Robert Stone - Damascus Gate (1998)

"Robert Stone doesn't need the approaching millennium to push him toward fantasies of Armageddon. Since starting out as a novelist in the 1960's he has been loaded for Leviathan, writing with Melvillean chutzpah, his harpoon aimed at the heart of apocalyptic America. But Stone's latest novel is set in Jerusalem in the early 1990's, making manifest the metaphor lurking behind much of his work and raising the stakes of Damascus Gate, which has an emblematic urgency unusual even for a writer of Stone's ambition. Stone's new novel takes its name from one of the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. Though most of the book's characters live in the city's newer neighborhoods, it is the Old City -- with its ancient, uneasy divisions of Muslim, Christian and Jew, and its labyrinthine passageways snaking toward the Temple Mount -- that ignites their imaginations and desires. ..."
NY Times
New Republic: Holy Plots
Al Jadid: Political Novel Set in Jerusalem
amazon

2013 September: Outerbridge Reach (1993), 2015 January: Robert Stone (August 21, 1937 – January 10, 2015)

Ray Agee

"Known primarily for his tough 1963 remake of the blues standard 'Tin Pan Alley' (featuring the moaning lead guitar of Johnny Heartsman) for the tiny Sahara logo, vocalist Ray Agee recorded for a myriad of labels both large and small during the 1950s and '60s without much in the way of national recognition outside his Los Angeles home base. That's a pity -- he was a fine, versatile blues singer whose work deserves a wider audience (not to mention CD reissue). The Alabama native was stricken with polio at age four, leaving Agee with a permanent handicap. After moving to L.A. with his family, he apprenticed with his brothers in a gospel quartet before striking out in the R&B field with a 1952 single for Eddie Mesner's Aladdin Records (backed by saxist Maxwell Davis' band). From there, his discography assumes daunting proportions; he appeared on far too many logos to list (Elko, Spark, Ebb, and Cash among them)."
allmusic
W - Ray Agee
Discogs
YouTube: Top Tracks - Ray Agee, 12 videos
YouTube: Tin Pan Alley, I’m Losing Again, Mr. Clean, Real Real Love, It’s Hard To Explain

Ginane Makki Bacho

"Lebanese artist Ginane Makki Bacho uses a series of sculptures inspired by the brutality of ISIS to reflect on humanity’s innate thirst for violence, questioning what it truly means to be civilised. Ginane Makki Bacho was welding together scrap metal to make a toy truck for her grandson when the idea for her next series struck her. The truck, complete with caterpillar treads made from an old bike chain, reminded her of video footage she’d seen of ISIS convoys – tanks, trucks and motorbikes bristling with armed men and black flags. Bacho never gave the truck to her grandson. Instead, she created two gunmen to place inside it, and began welding an army. ..."
SELECTIONS: The Barbarity of Civilisation (Video)
beirut
Ginane Makki Bacho & Fathallah Zamroud, Material Remains
YouTube: Civilization, Material Remains

Anatomy of a Fascinating Disaster: Fire Walk With Me

"David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me opened in theaters 20 years ago this week. Booed at Cannes and mostly shivved by critics, Lynch’s exploration of the last days of small-town homecoming queen and future MacGuffin Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) — a prequel to the brilliant-then-canceled ABC TV series he’d created with Mark Frost in 1990 — would eventually make back around $4 million of the $10 million a French film-financing company had given Lynch to make it, although it did big business in Japan. Lynch wouldn’t make another feature for five years. (It was his longest-ever vacation from filmmaking, at the time; it’s now been almost six years since the premiere of Inland Empire, although Lynch has been busy making records with Danger Mouse, selling coffee beans on the Internet, directing Dior commercials, and teaching Russell Brand to catch the big fish.) ..."
Grantland (Video)
Review: TWIN PEAKS: THE MISSING PIECES
W - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Telegraph - Fire Walk With Me: the film that almost killed Twin Peaks (Video)
YouTube: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Trailer

2008 September: Twin Peaks, 2010 March: Twin Peaks: How Laura Palmer's death marked the rebirth of TV drama, 2011 October: Twin Peaks: The Last Days, 2014 October: Welcome to Twin Peaks, 2015 June: David Lynch: ‘I’ve always loved Laura Palmer’, 2015 July: Twin Peaks Maps, 2016 May: Hear the Music of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Played..., September: Twin Peaks Tarot Cards For The Magician Who Longs To See Through The Darkness Of Future Past, 2014 September: David Lynch: The Unified Field, 2014 December: David Lynch’s Bad Thoughts - J. Hoberman, 2015 March: Lumière and Company (1995), 2015 April: David Lynch Creates a Very Surreal Plug for Transcendental Meditation, 2015 December: What Is “Lynchian”?.

