Category
Paris couldn’t care less what the rest of the world thinks about its food or anything else for that matter. There is also a croque madame on La Palette’s menu, the same sandwich as the monsieur, but served with a fried egg on top. Legend has it that the egg represents a woman’s broad-brimmed hat, and hence the madame.
Pretty much every barometer of travel intent is up for the summer travel season. Inflation and unemployment are low, and consumer sentiment and curiosity are high, fueling an unprecedented interest in travel during the summer of 2024.
The ambition of the ArtBAB is to bring Bahraini artists to the world, while also bringing the art world to the island nation through an annual fair. Strengthening Bahrain’s position in the Gulf as a regional arts hub, ArtBAB inspires entrepreneurship, art education and the development of artistic practice. Bahrain has been steeped in culture since the days of the Dilmun civilization in the Bronze Age, and has much to offer the art world. An archipelago of 33 islands, Bahrain is well-known as a source of oil and pearls. The cultural knowledge Bahrainis have marked an inherent distinction between people who adapt themselves to art and those who inherit it.
No one can accuse Alan Furst of veering away from a successful formula. In Midnight in Europe, he once again sets his spy drama in the perilous realms of various European countries just before the Second World War. As any faithful reader will tell you, Furst has carved out a unique niche in espionage fiction, with an emphasis on deeply researched details of those times. But by now, in his 14th novel, a sort of underlying familiarity has set in, which the talented author does little to up-end in the course of the story.
Let’s face it—Paris is probably one of the most photographed places on the planet, so what’s all the fuss about one more photographer adding his own indelible images to the list? A reasonable point of view perhaps, but when the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibit, Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris is the subject, it’s worth a great deal of fuss. Capturing the picturesque streets and alleyways, monuments and churches, lampposts and clouds of the City of Light in the mid-1800s was no easy assignment.
If living the bohemian lifestyle is about creating, than it would be reductive to dismiss the crusty guy selling newspaper clip art outside of Prospect Park on principle. Dismiss him for making crappy art, sure. True, Hemingway and Baldwin probably benefited from the community of artists that they interacted with, but Emily Dickinson never left her room. Where you are might not hurt, but it might not help much either. What you do matters more.
Dina Bennet has an interesting take on American literature’s classic road trip. In her book, Peking to Paris, she recounts the 8,000 mile classic car rally which she undertook with her French-born husband Bernard in a 1940 GM LaSalle coupe nicknamed “Roxanne.” The race brought them from Beijing to Russia, across Central Europe and finally into Paris. It was a road rife with possibility for social, political and cultural insights. We don’t get much further, however, than the author’s anxieties and allegiance to a husband bent on winning gold at all costs.
Shezad Dawood’s Pakistani, Indian, Irish and British roots are the origin of his rich and mixed artistic approach. Dawood’s colorful installations made of neons and tribal textiles laid on canvas translate his interest in exoticism, poetry and joy. “The Jewels of Aptor” comprises a taxidermied bird suspended amongst fluorescent neon hoops. This work refers directly to the 12th century poem “The Conference of the Birds” by Farid Al-Din Attar as well as J.G. Ballard’s novel, The Unlimited Dream Company.