The Residents - "My Window" (2005)

"Steven said, 'Little Ted was dead'
I read in a letter today
The same for Monica's monkey he said
Quietly it passed away

Mister Coo Coo has fallen asleep
His eyes were black and his beak was brown
Mister Coo Coo has fallen asleep
But soon his home will be underground

The wind was cold and the world was old
When I went to my window today
The sky was dark as a hopeless heart
When I went to my window today"
YouTube: "My Window"

In Chile’s National Stadium, Dark Past Shadows Copa América Matches

"SANTIAGO, Chile — A haunting yellowish glow radiates from the tiny section of empty wooden benches and crumbling concrete behind the north goal at Estadio Nacional. All around this space there is noise: 47,000 soccer fans screaming and jumping in delight as Chile’s national team plays Ecuador in the opening game of the Copa América. But no one sits on those benches. They are reserved in perpetuity, a somber memorial to the thousands of people who were beaten and tortured here 42 years ago in the home of Chilean soccer. Estadio Nacional, the site of six games in this year’s Copa América, including the final on July 4, is perhaps the most infamous sports arena in the world. For nearly two months after the Sept. 11, 1973, military coup that overthrew Chile’s democratically elected Marxist president, the stadium served as a makeshift prison camp where as many as 20,000 men and women suffered at the hands of a military junta, led by the right-wing army chief, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, that had seized control of Chile. ..."
NY Times

The "Blonde On Blonde" Missing Pictures

"This page shows the pictures on the gatefold sleeve of the vinyl release of 1966’s Blonde On Blonde that have not made it into the regular CD insert (the artwork for the gold CD is different as shown below). If you know who any of these people are, please contact me or make a posting to my Facebook page. The inside layout was revised in the USA from 1968 onwards to remove the picture of Claudia Cardinale, but printings outside the USA preserved the original layout. Both the 2002 re-release of the US mono mix of Blonde On Blonde by Sundazed and the 2010 re-release of the mono set by Columbia/Legacy/Sony Music use the 7-photo picture shown above, they have not managed to get permission to reproduce the original sleeve. For more details see International Mono Releases. ..."
Bob Dylan's Officially Released Rarities and Obscurities
Searching For A Gem
Missing Blonde on Blonde Photographs
Blonde on Blonde. The Record That Can't Be Set Straight. Part II - The Versions in Detail
Part II - The Versions in Detail

2010 August: Blonde on Blonde (1966), 2011 February: "I Want You", 2013 July: ‘Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’ | Classic Tracks, 2015 April: "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" (1966).

John Ashbery & Guy Maddin: Collages

John Ashbery, The Painter, 2014, collage, 15" x 20 1/2".
"The Tibor de Nagy Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new collages by celebrated poet John Ashbery and acclaimed avant-garde filmmaker Guy Maddin. Each artist will be represented by a group of collages completed within the last year. This is the fourth gallery exhibition to focus on Ashbery’s collages since his solo debut in 2008. Maddin and Ashbery were mutual fans from a distance until they were introduced a few years ago. Soon they were collaborating. ... When talking about their shared love of collage-making, Maddin remarked '…I suppose this gluey and scissory medium is where the sensibilities of each other’s chosen fields come closest…where we unroll for the public the secret blueprints for the little visual collisions…'"
Tibor de Nagy Gallery
Paris Review: Gluey and Scissory
Paris Review: Eleven Collages - John Ashbery
'The Forbidden Room': Sundance Review

2011 July: John Ashbery - Postcard Collages, 2012 January: John Ashbery - Recent Collages

THE EARTH MOVES. A documentary about Einstein on the Beach.

"New film about Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, Einstein on the Beach, and the connection between physics, opera, and human imagination. ... Iconic, groundbreaking, game changing, genre defying––these are just a few phrases used to describe Einstein on the Beach, a rarely performed avant-garde opera created by composer Philip Glass and director Robert Wilson. Called an 'opera' because no other term comes close, the four and a half hour work breaks all of the rules of conventional opera and abandons narrative and traditional orchestral arrangements. Through Einstein on the Beach, Glass and Wilson reshaped the old and classical form of opera into something completely new. Over the last 35 years, four productions of Einstein on the Beach have toured across the globe from New York and Tokyo to Paris and Melbourne. The work was revolutionary when it was first performed and is now considered one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th century. ..."
kickstarter (Video)

2011 May: Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera (1985)

"Fine and Mellow" - Billie Holiday (1957)

"... The show’s performance of 'Fine and Mellow' reunited Billie Holiday with her estranged long-time friend and stirring collaborator Lester Young for the final time. Jazz critic Nat Hentoff, who was involved in the show, recalled that during rehearsals, they kept to opposite sides of the room. Young was very weak, and Hentoff told him to skip the big band section of the show and that he could sit while performing in the group with Holiday. During the performance of 'Fine and Mellow', Webster played the first solo. 'Then', Hentoff remembered: Lester got up, and he played the purest blues I have ever heard, and [he and Holiday] were looking at each other, their eyes were sort of interlocked, and she was sort of nodding and half–smiling. It was as if they were both remembering what had been—whatever that was. And in the control room we were all crying. When the show was over, they went their separate ways. Within two years, both Young and Holiday had died."
Fine and Mellow » Billie Holiday
YouTube: Fine and mellow (1957)

