The Best Beer in Baseball

"Several years ago, craft beer started taking off at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark. From 2011-2012, sales went up by 20 percent. From 2012-2013, they were up 47 percent. So when it came time to create a new hangout in a highly trafficked spot on the third-base concourse, the ballpark went all-in on craft-style beers. The new Reds Brewery District – an 84-foot-long bar with more than 50 taps – included more than 20 craft offerings when it opened this spring. There were local beers from Cincinnati brewers like Christian Moerlein, MadTree, Blank Slate, Fifty West, Rhinegeist, Mt. Carmel, and Rivertown. There were national options from well-regarded breweries like Founders, Bell’s, West Sixth and Great Lakes."
Washington Post

Keuschheitslegende - Pina Bausch (1979)

The Legend of Virginity, A Scene from Pina Bausch's Ballet - Helmut Newton
"Inspired by Pina Bausch’s Ballet Keuschheitslegende,in which life-sized crocodiles creep around onstage amongst dancers, Helmut Newton would capture a ballerina–quite literally–in the belly of the beast, taking the transgressive ballet just a step further. For Vogue China’s 10th Anniversary issue, Mario Testino would photograph model Liu Wen also interacting with a crocidile, however, in the contemporary version, the woman seemingly dominates the animal rather than serving as its prey."
Part Nouveau
Tanztheater Wuppertal
Bettina Stöß | Datenschutzhinweis
flickr: RasMarley

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

A Skin Too Few - The Days of Nick Drake (2002)

"How do you film a biography of an enigma who died at such a young age (26) that he barely had a life? One way is to keep it short. During part of this tender tribute, the camera gazes at the pastoral landscape around Tanworth-in-Arden, the village where the English singer-songwriter grew up in upper-middle-class comfort. With his haunting music playing in the background, these scenes define the film, whose principal voice belongs to Drake's sorrowful older sister, Gabrielle, as a cinematic tone poem as much as a biography."
NY Times
Review by Andy Smith
YouTube: A Skin Too Few - The Days of Nick Drake 1, 2, 3, 4

2012 July: Nick Drake, 2013 May: Five Leaves Left, 2014 February: Bryter Layter (1970).

Prospero’s Cell - Lawrence Durrell (1945)

"... It was October, the perfect time to arrive clasping a much-read copy of his Prospero’s Cell, a glimpse of Corfu as it once was, overlaid with all the poetic imagination of the writer-traveller as a young man. With his expansive, all-encompassing opening line, Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue really begins, Durrell takes us out of ourselves and along with him as he crosses into Greek waters from the heel of Italy and into a new life of light and heat. Reading it on a gloomy winter afternoon in the northern hemisphere is like injecting the grey sky with vivid blues and emeralds. The book purports to be an evocative diary in which he is a serious young writer living blissfully in the sun, deeply in love both with his new wife and the freedom that Greece represents in the 1930s. The idea of escape – from political and economic uncertainty; there are plenty of parallels with our times -  is a strong undertow."
Songs of Blue and Gold: Lawrence Durrell’s Island of Corfu
Prospero's Cell - Lawrence Durrell: A Review
white house, green water
Days of heaven: The story of a marriage on the island of Corfu
amazon: Prospero's Cell
YouTube: Visit Kalami in Corfu, Greece, Journey on the way to Corfu Greece Storm at Sea

2011 December: The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell, 2013 September: Villa that inspired Lawrence Durrell faces demolition, as Egypt allows heritage to crumble.

Popol Vuh - Letzte Tage-Letzte Nächte (1976)

"As Florian Fricke moved away from an early synthesizer-centered sound and embraced organic instrumentation in his quest to fuse Eastern and Western musical and spiritual traditions, Popol Vuh's rock orientation became more pronounced. That aspect derived largely from the contributions of electric guitarists Conny Veit (on Hosianna Mantra and Seligpreisung) and Daniel Fichelscher (on Seligpreisung, Einsjäger & Siebenjäger, and Das Hohelied Salomos). Letzte Tage - Letzte Nächte is the band's boldest foray into rock territory. On Das Hohelied Salomos, Fichelscher's guitar often eclipsed Fricke's piano; here, his presence is even more emphatic. That's not to say that the band has lost its equilibrium -- this is another classic Popol Vuh exercise in balancing and reconciling apparent opposites. An opening pair of instrumentals sets the tone. ..."
allmusic
W - Letzte Tage-Letzte Nächte
YouTube: Kyrie (Live), Dort ist der Weg, Letzte Tage, Letzte Nachte, Der grosse Krieger, Oh wie weit ist der weg hinauf

2008 August: Popol Vuh, 2010 December: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 2011 May: Abschied (1972), 2013 May: Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog, 2913 September: Hosianna Mantra (1972), 2014 April: Revisited & Remixed 1970-1999 (2011).

Rules of Travel - Rosanne Cash (2003)

"At every level, Rules of Travel distinguishes itself. A latecomer to songwriting, Rosanne Cash delivers plenty of compelling material, fully comparable in quality to the album's two non-original cuts. She comes up with fresh and intriguing chord changes to end verses and choruses on the title track, and images whose rugged eloquence perfectly fits the early-morning mumble of Steve Earle on 'I'll Change for You.' On 'September When It Comes,' she switches to a more homespun, folkloric imagery that suits her father's weathered, timeless rumble. ... Though her voice is hardly the most impressive instrument in country music, Cash knows how to compensate by using an understated approach to more quietly highlight the essence of a song. Given the quality of what she gives herself to work with on Rules of Travel, it's a method that can't miss."
allmusic
W - Rules of Travel
YouTube: I'll Change For You, Rules Of Travel, September When It Comes, Beautiful pain, Western Wall, Last Stop Before Home

2010 March: Rosanne Cash, 2012 January: Black Cadillac, 2012 April: "I Was Watching You"  , 2012 July: The Wheel, 2012 February: Live From Zone C, 2014 February: The River & the Thread (2014).

