Fire!

"... The Berlin commemorations on the Pogromnacht of seventy-five years ago also include the small exhibition opened on the eve of the anniversary in the museum and research center Topographie des Terrors, established on the place of the former Gestapo headquarters. The exhibition summarizes on nine columns, in nine short text blocks and archival photographs the details and precedents of the centrally organized pogroms of 9 to 10 November 1938. The semi-circular arrangement of the columns is explained by the fact that the first version of the exhibition was organized in the Neue Synagoge, destroyed during the war and rebuilt in 1993 as Centrum Judaicum, and their arc followed the apse of the former synagogue. It is really fitting to an exhibition organized on the 75th anniversary of the destruction of the German synagogues that its layout recalls the shape of a non-existing synagogue."
Poemas del río
W - Kristallnacht
In praise of craft - Poemas del río
W - Beer Hall Putsch

The Original British Mixes

"Complete with snap, crackle, pop, and even the odd skip and jump, these are 7 seminal mix albums pressed onto vinyl during 1977-79, the latter Disco period. 3 of these were officially released, the other 4 being DJ promo only copies. All 7 have now been uploaded to Mixcloud and are available to stream. This is presented in conjunction with last month’s blog post ‘From Garrard To Technics – How British DJ’s Began To Mix’ – you can get the full lowdown here... It’s great to be able to have documented this part of British DJ history, combining the piece with the accompanying album uploads, which, following the initial trio (made available together) continued as a weekly Mixcloud series, with one album presented at a time during the past 4 Fridays. ..."
Greg Wilson (Video)
W - Greg Wilson

Don DeLillo, The Art of Fiction No. 135

"A man who’s been called 'the chief shaman of the paranoid school of American fiction' can be expected to act a little nervous. I met Don DeLillo for the first time in an Irish restaurant in Manhattan, for a conversation he said would be 'deeply preliminary.' He is a slender man, gray haired, with boxy brown glasses. His eyes, magnified by thick lenses, are restless without being shifty. He looks to the right, to the left; he turns his head to see what’s behind him. But his edgy manner has nothing to do with anxiety. He’s a disciplined observer searching for details. I also discovered after many hours of interviewing spread out over several days—a quick lunch, a visit some months later to a midtown gallery to see an Anselm Kiefer installation, followed by a drink at a comically posh bar—that DeLillo is a kind man, generous and thoughtful, qualities incompatible with the reflexive wariness of the paranoid. He is not scared; he is attentive. His smile is shy, his laugh sudden."
Paris Review

2010 October: Pafko at the Wall, 2012 May: Underworld , 2012 July: The Body Artist, 2013 September: White Noise.

AfroCubism documentary

"This short film provides an exclusive look at the making of the most eagerly anticipated release in world music. This collaboration of the finest musicians from Cuba and Mali features Eliades Ochoa, Bassekou Kouyate, Djelimady Tounkara, and Toumani Diabate, and sees the realisation of the project that inadvertently became the Buena Vista Social Club."
NME (Video)
YouTube: AfroCubism documentary

2010 December: AfroCubism

"America: What Time Is Love?" / "What Time Is Love?" - KLF

Wikipedia - "'What Time Is Love?' is a song released, in different mixes, as a series of singles by the band The KLF. It featured prominently and repeatedly in their output from 1988 to 1992 and, under the moniker of 2K, in 1997. In its original form, the track was an instrumental acid house anthem; subsequent reworkings, with vocals and additional instrumentation, yielded the international hit singles 'What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)' (1990) and 'America: What Time Is Love?' (1991), which respectively reached # 5 and # 4 in the UK Singles Chart and introduced The KLF to a mainstream international audience. The KLF co-founders Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond began releasing music in March 1987, under the pseudonym The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), named after a cultish organisation from The Illuminatus! Trilogy novels. The JAMs' output was created from plagiarised samples of popular music grafted together to form new songs, with beatbox rhythms and Drummond's often political raps. Initially hip hop-oriented, The JAMs' sound soon inclined towards house music."
Wikipedia
YouTube: "America: What Time Is Love?", "What Time Is Love?"

2009 May: The KLF, 2011 June: Justified & Ancient, 2013 May: "3 a.m. Eternal".

AREA: The Exhibition

"Thirty years after its opening, AREA, the nightclub that defined the 1980s in New York City, and invented the nightclub as 'art', is celebrated with: AREA, a 387-page book published by Abrams, a week-long exhibit at The Hole, a dance party at the Bowery Hotel, plus an AREA-themed window at Bergdorf Goodman. The fabled nightclub opened its doors in September 1983 and virtually overnight it became the nexus of the downtown scene in New York City. It was the place where people went to see and be seen. It was the brainchild of four young guys from California—Eric Goode, Shawn Hausman, Christopher Goode and Darius Azari. Their vision was to create an art project on a monumental scale. Every five or six weeks they gutted the enormous space at 157 Hudson Street and transformed it into a spectacularly realized theme: Suburbia, Natural History, Gnarly, Art, and Fashion, to name a few."
The Hole
Art Attack at The Hole’s ‘Area: The Exhibition’
YouTube: "AREA" Curated by Jeffrey Deitch at the HOLE