Long May You Run - The Stills-Young Band (1976)

"Long May You Run is not a Neil Young solo album. It is credited to 'The Stills-Young Band,' which is to say, Stephen Stills and his band with Young added, and the two divide up the songwriting and lead vocals, five for Young, four for Stills. The pairing, though it proved short-lived and had, in fact, ended before this album was released, must have seemed commercially logical. ... Young's songs were pleasant newly written throwaways with the exception of the title track, a trunk song he had written as a tribute to an old car. Stills' compositions seemed more seriously intended, but still were not substantial. The playing, largely handled by the professional sessionman types in Stills' band, was far smoother than what one was accustomed to in a Young album. The result was a listenable record, but not a compelling one, and thus well below Young's usual standard and Stills' best." (Jake Weisman, Wesley Davis)
allmusic
W - "Long May You Run
Discogs
YouTube: Long May You Run (Full album)

2008 February: Neil Young, 2010 April: Neil Young - 1, 2010 April: Neil Young - 2, 2010 May: Neil Young - 3, 2010 October: Neil Young's Sound, 2012 January: Long May You Run: The Illustrated History, 2012 June: Like A Hurricane, 2012 July: Greendale, 2013 April: Thoughts On An Artist / Three Compilations, 2013 August: Heart of Gold, 2014 March: Dead Man (1995), 2014 August: Ragged Glory - Neil Young + Crazy Horse (1990), 2014 November: Broken Arrow (1996), 2015 January: Rust Never Sleeps (1979), 2015 January: Neil Young the Ultimate Guide, 2015 March: Old Black, 2015 September: Zuma (1975), 2016 January: On the Beach (1973), 2016 April: Sleeps with Angels (1994), 2016 November: Eldorado (EP - 1989).

Source: Music of the Avant Garde, 1966-1974

"Wikipedia - "Source: Music of the Avant-Garde – also known and hereafter referred to as Source Magazine – is an independent, not-for-profit musical and artistic magazine published between 1967 and 1973 by teachers and students of University of California, Davis, CA. It emerged from the flourishing Californian musical experimentalism of the late 1950s-early 1960s, either at UC-Davis, UC Berkeley's Department of Music or Mills College. The 11 issues document new music practices of the period like indeterminacy, performance, graphic scores, electronic music and intermedia arts."
Wikipedia
amazon: Source: Music of the Avant-Garde, 1966-1974
UbuWeb - Source: Music of the Avant-Garde (Video)
Bibliolore (YouTube)

"Directed by Larry Austin and Douglas Kahn, both former teachers at UC-Davis, this long-awaited anthology published by U. of Cal. Press, gathers a generous selection from the 11 issues of Source, but is not a complete reprint, as original color pages, photo essays and material printed on transparencies or fur had to be set aside for practical reasons. Printed in black and white, in a format reduced by 1/3rd compared to the original magazine, the book is still a wonderful complement to the Pogus 3xCD set issued by Al Margolis and restoring the six accompanying 10-inch LPs, including such classics as Robert Ashley’s The Wolfman, Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting In A Room or Annea Lockwood’s Tiger Balm. See the revamped Wikipedia article for an introduction to Source. ..."
Continuo
Original copies of SOURCE (Video)
Sound Morphology
Google - Source: Music of the Avant-Garde, 1966-1973
U. California Press
Max Neuhaus «Public Supply IV» (Video)
Music Industry Newswire

The Guggenheim’s Greatest Hits Come Roaring Back

"Of New York City’s major museum collections, the Guggenheim’s is the hardest to see, because so little of it is usually on view. Blame Frank Lloyd Wright’s design, that big empty well of light and air with a little art up the sides. Not that I object to the building. I’ve adored it since my first visit as an out-of-town kid in 1960, the year after it opened. There was art on the ramps then, but all I remember is thinking: spaceship. Still do. But now, as if answering a hunger — maybe its own — to see what that spaceship originally held, the museum brings us 'Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim,' a permanent collection show that fills the rotunda. ..."
NY Times

The Jam ‎– David Watts / "A" Bomb In Wardour Street (1978)

"All Mod Cons is the album on which the Jam truly left punk behind, having had only a tangential relationship to the style in the first place. From the title to the target-painting logo on the UK LP's labels to the memorabilia scattered across the inner sleeve, this is the album on which Paul Weller and company declare fealty to the Who and the Creation. All this makes 'A-Bomb In Wardour Street' sound that much more jarring in this context. The last genuinely punky song the Jam ever recorded, 'A-Bomb In Wardour Street' sounds rather like a pale rewrite of the Clash's '1977,' complete with the machine-gun riff and Weller's Joe Strummer-like snarl and London-centric apocalyptic lyrics. ..."
allmusic
Discogs
YouTube: David Watts, A Bomb In Wardour Street

2009 March: The Jam, 2012 November: "Going Underground", 2013 January: In the City, 2013 February: This Is the Modern World, 2013 July: All Mod Cons, 2013 November: Setting Sons, 2014 January: Sound Affects (1980), 2014 December: Live At Bingley Hall, Birmingham, England 1982, 2015 March: "Town Called Malice" / "Precious", 2015 July: The Gift (1982), 2015 September: "Strange Town" / "The Butterfly Collector" (1979), 2016 April: "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" (1979), 2017 January: Absolute Beginners EP (1981).

