Bab L’Bluz Fuses Gnawa, Blues & Rock
Founded in 2018, Bab L'Bluz has just come out with a stunning debut album fusing gnawa, blues, rock and chaabi, not to be missed.
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Hassan Musa exhibition in Paris / “I Love You”
Franco-Sudanese master painter Hassan Musa is the bomb.
What We’re Into
What we're reading, watching, listening to and otherwise indulging in (comments welcome).
An Outsider’s Long Goodbye
I love Beirut. I've lived there for longer than I've lived anywhere else on earth. But what happened in Beirut on August 4th is profoundly not my story.
Wajdi Mouawad, Just the Playwright for Our Dystopian World
Wajdi Mouawad has shaken Western theatre out of its rigid rules, bringing a dream-infused approach, odes to childhood's energy and a sense of adventure, rooted in his Lebanese culture and fascination for great Greek tragedies.
Arts in the Pandemic Age
Covid-19 shows no sign of abating, forcing cities and some countries into more quarantines and further lockdown; without music, cinema, literature and artistic events, how long can we hold on?
Beirut In Pieces
In this wide-ranging essay, the writer revisits life before and after the civil war, participates in Lebanon's revolution, imagines the country's monetary implosion, and contemplates the Port of Beirut explosion—all while weighing the social terms of Lebanon's political renewal.
Beirut Comix Tell the Story
Beirut-based graphic artists Lina Ghaibeh and George "Jad" Khoury each recount what happened on the 4th of August, 2020, a day that shall live in infamy as far as Lebanon's leaders are concerned. But the people will, at the end of the day, triumph.
It’s Time for a Public Forum on Lebanon
Overcome by the staggering violence of the explosion that ravaged Beirut in August, Paris-based playwright and director Wajdi Mouawad suggests that a world public forum must condemn Lebanon's ruling class.
Homage to the Chilean Rescue Workers of Beirut
The Chileans hold up a paradoxical mirror to us: they show us the worst of ourselves (the carelessness of our institutions and the contempt for the living that characterizes our addiction to the tragic) and the path to follow: respect for life until its last breath.
Salvaging the shipwreck of humanity in Amin Maalouf’s Adrift
Maalouf draws a line from pivotal years in Middle Eastern history to some of the most pressing dilemmas currently facing humanity.
Dismantlings and Exile
On my recent trip to the Mission at San Luis Obispo, I recognized the abandoned base where in the past the statue of Junipero Serra, had stood in its glory.
Poetic Exploration of Illness Conveys Trauma
I am waiting for the Tunisian American writer Leila Chatti to tell me, in her own words, in her debut collection of poetry, Deluge, about women in Islam, but she is telling me about blood instead.
From Lockdown to 4 Indies in a Week — Why Cinema Matters
During four months of lockdown in Bristol, West England, UK, what I had perhaps missed the most were theatres and movie houses. I was able to read and to walk in parks almost every day. But I missed new motion pictures and the experience of watching stories unfurl together in…