Ikoyi Blindness / Kalakuta Show - Fela Kuti

"This CD reissue combines two 1976 releases, Ikoyi Blindness and Kalakuta Show, on one disc. Ikoyi Blindness was a middle-of-the-pack release in a sea of mid-'70s Fela records that featured two songs and about a half-hour's worth of music. The rhythms were a little tighter and more highlife-influenced than they had been on albums from earlier in the decade. 'Ikoyi Blindness' itself was pretty typical of Fela efforts from the period, both in its structure that built up to a call-and-response vocal and in its taut two-chord melodic base. 'Gba Mi Leti Ki N'Dolowo (Slap Me Make I Get Money)' is a little more interesting due to its choppier rhythms, more vibrant percussion, stuttering low guitar riff, and extended haunting electric keyboard lines. ..."
allmusic
Afrobeat Music
amazon
YouTube: Kalakuta Show, Gba Mi Leti Ki N'Dolowo, Kalakuta Show, Don't Meke Garnan Garnan

George Carlin - Euphemisms

"In the age when torture has become 'enhanced interrogation techniques'; when the rich are 'job creators'; when murdered children are 'collateral damage'; it is good to remember these brilliant words from the late, great, George Carlin. It is also good to remember that the phrase 'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder' has now been officially changed in American English to 'PTSD', a totally lifeless non-threatening acronym, totally devoid of even pity and with an almost whiny feel to it."
YouTube: Euphemisms

Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix: A Retrospective

"Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix: A Retrospective celebrates the career of one of the most influential living comic artists. Best known for Maus, his Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel about his parents' survival of the Holocaust, Art Spiegelman (b. 1948) has produced a diverse body of work over the course of five decades that has blurred the boundaries between 'high' and 'low' art. This first U.S. retrospective spans Spiegelman’s career: from his early days in underground 'comix' to the thirteen-year genesis of Maus, to more recent work including his provocative covers for The New Yorker, and artistic collaborations in new and unexpected media."
The Jewish Museum
amazon
NYT: A Master’s Bubbles and Panels, in Depth
NPR: Art Spiegelman Reflects On 60 Years Of Pen And Ink (Video)
YouTube: DGTV: CO-MIX- A Retrospective of Comics, Graphics and Scraps

The Midnight Special: 1974

Sly & Family Stone
"1974: Ike & Tina Turner: Proud Mary, Barry White: Cant Get Enough Of Our Love, Sly & Family Stone: Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself, David Essex: Rock On, O'jay's: Love Train, Marvin Gaye: Lets Get It On, Golden Earring: Radar Love, Bill Withers: Ain't No Sunshine, James Brown: Payback, Gordon Lightfoot: Sundown, Gladys Knight & B B King: The Thrill Is Gone, Maria Muldaur: Midnight At The Oasis, Neil Sedaka: Laughter In The Rain, Redbone: Come & Get Your Love, Aerosmith: The Train Kept A Rollin."
YouTube: The Midnight Special

Gustave Marissiaux

"Gustave Marissiaux (1872 - 1929) was a Belgian pictorial photographer. As a law student, he took up photography in 1894, and was elected the same year to the Belgian Association of Photography (B. A.P.). His country views denote a symbolist influence. Portrait is also an important part of his work. He not only practised it as a professional, in the studio he opened in Liиge in 1899, but also as an artist, in numerous 'Studies.' Recognized as one of the most important Belgian Pictorialist, he not only took part in the national Salons of the B. A.P., but also in several European Salons. By combining photography projection, poetry and music, he created a new form of 'total spectacle,' based on his images of Venice (1903)."
ND Magazine
Photogravure
YouTube: Visions d'Artistes, 1908

Bushwick Industrial Train Tracks

"Here are a couple of shots of the old industrial train tracks that zig zag through east Williamsburg, Bushwick and Maspeth in Brooklyn. I teamed-up with Billy on a cold and sunny Saturday morning to visit what used to be a thriving freight and commercial passage."
Charles le Brigand

The Tracks: A Glimpse into Bushwick’s Past
W - Bushwick Branch
W - Atlantic Terminal
YouTube: Railtrip NY LIRR Atlantic Branch

Bonfire

Wikipedia - "A bonfire is a controlled outdoor fire used for informal disposal of burnable waste material or as part of a celebration. Celebratory bonfires are typically designed to burn quickly and may be very large. The name 'bonfire' is from 'bone-fire'. In many regions of continental Europe, bonfires are made traditionally on 16 January, the solemnity of John the Baptist, as well as on Saturday night before Easter. Bonfires are also a feature of Walpurgis Night in central and northern Europe, and the celebrations on the eve of St. John's Day in Spain. In Finland bonfires are tradition on Midsummer Eve and Easter, also in midst of May celebrations."
Wikipedia