Conceptual Art by Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler

"Constitution On Tour," 1991, Model train cars and tracks, sandblasted and metal brackets.
"The artists Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler, who worked together from the late 1970s until Ms. Ericson’s death in 1995, fused Conceptual art, community action and Americana in ways few others have, before or since. For a 1991 project in Charleston, S.C., they painted the exterior of a house just outside the city’s historic district in a riotous camouflage of colors (each one drawn from a list approved by the city’s Board of Architectural Review, which probably had not anticipated anyone wanting to use them all at once)."
NY Times
Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler
America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler
amazon: America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler

Mercy Dee Walton

"Mose Allison certainly recognized the uncommon brilliance of pianist Mercy Dee Walton. The young, jazz-based Allison faithfully covered Walton's downtrodden 'One Room Country Shack' in 1957, four years after Walton had waxed the original for Los Angeles-based Specialty Records (his original was a huge R&B smash). Walton was a Texas émigré, like so many other postwar California R&B pioneers, who had played piano around Waco from the age of 13 before hitting the coast in 1938."
allmusic
W - Mercy Dee Walton
Illustrated Mercy Dee Walton discography
YouTube: Lonesome cabin blues, Romp and stomp blues, Red Light, One Room Country Shack, Baba-Du-Lay Fever, Mercy Dee Walton & Lady Fox - Big Minded Daddy, Come Back Maybellene, Bird Brain Baby, Stubborn Woman, Oh Oh Please, MERCY DEE WALTON & THELMA "LADY FOX" WALTON - RENT MAN BLUES, My Woman Knows the Score

Louvre

"Paris-based writer Andrew Hussey travels through the glorious art and surprising history of an extraordinary French institution to show that the story of the Louvre is the story of France. As well as exploring the masterpieces of painters such as Veronese, Rubens, David, Chardin, Gericault and Delacroix, he examines the changing face of the Louvre itself through its architecture and design. Medieval fortress, Renaissance palace, luxurious home to kings, emperors and more recently civil servants, today it attracts eight million visitors a year. The documentary also reflects the very latest transformation of the Louvre – the museum’s recently-opened Islamic Gallery."
BBC
Louvre (Video)
W - Louvre
NY Times: At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus
amazon: Louvre: 400 Masterpieces, The Louvre: All the Paintings, The Pocket Louvre
YouTube: BBC Treasures of the Louvre
YouTube: Visit the Louvre Museum, Twenty Minutes at the Louvre Museum,

Michael de Kok

"Landscape paintings by Dutch artist Michael de Kok are currently featured at the Bertrand Delacroix Gallery in Chelsea. In various paintings of roadside, and field, and farmland, De Kok’s goal is to provide the impact of a subject at any given moment. Whether it be of a mountain, road, or building, he emphasizes vastness by incorporating concepts such as line, shape, and form evenly. In addition, De Kok illustrates wide open spaces rising above blurred horizon lines and smoothly alternating between light and dark effects by using earthly colors and smooth brush strokes."
Examiner: Earthly landscape paintings in Chelsea
Michael de Kok

'Every hour a glass of wine' – the female writers who drank

Marguerite Duras in France, c1955.
13 June 2014. "If you write a book about alcohol and male writers, as I did, the one question you'll be asked more than any other is: what about the women? Are there any alcoholic female writers? And are their stories the same, or different? The answer to the first question is easy. Yes, of course there are, among them such brilliant, restless figures as Jean Rhys, Jean Stafford, Marguerite Duras, Patricia Highsmith, Elizabeth Bishop, Jane Bowles, Anne Sexton, Carson McCullers, Dorothy Parker and Shirley Jackson."
Guardian

Joseph Mitchell

Wikipedia - "Joseph Mitchell (July 27, 1908 - May 24, 1996) was an American writer best known for the work he published in The New Yorker. He is known for his carefully written portraits of eccentrics and people on the fringes of society, especially in and around New York City. ... In 1931, he took a brief break from journalism to work on a freighter that sailed to Leningrad and brought back pulp logs to New York City. He returned to journalism after this interlude and continued to write for New York newspapers until he was hired by St. Clair McKelway at The New Yorker in 1938."
Wikipedia
New Yorker: Joseph Mitchell’s Ear for New York
Journeys with Joseph Mitchell
Joseph Mitchell: mysterious chronicler of the margins of New York
Joe Mitchell’s Secret
amazon: Joseph Mitchell
YouTube: Reimagining Joseph Mitchell's New York
vimeo: The City Concealed: Up in the Fulton Ferry Hotel

Lutz Glandien

Wikipedia - "Lutz Glandien (born 1954) is a Berlin-based German avant garde composer and musician. He has composed a number of classical and electroacoustic pieces, released four solo albums, and collaborated with English percussionist Chris Cutler to record two acclaimed avant-rock albums, Domestic Stories (1992) and P53 (1996). ... He began building his own musical instruments for his compositions and produced numerous electroacoustic musicial works, including Scenes From No Marriage, later released on CD in 1994. He also set up his own studio and created soundtracks for over 60 radiophonic pieces, documentary films, video performances, exhibitions and sound installations."
Wikipedia
Lutz Glandien
Scaruffi
allmusic: The 5th Elephant: Virtualectric Stories
YouTube: Die Entdeckung des Monochords, Album 5Th Elephant, Chris Cutler, Lutz Glandien - None are disbarred (Dagmar Krause), Chris Cutler, Lutz Glandien - Unquiet Days in Eden (Dagmar Krause), 365 for piano, Chris Cutler, Lutz Glandien - Seven Veils (Dagmar Krause), Chris Cutler, Lutz Glandien - Up to our Elbows (Dagmar Krause)
YouTube: Videos