Watch a 5-Part Animated Primer on Afrofuturism, the Black Sci-Fi Phenomenon Inspired by Sun Ra

"We recognize its hallmarks in music especially. It is the province of Sun Ra, George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic, Afrika Bambaataa, and, in recent years, Janelle Monae, Andre 3000, Beyoncé, and many other black artists who have updated for the 21st century the styles and sounds of Afrofuturism. Reaching back into an Afrocentric past—with heavy emphasis on Egyptology—and forward to an interstellar future, the genre of Afrofuturism reclaims the terrain of science fiction for people of African descent, serving as an 'umbrella term,' as one contemporary Afrofuturist community puts it, 'for the Black presence in sci-fi, technology, magic, and fantasy.' ..."
Open Culture (Video)
W - Afrofuturism

2014 July: The Shadows Took Shape

Selected Writings of Gerard De Nerval (1957)

"Richard Sieburth has created a wonderfully comprehensive overview of Nerval's writings in this 400-page anthology. Included are Nerval's central prose narratives, Sylvia and Aurelia. A true devotee of this poet will come back to these two works repeatedly. Readers will never exhaust their poetic riches. Sieburth divides Nerval's poetic prose works into four evocative categories, each one prefaced by his illuminating comments: Shadow Selves, Memories of Valois, Unreal Cities, Dream/Life. This is excellent. He preserves the mystery of Nerval, but gives the reader a map by which to journey through that mysterious terrain. Nerval is ever the Poet, even though he wrote more prose than verse. By poet I mean a visionary who transforms ordinary reality into something marvelous and liberating. ... Richard Sieburth does not translate them in verse form, but his literal prose versions give you the basic meanings to work with. - Daniel B."
amazon
Gerard De Nerval - By Robert S. Robbins

2007 December: Gerard De Nerval, 2010 March: Robin Blaser - Les Chimeres, 2016 June: Voyage to the Orient (1851)

Lindsey Balbierz

"It seems that Fall has arrived, at least that is what the calendar is telling me. It has been unusually warm here in New York, leaving me a bit perplexed on what to wear for the day. October has always been a sort of personal refresh button for me, as my birthday falls in this month. I always feel it’s the right time for me to take stock of what I have accomplished in the past year as well as write some personal and professional goals for the year to come. So along with taking stock of my personal achievements, the season also makes me want to assess what items I would like to add to my wardrobe. ..."
Lindsey Balbierz: October
Lindsey Balbierz

Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe

Portrait of a Wealthy African / Flemish or German / ca. 1540
"Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe invites visitors to explore the roles of Africans and their descendants in Renaissance Europe as revealed in compelling paintings, drawings, sculpture and printed books of the period. Vivid portraits from life both encourage face-to-face encounters with the individuals themselves and pose questions about the challenges of color, class, and stereotypes that this new diversity brought to Europe. Despite the importance of the questions posed for audiences today, this is the first time they have been addressed in a major exhibition. ..."
Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe
About
Maps
NY Times: A Spectrum From Slaves to Saints
[PDF] Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe
amazon

World Psychedelic Classics 4: The Existential Soul of Tim Maia (2012)

"Luaka Bop planned this Tim Maia volume in its World Psychedelic Classics series a decade ago. Due to legal struggles, it took until 2012 to get this 15-track retrospective released. It's been worth the wait. Maia, who passed away in 1998 at the age of 55, had a wild, controversial, and creative life, personally and musically. He effectively introduced American R&B, funk, and soul into Brazilian music during the Tropicalia era, and came up with something completely new in the process. He caught the American music bug as a teen. He lived, worked, made music, and committed petty crimes in the States between 1957 and 1964 when he was deported back to Brazil. While this music isn't psychedelic in terms of its sound necessarily, it is in its outlook. ..."
allmusic
Luaka Bop
amazon, iTunes
Soundcloud: Nobody Can Live Forever: The Existential Soul of Tim Maia
YouTube: Nobody Can Live Forever The Existential Soul of Tim Maia 1:04:01

Harry - Harry Nilsson (1969)

"Ironically, Harry is where Harry Nilsson began to become Nilsson, an immensely gifted singer/songwriter/musician with a warped sense of humor that tended to slightly overwhelm his skills, at least to those who aren't quite operating on the same level. This aspect of his personality surfaces partially because the record is a crazy quilt of originals, covers, bizarre Americana, quiet ballads, show tunes, and soft-shoe shuffles. It doesn't really hold together, per se, due to its lack of focus (which, if you're a cultist, is naturally the reason why it's charming). Due to the sheer number of shuffling nostalgia trips, it seems as if Nilsson is attempting to sell the entire album on personality and, to anyone who isn't converted to his unique perspective, these may the moments that make Harry a little difficult to take, even with songs as expertly constructed as the delightful 'Nobody Cares About the Railroads Anymore,' an attempt to ape Randy Newman's Tin Pan Alley style. ..."
allmusic
W - Harry
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: Harry 48:38

2013 August: Deconstructing Harry

Rhys Chatham - A Crimson Grail (For 400 Electric Guitars) (2007)