Joseph Montgomery: Five Sets Five Reps

"A selection of new and existing works from three closely-related bodies of work (2010- 2013) by New York-based painter Joseph Montgomery will be on view in our Brown Gallery from May 26, 2013, through April 7, 2014. This will be the artist's first solo museum exhibition. Montgomery creates compact abstract assemblages (many measuring only 12 x 10 inches) which have an uncanny familiarity. The small paintings vibrate with texture and movement and bursts of color amidst a mostly subdued and earthy palette. Despite their small size, the works have an intense visual and visceral impact - made from an array of elements which curve up, out, and beyond the confines of the support. Montgomery builds his layered images with a range of materials -- a base vocabulary of sorts -- including wood, clay, cardboard, fiberglass, paper, and wire."
MASS MoCA
Slow Muse · Joseph Montgomery

Wes Anderson Honors Fellini in a Delightful New Short Film

"While it’s 'presented' by Prada, the new Wes Anderson short is every inch a Wes Anderson film. In fact, just about the only thing that’s 'Prada' about it is the insignias on the racing jackets—and if you blink, you’ll miss them. Starring Anderson favorite Jason Schwartzman, an American who crashes into a piece of his own past, the short is—like so many Wes Anderson ads—also an opportunity for Anderson to pay tribute to his cinematic ancestors. Specifically, Castello Cavalcanti seems to be full of nods to the work of Federico Fellini."
Slate: Wes Anderson Honors Fellini in a Delightful New Short Film
Prada (Video)

“Garden at Sainte-Adresse,” Claude Monet (1867)

Wikipedia - "The Garden at Sainte-Adresse is a painting by the French impressionist painter, Claude Monet. (Oil on canvas, 98.1 cm x 129.9 cm). The painting was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art after an auction sale at Christie's in December 1967, under the French title La terrasse à Sainte-Adresse. The painting was exhibited at the 4th Impressionist exhibition, Paris, April 10–May 11, 1879, as no. 157 under the title Jardin à Sainte-Adresse. Monet spent the summer of 1867 at the resort town of Sainte-Adresse on the English Channel, near Le Havre (France). It was there, in a garden with a view of Honfleur on the horizon, that he painted this picture, which combines smooth, traditionally rendered areas with sparkling passages of rapid, separate brushwork, and spots of pure colour."
Wikipedia
NGA
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Marc Ribot - "The Nearness Of You"

"American guitarist Marc Ribot playing 'The Nearness Of You' on a Public Radio program in Oregon. Lynn Darroch, KMHD."
YouTube: "The Nearness Of You"

2011 February: Selling Water By the Side of the River - Evan Lurie, 2012 September: Marc Ribot, 2013 February: Silent Movies.

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (1965)

"Easily one of the most important records ever made, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme was his pinnacle studio outing that at once compiled all of his innovations from his past, spoke of his current deep spirituality, and also gave a glimpse into the next two and a half years (sadly, those would be his last). Recorded at the end of 1964, Trane's classic quartet of Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Jimmy Garrison stepped into the studio and created one of the most thought-provoking, concise, and technically pleasing albums of their bountiful relationship (not to mention his best-selling to date). From the undulatory (and classic) bassline at the intro to the last breathy notes, Trane is at the peak of his logical yet emotionally varied soloing while the rest of the group is remarkably in tune with Coltrane's spiritual vibe. Composed of four parts, each has a thematic progression leading to an understanding of spirituality through meditation. ..."
allmusic
W - A Love Supreme
John Coltrane’s Handwritten Outline for His Masterpiece A Love Supreme (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Rare Coltrane Video - Only Public Performance of A Love Supreme and Ascension
YouTube: A Love Supreme (1964) 1. Acknowledgement 2. Resolution 3. Pursuance 4. Psalm

Bob Dylan - Mood Swings, Welding and Metal Work

"Since he is a factually elusive storyteller, it was hard to know how seriously to take Bob Dylan when he said in his autobiography Chronicles that he keeps welding supplies at his home in Malibu where he makes 'ornate iron gates out of junk scrap metal.' But it turns out to be entirely true. An exhibition of Dylan’s art — paintings as well as his iron work — goes on display at London’s Halcyon Gallery this weekend."
22 Words
Halcyon Gallery

Experimental Sounds From Poland: A Rum Music Special

"Rory Gibb, Luke Turner and John Doran round up some of the Quietus' favourite Polish experimental records of the year so far, from grinding tectonic plates and noise-blasted techno to jazzy sample collage and creeping dread."
The Quietus (Video)

Rare footage of Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, and Amiri Baraka reading in 1959*