Ebenezer Obey

Wikipedia - "Ebenezer Obey (born 1942), nicknamed the 'Chief Commander,' is a Nigerian pop musician. Obey, whose full name is Ebenezer Remilekun Aremu Olasupo Obey-Fabiyi, was born in Idogo, Ogun State, Nigeria of Egba-Yoruba ethnic background. He is of the Owu subgroup of the Egba. He began his professional career in the mid-1950s after moving to Lagos. After tutelage under Fatai Rolling-Dollar's band, he formed a band called The International Brothers in 1964, playing highlife–jùjú fusion. The band later metamorphosed into Inter-Reformers in the early-1970s, with a long list of Juju album hits on the West African Decca musical label."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Ori Bayemi, Miliki Sound (Complete Album - Side 1), Miliki Sound (Complete Album - Side 2), Board Members, Jaye Agoro, Decca WA 1974 Side 1, Decca WA 1974 Side 2, Iba Fun Oba Eledumare / Paulina

The Well-Tuned Piano - La Monte Young (1987)

Wikipedia - "The Well-Tuned Piano is a long, improvisatory, solo piano work by La Monte Young. Young has never considered the composition 'finished,' and dates the piece as 1964-73-81-Present. A typical performance lasts five to six hours. ... The two have often collaborated on projects that combine visual art and music, including The Well-Tuned Piano. As an audience member at a live performance of The Well-Tuned Piano, one is surrounded by the, 'pure and intense color sensations,' of The Magenta Lights. These lights are magenta in color and are installed into the performance area and projected throughout the space."
Wikipedia
[PDF]
Well Tuned Piano 81.x.25 - soundinstallationart
The Well-Tuned Piano 81 X 25, 6:17:50 - 11:18:59 PM NYC
The Well-Tuned Piano 81 X 25 (Gramavision) Press Quotes
Scott Hull on the Production of La Monte Young’s The Well Tuned Piano
YouTube: The well tuned piano [5 CD] (1987) 5:01:52

2009 May: La Monte Young, 2010 January: Just intonation

A century of fire hydrants cooling New York kids

"I’m not sure exactly when the first New York City fire hydrant was wrenched open so neighborhood kids could play in the cool rush of water on a hot summer day. But this very New York way to chase away the heat may have caught on and been officially sanctioned in the late teens, when John Hylan was mayor (below, in 1921, in a NYC Municipal Archives photo). 'The mayor is particularly good to children,' the Queens borough president was quoted saying in a New York Times article from 1925."
Ephemeral New York
Ephemeral New York: How city kids cooled off in the heat wave of 1953

The Gardener’s Garden: Great Dixter

"High on the list of garden pilgrimages is Great Dixter, the passion project of the late “imperial wizard” of English horticulture, Christopher Lloyd. The audacious gardener and celebrated writer’s Edwyn Lutyens-designed manor house, open to the public for nearly six decades, launches the first episode of NOWNESS’s weekly Great Gardens series, here captured by photographer and filmmaker Howard Sooley. 'Christo was like Paddington Bear with teeth,' reflects Sooley, who first visited Great Dixter in 1989 through friend, co-gardener and filmmaker Derek Jarman. Located in England’s East Sussex countryside, the semi-formal grounds, now under the stewardship of head gardener Fergus Garrett, are an exercise in planned imperfection, with imaginatively topiaried yew hedges and Yorkstone paving providing the framework for the seasonally changing tapestry of vibrant colors, bold form and spirited texture."
NOWNESS (Video)
Great Dixter
W - Great Dixter

Transatlantic Sessions 5

Douglas Eadie: "... And such richness. Jerry and Aly at the musical helm... Our youngest, nineteen year-old Nashville prodigy Sarah Jarosz (a fast learner, Sarah picked up in a morning enough of the language of Eden to be able to join in a Gaelic chorus). Our oldest (unless you count 'Victoria', his even older instrument), legendary bass-player Danny Thompson. In between, some of the truly greats of the bluegrass, Appalachian, Irish and Scottish traditions. We had a ball making Transatlantic Sessions Five and the general consensus is that it's our best yet. We hope you have a ball with it too."
Music Scotland
YouTube: Reels - Aly Bain, John McCusker, Mike McGoldrick, John Doyle, Declan O'Rourke - Time Machine, Joan Osborne - Saint Teresa, Oran a Cloiche - Kathleen MacInnes and Sarah Jarosz, Declan O'Rourke - Galileo (Someone Like You), Eddi Reader — Leezie Lindsay, Fire in My Hands - Iain Morrison, Eric Bibb - Don't Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down

2013 December: Programme One, Programme Two, 2014 March: Programme Three, 2014 April: Programme 4

Lunch Poems - Frank O'Hara (1964)

Wikipedia - "Lunch Poems is a book of poetry by Frank O'Hara published in 1964 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights, number 19 in their Pocket Poets series. The collection was commissioned by Ferlinghetti as early as 1959, but O'Hara delayed in completing it. Ferlinghetti would badger O'Hara with questions like, 'How about lunch? I'm hungry.' 'Cooking', O'Hara would reply. O'Hara enlisted the help of Donald Allen who had published O'Hara's poems in New American Poetry in 1960.  ... The poems in this collection contain O'Hara's characteristically breezy tone, containing spontaneous reactions to things happening in the moment. Many of them appear to have been written on O'Hara's lunch hour. The poems contain numerous references to pop culture and literary figures, New York locations, and O'Hara's friends."
Wikipedia
Poets
The Atlantic - Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems: 21st-Century Poetry Written in 1964
amazon
YouTube: 'The Day Lady Died' and 'Song', 'Having a coke with you'

2008 January: Frank O'Hara, 2010 February: USA: Poetry, 2010 October: Stones: Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara,  2011 October: City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara - Brad Gooch, 2012 December: USA: Poetry, Frank O'Hara (1966), 2013 June: A Visual Footnote to O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died”: New World Writing and The Poets of Ghana, 2013 March: Happy Birthday, Frank O’Hara: The Beloved Poet Reads His “Metaphysical Poem”, 2014 June: Remembering Frank O’Hara’s Apartments.