"... Apparently the answer lies in simple math. If 100 guitars could sound so great, shouldn't 400 sound even better? In 2005, Chatham set out to test this theorem. Commissioned by the City of Paris to compose something for their all-night La Nuit Blanche Festival, he wrote the ambitious 'A Crimson Grail (Moves Too Fast To See).' Gathering 400 guitarists (along with longtime comrades Ernie Brooks on bass and Jonathan Kane on hi-hat) and four leaders listening to his directions through headphones, Chatham led a 12-hour sonic marathon. Starting on the steps of France's largest church, the Sacré-Cœur, the ensemble ended the show inside, beneath a 272-foot ceiling. Nearly 1000 people witnessed this mini-miracle, while thousands more watched on television throughout France. ..."
Pitchfork
NY Times: What Is the Sound of 200 Guitars Wailing?
Rhys Chatham
amazon, iTunes
vimeo: Rhys Chatham: A Crimson Grail (Live)
YouTube: A Crimson Grail (for 400 Electric Guitars) 53:33

2015 August: New York Noise: Art and Music from the New York Underground 1978-88

NYRB: The Moon and the Bonfires, The Selected Works of Cesare Pavese

"Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) was born on his family’s vacation farm in the country outside of Turin in northern Italy. He graduated from the University of Turin, where he wrote a thesis on Walt Whitman, beginning a continuing engagement with English-language literature that was to lead to his influential translations of Moby-Dick, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Three Lives, and Moll Flanders, among other works. Briefly exiled by the Fascist regime to Calabria in 1935, Pavese returned to Turin to work for the new publishing house of Giulio Einaudi, where he eventually became the editorial director. ..."
NYRB: The Moon and the Bonfires, The Selected Works of Cesare Pavese

2015 August: Cesare Pavese

Whose Streets? Our Streets!

"A new exhibition captures the rallies, riots, marches, and demonstrations that erupted in New York City between 1980 and 2000. Entitled 'Whose Streets? Our Streets!' the current show at the Bronx Documentary Center explores residents’ reactions to two decades of swift economic and demographic change. The era was consumed by issues of police brutality, gentrification, AIDS, gay and lesbian rights, reproductive rights, U.S. foreign policy and military actions, and education and labor relations. ..."
The Atlantic: The Power of Protest Photography
Whose Streets? Our Streets!
LenScratch

International Women's Day

Exploring Women’s Rights: The 1908 Textile Strike
"On International Women's Day, March 8th, women and our allies will act together for equity, justice and the human rights of women and all gender-oppressed people, through a one-day demonstration of economic solidarity. In the same spirit of love and liberation that inspired the Women's March, we join together in making March 8th A Day Without a Woman, recognizing the enormous value that women of all backgrounds add to our socio-economic system--while receiving lower wages and experiencing greater inequities, vulnerability to discrimination, sexual harassment, and job insecurity. We recognize that trans and gender nonconforming people face heightened levels of discrimination, social oppression and political targeting. We believe in gender justice. ..."
Womens March
Vanity Fair: Why Women Around the World Are Going on Strike Today
NY Times: Why Women Are On Strike
New Yorker: The Women’s Strike and the Messy Space of Change
Aljazeera: 'A Day Without a Woman' strike aims to raise awareness (Video)

2017 January: Women’s March Highlights as Huge Crowds Protest Trump: ‘We’re Not Going Away’

Dakota Access pipeline could open next week after activists face final court loss

"A federal judge declined Tuesday to temporarily stop construction of the final section of the disputed Dakota Access pipeline, clearing the way for oil to flow as soon as next week. The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux had asked the US district judge James Boasberg in Washington to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw permission for the Texas-based developer Energy Transfer Partners to lay pipe under Lake Oahe in North Dakota. ... The tribes argued that construction under the lake violated their right to practice their religion, which relies on clean water, and they wanted the work suspended until the claim could be resolved. When they filed the lawsuit last summer, the tribes argued that the pipeline threatened Native American cultural sites and their water supply. ..."
Guardian
Guardian - Standing Rock: arson accusation renews fear of police targeting military veterans
Guardian: Private investor divests $34.8m from firms tied to Dakota Access pipeline

2011 July: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - Dee Brown, 2012 September: The Ghost Dance, 2016 September: A History and Future of Resistance, 2016 November: Dakota Access Pipeline protests, 2016 December: Police Violence Against Native Americans Goes Far Beyond Standing Rock, 2016 December: Dakota Protesters Say Belle Fourche Oil Spill 'Validates Struggle', 2017 January: A Murky Legal Mess at Standing Rock, 2017 January: Trump's Move On Keystone XL, Dakota Access Outrages Activists, 2017 February: Army veterans return to Standing Rock to form a human shield against police, 2017 February: Standing Rock is burning – but our resistance isn't over

John Zorn Is Rolling The Stone From Avenue C To The New School

"On a rainy Wednesday, John Zorn sat on a sofa alongside Richard Kessler. The two talked like old friends, which they are. Zorn, the celebrated composer and musician, and Kessler, the executive dean for performing arts at the New School who is also dean of the university’s Mannes School of Music, are now also partners in a venture that may alter Manhattan’s musical landscape and its relationship with higher education. The Stone, the tiny but influential performance space that Zorn founded in 2005 to present experimental and avant-garde music, will become a fixture of the New School’s College of Performing Arts, taking up residence in the New School’s Glass Box Theater on West 13th St. Beginning in March 2018, when the old club closes, The Stone at the New School, as it will be called, will present concerts at 8:30pm, Tuesdays through Saturdays. ..."
VOICE
NY Times: The Stone, an Influential Music Space, to Move to the New School

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, 2015 June: The Big Gundown - John Zorn plays Ennio Morricone (1985), 2015 July: News for Lulu (1988), 2016 March: Film Works 1986-1990.