"Via the Allen Ginsberg Project, I just learned of the existence of some rare, but apparently now-available, footage by the experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas that features Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones), and Ray Bremser giving a poetry reading and hanging out together at the Living Theater in 1959.* ... There are so few moving images of O’Hara available at all that it’s a thrill to be able to see him in action. It’s also extraordinary and moving to see these poets, looking impossibly young, reading their poems, smoking, drinking, and goofing around (O’Hara even seems to be trying on a hat, possibly someone else’s, at one point). The footage also testifies to the close but complicated friendships and alliances between Beat and New York School poets in the later 1950s. ..."
Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets (Video)

Veedon Fleece - Van Morrison (1968-1974)

"The final album of Van Morrison's remarkably prolific and innovative 1968-1974 period (followed by three years of silence), Veedon Fleece brings the singer full circle, returning him to the introspection and poignancy of Astral Weeks. Composed following his sudden divorce from wife Janet Planet and subsequent retreat from the U.S., the songs are subtle and Spartan, the performances deeply felt; though less tortured and cathartic than Astral Weeks, it's a record fraught with emotional upheaval, as evidenced by such superior moments as 'Linden Arden Stole the Highlights,' 'Who Was That Masked Man,' and 'You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push the River.' That said, this is one of those -- and there are several -- forgotten classics in the Morrison catalog. ... Veedon Fleece is every bit the creative equal of its more famous predecessors. With its elegiac tone and deeply autobiographical lyrics, this was a Morrison who didn't so readily associate himself with the feel-good, peace, love, and rhythm & blues sound American audiences were used to. If any album reflects a real period of transition for an artist, it's this one. It's brilliant."
allmusic
W - Veedon Fleece
Rolling Stone
YouTube: Comfort You, You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push The River, Linden Arden Stole the Highlights, Who Was That Masked Man, Come Here My Love, Fair Play, Bulbs, Streets of Arklow, Cul De Sac

2007 July: Van Morrison, 2011 January: Astral Weeks, 2011 June: Van Morrison & The Caledonia Express, 2012 January: "Into the Mystic", 2012 March: Live at Montreux 1980/1974, 2013 May: Saint Dominic's Preview. 

julian peters comics - The Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud

"Here is my adaptation of an English translation of Rimbaud’s 'Le bateau ivre' (1871).   This work was commissioned for the 'The Graphic Canon', an anthology of visual adaptations of classic works of literature edited by Russ Kick and published by Seven Stories Press: http://www.sevenstories.com/book/?GCOI=58322100888750 "
julian peters comics

2008 May: Arthur Rimbaud, 2010 November: Arthur Rimbaud - 1, 2012 October: Patti Smith: Poem about Arthur Rimbaud (Subtitulado), 2013 August: Arthur Rimbaud Documentary.

King Crimson - Elephant Talk

"Talk, it's only talk
Arguments, agreements, advice, answers,
Articulate announcements
It's only talk

Talk, it's only talk
Babble, burble, banter, bicker bicker bicker
Brouhaha, boulder dash, ballyhoo
It's only talk
Back talk"
YouTube: Elephant Talk

“…como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si…” - Pina Bausch (2009)

"The moment the curtain rises on Pina Bausch’s masterpiece, '…como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si…' at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, we see a woman on all fours; a primal position that feels both demeaning and funny, all at once. By beginning the evening with this pose Bausch conveys that this work isn’t about the ethereal women of Marius Petipa or the idealized women of Balanchine. Instead, Bausch is interested in what it means to be a contemporary woman—and there is nothing otherworldly about it. Similar to Marcel Duchamp’s scandalous work 'Fountain' (1917), a porcelain urinal turned upside-down and placed in a museum, Bausch has her dancers reenact everyday female rituals, turns them on their heads and sets them on a stage: a woman applies makeup while a man pours a bottle of water on her head, and a woman sitting at a restaurant eats her meal beneath the table."
The Dance Critic
The New Yorker: Pina Bausch’s True Gifts
NYC Dance Stuff
The New Yorker: Pina Bausch’s Last Dance
NYT: The Swan Song of Pina Bausch
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
Review: The Last Testament Of Pina Bausch
YouTube: "...como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si ..."
facebook: "...como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si ..."
terra: Última Obra de Pina Bausch llega al Teatro Municipal

2008 May: Pina Bausch, 2009 June: Pina Bausch 1940-2009, 2012 August: Pina Bausch Costumes.

MUPS: (MashUPs) is an online sonic mashup engine

"... How does it work: MUPS can play multiple audio files (up to 32 streams) simultaneously. It can also WEAVE those files: by playing short segments of each voice until it encounters silence, then playing the next voice. MUPS offers users control over how the WEAVE occurs. Issues: after extended use, MUPS can get confused. Refresh your browser. Enjoy."
MUPS: PennSound