2010 April: Billie Holiday, 2014 December: "Strange Fruit" (1939), 2015 February: The Hunting of Billie Holiday

Summer of '49 - David Halberstam

"For people in their 50's now, the summer of 1949 was the morning of life, when to be young (and a Yankee fan) was very heaven. That summer was supposed to belong to the Boston Red Sox, with Casey Stengel, thought to be a clown, newly installed as Yankee manager, and Joe DiMaggio out of the opening-day lineup with bone spurs in his foot. It was, as a broadcaster observes in this irresistible sports history, 'the last moment of innocence in American life.' The book's author, David Halberstam, adds that the pace of living would soon accelerate 'from the combination of endless technological breakthroughs and undreamed-of affluence in ordinary homes.' The opening game of the World Series that autumn would be the first baseball game televised to a mass audience, so the character of the game would soon change. ..."
NY Times
Homerunweb
ESPN: "Summer of '49" by David Halberstam
amazon

Leon Bridges

Wikipedia - "Leon Bridges is an American gospel and soul singer from Fort Worth, Texas. ... Bridges began writing and performing 1950s and '60s-style soul music that was described by Austin 360 as 'a transmission straight from the heart.' He began to attract followers and his break into the music industry has been attributed to a run-in he had at a bar with White Denim guitarist Austin Jenkins. The duo discussed clothing and a few weeks later Jenkins and his bandmate Joshua Block ran into Bridges during a performance in north Texas. It was Bridges's performance of 'Coming Home' that caught the attention of Block and Jenkins. Bridges worked on his first few tracks with Jenkins and Block as producers. They were recording an album with vintage equipment, using an artist with an authentic, old sound."
Wikipedia
NPR: First Listen: Leon Bridges, 'Coming Home' (Video)
facebook, twitter
YouTube: Coming Home, Better Man, There She Goes, Chain Gang (Sam Cooke Cover), I Was Wrong / Smooth Sailing - Paris, Mai 2015, Flowers - The Depot, Lisa Sawyer, My Love Stays

A Community Mural Festival in NYC, Highlights From Welling Court 2015

Icy & Sot
"An annual mural tradition of non-pretense, New York hosted the 6th Annual Welling Court mural festival this weekend in a working class neighborhood in Queens, thanks to a grassroots couple who hustle to match artists with walls and opportunity. More than a hundred artists, whose styles span the graffiti-urban art-street art spectrum, participate every year in this community event that eschews the creeping fingers of commercial interests and the pontificating tongues of the art critics. That is not the point here. That’s not why you fell in love with Street Art and the unvarnished expression of the creative spirit. ..."
Brooklyn Street Art

Ellis Island

PASSAGES Immigrants at Ellis Island awaiting a ferry to the city.
Wikipedia - "... In the 35 years before Ellis Island opened, over eight million immigrants arriving in New York City had been processed by New York State officials at Castle Garden Immigration Depot in Lower Manhattan, just across the bay. ... Artesian wells were dug, and landfill was hauled in from incoming ships' ballast and from construction of New York City's subway tunnels, which doubled the size of Ellis Island to over six acres. While the building was under construction, the Barge Office nearby at the Battery was used for immigrant processing. The first federal immigrant inspection station was an enormous three-story-tall structure, with outbuildings, built of Georgia pine, containing all of the amenities that were thought to be necessary. It opened with celebration on January 1, 1892. ..."
Wikipedia (Video)
NPS: Ellis Island - History & Culture
History (Video)
Scholastic: Ellis Island Interactive Tour With Facts, Pictures, Video (Video)
NPR: For New Immigrants To The U.S., Ellis Island Still Means A Lot (Video)
Scholastic: Virtual Field Trip to Ellis Island

2011 August: Monk Meredith - "Ellis Island" (1981)

Small Press / Mimeograph Revolution, 1940s–1970s

Thomas Edison Stencil Duplicator 1940: mimeograph
"We are pleased to offer for sale a captivating and important research collection of little magazines and other printed materials that represent, chronicle, and document the proliferation of avant-garde, underground small press publications from the forties to the seventies. The starting point for this collection, 'A Secret Location on the Lower East Side,' is the acclaimed New York Public Library exhibition and catalog from 1998, curated by Steve Clay and Rodney Phillips, which documented a period of intense innovation and experimentation in American writing and literary publishing by exploring the small press and mimeograph revolutions. ..."
Granary Books

2010 November: The Great Mimeograph Revolution

20 years of space photos: an oral history of Astronomy Picture of the Day

"Try to name as many websites as you can that are more than 20 years old. It's not that easy, right? As someone who was around for the arrival of the World Wide Web, even I have trouble remembering what was around in those early days. Google didn't start until 1997. Angelfire and Craigslist launched in 1996. Others, like Pets.com, didn't make it. But 20 years ago this week, in an office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, gamma ray astronomers Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell created a simple website that still thrives today: the Astronomy Picture of the Day, or APOD."
The Verge

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Nocturama (2003)

"Until 1997, The Nick Cave Songbook read like a set of William Blake Mad Libs filled in by undertakers, jilted lovers and John Wayne Gacy, with a few American folk covers thrown in for variety. Cave had built his career and reputation on twenty glorious years of human misery; God was an alien creature to be feared, and true love was just the first step toward some poor soul meeting a gruesome end. But then, after the grisly Murder Ballads LP, it seems Nick and Jesus sat down and sorted out their differences. With The Boatman's Call and No More Shall We Part, the anger of Cave's youth had finally lapsed into spiritual angst; murderous desire had given way to simple longing. ..."
Pitchfork
W - Nocturama
allmusic
YouTube: Nocturama (2003)

2008 August: Nick Cave, 2010 November: Henry Lee - Nick Cave & PJ Harvey, 2011 March: The Boatman's Call, 2011 December: B-Sides & Rarities, 2012 January: Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - White Lunar, 2013 January: "We No Who U R", 2013 April: No More Shall We Part, 2013 June: The Secret Life Of The Love Song/The Flesh Made Word (1999), 2013 October: The Abattoir Blues Tour (2007), 2014 March: Push the Sky Away (2013), 2014 May: Live from KCRW (2013), 2014 July: I Am the Real Nick Cave, 2014 March: God Is In The House (2001).