Sleepless Nights - Gram Parsons (1976)

"Three years after Gram Parsons' untimely death, his frequent duet partner Emmylou Harris helped arrange for the release of this collection of outtakes -- three songs he cut with Harris for his final solo album Grievous Angel in 1973, and nine others recorded live in the studio with The Flying Burrito Brothers in 1970. Anyone hoping to find the great lost Gram Parsons song is out of luck here; all 12 tunes are covers of vintage country classics, except for 'Honky Tonk Women' (which at least sounds like a C&W classic in this arrangement) and The Louvin Brothers' 'The Angels Rejoiced Last Night,' which is as spiritually uplifting as ever with Harris' pure, clear voice helping to bring it home. ... Sleepless Nights was certainly a labor of love and it's a worthy purchase for committed fans, but neophytes are better off giving a listen to The Flying Burrito Brothers' masterpiece The Gilded Palace of Sin, or either solo album, G.P. or Grievous Angel."
allmusic
W - Sleepless Nights
amazon
YouTube: Sleepless Nights (with BONUS TRACKS)

2008 March: Gram Parsons, 2011 March: Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris. Liberty Hall, Texas, 1973, 2012 May: Sweetheart of the Rodeo, 2013 January: Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel, 2013 September: Flying Burrito Brothers - Live At The Avalon Ballroom 1969, 2014 February: The Gilded Palace of Sin - The Flying Burrito Brothers (1969), 2014 March: Burrito Deluxe - The Flying Burrito Brothers (1970), 2014 May: GP (1973), 2014 September: Grievous Angel (1974), 2015 October: Top 10 Gram Parsons Songs, 2016 November: Death of Gram Parsons

The Classic Typewriter Page : All About Typewriters

"I'm Richard Polt, the creator and webmaster for The Classic Typewriter Page. I grew up loving typewriters and have been collecting them in earnest since 1994. I'm the editor of ETCetera, the magazine of the Early Typewriter Collectors' Association. I've been blogging with and about typewriters since 2010. And I'm the author of a book, The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist's Companion for the 21st Century. The Classic Typewriter Page went live on December 9, 1995. (Here's a snapshot of the site in July 1997, minus images.) As far as I know, this was the first website about antique typewriters and typewriter collecting. ... The parts of the site that are currently updated most often are the online manuals and the list of typewriter repair shops. I also typically get several questions a day about typewriters, which I'm glad to answer (but check my FAQ first)."
The Classic Typewriter Page: About
The Classic Typewriter Page
The Typewriter Revolution (Video)
The Typewriter Revolution blog

2012 February: Typewriter

David Tudor ‎– The Art Of David Tudor 1963–1992

"One of the very first significant pieces of electronic music I ever heard was a performance recording of David Tudor’s Rainforest. Although I can’t recall which version it was (this was in my first electronic music class during my freshman year of college), I have never forgotten how blown away I was by that chirping, squeaking, clanging, banging, blooping wall of sound that did indeed give the impression of a living, breathing, electronic jungle. ... The recently released boxed set of Tudor’s work, The Art of David Tudor (1963—1992) on New World Records, charts his transformation from interpreter and co-composer to composer/performer, presenting a selection of full performance recordings of many of his groundbreaking works. One of Tudor’s specialties was working with feedback within a live performance context. ..."
NewMusicBox
The Art of David Tudor (Video)
Discogs
iTunes

Wikipedia - "David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. ... Tudor also gave early performances of works by Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff and La Monte Young. The composer with whom Tudor is particularly associated is John Cage; he gave the premiere of Cage's Music of Changes, Concert For Piano and Orchestra and the notorious 4' 33". Cage said that many of his pieces were written either specifically for Tudor to perform or with him in mind, once stating 'what you had to do was to make a situation that would interest him. That was the role he played.' ...”
Wikipedia
David Tudor ‎– WHAT'S NEW
Discogs: David Tudor Discography
Lovely Music (Video)
Getty: The Art of David Tudor
Presenting David Tudor - A Conversation with Bruce Duffie
amazon: David Tudor

Janet Biehl

Wikipedia - "Janet Biehl (born September 4, 1953) is a political writer with a focus on libertarian municipalism and social ecology, the body of ideas developed and publicized by Murray Bookchin. She also opposes eco-feminism. ... In 1986 she attended the Institute for Social Ecology, in Vermont, where she met the social theorist Murray Bookchin. In January 1987 she moved to Burlington, Vermont, to study further with Bookchin. They began a collaborative relationship to advance and promote social ecology. ... Biehl is a supporter of the Kurdish freedom movement. After Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the insurgent Kurdistan Workers' Party, was captured and imprisoned in 1999, he became an avid reader of Bookchin's work in Turkish translation and recommended it to the movement. Drawing on libertarian municipalism, he formulated democratic confederalism as a political program, which the PKK adopted. ..."
Wikipedia
Ecology or Catastrophe
New Compass
ROAR - Thoughts on Rojava: an interview with Janet Biehl

2014 September: Anarchism in America (1983), 2015 August: The Prophet Farmed: Murray Bookchin on Bernie Sanders, 2016 October: Why Bernie Was Right, 2015 October: The Ecology of Freedom (1982), 2016 July: Murray Bookchin’s New Life, 2017 January: Reason, creativity and freedom: the communalist model - Eleanor Finley, 2017 February: Socialism’s Return.