Sounds Like London

"Just finished a captivating and, to my mind, long overdue book, which covers the history of black music in the capital spanning (almost) 100 years, the recently published ‘Sounds Like London’. By bringing all the threads together, its author, Lloyd Bradley has made a telling contribution to our understanding of how British black music evolved, following the lineage of its direct influences in the Caribbean and Africa, in juxtaposition with the impact of African-American innovation throughout the 20th century."
Sounds Like London
SOUNDS LIKE LONDON: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital
New Statesman: Sounds Like London by Lloyd Bradley: An intensive, lovingly written account of 100 years of black music in the capital
Telegraph: Sounds Like London by Lloyd Bradley, review
amazon
YouTube: London: Sounds like London: the capital's black music history, Serpent's Tail: Sounds Like London

Watch Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train A Comin’, the New PBS Documentary

"Definitely worth a quick mention. For a limited time, PBS is making available its latest film from its great American Masters documentary series. My Train A Comin’ traces Jimi Hendrix’s 'remarkable journey from his hardscrabble beginnings in Seattle, through his stint as a US Army paratrooper and as an unknown sideman, to R&B stars until his discovery and ultimate international stardom.' It features 'previously unseen footage of the 1968 Miami Pop Festival, home movies, and interviews with those closest to Jimi Hendrix.' From what we can tell, PBS will keep this film online for only a matter of days. So watch it while you can."
Open Culture (PBS Video)

2010 September: Jimi Hendrix

Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story

Wikipedia - "Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story is a 2012 documentary film about Booker Wright, an African-American waiter who worked in a restaurant for whites only. In 1965, Wright appeared in Mississippi: A Self Portrait, a short NBC television documentary about racism in the American South. During his interview with producer Frank De Felitta, he spoke openly about racism, and his treatment as a waiter in an all-white restaurant. The broadcast of his remarks had catastrophic consequences for Wright. Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story was directed by the son of Frank De Felitta, Oscar-nominated, independent filmmaker Raymond De Felitta, and co-produced by one of Booker Wright’s four grandchildren, Yvette Johnson. It includes interviews with those who lived in the community. They discuss life at the time, and the restaurant Wright owned, which catered to African-American customers. The documentary premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 25, 2012."
Wikipedia
NYT: One Black Man’s Actions as a Piece of Civil Rights History
IMDb
amazon
YouTube: Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story: Trailer. Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story (Short)
Democracy Now!: "Booker’s Place": Documentary Tells Story of Black Mississippi Waiter Who Lost Life by Speaking Out - (Video)

New York Herald Tribune

Wikipedia - "The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly (unrelated to the magazine of that name), and the Whig Party's Log Cabin. The paper was home to such writers as Dorothy Thompson, Red Smith, Richard Watts, Jr. and Walter Kerr and begat the International Herald Tribune and New York magazine. The New York Herald Tribune ceased publication in August 1966."
Wikipedia
W - New-York Tribune
W - New York Herald
Library of Congress
Salon: Shedding a tear for the International Herald Tribune
TCM: Breathless (1960) - New York Herald Tribune
YouTube: International Herald Tribune celebrates 125 years

Peggy March - "I Will Follow Him"

Wikipedia - "Peggy March (born Margaret Annemarie Battavio, March 8, 1948, Lansdale, Pennsylvania) is an American and German pop singer. She is primarily known for her 1963 million-selling song 'I Will Follow Him'. She was discovered at age thirteen singing at her cousin's wedding and was introduced to the record producer partnership Hugo & Luigi. They gave her the nickname Little Peggy March because she was only 4 ft 9 in (1.45 m) tall, she was only 13, the record she did with them was 'Little Me,' and her birthday was in March. On April 24, 1963, her single 'I Will Follow Him' soared to number one on the U.S. charts. Recorded in early January 1963 and released January 22, March was only 14 at the time. March became the youngest female artist with a number one hit, at 15, in late April 1963, a record that still stands for the Billboard Hot 100."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Little peggy march (1963 Live) - I will follow him

The Decameron - Giovanni Boccaccio

Renaissance Man by Joan Acocella - "In 1348, the Black Death, the most devastating epidemic in European history, swept across the continent. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), at the beginning of his famous Decameron, describes its effects on his city, Florence. Many people just dropped dead in the street. Others died in their houses, often unattended by their families. Husbands and wives, fearing infection, sat and prayed in separate rooms. Mothers walked away from their children and closed the door. In the words of a new translation of the Decameron (Norton), by Wayne A. Rebhorn, a specialist in Renaissance literature at the University of Texas, the Florentines carried

the bodies of the recently deceased out of their houses and put them down by the front doors, where anyone passing by, especially in the morning, could have seen them by the thousands. . . . When all the graves were full, enormous trenches were dug in the cemeteries of the churches, into which the new arrivals were put by the hundreds, stowed layer upon layer like merchandise in ships, each one covered with a little earth, until the top of the trench was reached.