America Is Hard to See

Charles Demuth (1883-1935), My Egypt, 1927
"Drawn entirely from the Whitney Museum of American Art’s collection, America Is Hard to See takes the inauguration of the Museum’s new building as an opportunity to reexamine the history of art in the United States from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. Comprising more than six hundred works, the exhibition elaborates the themes, ideas, beliefs, and passions that have galvanized American artists in their struggle to work within and against established conventions, often directly engaging their political and social contexts. Numerous pieces that have rarely, if ever, been shown appear alongside beloved icons in a conscious effort to unsettle assumptions about the American art canon. ..."
Whitney Museum of American Art
[PDF] Whitney Museum of American Art - Press Office
New Yorker: Seeing Music. By Alex Ross.
NY Times: Review: New Whitney Museum’s First Show, ‘America Is Hard to See’
WSJ: ‘America Is Hard to See’ Review: Old Favorites in Provocative New Company
At the New Whitney Museum, America Is Actually Very Easy to See

Queens Jazz Trail Map

"While New Orleans may boast that it is the 'birthplace of jazz,' New York City's borough of Queens has its own proud claim: it has been the 'home of jazz,' the residence of choice for hundreds of the music's leading players. The award-winning Queens Jazz Trail map (originally commissioned by Flushing Town Hall) shows the different neighborhoods and sites that are part of this hidden jazz history. Featuring portraits of jazz greats and drawings of their houses, this pictorial map makes a beautiful poster. The back of the map contains a short history of jazz in Queens; the addresses of homes once occupied by jazz musicians; and sites of current interest to jazz fans. ..."
Ephemera Press

Red Army (2014)

"... This stirring, crazy story — a Russian novel of Tolstoyan sweep and Gogol-esque absurdity — is recounted in 'Red Army,' Gabe Polsky’s jaunty collage of a documentary. Mr. Polsky is a tireless researcher and a dogged interviewer, sometimes to the annoyance of his subjects. In an early sequence, his pushiness earns a raised middle finger from the great defenseman Vyacheslav Fetisov, but Mr. Fetisov’s occasionally grumpy participation is crucial to the film. As handsome as any movie star, thoughtful and temperamental, he is both narrator and hero, and serves as a guide to the curious, vanished world of high-level Communist athletics. Mr. Fetisov was at the core of a team distinguished by speed and fluidity. The architect of their approach was Anatoly Tarasov, a coach whose roly-poly physique seemed at odds with his devotion to grace and finesse on the ice."
NY Times - A. O. Scott
Wikipedia
Another New Trailer for Gabe Polsky's USSR Hockey Doc 'Red Army'
Huffington Post: Documentary Showcases USSR's Hockey Culture (Video) 20:00
YouTube: Red Army Official Trailer #1, CLIP - I Was Born In The Soviet Union

The Art of Boxing: George Bellows

"Club Night", 1907
"George Bellows is of the Ashcan School and the school of hard knocks: both institutions are rooted in realism. Bellows' interest in boxing coincided with the rise of other realists, though of different dimensions. The author Jack London and president Teddy Roosevelt were ascendent, immensely popular figures with turn of the century, hardscrabble Americans. At the time London was writing, Roosevelt was bullying, and Bellows was painting, the sport of boxing was drawing immense crowds across the country. There is a raw, primal intensity to Bellows' paintings of boxing matches. With slashing brushstrokes of thickly applied paint, he is able to capture the animal violence and muscular brutality of man. The energy and intensity of the bout is captured in both the clashing pugilists and in the frenzied crowds surrounding the ring. 'The atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves,' Bellows once remarked. ..."
The Mantle
NGA: The Art of Boxing—George Bellows at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (Video)

William S. Burroughs - The Electronic Revolution (1971)

Wikipedia - "The Electronic Revolution is an essay collection by William S. Burroughs that was first published in 1970 by Expanded Media Editions in West Germany. A second edition, published in 1971 in Cambridge, England, contained additional French translation by Henri Chopin. The book is available in its entirety in later editions of The Job, a book of interviews conducted by Daniel Odier that elaborate on the topics contained therein. The book is divided into two parts. Part one, entitled 'The Feedback from Watergate to the Garden of Eden' invokes Alfred Korzybski’s views characterising man as 'the time binding machine' due to his ability to write. ... Part two, 'Electronic Revolution' concerns the power of alphabetic non-pictorial languages to control people. ..."
Wikipedia
[PDF] The Electronic Revolution - Swiss Institute
[PDF] Feedback: Media Parasites and the Circuits of Communication (Dada and Burroughs) - Arndt Niebisch
The London Consortium » Scratches, Traces, Spacings

2009 May: Cut-up technique - 1, 2010 March: Cut-up technique, 2010 December: The Evolution of the Cut-Up Technique in My Own Mag, 2012 August: The Nova Trilogy, 2014 February: William Burroughs at 100, 2014 September: The Ticket That Exploded, 2014 November: What Is Schizo-Culture? A Classic Conversation with William S. Burroughs.