Creative ways to use a tenement fire escape

"In February 1860, a swift-moving evening blaze raged through a tenement on Elm Street—today’s Lafayette Street. Ten women and children died, largely because firefighters’ ladders didn’t reach past the fourth floor. ... So a law was passed two months later mandating that city buildings be made of 'fireproof' materials or feature 'fire-proof balconies on each story on the outside of the building connected by fire-proof stairs.' This regulation, and then the many amendments that came after it, was the genesis of the iconic New York fire escape—a sometimes lovely and ornate, often utilitarian and rusted iron passageway that helped cut down the number of casualties in tenement fires. ..."
Ephemeral New York
Balcony Seats to the City (Video)
NY Times: Great Escapes

Turner’s Modern and Ancient Ports: Passages through Time

Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet-Boat: Evening, 1826
"Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), nineteenth-century Britain’s greatest land- and seascape artist, depicted ports throughout his career, both in monumental oil paintings and in watercolors. An insatiable traveler and an artist with a deep fascination with light, topography, and local traditions, as well as with classical antiquity, Turner brought an innovative approach to the depiction of both modern and ancient ports. In the spring of 2017, The Frick Collection presents Turner’s Modern and Ancient Ports: Passages through Time, a major exhibition that brings together some thirty-five works from the 1810s through the late 1830s in oil, watercolor, and graphite that capture contemporary cities in England, France, and Germany, as well as imagined scenes set in the ancient world. ..."
The Frick Collection
The Frick Collection - A Close Look at Turner’s Harbor of Dieppe (Video)
The Frick Collection: Visual Index
A Luminous Look at Turner’s Port Paintings
amazon

November 2007: J. M. W. Turner, 2009 April: Turner & Italy, 2011 June: J. M. W. Turner - 1, 2014 June: In Which We Find His Theory Of Color Implausible, 2014 May: Ruin Lust, 2014 September: The EY Exhibition: Late Turner – Painting Set Free, 2016 June: Turner’s Whaling Pictures

Adrian Sherwood - Becoming A Cliché / Dub Cliché (2006)

"Producer Adrian Sherwood has spent the '80s, '90s and 2000s exerting an enormous influence on modern pop music, both as head of the avant-garde roots reggae hothouse known as On-U Sound Records and as producer and remixer to forward-thinking pop artists as diverse as Einsturzende Neubauten, Depeche Mode, Simply Red, and Nine Inch Nails. But it's taken almost that long for him to finally release an album under his own name. His first solo effort was 2003's multifariously brilliant Never Trust a Hippy; the follow-up finds him continuing to expand his musical horizons, keeping most of his grooves in an adventurously dubwise but still deeply rootsy reggae-funk vein while promiscuously incorporating any other musical tradition that happens to strike his fancy at the same time. ... If you can get your hands on it, spend a little extra for the limited-edition package, which includes a second disc of dub remixes. Essential."
allmusic
Discogs
YouTube: Dub Cliché, Becoming A Cliché (Full Album)

2011 September: Adrian Sherwood, 2012 April: Dub Syndicate, 2013 August: Don't Call Us Immigrants (2000), 2014 May: Bim Sherman - Across the Red Sea (1998), 2016 November: Keith Hudson - Brand (1979), 2017 February: Sherwood at the Controls, Vol. 2: 1985-1990

Growing Up With the War Tax Resisters

"The memory is vague, perhaps implanted. It may only exist because my mother has taken great pains over the years to remind me of it. It was either 1991 or ’92, and I am about three years old. It’s Christmas Day and we’re at a house in my hometown of Colrain, Massachusetts. Other people are there, too. We brought cookies to the event. At the time I thought of it as a party; I know now it was not. This memory was my mother’s way of telling me that I’ve always, even as a child, been politically active. We were there offering support to our neighbors, Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner. They had been war tax resisters for decades, and at this moment they were having their house repossessed by the IRS. My mother had dragged her preschool-aged son to what was essentially an act of civil disobedience. ..."
New Republic
W - An Act of Conscience (1997)
The Great Anti-War Films - An Act of Conscience
fandor: An Act of Conscience (1997)

2010 July: Draft dodger, Conscientious objector, War resister

Strange Weather - Marianne Faithfull (1987)

