, the current presidents father. He set up the Damascus Center for Human Rights and remembers fondly the short period of openness called the Damascus Spring after Hafezs son Bashar inherited power in 2000. Hundreds would gather to discuss freedom and democracy. But the new permissiveness disappeared fast, many were arrested and the debates went underground. Ziadeh and his friends would go out of town, where they would be difficult to track down, and take the batteries out of their phones to avoid being bugged. They were lovely gatherings, and we felt inspired to do something despite the danger, he says. But in 2007, threatened with arrest for his work, he fled to the

United States, where he was a visiting scholar at Harvard and then George Washington University, from where he wrote books and articles calling for democracy in the Middle East. His voice, though passionate and scholarly, went largely unheard until he, like others, gained new relevance when the wave of revolutions known as the Arab Spring swept through the region. He shows photographs of himself with Tawakul Karman, now a fierce female leader of uprisings in Yemen; Kamal Jendoubi, then an exile, who became the head of the Tunisian elections commission; and Bahi Hassan, a rights campaigner who recently declined a job in Egypts new post-Mubarak government. Ziadeh, too, hopes to return home and participate in a real democracy in a free Syria although he doesnt imagine himself as Syrias next leader and is careful to stress the heroism of the protesters on the ground. I do believe, I and my wife believe, that well go back to Syria, he says. We never had a dream to stay out of Syria. As he hastens between meetings, a diminutive figure perspiring in a suit on a sweltering day, he checks hundreds of messages on Facebook. Some are full of praise (one woman hopes to become his mother-in-law), but others are angry, suspicious of his ambitions. Do you want to ride into the country on a French or Italian tank? asks one. On a Web site called Ikhras shut up in Arabic he is described as an American-approved democracy and

Structure of Spirit, Design of the Heart

by Kenneth Wyner, through Oct. 28 at the American Institute of Architects, 1735 New York Ave. NW, Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

ON THE WEB For full coverage

of the unrest in Syria, go to washingtonpost.com/world. Also, find a photo gallery featuring Radwan Ziadeh at washingtonpost.com/style.

I the exhibit at See photos from washingtonpost.com/style.

MORE ONLINE

DOONESBURY

by Garry Trudeau

CUL DE SAC

by Richard Thompson