The Sketchbook Project Presents Online 17,000 Sketchbooks, Created by Artists from 135 Countries

"If you love something give it away. If it doesn’t come back to you, it was never really yours… Or, it’s a labor of love you created under the auspices of the Brooklyn Art Library, with the full knowledge that giving it away is a cost of participation. Every year, thousands of artists, from the experienced to the fledgling, pay a nominal fee to fill a 5×7 sketchbook with a custom barcode. Upon completion, the books are to be mailed back to the one room Art Library, to become part of the permanent collection, currently over 34,000 volumes strong (17,000 of which appear online). Visitors receive free library cards that allow them to view as many volumes as they like in-house, three at a time. Artists willing to cough up a slightly more substantial fee can have their book digitized for online viewing at The Sketchbook Project. ..."
Open Culture
The Sketchbook Project
New Yorker: Inside a Stranger’s Sketchbook

Lightnin' Hopkins - The Texas Bluesman (1967)

"Lightnin' Hopkins had already recorded dozens, if not hundreds, of sides for various labels by the time he hooked up with Chris Strachwitz in the late '50s, but his recordings for Strachwitz's Arhoolie label are some of the rawest and strongest of his career. Originally released in 1968, this classic slab of Texas blues is reissued here on high quality vinyl with an exact reproduction of the paste-on sleeve. Includes limited time download card. 'Sam Hopkins was a Texas country bluesman of the highest caliber whose career began in the 1920s and stretched all the way into the 1980s. Along the way, Hopkins watched the genre change remarkably, but he never appreciably altered his mournful Lone Star sound, which translated onto both acoustic and electric guitar. Hopkins' nimble dexterity made intricate boogie riffs seem easy, and his fascinating penchant for improvising lyrics to fit whatever situation might arise made him a beloved blues troubadour.'"
Elusive Disc
Spotify
DailyMotion: The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins (1968)
YouTube: Once Was A Gambler, Meet You At The Chicken Shack, Bald Headed Woman, Tom Moore Blues, Watch My Fingers/a>, Love Like A Hydrant, Slavery Time, I Would If I Could, Bud Russell Blues, Come On Baby, Money Taker, Mama Blues, My Woman, Send My Child Home To Me, Have you ever loved a woman, Black And Evil

Barista

Wikipedia - "A barista ... is a person, usually a coffeehouse employee, who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks. ... Baristas generally operate a commercial espresso machine, and their role is preparing and pulling the shot; the degree to which this is automated or done manually varies significantly, ranging from push-button operation to an involved manual process. Espresso is a notoriously finicky beverage and good manual espresso making is considered a skilled task. Further, preparation of other beverages, particularly milk-based drinks such as cappuccinos and lattes, but also non-espresso coffee such as drip or press pot, requires additional work and skill for effective frothing, pouring and most often latte art. The barista usually has been trained to operate the machine and to prepare the coffee based on the guidelines of the roaster or shop owner, while more experienced baristas may have discretion to vary preparation or experiment."
Wikipdia
Barista
Inside The Barista Class
YouTube: il barista, How to Make a Latte Art Heart | Perfect Coffee, Arte Latte - Especialistas del Café S.A.

2010 September: Espresso, April: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, 2013 May: Coffeehouse

ROB - Funky Rob Way (1973)

"Benin’s Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou may have been the most sonically prescient African electric band of the 1970s. The collective’s amalgam of Afro-beat, highlife and ancient local rhythms remains fresh, timeless even, nearly 40 years on, a perhaps unintended map or blueprint for later — and geographically distant — musical journeys and constructions. The band’s first full-length album, made in 1973 under the leadership of singer/frontman Vincent Ahehehinnou, offers evidence of this from the very first track. ... Fellow Analog Africa reissue Funky Rob Way by Ghanaian singer ROB is a very different amalgam, but perhaps one of ’70s West Africa’s strangest and most fascinating albums. Under the musical direction of Ghanaian Army highlife bandleader and arranger Amponsah Rockson, ROB variously murmurs, croons and exhorts his way through spacious — and sometimes spartan — disco/Afro-beat tracks. There’s a kind of radical cosmic funk on display here: Repeating elements are staggered, shifted, and shuffled with sharp precision; wah-wah and other ’70s electronic textures are ubiquitous, utilized in adventurous and exciting ways."
Dusted Magazine (Video)
ParisDJs
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: AFROFUNK 70s, More, Boogie On

Astor Piazzolla - Libertango (1972)

"While you might not be familiar with the term 'nuevo tango', you'll probably recognise this catchy number from Argentine composer Piazzolla. He revolutionised tango music, by incorporating elements of jazz and classical music into his traditional tango compositions. Piazzolla is undoubtedly the master of the genre, and his 'Libertango' (a portmanteau that incorporates 'Libertad' and 'Tango') is one of the most performed of his works. Spicy rhythms and a fiendish melody have kept this one at the forefront of modern Tango, with countless brilliant interpretations to explore. It even features an accordion, adding a folky element to the music."
Classic fm (Video)
Wikipedia
Discogs
Spotify
YouTube: Libertango (1974)[full album]

2008 March: Astor Piazzolla, 2010 September: Astor Piazzolla Remixed, 2011 February: Adios Nonino, 2011 April: Milonga del angel, 2011 August: 1985. Utrecht, Netherlands, 2014 May: Live at The Montreal Jazz Festival (1986).