"I recently heard Marianne Faithfull in an intimate venue with great acoustics, and was mesmerized from start to finish. Not only by that one-of-a-kind, sandpaper-and-velvet voice but also by what she put into every song, each syllable, whether she wrote the tune or was covering someone else’s. For 1987’s Strange Weather, Faithfull, accompanied by a superb band anchored by guitarist Bill Frisell, elected to sing only covers, mostly ballads, from a variety of eras. From a slower rendition of Jagger/ Richards’ 'As Tears Go By,' which made her a star at 18, to the superb title track, written for her by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, Faithfull is a singer who owns everything she sings. Other highlights: 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams,' an unaccompanied take of Lead Belly’s 'I Ain’t Goin’ Down To The Well No More,' 'Sign Of Judgment,' Dylan’s 'I’ll Keep It With Mine,' Dr. John’s 'Hello Stranger,' Jerome Kern’s 'Yesterdays,' and Jason and Burton’s 'Penthouse Serenade.' ORG’s 45rpm reissue sounds very good, though the original recording is somewhat uneven. Most critically, Faithfull’s vocals are consistently well captured, and there’s air and ambience, with natural instrumental tones and rich textures."
the absolute sound
W - Strange Weather
Discogs
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: Strange Weather (Live), As Tears Go By (Live)
YouTube: "Blazing Away" | 1990 | FULL length concert film 1:30:11

2008 June: Marianne Faithfull, 2010 November: Marianne Faithfull - 1, 2013 January: Broken English: Deluxe Edition, 2013 November: Before the Poison (2005), 2014 August: Kissin' Time (2002), 2014 October: Broken English short film by Derek Jarman (1979), 2015 March: Give My Love to London (2014).

Pilot Pirx - Stanisław Lem (1979-1982)

Wikipedia - "Pilot Pirx is a fictional character introduced in 1966 in the science fiction stories of Polish writer Stanisław Lem: ten short stories (published in English in two parts, 1979's Tales of Pirx the Pilot and 1982's More Tales of Pirx the Pilot) and the novel Fiasco. In the stories, Pirx is progressively depicted as a spaceship cadet, beginner pilot, seasoned pilot, navigator, and finally, captain (komandor). While this overall story line resembles that of a bildungsroman, Lem writes that it was not his intention; he was going to write only 2–3 stories. ... Unlike traditional heroic space pilots, Pirx is as an ordinary 'space truck driver' and has little if anything heroic about him. Personality traits of Pirx include cold blood, self-control and common sense—which serve Pirx well in all his predicaments. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Tales of Pirx the Pilot, More Tales of Pirx the Pilot
W - Inquest of Pilot Pirx
NY Times: WHO IS HUMAN, WHO IS NOT? (1982)
Transnational Spaces of Science Fiction: An Estonian-Polish coproduction The Test of Pilot Pirx (Test pilota Pirxa / Navigaator Pirx, 1978)
amazon: Tales of Pirx the Pilot, More Tales of Pirx the Pilot

2011 June: Stanisław Lem

Technicians of the Sacred: A Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Europe & Asia - Jerome Rothenberg (1969)

"... Anthologies are, with different degrees of intensity, the creation of a new field made out of preexisting elements; for the most part they define anew what was there before. Only once in a while an anthology can change not only what we know about poetry but the way we read beyond its own selection. Technicians of the Sacred: A Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Europe & Asia is that occurrence, a turning point that made visible what wasn’t before. Even more than an anthology it’s the blue print for a strategy, one that works his complexity up from multiple poetics to present at the same time, and without ever taking them apart, the particular and the whole. ..."
Jacket2: Ernesto Livon-Grosman on Jerome Rothenberg's anthologies
University of California
amazon
Poet and Polemicist: an interview with Jerome Rothenberg

2009 March: Jerome Rothenberg, 2011 June: Alcheringa Archive: A Journal of Ethnopoetics, 1970-1980, 2014 August: New Wilderness Letter, 1977-84, 2014 September: America a Prophecy

New York is a city of rooftop wooden water tanks

"They seem like relics of another New York. But most buildings in the city higher than five or six stories have one of these wooden water tanks perched on stilt-like contraptions on the roof. Photographer Andreas Feininger captured their beauty under a dusting of snow in this image, from 1952. I don’t know where this was taken, but there’s a good chance the water towers look exactly the same today."
Ephemeral New York
NY Times: Longtime Emblems of City Roofs, Still Going Strong
Up on the Roof: NYC's Water Tanks Are Here to Stay
Water towers: NYC's misunderstood icons
Water towers in New York (Video)
YouTube: Inside New York City's Water Towers | The New York Times, The Story Behind New York City Water Towers

2014 November: Water tower

Tango #16 (1986)

 

 

 

"Tango #16 in the Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine series, offers the unexpected pairing of contemporary downtown NY composers with vintage tango songs. It works though, contributors avoiding mimicry and impersonation, and the essence of tango being retaken by participants as slow, melodramatic songs, with added gusto and drama. Tango is merely a dotted line here, serving as rough guidelines to participants eager to emancipate themselves from any popular format, while seeking the intense, gripping mood of tango. I assume the complex choreography of this dance also appealed to the Tellus team as a kind of stage play, as they had always been interested in music theater, radio plays, radio art, etc. Tango is personified here by the legendary argentinian singer Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) with a couple of 78s from the 1930s, and by the late Jo Basile, aka Joss Baselli, a french bal musette accordion player from Paris 1950s-1960s. ..."
Continuo
Harvestworks
Discogs
UbuWeb: Tellus #16 - Tango

2010 June: Tellus #12 - Dance (1986), 2010 June: Tellus #10: All Guitars! (1985), 2010 August: Tellus #13 - Power Electronics (1986), 2011 March: Tellus #15: The Improvisors (1985), 2013 July: Tellus #23 - The Voices of Paul Bowles (1989), 2014 June: Tellus #26 - Jewel Box (1992), 2016 April: Tellus #25 - Site-Less Sounds (1991).