Shops stood empty. Churches shut down. An estimated sixty per cent of the population of Florence and the surrounding countryside died."
New Yorker
W.W. Norton: The Decameron
Decameron Web
W - The Decameron
amazon: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, Wayne A. Rebhorn

Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama—Manhattan, 1970–1980

Jared Bark (b. 1944), LIGHTS: on/off, performance at The Clocktower, June 21, 1974
"This exhibition illuminates a radical period of 1970s performance art that flourished in downtown Manhattan, or what filmmaker and performance artist Jack Smith called 'Rented Island,' and still remains largely unknown today. Working in lofts, storefronts, and alternative spaces, this group of artists, with backgrounds in theater, dance, music, and visual art, created complex new forms of performance to embody and address contemporary media, commercial culture, and high art."
Whitney
Whitney: Rituals of Rented Island: Julia Heyward, Rituals of Rented Island: Sylvia Palacios Whitman
NYT: Nothing to Spend, Nothing to Lose
amazon

Artists and Amateurs: Etching in Eighteenth-Century France

"Throughout the eighteenth century, a large number of artists—painters, sculptors, draftsmen, and amateurs—experimented with etching, a highly accessible printmaking technique akin to drawing. Some, like Antoine Watteau and François Boucher, encountered the process within the thriving commerce of the Paris print market. Others, like Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Hubert Robert, experimented with the technique during their student years in Rome. Over the course of the century, the free and improvisational aesthetic of the etching process increasingly was embraced, and French artists looked to seventeenth-century masters, such as Rembrandt in the north, and Salvator Rosa and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione to the south, for inspiration."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Exhibition objects - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
YouTube: Artists and Amateurs: Etching in Eighteenth-Century France

Studio 54

Wikipedia - "Studio 54 was a popular New York nightclub from 1977 until 1981 when it was sold by founders and creators Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. It was called the most famous nightclub of all time and was a sophisticated, groundbreaking multi-media visual extravaganza. It continued to operate as a nightclub until 1991 by other owners. Located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, New York City, the space was originally the Gallo Opera House, opening in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming CBS radio and television Studio 52. Since November 1998 it has been a venue for the Roundabout Theatre Company and is still called Studio 54, but is no longer a nightclub."
Wikipedia
NY Daily - Studio 54: Inside the world's most famous celebrity nightclub in its heyday
YouTube: Studio 54

30 for 30 Shorts: The Schedule Makers

"Welcome back to our 30 for 30 documentary short series. Each year, everyone from front-office executives to sports-radio callers ridicules the logic of the MLB schedule. Complaints aside, putting this together is a daunting task: 30 teams, 162 games a year, cross-country flights, night games, day games … you name it. So, who manages all of this? For almost a quarter-century it was the husband-and-wife duo of Henry and Holly Stephenson, two math and computer whizzes who did it all with nothing but a pencil and a piece of paper. This film is the story of how the Stephensons landed their first MLB contract and became The Schedule Makers."
Grantland (Video)

Poor-Man's Speed: Coming of Age in Wigan's Anarchic Northern Soul Scene

"One Saturday night ­in 1975, I met my mate at a shop in Manchester that would, for certain, sell you Bronchipax: ephedrine capsules, the poor-man’s speed, banned now but sold without prescription back then. We bought a packet each and swallowed the lot with tonic water: eight times the maximum adult dose. But what did we care about the adult dose? We were 15, and about to set off for the greatest dance club in the world. We reached Wigan Casino around midnight with my mate’s cousin who was a 'face' on the Northern Soul scene. That got us into a café nearby, packed – not with soul boys as I expected – but with music journos from London, cool Italians in micro-sunglasses, American vinyl collectors and other global bohemians."
Vice (Video)
W - Wigan Casino
BBC - Northern Soul: 40 years of the sound of Wigan Casino (Video)
YouTube: Wigan Casino - A Lifestyle Of Northern Soul

2012 October: Northern Soul, 2012 December: The obsession that is Northern Soul.

A Guide to The Maximus Poems of Charles Olson

"Praised by his contemporaries and emulated by his successors, Charles Olson (1910-1970) was declared by William Carlos Williams to be 'a major poet with a sweep of understanding of the world, a feeling for other men that staggers me.' This complete edition brings together the three volumes of Olson's long poem (originally published in 1960, 1968, and 1975) in an authoritative version. Praised by his contemporaries and emulated by his successors, Charles Olson (1910-1970) was declared by William Carlos Williams to be 'a major poet with a sweep of understanding of the world, a feeling for other men that staggers me.' This complete edition brings together the three volumes of Olson's long poem (originally published in 1960, 1968, and 1975) in an authoritative version."
Google
Google: A Guide to The Maximus Poems of Charles Olson by George F. Butterick
Aimless Reading: The O's, Part 5.32 (Charles Olson)

2009 January: Charles Olson, 2009 April: Rockport Harbor, 2010 September: Charles Olson: The Art of Poetry No. 12, 2010 December: "In Cold Hell, in Thicket", NET film, 2011 July: Charles Olson: February 21, 1957, 2012 April: A Trip to Charles Olson’s Gloucester, 2012 June: In Which We Lather Our Sensibilities At Length, 2013 January: Mass.Charles Olson, 2013 May: The Maximus Poems.