The Postcard Age

"In the decades around 1900, postcards were Twitter, e-mail, Flickr, and Facebook, all wrapped into one. A postcard craze swept the world, as billions of cards were bought and mailed, or just pasted into albums. Many famous artists turned to the new medium, but one of the great pleasures of postcards is how some of the most beautiful and interesting cards were made by artists whose names we barely know. This unprecedented exhibition traces how big historical and cultural themes of the modern age—enthralling, exciting, and sometimes disturbing—played out on the postcard’s tiny canvas. 'The Postcard Age' features about 400 cards by a wide variety of artists and publishers from throughout Europe and the Americas. It is arranged not by style or country, but by theme, with sections devoted to, among other things, urban life, the changing role of women, sports, celebrity, new technologies, the stylish collectors’ cards of the art nouveau, and World War I."
MFA
MFA: Preview the Exhibition
WSJ: Cards To Write Home About
amazon

Cabaret Voltaire - #7885 (Electropunk to Technopop 1978-1985)

"No story of the Sheffield music scene is complete without mention of Cabaret Voltaire, the post-punk outfit whose approach to electronic music was so feral it felt like you could hear it degrading in real time. The band formed in 1973, a time when one of their formative influences, Roxy Music, were in their Eno-inspired pomp. Fired up on a diet of J.G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, and Brion Gysin, Cabaret Voltaire borrowed their name from a Zurich nightclub that was a gathering spot for pivotal figures in the Dada movement, and by 1974 settled into a steady lineup of Richard Kirk, Stephen Mallinder, and Chris Watson. Some of their abstract work from that period was gathered together on a three-disc collection, Methodology ‘74/’78, released by Mute in 2002. But their story really starts in 1978, with the band recording out of their own Western Works headquarters, where they adhered to a do-it-yourself ethos that would link them to the bracket of groups loosely banded under the post-punk banner."
Pitchfork (Video)
Mute Records (Video)
W - Cabaret Voltaire
YouTube: #7885 (Electropunk to Technopop 1978-1985)

Aspen no. 3 - The Pop Art issue

"Eleven items, all but two of them numbered (items 9 and 10 unnumbered in the original), plus loose advertisements. Designed by Andy Warhol and David Dalton. Published December 1966 by Roaring Fork Press, NYC."
Aspen no. 3

Black Hole Hunters

"Sheperd Doeleman’s project to take the first-ever picture of a black hole wasn’t going well. For one thing, his telescope kept filling with snow. For two weeks at the end of March, Volcan Sierra Negra, an extinct 15,000-foot volcano also known as Tliltepetl that looms over the landscape in southern Mexico, was the nerve center for the largest telescope ever conceived, a network of antennas that reaches from Spain to Hawaii to Chile. Known as the Event Horizon Telescope, named after the point of no return in a black hole, its job was to see what has been until now unseeable: an exquisitely small, dark circle of nothing, a tiny shadow in the glow of radiation at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It is there that astronomers think lurks a supermassive black hole, a trap door into which the equivalent of four million suns has evidently disappeared. ..."
NY Times (Video)

The Fall of Paris: The Siege and The Commune 1870-71

"Alistair Horne's The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune, 1870-71 is the first book of Alistair Horne's trilogy, which includes The Price of Glory and To Lose a Battle and tells the story of the great crises of the rivalry between France and Germany. The collapse of France in 1870 had an overwhelming impact - on Paris, on France and on the rest of the world. People everywhere saw Paris as the centre of Europe and the hub of culture, fashion and invention. ... In this brilliant study of the Siege of Paris and its aftermath, Alistair Horne researches first-hand accounts left by official observers, private diarists and letter-writers to evoke the high drama of those ten tumultuous months and the spiritual and physical agony that Paris and the Parisians suffered as they lost the Franco-Prussian war. ..."
WordsWorth Books
W - Siege of Paris (1870–71)
Franco Prussian War (Video)
amazon

Jane Freilicher (1924-2014)

Studio on Long Island
"This week brought the very sad news that the artist Jane Freilicher has passed away at the age of 90. Freilicher was, of course, a major, founding figure at the heart of the New York School, who was central to the movement and community from its very beginnings in the early 1950s right down to the present. Some fine obituaries and appreciations have already appeared — in the New York Times and in ARTNews, among others — and I’m sure more are to come. Freilicher’s importance to the poets and aesthetics of the New York School is too great and extensive to encapsulate in a blog post. But I do want to note how often the word 'muse' comes up in discussions of Freilicher and New York School poetry. ..."
Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets
From the A.i.A. Archive: John Ashbery on Jane Freilicher (May-June 1975)
Painting the Hamptons
Jane Freilicher, Painter and Confidant of the New York School, Dies at 90
ARTFORUM

2014 February: Jane Freilicher

Sun Ra and His Aresktra - New Horizons (1956)

"In 1965, Sun Ra was emerging on the national scene from his home in Chicago as a preeminent progressive little big-band leader. The beginnings of a lengthy and fruitful career were based on the theory of 'living notes,"' and the premise that people wanted something different. New Horizons includes Ra's initial albums for the Transition (Jazz by Sun Ra and Jazz in Transition) and Saturn Research (Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth and Super-Sonic Jazz) labels, which have been reissued previously in part on Delmark, and more thoroughly from the Evidence label. The seeds of a diverse, expansive, revolutionary music style are all here, punctuated by Ra's witty charts and featuring explosive soloists like trumpeter Art Hoyle, tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, trombonist Julian Priester, and baritone saxophonists Pat Patrick and Charles Davis. Each of the 19 selections is bold, beautifully conceived, swings in the tradition, and only hints at things to come when Ra would completely stretch parameters and shatter boundaries. ..."
allmusic
Fresh Sound Records
YouTube: Call For All Demons, "New Horizons: Early Sun Ra"