Fela Kuti - Everything Scatter/Noise for Vendor Mouth

"Perhaps one risks charges of artistic insensitivity by saying so, but by the mid-'70s Kuti's records were becoming predictable and formulaic to an extent. It was a good formula -- played and sung with conviction -- and if any individual record or two were the only evidence of his work, they would be properly respected as important music. However, it isn't too easy to differentiate, in large degrees, between his numerous releases of the era that comprised two (and exactly two) ten- to 15-minute songs. These were built from several minutes of instrumental interplay between electric keyboards, horns, and percussion to a vocal declaiming general platitudes about injustice and African identity, with energetic contributions from backup singers. The two 1975 albums Everything Scatter and Noise for Vendor Mouth, combined on one disc for this CD reissue, have four such songs."
allmusic
YouTube: Noise For Vendor Mouth, Mattress, Everything Scatter, Who No Know Go Know

South Village

127-131 MacDougal - South Village National Register
Wikipedia - "The South Village is a largely residential area in Lower Manhattan in New York City, directly below Washington Square Park. Known for its immigrant heritage and Bohemian history, the South Village overlaps areas of Greenwich Village and SoHo. The architecture of the South Village is primarily tenement-style apartment buildings, indicative of the area's history as an enclave for Italian-American immigrants and working-class residents of New York. ... By the 1920s, however, as the Village had fallen out of fashion with New York’s patricians, artists, bohemians, and radical thinkers began to populate the area, and the institutions which served them, such as jazz clubs and speakeasies became commonplace throughout the area. By the 1950s and 60s, many of these had become coffeehouses and folk clubs for hippies, beatniks, and artists. These South Village establishments were frequented by some of the most significant players in these cultural movements, including Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, James Agee, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sam Shepard and Jackson Pollock."
Wikipedia
NY Times: After 2 Years, a Meeting on Village Landmarks
South Village Historic District
Part of Greenwich Village made New York’s newest historic district
YouTube: Greenwich Village Sunday - 1960

2011 July: East Village, 2011 February: Greenwich Village, 2009 May: Washington Square Park.

Roger Angell: A Baseball Companion

"On Saturday in Cooperstown, Roger Angell was given the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, the baseball Hall of Fame's writing writing honor. His sports writing career is a happy accident that began in 1962 when Angell went to spring training to write about New York's new team, the Mets. He was a 41-year-old fiction editor at the New Yorker and a lifelong baseball fan. He had no intention of becoming a sports writer, but he continued writing about baseball, twice, sometimes more each season. Angell wrote about the game as a fan. His accounts are dense yet leisurely, always packed full of acute observation."
The Stacks
NY Times: Revered Essays on the Game Lead to a Hall of Fame Honor
The Two Rogers
New Yorker: Roger Angell
New Yorker: Hall of Fame Weekend: Roger Angell’s Baseball Writing
Wikipedia
SI: The Passion of Roger Angell: The best baseball writer in America is also a fan
amazon: Roger Angell

In Which We Inter This Miasma Within Us

"Hors d’oeuvre. Seven weeks over the summer was the longest transitory state I’ve ever been in. It’s a suspension, a floating, letting the water take all of your weight and rising to the surface and bobbing gently. It was sitting down at the table with a hollow stomach, and not being able to look at the menu beforehand. My flight home took off at 6 in the morning, and I let an airport smoothie fill the hours between New Orleans and San Francisco."
This Recording

You Think You Love Vintage Paperback Books? These People Love Vintage Paperback Books

"The books outnumbered the people on Sunday afternoon at the Glendale Civic Auditorium. Sure, the Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collectors Show, which has been going on for 35 years, drew a good crowd. There were lines of folks waiting for autographs from a number of authors, including Harlan Ellison. Still more were browsing the aisles. They, however, were no match for the sheer amount of books here. Paperbacks small enough to fit into a pocket or handbag were carefully kept in plastic bags were displayed on tables and shelves. Thousands more filled bins. Vendors organized titles into handy categories. There were the 'hardboiled' books, crime novels starring detectives who think they've seen it all. The 'sleaze' catchall was perhaps self-explanatory. One booth even had a section of 'vintage nurse' titles."
LA Weekly
more paperback covers: movie tie-ins, crime, etc.
vintage crime fiction paperback covers

The Aesthetes: Expats of Tangier, Morocco

Laure Welfing, “Gipi” de Richemont Salvy
"In a shrinking world, Tangier is a place where eccentricity is celebrated, where fiscal nomads and expatriates thrive in the midday sun, where light filters through the palms and makes an atmosphere of dreaming. With its bright colors and whiff of old scandal, it is a place of the mind, stranded perfectly at a gathering point of sweet-scented opposites. It is a high meeting place of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, Europe and Africa, sanctity and sin, where men and women have long set out to find themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea."
T Magazine (Video)

Cheap at Half the Price - Fred Frith (1983)

Wikipedia - "Cheap at Half the Price is a 1983 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith. It was Frith's fifth solo album, and was originally released in the United States on LP record on The Residents' Ralph record label. It was the third of three solo albums Frith made for the label. Cheap at Half the Price was recorded by Frith at his home in New York City on a 4-track machine. He played all the instruments himself, with the exception of bass guitar on two tracks, and drums, for which he used tapes and samples previously recorded by other drummers. The record differed from Frith's previous experimental albums in that it consisted largely of pop-like songs, and he sang for the first time."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: The Welcome, Heart Bares, Flying in the Face of Facts, Same Old Me, Some Clouds Do, Some Clouds Don't, Absent Friends, Cap the Knife