The Picture Collection - Taryn Simon

"... The Picture Collection comprises forty-four works inspired by the New York Public Library’s picture archive, one of the august institution’s lesser-known troves. The archive contains 1.2 million prints, postcards, posters, and printed images, most of which have been cut from secondary sources, such as books and magazines. It is the largest circulating picture library in the world, organized according to a complex cataloging system of over 12,000 subject headings. Since its inception in 1915, it has been an important resource for writers, historians, artists, filmmakers, fashion designers, and advertising agencies."
Gagosian
Gagosian - 1
Taryn Simon
W - Taryn Simon

P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)/Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker) - Parliament

Wikipedia - "'Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)' is a funk song by Parliament. It was released as a single under the name 'Tear the Roof off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk)'. It was the second single to be released from Parliament's 1976 album Mothership Connection (following 'P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)'), and was the highest-charting single from the album, reaching number five on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart and number fifteen on the Billboard Hot 100pop singles chart. With its anthemic sing-along chorus, it is one of the most famous P-Funk songs. It also became Parliament's first certified million-selling single, going Gold in 1976."
Wikipedia
W - "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)"
YouTube: P. Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up), Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)

French fries

Wikipedia - "French fries (American English) or chips, fries, finger chips, or French-fried potatoes are batons of deep-fried potato. North Americans refer to any elongated pieces of fried potatoes as fries, while in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, long, thinly cut slices of fried potatoes are sometimes called fries to distinguish them from the more thickly cut strips called chips. French fries are served hot and generally eaten as an accompaniment with lunch or dinner, or eaten as a snack, and they are a common fixture of fast food. French fries are generally salted and, in their simplest and most common form, are served with ketchup; in many countries, though, they are topped instead with other condiments or toppings, including vinegar, mayonnaise, or other local specialities. Fries can also be topped more elaborately, as is the case with the dishes of poutine and chili cheese fries. Sometimes, fries are made with sweet potatoes instead of potatoes, are baked instead of fried, or are cut into unusual shapes, as is the case with curly fries, wavy fries, or tornado fries."
Wikipedia
YouTube: French Fries - How to Make Crispy French Fries

Degenerate art

Wikipedia - "Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions. These included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art entirely. Degenerate Art was also the title of an exhibition, mounted by the Nazis in Munich in 1937, consisting of modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the art. Designed to inflame public opinion against modernism, the exhibition subsequently traveled to several other cities in Germany and Austria. While modern styles of art were prohibited, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were traditional in manner and that exalted the 'blood and soil' values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. Similarly, music was expected to be tonal and free of any jazz influences; films and plays were censored."
Wikipedia
Guardian: Modernist art haul, 'looted by Nazis', recovered by German police
NYT: Report of Nazi-Looted Trove Puts Art World in an Uproar
amazon: The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany
Open Library: Degenerate Art
YouTube: Degenerate Art - 1993, The Nazis vs. Expressionism 56:14

2009 February: The Rape of Europa

"The Man With The Four Way Hips" - Tom Tom Club

Wikipedia - "'The Man With The Four Way Hips' is a single by Tom Tom Club, on their second album Close To The Bone, released in 1982. It was released as a single in the US, UK, and Japan in 1983."
Wikipedia
Soundcloud: The man with the 4-way hips (Guido.reedit)
YouTube: "The Man With The Four Way Hips", The Man With The 4-Way Hips (Dub Version)

2010 August: Tom Tom Club

Children of Men

Wikipedia - "Children of Men is a 2006 dystopian science fiction film co-written, co-edited and directed by Alfonso Cuarón and based loosely on P. D. James's 1992 novel The Children of Men. In 2027, two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse. Illegal immigrants seek sanctuary in the United Kingdom, where the last functioning government imposes oppressive immigration laws on refugees. Clive Owen plays civil servant Theo Faron, who must help a pregnant West African refugee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) escape the chaos. Children of Men also stars Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Pam Ferris, and Chiwetel Ejiofor."
Wikipedia
Reverse Shot
Roger Ebert
YouTube: Children of Men Trailer HD, Ark of the Arts

Small Town Noir

"Small Town Noir is dedicated to recovering the life stories behind mug shots from the vanished golden age of one American town. The men and women in these mug shots are nobody special, but they saw things that none of us will ever see. They were all arrested in New Castle, a small town in western Pennsylvania, right over by the Ohio border. It was once one of the most industrially productive cities in America, but all that’s gone now. At the beginning of the 20th century, New Castle was a boom town – its population almost tripled between 1890 and 1900 as thousands of immigrants from Europe and across America arrived to work in its tin plate mills, steel factories, ceramics works, foundries and paper mills. The depression of the 1930s hit the town as hard as anywhere else, but world war two and the Korean war kept its manufacturing base going. ... - Diarmid Mogg"
Small Town Noir - About
Small Town Noir