A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders (1993)

"Though the abstract rappers finally betrayed a few commercial ambitions for Midnight Marauders, the happy result was a smart, hooky record that may not have furthered the jazz-rap fusions of The Low End Theory, but did merge Tribe-style intelligence and reflection with some of the most inviting grooves heard on any early-'90s rap record. The productions, more funky than jazzy, were tighter overall -- but the big improvement, four years after their debut, came with Q-Tip's and Phife Dawg's raps. ... A Tribe Called Quest's Midnight Marauders was commercially successful, artistically adept, and lyrically inventive; the album cemented their status as alternative rap's prime sound merchants, authors of the most original style since the Bomb Squad first exploded on wax."
allmusic
W - Midnight Marauders
Pitchfork
Soundcloud (Video)
UNCOVERED: The Making of A Tribe Called Quest's Midnight Marauders Album Cover (1993) with Art Director Nick Gamma.
Spotify (Video)
YouTube: Midnight Marauders (1993) [Full Album] 54:04

2011 May: A Tribe Called Quest, 2014 October: The Low End Theory (1991).

The Big Gundown - John Zorn plays Ennio Morricone (1985)

Wikipedia - "The Big Gundown is an album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn. It comprises radically reworked covers of tracks by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone. The album is named after a 1966 spaghetti western of the same name, directed by Sergio Sollima, starring Lee Van Cleef, and scored by Morricone. ... In 1985 Zorn had been working in New York City's experimental music scene for almost a decade (the album was originally to be called 'Once Upon a Time in the Lower East Side'), but The Big Gundown launched him to wider prominence. In the notes for the 2000 reissued CD, Zorn describes The Big Gundown as representing a creative breakthrough as well for being the first time he worked extensively with multi-track recording, overdubbing and ornate orchestration. ..."
Wikipedia
allmusic
amazon
YouTune: John Zorn plays Ennio Morricone - The big gundown, Peur sur la ville (Fear Over the City), The Sicilian Clan, Erotico (The Burglars), Once Upon A Time In The West, Svegliaffi & Uccidi, Milano Odea, Battle of Algiers

2009 March: John Zorn, 2010 August: Spillane,  2011 October: Filmworks Anthology : 20 Years of Soundtrack Music, 2012 September: Marc Ribot, 2013 January: Bar Kokhba and Masada, 2013 September: Masada String Trio Sala, 2014 January: Full Concert Jazz in Marciac (2010), 2014 March: "Extraits de Book Of Angels" @ Jazz in Marciac 2008.

Heroes of the Blues Boxed Trading Card Set by R. Crumb

"Blues music laid the foundation for rock and roll. Some of the most well known musicians of early rock such as Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis borrowed heavily from the blues both lyrically and melodically. In this wonderful card set, thirty-six early blues musicians are lovingly depicted by famed cartoonist R. Crumb, with concise biographies on reverse. Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Memphis Minnie, Charley Patton, Jaybird Coleman, Blind Willie Johnson, the Mississippi Sheiks, Sleepy John Estes, Roosevelt Sykes & many others, both giants in the field and obscure. These are printed on heavy card stock and housed in a very cool gift box."
amazon

2008 August: Robert Crumb, 2010 October: Comics No. 1, 2011 October: Pioneers of Country Music Trading Cards, 2012 August: R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection, 2015 May: R. Crumb Describes How He Dropped LSD in the 60s & Instantly Discovered His Artistic Style.

Battle for Brooklyn (2011)

Wikipedia - "Battle for Brooklyn is a 2011 documentary that follows the stories of a Brooklyn neighborhood as the residents fight to save their homes from being destroyed by an impending real estate project. The film attempts to show the unjust outcomes that are possible when moneyed interests partner up with government entities to outweigh the rights of citizens. Set in the years between 2003 and 2011, the story follows graphic designer Daniel Goldstein, the last defiantly remaining homeowner in his building, as he battles Bruce Ratner’s Forest City real estate company and their plans to complete the Atlantic Yards Project in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. The massive building project - according to the filmmakers, the densest real estate development in U.S. history - required the procurement of 22 acres of land, and would bring a sports complex to house the New Jersey Nets along with 16 high-rise buildings to the heart of Brooklyn. Initially tasked with filling the behemoth 22 acre complex was architect Frank Gehry, who NPR calls 'American architecture's prince of wasted space'. ..."
Wikipedia
NPR: Lawful Land Grab Sparks A 'Battle For Brooklyn'
NY Times: Barclays Center (Atlantic Yards)
New documentary 'Battle for Brooklyn' details the fight over the Atlantic Yards project
YouTube: Trailer: Battle for Brooklyn, The Battle For Brooklyn: Eminent Domain Abuse Gone Wild

Jacobin

"Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture. The print magazine is released quarterly and reaches over 10,000 subscribers, in addition to a web audience of 600,000 a month. 'The appearance of Jacobin magazine has been a bright light in dark times. Each issue brings penetrating, lively discussions and analyses of matters of real significance, from a thoughtful left perspective that is refreshing and all too rare. A really impressive contribution to sanity, and hope.' — Noam Chomsky"
Jacobin
W - Jacobin (magazine)
NY Times: A Young Publisher Takes Marx Into the Mainstream
New Left Review
facebook, twitter
YouTube: Jacobin: Stretching the boundaries of the Liberal Left Critique, Bhaskar Sunkara: Beyond the Welfare State