Summer Treats in the Met’s European Galleries

Manet “Le Printemps” (1881)
"Before 10 a.m. on a recent steamy morning, lines started forming up the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with visitors clutching New York City street maps waiting patiently for the doors to open. While the museum has always been a magnet for tourists during the summer months, New Yorkers who frequent the Met should be aware that there are many new things to see in its permanent galleries. Keith Christiansen, chairman of the museum’s European paintings department, has shaken things up a bit, hanging works lent for the summer and uniting treasures that have recently returned home after traveling to exhibitions around the world. For the first time in more than a decade, for example, all 17 of the Met’s paintings by Vincent van Gogh can be seen at once."
NY Times

No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980

DNA
"No Wave. Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980 is the first book to visually chronicle the collision of art and punk in the New York underground of 1976 to 1980. This in-depth look at the avant-garde movement of the 70s and 80s focuses on the true architects of No Wave from James Chance to Lydia Lunch to Glenn Branca, as well as the luminaries who intersected the scene, such as Debbie Harry, Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, and Richard Hell. This rarely documented scene, the creative stomping ground of young artists and filmmakers from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Jim Jarmusch, as well as the musical genesis for the post-punk explosions of Sonic Youth, is here revealed for a new generation of fans and collectors."
Ecstatic Peace
NY Times: A Brief, Noisy Moment That Still Reverberates (Photo)
W - No Wave
Dangerous Minds

Orlando Julius with the Heliocentrics

"... Born in 1943 in Ijebu-Ijesha in Osun State, Orlando Julius Aremu Olusanya Ekemode to crate-diggers worldwide has long been worth getting all dusty-fingered over. Julius began churning out breakbeat-laden singles in the early '60s with his 10-piece band, the Modern Aces, and when in 1966 they birthed their first long-player, Super Afro Soul, he demonstrated his uncanny skills at bridging the Atlantic by mashing Latin percussion, high-life guitars, R&B horns and a nascent funk attack—all particularly showcased on 'Ijo Soul,' a song strikingly similar to James Brown's mega-hit 'I Got You (I Feel Good).' Which came first? Sorry, do your own homework. Residing in Ibadan, Orlando used his orchestral prowess to attract musicians from all over, including one trumpet-wielding Fela Kuti."
Rich Mix
Sound Colour Vibration
YouTube: Buje Buje, ORLANDO JULIUS & HIS MODERN ACES Super Afro Soul [Full Album], Ijo Soul, Adara, Hot Sax Session, Colombia

Aesthetic Bind

"A monumental photograph condenses Nikhil Chopra’s five-day ‘pilgrimage’ where the artist, dressed in a peasant smock, moves from his cloistered abode into the fields to paint the medieval Tuscan town of San Gimignano. Mimesis is at the heart of this performance: he gradually costumes himself in a manner resembling the figural imagery of Benozzo Gozzoli (from his fresco cycle, Life of Saint Augustine, located in San Gimignano and from his most acclaimed Procession of the Magi in nearby Florence). Indeed, he virtually ‘incarnates’ the great artist’s pensive self-portrait in red cap. The performance ends with Nikhil, wrapped in the large painted canvas, walking back into the town, whereupon the gods prompt a downpour. The painter’s robe is heavy with mud and he himself, weary and bedraggled."
Gallery Chemould
artforum
Art Asia Pacific

The Battle of Bouvines

Wikipedia - "The Battle of Bouvines, which took place on 27 July 1214, was a medieval battle which ended the 1202–1214 Anglo-French War. It was fundamental in the early development of France in the Middle Ages by confirming the French crown's sovereignty over the Angevin lands of Brittany and Normandy. Philip Augustus of France defeated an army consisting of Imperial German, English and Flemish soldiers, led by Otto IV of Germany. Other leaders included Count Ferrand of Flanders, William de Longespee and Renaud of Boulogne. The defeat was so decisive that Otto was deposed and replaced by Frederick II Hohenstaufen; Ferrand and Renaud were captured and imprisoned and King John of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta by his discontented barons. Philip was himself able to take undisputed control of most of the territories in France that had belonged to King John of England, Otto's maternal uncle and ally."
Wikipedia
BBC: The most important battle you've probably never heard of
YouTube: The Battle of Bouvines

Bootleg recording

Wikipedia - "A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging. A great many such recordings are simply copied and traded among fans of the artist without financial exchange, but some bootleggers are able to sell these rarities for profit, sometimes by adding professional-quality sound engineering and packaging to the raw material. Bootlegs can consist of recordings of live performances or material created in private or professional recording sessions. Changing technologies have had a great impact on the recording, distribution, and varying profitability of the underground industry."
Wikipedia
W - Great White Wonder
W - Bob Dylan bootleg recordings
The 10 Best Bob Dylan Bootlegs
W - Category:Bootleg recordings
amazon: Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry
amazon: The Great White Wonders: The Story of Rock Bootlegs
amazon: Bootleg: The Rise & Fall of the Secret Recording History
YouTube: Popular Bootleg recording Videos

Train of Thought: On the ‘Subway’ Photographs - Bruce Davidson

"In the spring of 1980, I began to photograph the New York subway system. Before beginning this project, I was devoting most of my time to commissioned assignments and to writing and producing a feature film based on Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel, Enemies, A Love Story. When the final option expired on the film, I felt the need to return to my still photography—to my roots. I began to photograph the traffic islands that line Broadway. These oases of grass, trees, and earth surrounded by heavy city traffic have always interested me. I found myself photographing the lonely widows, vagrant winos, and solemn old men who line the benches on these concrete islands of Manhattan’s Upper West Side."
The New York Review of Books
Magnum Photos
Bruce Davidson's 'Subway' Photos Show How Much New York City Has Changed Since The '70s And '80s

