This is Beirut - Culture

‘Always Be Drunk:’ Remedy or Illusion in the Face of Existential Emptiness?

David Sahyoun, 09/04 18:00 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Psychoanalysis Drunkness Baudelaire Culture Emptiness

In The Spleen of Paris, Baudelaire advises the reader to “always be drunk. That’s it: the only question. In order not to feel the horrible burden of Time, breaking your shoulders and bending you toward the earth, you must get drunk without ceasing. But on what? On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish. But get drunk.” This work ...

Luxury Perfume Bottles Go Electric in France’s Glass Valley

This is Beirut, 09/04 10:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Perfume Art Culture Heritage Luxury

In rapid succession, molten drops of glass fall into molds, giving shape to iconic perfume bottles from Lancôme, Chanel, and Guerlain—now produced with a lighter carbon footprint thanks to a new electric furnace at the Pochet du Courval glassworks in Normandy. An intense heat surrounds the furnace, which continuously melts a mix of raw ...

Cruise to showcase last "Mission: Impossible" at Cannes

This is Beirut, 09/04 00:26 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Cinema Cannes 2025 Festival Tom Cruise France Culture

Tom Cruise is set to return to the Cannes Film Festival to present the latest and last episode of his Mission: Impossible series, joining Robert De Niro and French actress Juliette Binoche among the confirmed A-list attendees. Cruise's presence, three years after he lit up the French Riviera while promoting Top Gun: Maverick, marks a ...

The Sound of Music: One Movie, Countless Lives, Sixty Years of Emotion

Bélinda Ibrahim, 08/04 18:00 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Sound of Music Film Music Homage Culture

We all remember that iconic image: a silhouette spinning atop alpine meadows, arms wide open beneath a boundless blue sky. Picture March 2, 1965—the day The Sound of Music premiered at the Rivoli Theatre in New York. And now, six decades later, its charm remains as vibrant as ever. Years may have passed, but the first notes of “Do-Re-Mi” or ...

The National Gallery Invites One Lucky Overnight Guest

This is Beirut, 08/04 17:00 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

National Gallery UK Exhibition Museum Art Culture

A lucky visitor will soon become the first ever to sleep overnight at Britain's National Gallery, after the 200-year-old museum launched a competition on Monday to mark the reopening of a wing housing celebrated European paintings. When the Sainsbury Wing reopens after a two-year refurbishment on May 10, the overnight guest — to be picked at ...

David Hockney Celebrated in Monumental Paris Louis Vuitton Retrospective

This is Beirut, 08/04 14:30 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Exhibition Art Culture David Hockney Paris Louis Vuitton

Increasingly frail but with undimmed passion, Britain's David Hockney has put aside his health worries to shape what he describes as the biggest exhibition of his vast career. With around 400 works assembled over four floors, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris has put on a stunning tribute to one of the world's best-selling living ...

Leadership Shuffle at LVMH: New Faces at Fendi, Louis Vuitton China and Kenzo

This is Beirut, 08/04 10:00 - Reading : 1 minute(s)

Fashion Luxury LVMH Art Culture

Luxury giant LVMH announced on Monday a series of leadership changes across several of its key fashion houses, appointing new CEOs at Fendi and Kenzo, as well as a new head of Louis Vuitton China, who comes from a top position at Apple. At Fendi, the Italian fashion house, Ramon Ros will succeed Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou as CEO starting July 1. ...

A Couture Journey in Paris with 'Dolce & Gabbana – Du cœur à la main'

Marie-Christine Tayah, 07/04 18:00 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Fashion Luxury Dolce & Gabbana Culture Art Paris

To visit “Dolce & Gabbana – Du cœur à la main” at the Grand Palais is to embark on a whirlwind journey through an intensely Italian scenography. The exhibition showcases over 200 unique Alta Moda and Alta Sartoria gowns, 300 handmade accessories and 130 pieces of furniture and antiques. Spanning 12,000 square feet, this all-encompassing ...

Bruce Springsteen Reveals Hidden Albums After Four Decades

Madeleine Cadoux, 06/04 14:00 - Reading : 1 minute(s)

Music Album Art Bruce Springsteen Culture Singer

American rock legend Bruce Springsteen announced Thursday that he will release a new box set in June featuring 83 previously unreleased songs across seven albums. Tracks II: The Lost Albums is set to be released on June 27. It includes full albums recorded between 1983 and 2018, many of which were mixed but never officially published, according ...

Anna Netrebko Returns to Royal Opera House Stage

This is Beirut, 06/04 10:30 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Music Culture Art Opera Russia

Russian superstar soprano Anna Netrebko — shunned on some world stages since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine — will appear at London's Royal Opera House later this year. Netrebko, 53, will star in a production of Puccini's Tosca from September 11, marking her return to Covent Garden after a six-year absence, the Royal Opera said on its ...

Great Writers, Gentle Neuroses, Small Literary Miracles (2/2)

Bélinda Ibrahim, 05/04 18:00 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Writers Neuroses Literature Culture

Literature loves outsiders. But what it cherishes most are organized outsiders—those who turn their strangeness into a narrative engine, their questionable lifestyles into bursts of staggering productivity. This second part focuses on writers who today might be considered, depending on one’s perspective, either misunderstood geniuses or ...

Spielberg's Original 1982 E.T. Model Fails to Find Buyer

This is Beirut, 05/04 14:00 - Reading : 1 minute(s)

Hollywood Art Auction Culture Spielberg Cinema

An original model of E.T., created for Steven Spielberg's beloved film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, did not find a buyer after being put up for auction, Sotheby's auction house in New York said Thursday. The piece, a little over a meter high and which had been estimated to fetch between $600,000 and $900,000, comes from the collection of Italian ...

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