The Kids in the Hall's Scott Thompson on Why Their Comedy Is Timeless

"... One entry you should definitely include, and probably would want to rank fairly high on said list, would be the Canadian-born sketch show The Kids in the Hall, which ran on television both in the Great White North and here in the states for six or seven seasons and had a definite influence on comedy in the late '80s and early '90s. The often-absurd and decidedly hilarious show – which featured the members of the Canadian comedy troupe of the same name – is sometimes overlooked compared to other sketch heavyweights like SNL (both were created and produced by Lorne Michaels) but carved out its own offbeat niche with such unique characters as Simon and Hecubus, Gavin the Annoying Boy, Cabbage Head, The King of Empty Promises, and Mr. Heavyfoot."
Phoenix New Times (Video)
The Kids in the Hall: Better Together
10 episodes that take you inside the weird world of The Kids In The Hall
YouTube: Kids In The Hall Season 1 Episode Pilot

2011 July: Kids in the Hall, 2013 January: The Kids in the Hall - Into the Doors

Musée d'Orsay

Wikipedia - "The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986."
Wikipedia
Musée d'Orsay
YouTube: Paris Musée d'Orsay, Musee d'Orsay - the best online documentary

2013 December: Guide to the Musee D'Orsay

Eddie Boyd

"Few postwar blues standards have retained the universal appeal of Eddie Boyd's 'Five Long Years.' Cut in 1951, Boyd's masterpiece has attracted faithful covers by B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Buddy Guy, and too many other bluesmen to recount here. But Boyd's discography is filled with evocative compositions, often full of after-hours ambience. Like so many Chicago blues stalwarts, Boyd hailed from the fertile Mississippi Delta. The segregationist policies that had a stranglehold on much of the South didn't appeal to the youngster, so he migrated up to Memphis (where he began to play the piano, influenced by Roosevelt Sykes and Leroy Carr). ..."
allmusic
W - Eddie Boyd
Rockabilly
amazon: Eddie Boyd
Spotify: The Complete Recordings 1947-1950
YouTube: Drifting, Kilroy Won't Be Back, Five Long Years (Live), I Had To Let Her Go, Just a Fool, Nothing But Troublea>, Too Bad, Please Help Me, She's The One, Picture In The Frame, Come Home!, Save Her Doctor

Pascal Comelade ‎– La Catedral D'Escuradents

"Unique music from a unique musician. Comelade is a French/Catalan musician who started in electronic music but for over 30 years has specialized in a personalized music that usually features toy instruments. Using simple tools, he always seems to be able to hit the point of a melody. This is a collection from a decade of his work: 1992-2002, taken from many, many otherwise unavailable recordings. Also of interest is that there's always a few famous guests on his albums. If you enjoy his work (I have for many years) and there are gaps in your collection, then this is a great bet. If you are baffled by a grown man and toy pianos, then you should probably move along..."
Wayside Music
Discogs
iTunes
YouTube: The Blank Invasion Of Schizofonics Bikinis, Russian Roulette

2014 June: Pascal Comelade, 2014 September: September Song (2000), 2014 November: El pianista del antifaz (2013), 2015 April: L'argot Du Bruit (1998).

Stéphane Mallarmé

Édouard Manet, Portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé, 1876
Wikipedia - "Stéphane Mallarmé (... 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. Stéphane Mallarmé was born in Paris. He worked as an English teacher and spent much of his life in relative poverty but was famed for his salons, occasional gatherings of intellectuals at his house on the rue de Rome for discussions of poetry, art and philosophy. "
Wikipedia
amazon: Stéphane Mallarmé
Creating a New Language: The Poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé

Believe In A Land Of Love: New Order's Low-Life 30 Years On

"'It's bollocks.' The time is a May Saturday night in Slough in 1985. The scene is the kind of house party that will force the host's parents to question their decision to go away for the weekend. All around is evidence of the evening's excess: crumpled beer cans, overflowing ashtrays, red wine leaving its damage on a carpet. Hapless lads are being rebuffed by girls who know they can do better, and the usual scuffles are occurring at the stereo as compilation tapes struggle to get played in their entirety. Meanwhile, I'm enthusing about New Order's recently released third album, Low-Life to my friend Henry and he's having none of it. ..."
The Quietus (Video)

2009 February: New Order, 2011 May: Movement, 2011 October: Low-Life, 2011 December: Brotherhood, 2012 May: Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division, 2012 September: Power, Corruption & Lies (1983).

Art on Camera: Photographs by Shunk-Kender, 1960–1971

John Baldessari (American, b. 1931). Hands Framing New York Harbor from Pier 18. 1971.
"The photographers Harry Shunk (German, 1924–2006) and János Kender (Hungarian, 1937–2009) worked together under the name Shunk-Kender from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, based first in Paris and then in New York. Shunk-Kender photographed artworks, events, and landmark exhibitions of avant-garde movements of the era, from Nouveau réalisme to Earth art. They were connected with a vibrant art scene that they captured through portraits of artists and participated in through collaborative projects. The roles played by the duo varied from one project to the next. In some cases, Shunk-Kender worked as documentarians, photographing Happenings and performances; in other instances, they were collaborators, acting alongside other artists to realize works of art through photography. ..."
MoMA
Various Artists Pier 54

Patti Smith Polaroids of Artifacts from Virginia Woolf, Arthur Rimbaud, Roberto Bolaño & More

