The celebrity D.C. chef says it will be weeks “until everybody goes back to whatever ‘normal’ means,” in Lebanon.

There are a number of restaurant and community-led initiatives to support relief efforts for the Lebanese capital city.

Though the setting was less dramatic than it was at his 2009 appearance at the Sixth & I Synagogue, Beirut’s oft-itinerant Zach Condon made himself at home at the Black Cat on Tuesday night, regaling a capacity crowd with his worldly indie-folk songcraft.

Photo and review by DCist contributor Valerie Paschall Providence, RI’s Get Him Eat Him has their fair share of influential friends. They’ve opened tours for behemoths such as Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire, and Beirut’s Zach Condon plays on their latest album, Arms Down, produced by former Plan axe-man Jason Caddell. Despite all of this, they have released pockets of blog-love, but have essentially flown under the radar. Last night’s show at The…

You know you are in for a night of indie rock when there is a line around the block of young adults in various colors and designs of vans and chucks, a multitude of black rimmed glasses, more than one kid who needs a shower, and a number of people who look as though they have yet to hit puberty. And this is great, fine really, unless this block and a half of people are…

By DCist contributor Joelle Seligson Zach Condon, a multi-instrumentalist from Albuquerque, has named his band Beirut. His debut album is called Gulag Orkestar – an invented orchestra of the Soviet slave labor camps – but he doesn’t sing in Russian. And though he’s a 20-year-old musician (with underground fame to spare), he didn’t dub himself after a drinking game. Condon’s Southwestern roots are a most unlikely origin for a band where Balkan folksongs and gypsy…

MONDAY It’s a pretty quiet Monday around town. If there’s a show you’d reccomend, let us know in the comments. TUESDAY >> The first Unbuckled was long ago, but its headliner Cedars are still going strong. Head to the Black Cat’s backstage to hear them perform material off of their new EP as they open for Dirty on Purpose. 9 p.m., $8. >> Do you have a soft spot in your heart for Lyle Lovett?…

With Lebanon so much in the news lately (Lebanon and Syria announced today that Syrian forces will pull back to the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.) we thought it’d be good to walk up Massachusetts Avenue to the Kahlil Gibran memorial for this week’s installment of DCist’s monument feature. We wonder what the oft-quoted Gibran, the Lebanese poet and philosopher, would be thinking right now about what’s going on in his home country … the…

Counterterrorism security efforts on Capitol Hill have been taken up a notch with Senate leaders along with the Capitol Police agreeing that closing First Street between the Russell and Dirksen Senate office buildings “indefinitely” is a smart move, Roll Call and the Post report. City leaders are livid, with the mayor’s spokesman saying: “This is not Beirut.” Mayor Anthony Williams told the Post the “nervous nellies in Congress” are overreacting. The Post says the Williams…