Tyler Brûlé was in New York on Wednesday morning, enjoying a cappuccino in the mausoleumlike lobby of the Four Seasons and talking about Monocle, his global business and culture magazine. He was in town for, as he put it, “a little commercial trip”—and it seemed a tightly scheduled one. Two dining companions had just Read More
It’s that time again. Here, in full, are Howard Wolfson’s picks for Albums of the Year:
Dixie Chicks — Taking the Long Way and Alejandro Escovedo – Room of Songs
In retrospect, the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” on their last album was a pretty clear sign of the direction they were headed. Even before Read More
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 28—Last Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting in a café in Hamra, the traditionally Muslim neighborhood in West Beirut, wondering why my cell phone had stopped working. There were plenty of units left in my Lebanese pay-as-you-go account and I’d charged the handset recently, yet each attempt to make a call or to Read More
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 28—Last Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting in a café in Hamra, the traditionally Muslim neighborhood in West Beirut, wondering why my cell phone had stopped working. There were plenty of units left in my Lebanese pay-as-you-go account and I’d charged the handset recently, yet each attempt to make a call or to Read More
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 24—There it is again: a high, ominous, whining-whistling sound, followed by a great explosive BOOM! It’s very nearby this time, perhaps just a few yards beyond the thin wall that separates my tiny garden, with its two scraggly orange trees, from the rest of West Beirut.
The impact sets a couple of Read More
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 24—There it is again: a high, ominous, whining-whistling sound, followed by a great explosive BOOM! It’s very nearby this time, perhaps just a few yards beyond the thin wall that separates my tiny garden, with its two scraggly orange trees, from the rest of West Beirut.
The impact sets a couple Read More
AMMAN, JORDAN—By now, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is winding down his latest Middle East trip, a grueling 11-day tour that has had him hop-scotching from Beirut to Tel Aviv to Tehran to Damascus to Ankara. The trip was organized in order to shore up regional support for a Security Council resolution that ended Read More
AMMAN, JORDAN—By now, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is winding down his latest Middle East trip, a grueling 11-day tour that has had him hop-scotching from Beirut to Tel Aviv to Tehran to Damascus to Ankara. The trip was organized in order to shore up regional support for a Security Council resolution that ended Read More
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 22—The cease-fire that brought the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah to a halt last week is holding—for now—and Beirut’s neighborhoods, though still eerily quiet and free from traffic, are no longer reverberating to the sound of Israeli bombing raids.
Of course, I can’t speak firsthand about the sound of Read More
Astor Family Circus
“It’s like a seesaw, isn’t it?” said Peter Himler of Flatiron Communications, and Edelman’s former chief media officer, yesterday on his cell. “One day the grandson commandeers the media, and the next day, the father! And the next day, the son grabs the headlines!”
On Sunday, July 30—Day 5 Read More