"Polaroid photography has seen a new wave of interest over the past decade, in large part from young photographers looking to do something different from what they can with the digital technology on which they grew up. The other modern practitioners include no less a creator than Patti Smith, who have personally witnessed the format’s appearance, fade, and return. A few years ago, her Polaroid photography reached the galleries, becoming shows and installations in Connecticut and Paris. ..."
Open Culture
amazon: Patti Smith: Camera Solo
Land 250 Polaroid Photographs (Video)

2012 November: Patti Smith: Camera Solo

The Weather Underground (2003)

"In October 1969, hundreds of young people wielding lead pipes and clad in football helmets marched through an upscale Chicago shopping district, pummeling parked cars and smashing shop windows. Thus began the 'Days of Rage,' the first demonstration of the Weathermen, later known as the Weather Underground. Outraged by the Vietnam War and racism in America, this group of former student radicals waged a low-level war against the United States government through much of the 1970s, bombing the Capitol building, breaking Timothy Leary out of prison and finally evading the FBI by going into hiding. In THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, former Weathermen including Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd and David Gilbert speak frankly about the idealist passions and trajectories that transformed them from college activists into the FBI’s Most Wanted. ..."
PBS (Video)
Slate: Notes From the Underground
NY Times: A Trip Back to the Contradictions of the Stormy 60's
W - The Weather Underground (2003)
snagfilms: The Weather Underground (2003) 1:30:00
amazon
YouTube: The Weather Underground - Trailer

Roseanne Cash - King's Record Shop (1987)

Wikipedia - "King's Record Shop is the sixth studio album by American country music singer Rosanne Cash. Released in 1987, it produced four number 1 singles on the Billboard country singles chart. They were 'The Way We Make a Broken Heart', 'If You Change Your Mind', 'Tennessee Flat Top Box' (which was written and originally sung by father Johnny Cash), and 'Runaway Train'. The album is named after King's Record Shop in Louisville, Kentucky, which was owned by Pee Wee King's younger brother, Gene. A photograph of Rosanne Cash standing in the shop's doorway is featured on the cover, though she was never actually at the shop for the photo. Veteran steel guitarist Hank DeVito took the photo of the record shop and one of Rosanne standing as she is in the photo."
Wikipedia
allmusic
Spotify
YouTube: Runaway Train, The Real Me, Run Away Train, Tennessee Flat Top Box, The Way We Make a Broken Heart, If You Change Your Mind

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), 2014 August: Rules of Travel (2003).

Pere Ubu - Street Waves / My Dark Ages (1976)

Street Waves: "I ride a street wave right by her side / And I can hear the city city comin' 'round The things I say hit the air and seem to fall apart / And I can see the faces faces fallin' down / And then I'm gone, gone, gone by her heart // I get a picture of what it'll be like/ I turn the channel round to Channel 43 / I see electricity jump and spark / I see electricity uh real and stark / And then I'm gone, gone, gone by her heart // I ride a street wave right by her side /And I can hear the city city comin' 'round / The things I say hit the air and seem to fall apart / And I can see the faces faces fallin' down / And then I'm gone, gone, gone by her heart / And then I'm gone, gone, gone by her heart"
Song Lyrics
YouTube: Street Waves (Theatre 140, Brussels 1978-05-05), My Dark Ages (I Don't Get Around)

2008 April: Pere Ubu, 2010 July: Pere Ubu - 1, 2012 November: David Thomas And The Pedestrians - Variations On A Theme, 2013 February: Dub Housing, 2014 September: Carnival of Souls (2014).

Cuneiform Press

"For over a decade, Cuneiform Press has specialized in publishing poetry, artists’ books, and books-about-books in the tradition of the independent press. Cuneiform is committed to publishing enduring (and occasionally ephemeral) works that negotiate critical and creative thinking, merging the latest industry trends with historically-informed typographic practices to foreground the state of the book in our contemporary cultural climate. ..."
Cuneiform Press
Catalog: Cuneiform Press
W - Kyle Schlesinger

Russian Modernism: Cross-Currents of German and Russian Art, 1907-1917

Woman in Garden, 1912, Gabriele Münter.
"This exhibition is dedicated to modernist movements in German and Russian art at the beginning of the 20th century. Their development was parallel and often intersected. This is the first exhibition at an American museum to focus exclusively on the important artistic links between these two countries, featuring works by artists Natalia Goncharova, Erich Heckel, Alexei von Jawlensky, Vasily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Mikhail Larionov, and Gabriele Münter, among others. The show will be on view through August 31, 2015. ..."
Neue Galerie
WSJ
NY Times: Review: ‘Russian Modernism’ at Neue Galerie, Figurative Focus With Amorphous Results
amazon

Horace Andy's Dub Box: Rare Dubs 1973-1976

"... Not only is this collection of golden voice reggae icon Horace Andy one of our favorite dub records of all time, it just might be one of our favorite records PERIOD, dub or otherwise...  So rare and rad for someone who continually makes quality and moving music for as many years as Horace Andy has to keep getting better, and pushing boundaries. This record finds Andy at his dubbiest and best. Recorded at all the great Jamaican studios like Channel 1 and King Tubby's with production by Bunny Lee and a band of bad ass and out of control heavyweights: Sly & Robby the rhythm section, Augustus Pablo on keyboards, Tommy McCook on Sax, Earl 'Chinna' Smith on guitar, that's so far beyond simply an all star ensemble."
Aquarius Records
amazon
YouTube: Horace Andy's Dub Box: Rare Dubs 1973-1976

2012 March: Horace Andy + Sly & Robbie - Livin´ It Up, 2013 September: Horace Andy Meets Naggo Morris/Wayne Jarrett -- Mini Showcase (2002).