Paris 13‎

"Yesterday in Paris, the largest collective street art exhibition opened in the 13th arrondissement on Rue de Bellievre near the Quai d’Austerlitz in a 10-story concrete and brick tower. The Galerie Itinerrance obtained use of the building before its demolition in 2014 and invited 80 artists from all over the world to decorate freely on the inside and outside of the building. 36 apartments were entirely painted and the artists each had their own area to work. In total more than 4500 square meters of street art were created."
untappedcities
A Walk On the Waterfront
YouTube: LA TOUR PARIS 13
Paris 13

Too Much Too Young - The Special AKA (1980)

"Released at a time when 2 Tone could do no wrong, this 5 track EP became the labels first UK Number 1 single. Recorded at The Lyceum in London and Tiffanys in Coventry, it was also issued as the labels first picture sleeve and for some strange reason saw the band revert to their previous name of The Special A.K.A.. Why they reverted back to this title remains a mystery and the plot is only further complicated by the listing of the band as The Specials on the records labels. The sleeve has a photograph of an audience on the front and a favourable report from the Coventry Evening Telegraph on the band as its rear. . It was also the first 2 Tone release to fall foul of the censors. The final line of Too Much Too Young , 'Try wearing a cap', proved too much for the nations moral guardians and the song was deliberately cut short before the offending word 'cap' was broadcast."
2 Tone
YouTube: Too Much Too Young (Old Grey Whistle Test 1979), Guns of Navarone, Long Shot Kick De Bucket, Liquidator, Skinhead Moonstomp

2009 October: The Specials, 2912 September: Ghost Town.

Before the Poison - Marianne Faithfull (2005)

"Each time Marianne Faithfull issues a recording, fans and pundits hold their breaths waiting for another outing as iconoclastic as Broken English. Before the Poison isn't it for a number of reasons, quality not being one of them. Simply put, Before the Poison is an album that concerns itself with both sides of love, friendship, and redemption, not desolation or desperation. That said, there is plenty of human shadow in these ten songs. Polly Harvey wrote three songs here, co-wrote a pair with Faithfull, and is present on all of them. Nick Cave co-wrote three with the singer and his Bad Seeds back her on these tracks. She also co-wrote one apiece with Blur's Damon Albarn and composer Jon Brion. Along with Harvey and Cave, Rob Ellis and Hal Willner aided in production. Therefore, Before the Poison, like its predecessor, Kissin' Time, is an album of collaborations. But unlike that offering, this one is seamless; its songs are sequenced impeccably and all feel of a piece linked by emotional thematics. ..."
allmusic
W - Before the Poison
Pitchfork
YouTube: My Friends have, Crazy Love (Live BBC4 Sessions), There Is a Ghost @Lycabettus, Athens, Green Fields (Last Song), Before the poison, In The Factory, Mystery of love, Before The Poison - Interview

2008 June: Marianne Faithfull, 2010 November: Marianne Faithfull - 1, 2013 January: Broken English: Deluxe Edition.

Forging an Art Market in China

"When the hammer came down at an evening auction during China Guardian’s spring sale in May 2011, 'Eagle Standing on a Pine Tree,' a 1946 ink painting by Qi Baishi, one of China’s 20th-century masters, had drawn a startling price: $65.4 million. No Chinese painting had ever fetched so much at auction, and, by the end of the year, the sale appeared to have global implications, helping China surpass the United States as the world’s biggest art and auction market. But two years after the auction, Qi Baishi’s masterpiece is still languishing in a warehouse in Beijing. The winning bidder has refused to pay for the piece since doubts were raised about its authenticity."
NYT: Forging an Art Market in China

La La La Human Steps perform New Work (2010)

"Purcell's Dido & Aeneas and Gluck's Orpheus & Eurydice must be the most choreographed operas in the repertory. Their buoyant, punchy baroque rhythms, and the simple arc of their plots, lend themselves naturally to dance. Canadian choreographer Édouard Lock joins the illustrious line of Balanchine, Bausch and Morris in tackling these two classics. But Lock is a refusenik when it comes to dance narrative, believing that even the most basic of stories is not carried well by pure movement. So his own interpretation, modestly titled New Work, is presented as an abstraction of the tragic love affairs at the heart of both operas: uniting them into a single choreographic meditation on yearning, anger and loss."
Guardian
Telegraph
YouTube: New Work
YouTube: Interview + Infante c'est Destroy (1991-92)

2008 July: La La La Human Steps, 2010 May: David Bowie - "Look Back In Anger", 2010 September: Mondo Beyondo, 2012 September: Amelia.