2014 January: Bruce Davidson

The Essential Ellen Willis

"... 'The Essential Ellen Willis,' which gathers 40 years of her work, carries the sound of a feminist who never forgot the ideals of the ’60s, and who never stopped arguing for what those years gave her and others. (Willis died in 2006.) 'The valorization of too much allowed me, for the first time in my life, to have something like enough,' she recalled in 1989, in an article for The Village Voice. The collection is edited by Willis’s daughter, Nona Willis Aronowitz, and divided by decade; it begins with a 1969 essay on Willis’s awakening to feminism and concludes with excerpts from an unfinished book exploring the 'cultural unconscious in American politics.' In between, there is relentlessly rigorous thinking on Janis Joplin, Bell Hooks, child care, Bill Clinton, 'The Sopranos,' and Sept. 11."
NY Times
Book Excerpt: Ellen Willis on "Bringing in the Noise" of Trash TV
NPR: A Second Posthumous Collection From Rock Critic Ellen Willis
Ellen Willis
Why Ellen Willis Is An Essential Icon
Ellen Willis’ Radical Jewish Sex-Positive Rock ’n’ Roll Politics of the Future
amazon
YouTube: THE ESSENTIAL ELLEN WILLIS (book trailer)

2011 May: Ellen Willis

Bush Tetras

Wikipedia - "Bush Tetras are an American post-punk band from New York City that was popular in the Manhattan club scene and college radio in the early 1980s but never achieved much mainstream success. Their music combined funk rhythms and dissonant guitar riffs. Lead guitarist Pat Place and vocalist Cynthia Sley produced the most distinctive aspects of the Tetras sound. Place's guitar lines were rhythmic and distortion-filled. She had been the original guitarist and one of the founding members of the no wave band The Contortions."
Wikipedia
allmusic
Bush Tetras - Roir
Perfect Sound Forever: Pat Place talks of Contortions
BUSH TETRAS: WE’RE NOT DEAD
YouTube: Too Many Creeps, You Can't Be Funky, Things that go boom in the night, Das Ah Riot, Snakes Crawl, Rituals, Cowboys In Africa, You taste like the tropics

Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern American - Donald L. Miller

"While F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, Manhattan was transformed by jazz, night clubs, radio, skyscrapers, movies, and the ferocious energy of the 1920s, as this illuminating cultural history brilliantly demonstrates. In four words—'the capital of everything'—Duke Ellington captured Manhattan during one of the most exciting and celebrated eras in our history: the Jazz Age. Radio, tabloid newspapers, and movies with sound appeared. The silver screen took over Times Square as Broadway became America's movie mecca. Tremendous new skyscrapers were built in Midtown in one of the greatest building booms in history. Supreme City is the story of Manhattan’s growth and transformation in the 1920s and the brilliant people behind it."
amazon
NY Times: The Roar of the Crowd>
Supreme City, Supreme History: Donald L. Miller’s Monumental Book about Manhattan in the ’20s
WSJ - Book Review: 'Supreme City' by Donald L. Miller
How the Jazz Age Invented Modern America
Simon and Schuster (Video)
YouTube: Donald L. Miller: Supreme City 1:02:59

“Summer of The Rub”

"'Summer of The Rub' is officially here!!!! What better way to get this celebration started than releasing a new mix as apart of our buds over at Fool’s Gold Records’ 'Foolcast' Podcast series? Our kick-off party is this Saturday at Dekalb Market and it is going to be an absolute throwdown. We’re bringing out the big guns with DJ Neil Armstrong as well as Rich Medina to ensure your evening becomes a sweaty sing-a-long. As for the podcast, well this is not your typical mix at all.”
Its Rub - Brooklyn (Video)
The Rub (Ayres & Eleven) – Summer of The Rub 1. Rolling Stones – Paint It Black 2. Cream – White Room 3. Jimi Hendrix – All Along the Watchtower 4. Sly & The Family Stone – I Want to Take You Higher 5. Flaming Ember – Gotta Get Away 6. Rare Earth – I Just Want to Celebrate 7. The James Gang – Funk #49 8. Steppenwolf – Magic Carpet Ride 9. The Doors – Peace Frog 10. The Doobie Brothers – Long Train Running 11. Stealers Wheel – Stuck in the Middle With You 12. The Beatles – Glass Onion 13. T.Rex – Bang A Gong (Get It On) 14. The Zombies – Time of the Season 15. The Rolling Stones – Sympathy For The Devil 16. Jimi Hendrix – Crosstown Traffic 17. Erma Franklin – Light My Fire 18. Eric Burdon and The Animals – Good Times 19. The Temptations – Psychedelic Shack 20. Sly & The Family Stone – You Can Make It If You Try 21. The Doors – Break On Through (To The Other Side) 22. Led Zeppelin – Whole Lot of Love 23. The Turtles – Happy Together 24. Santana – Jingo

Downtown Los Angeles

"Above the grit and noise of the street, downtown Los Angeles quietly provides some of the most amazing visual detail in its buildings and public art works. This is a selection of those buildings and public arts filmed across some 50 different locations in the immediate downtown area and the arts district. There are many many more locations that are not included and are equally if not more impressive. Some of the buildings are in disrepair, some have been restored to their full glory while others have been transformed into artworks. In all of them, there is character, color and detail that makes the area a never-ending source of intrigue."
vimeo: Downtown Los Angeles (Video)
YouTube: A Drive Through Bunker Hill and Downtown Los Angeles, ca. 1940s, Los Angeles in the 50s
W - Downtown Los Angeles

Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil

Laura Belém, Veneza do Brasil, 2007
"Published on the occasion of the first major exhibition of contemporary Brazilian art at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil, co-curated by Jennifer Lange, Bill Horrigan, and Paulo Venancio Filho, documents the exhibition and also discusses a related series of contemporary Brazilian documentary films organized by Chris Stults. The exhibition Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil, features thirty-five artists (or artistic teams), working across virtually all genres, who reflect the vibrant and diverse artistic scene currently flourishing throughout the country."
Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil
Via Brasil (Video)
YouTube: Contemporary Art in Brazil, Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil

Wire - Document And Eyewitness (1979-1980)

"Wire are set to reissue their 1981 live album Document And Witness on August 18 via the band's Pink Flag label. The record, which marked the end of the band's first period, famously took a notorious 1980 concert at London's Electric Ballroom, which saw the band going in for some Dadaist onstage experimentation in front of a hostile audience, as its main source material. ... Now, all three of those gig recordings will be released as individual albums as part of Pink Flag's 'Legal Bootleg' series, alongside an expanded version of Document And Witness, which includes singles, B-sides and previously unheard rehearsal recordings on double CD and vinyl."
The Quietus (Video)
The Portable Infinite
Pinkflag
W - Document And Eyewitness (1979-1980)
YouTube: Midnight Bahnhof Cafe, Piano Tuner (Keep Strumming Those Guitars), Witness to the Fact, Relationship, 5/10, Underwater Experiences, Safe - Lorries, Our Swimmer Versions Second Length + Catapult 30 from Crazy About Love EP

2009 January: Wire, 2012 January: On the Box 1979., 2013 September: Chairs Missing (1978), 2014 June: 154 (1979).

Blues Masters, Vol. 2: Postwar Chicago Blues

"Excellent 18 track compendium of all the major movers and shakers who helped shape the Chicago blues scene in the 50s. Everyone is well represented here, and major stars like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf stand next to behind-the-scenes geniuses like Earl Hooker and Jody Williams for an interesting, and accurate, blend."
allmusic
amazon
YouTube: Eddie Boyd - Five Long Years (Live), Magic Sam ~ All Your Love / Lookin' Good (Live), Howlin Wolf - Smokestack Lightning (Live), Baby Face Leroy Trio - Rollin' And Tumblin', All Your Love (I Miss Loving) - Otis Rush, Jody Williams - You May, Muddy Waters - I Just Want To Make Love To You, Jimmy Rogers - Thats All Right, Little Walter - Off The Wall, Sonny Boy Williamson - Don't Start Me Talkin', Johnny Shines & Walter Horton - Evening Sun, Bo Diddley - I Am A Man, Sweet Woman (From Maine)- Robert Lockwood, Jr., Mama Talk to Your Daughter - J.B. Lenoir, Jimmy Reed - Bright Lights, Big City, Buddy Guy - First Time I Met The Blues, Blue Guitar - Earl Hooker, Junior Wells - Little By Little

"Suspicion" - Terry Stafford (1964)

"One-hit wonder Terry Stafford was known for his Elvis sound-alike single 'Suspicion,' which became a Top Five smash even at the height of Beatlemania in 1964. Stafford was born in Hollis, OK, on November 22, 1941, and grew up in Amarillo, TX. He moved to Los Angeles after high school to pursue a singing career and performed at various local dances and social events. He got the chance to record a demo and chose 'Suspicion,' an album track from Elvis Presley's Pot Luck LP (1962)."
allmusic
Wikipedia
YouTube: "Suspicion"

Rudy Burckhardt Films: 1936-1999

Circles, 1939
"... Rudy Burckhardt is well known for his cityscape photographs and what's best in the films is an extension of what is great in the photos: the street signage, the criss-crossing motion of people walking in the street, the buzz and hum of the sidewalk. The DVD collection also includes a selection of Burckhardt's zany narrative films, starring Edwin Denby, John Ashbery, Mimi Gross, Alex Katz, Neil Welliver, Larry Rivers, Jane Freilicher, Paul Bowles, Aaron Copland, John Latouche, Fairfield Porter, Anne Waldman, Virgil Thomson, Yoshiko Chuma, Grazia Della-Terza, Douglas Dunn, Harry Sheppard, and Red Grooms, among others, and music or texts by Joe Brainard, Kenneth Koch, Frank O'Hara, and Ashbery."
Jacket2
Rudy Can’t Fail
A Simple Representation of What Is: Rudy Burckhardt
Heartland: Rudy Burckhardt Films [DVD]
vimeo: Trailer for Rudy Burckhardt Films

2013 December: Rudy Burckhardt

The Shadows Took Shape

Cyrus Kabiru. African Guitar (from the C-Stunners series), 2012
"One part a literary subgenre of sci-fi, pioneered by the likes of Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler, and one part cross-cultural, interdisciplinary aesthetic movement, Afrofuturism — a term coined by cultural critic Mark Dery in his 1994 essay “Black to the Future“— can be tricky to describe. The Studio Museum in Harlem’s current exhibition, The Shadows Took Shape includes a diverse range of 29 artists, featuring painting, sculpture, photography and video, all comfortably drawn under Afrofuturism’s spacious umbrella. Drawing on Afrocentric imagery, cultural references, experiences and concerns, Afrofuturism as articulated in The Shadows Took Shape seems as much a cross-cultural political statement on historiography as it is about conceptualizing the future."
He Who Controls the Past: Highlights from “The Shadows Took Shape” at the Studio Museum
Open Culture: Sun Ra’s Full Lecture & Reading List From His 1971 UC Berkeley Course, “The Black Man in the Cosmos” (Video)
NY Times: Going Beyond Blackness, Into the Starry Skies
'The Shadows Took Shape' Tackles Race In Past, Present And Sci-Fi Future
amazon: The Shadows Took Shape (Lost Reel 3) - Sun Ra

Stories of Change – Beyond the ‘Arab Spring’

Mahmoud Khaled, Egypt
"World Press Photo, the Dutch non-profit foundation has just announced the release of Stories of Change – Beyond the ‘Arab Spring’, a book and online presentation. Stories of Change offers a unique, intimate perspective on everyday life in five North African countries: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. The World Press Photo Academy ran a two-year training program for young photojournalists and multimedia makers from the region to support them in advancing their storytelling skills. The results are fantastic and the way they’ve been brought together via the  website application work really well."
World Press Photo
Stories of Change – Beyond the ‘Arab Spring’ (Video)

2013 March: Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of North African Literature
Algeria - 2011 February: Raï, 2011 November: The Battle of Algiers (1957), 2012 February: An Intro To Rebel Hip-Hop Of The Arab Revolutions
Egypt - 2011 February: TNR's Egypt Coverage, 2011 February: Egypt Burning - Al Jazeera, 2011 December: The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell, 2013 March: First Look: Graffiti and The Egyptian Revolution, 2013 September: Villa that inspired Lawrence Durrell faces demolition, as Egypt allows heritage to crumble, 2014 February: Cairo: Images of Transition. Perspectives on Visuality in Egypt 2011-2013
Morocco - 2010 February: Paul Bowles (1910-1999) UbuWeb, 2013 September: Kassidat: Raw 45s from Morocco, 2014 March: Yto Barrada

This and That - Norma Cole

"... I think to myself again that I would like someday to read this memoir. Maybe in the summer—still thinking of summertime as 'halcyon' days. I look up 'halcyon' just to see if it’s still there. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary tells me that as a noun, it’s a kingfisher (now I need to reread [Charles] Olson’s 'Kingfishers,' What does not change / is the will to change); and as an adjective it’s calm, peaceful, happy & golden. Ah. But a kingfisher. It is actually 'a bird identified with the kingfisher and held in ancient legend to nest at sea about the time of the winter solstice and to calm the waves during incubation.'"
Poetry Foundation
Poetry Foundation: "The Kingfishers" By 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, 2013 November: A Guide to The Maximus Poems of Charles Olson.

Live at The Cafe Au Go Go - The Blues Project (1965)

Wikipedia - "Live at The Cafe Au Go Go is the debut album by the American band The Blues Project, recorded live during the Blues Bag four-day concert on the evenings of November 24-27, 1965 at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York City. The band scaled down their usual lengthy arrangements for the album due to time constraints and record label wariness."
Wikipedia
allmusic
Live at The Cafe Au Go Go – The Blues Project (Video)
IT'S ALL THE STREETS YOU CROSSED NOT SO LONG AGO
YouTube: Blues Project -- Cafe au Go Go, I Want To Be Your Driver, Alberta (NYC Live 1965), Violets Of Dawn, The Way My Baby Walks (NYC Live 1965), Catch The Wind (NYC Live 1965)

2009 February: Al Kooper, 2011 September: The Blues Project, 2012 January: Child Is Father to the Man - Blood, Sweat & Tears , 2013 April: I Stand Alone, 2013 January: Cafe Au Go Go.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul - Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1974)

Wikipedia - "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a 1974 West German film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and starring Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem. The film won two awards at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival[1] and is considered to be one of Fassbinder's most powerful works. Brigitte Mira received the German Film Award for her performance. ... Ali (Salem), is a Moroccan Gastarbeiter (guest worker) in his late thirties, and Emmi (Mira), is a 60-year-old widowed cleaning woman. They meet when Emmi ducks inside a bar, driven by the rain and drawn by the exotic Arabic music (Al Asfouryeh by Sabah) she says she has heard so often on her walk home from work. A woman in the bar (Katharina Herberg) who is part of Ali's Arabic-speaking cohort tauntingly suggests Ali ask Emmi ('the old woman') to dance, and Emmi accepts. A strange and unlikely friendship develops, then a romance and soon they are living together in Emmi's flat."
Wikipedia
Criterion (Video)
Roger Ebert
Reverse Shot
Bright Lights Film Journal
YouTube: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

2014 May: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 2014 June: Effi Briest (1974).

Curtis Mayfield - There's No Place Like America Today (1975)

"The title is intended in an ironic way, as illustrated not only by the cover -- a grim parody of late-'40s/early-'50s advertising imagery depicting white versus black social reality -- but the grim yet utterly catchy and haunting opening number, 'Billy Jack.' A song about gun violence that was years ahead of its time, it's scored to an incisive horn arrangement by Richard Tufo. 'When Seasons Change' is a beautifully wrought account of the miseries of urban life that contains elements of both gospel and contemporary soul. ... The album doesn't really have as clearly delineated a body of songs as Mayfield's earlier topical releases, but it's in the same league with his other work of the period and represents him near his prime as a composer."
allmusic
W - There's No Place Like America Today
NPR: You've Never Heard Curtis Mayfield's 'There's No Place Like America Today'?! (Video)
YouTube: There's No Place Like America Today (1975)
01. Billy Jack 06:04 02. When Seasons Change 05:23 03. So In Love 05:12 04. Jesus 06:10 05. Blue Monday People 04:47 06. Hard Times 03:43 07. Love To The People 04:03

2013 June: Roots (1971), 2014 May: Super Fly (1972).

Soviet Ghosts: The Soviet Union Abandoned: A Communist Empire in Decay

"The countries of the former Eastern bloc are full of abandoned monuments to the glory of the Soviet Union. Risking arrest and radiation, photographer Rebecca Litchfield took a road trip through the ruined hospitals, barracks, prisons and spy stations to produce a haunting ghost story in bricks and mortar."
Guardian
Photos Of The Old Soviet Union Are Haunting But Alluring
amazon