Women’s History Month - National Museum of Women in the Arts

"... Back by popular demand this March, the National Museum of Women in the Arts continues to ask, 'Can you name five women artists?' This simple question calls attention to the inequity women artists face, inspires conversation, and brings awareness to a larger audience. Last year, the campaign struck a chord, and tens of thousands of posts were shared on social media. This year, more than 200 institutions from 50 states, 22 countries, and seven continents have already signed on to participate. Join us throughout the month to share stories of women artists using the hashtag #5WomenArtists on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. ..."
Challenge Accepted: Can You Name Five Women Artists?
The Atlantic: Fighting the Under-Representation of Women in the Arts
National Museum of Women in the Arts - Get Facts

Celebrating Lou Reed: 1942–2013

Photographed by Allen Ginsberg
"In honor of the recent acquisition of the Lou Reed Archive, and the 75th anniversary of Reed's birthday, the Library is featuring highlights from the collection in displays at two locations, plus hosting public programs that bring to life Reed's legacy. Lou Reed was a founding member of the legendary Velvet Underground, as well as a solo recording artist, playwright, poet, and photographer. He is recognized as one the finest songwriters in history and is considered among the most profound influences on modern rock music. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and was the recipient of numerous other awards. Discover highlights from the Library's newly acquired Lou Reed Archive documenting Reed's more than 50-year career—including original song lyrics, photographs, and personal ephemera—at two locations from March 2–20. ..."
The New York Public Library (Video)
NY Times: Lou Reed Archives Head to New York Public Library
YouTube: Dirty Boulevard (Live, Sunday Night 1989), "Bus Load Of Faith", "NYC Man"

2010 August: Heroin, 2011 June: All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground, 2011 June: The Velvet Underground, 2012 November: Songs for Drella - Lou Reed and John Cale, 2013 October: Lou Reed (1942 - 2013), 2014 June: The Bells (1979), 2014 August: New York (1989), 2015 June: Capitol Theatre Passaic, NJ 9/25/1984, 2015 October: The Blue Mask (1982), 2016 March: New Sensations (1984), 2016 May: Coney Island Baby (1976).

The People Speak (2009)

Wikipedia - "The People Speak is a 2009 American documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans. The film gives voice to those who, by insisting on equality and justice, spoke up for social change throughout U.S. history and also illustrates the relevance of this to today's society. The film is narrated by historian Howard Zinn and is based on his books A People's History of the United States (1980) and, with Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History of the United States (2004). The People Speak is produced by Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore, Anthony Arnove, and Howard Zinn. It is co-directed by Moore, Arnove and Zinn. ..."
Wikipedia
Howard Zinn (Video)
NY Times - New Boss, Same as the Old Boss: Howard Zinn Traces Social Change
Netflix

2010 January: Howard Zinn, 2013 November: The Problem is Civil Obedience - 1970, 2014 May: A People's History of the United States - (1980)

Mulatu Astatke - Ethiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974

"To some, the term 'Ethiopian jazz' might seem impossible; after all, it's a very American form. But what's truly surprising isn't the fact that these musicians play jazz so well, but the range of jazz they manage, from the George Benson-ish guitar workout of 'Munaye' to the twisting sax of 'Tezeta.' Really, though, it's more Jimmy Smith than Duke Ellington in its aim (although Ellington is on the cover, on stage with Mulatu Astatke, the bandleader behind all these selections). ... Given that many of his musicians had graduated from police and military bands, they knew their instruments well, and had plenty of practice time, which shows in the often inventive solos that dot the tracks. Varied, occasionally lyrical, but interesting throughout, this shines a fabulous spotlight on a hidden corner of jazz."
allmusic
amazon, iTunes
Discogs
YouTube: Ethiopiques Volume 4 23 videos

2016 January: New York–Addis–London: The Story of Ethio Jazz 1965–1975

Manchester by the Sea - Kenneth Lonergan (2016)

"... Early in Mr. Lonergan’s new film, 'Manchester by the Sea,' Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is summoned back to his hometown by news that his older brother, Joe, has died. Joe, an affable bear of a man (Kyle Chandler, in flashbacks), had had congestive heart failure for a long time, so his death, while wrenching and sad, could not have been entirely unexpected. What Joe’s 16-year-old son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges), and Lee face together might fall under the heading of ordinary grief: tragic to be sure, but manageable. Lee, though, already lives with a much more extreme kind of pain. You can see it in his smallest gestures and hear it in his flat, careful diction. The force of his pent-up emotion is terrifying, and so is the self-control he must exercise to keep it invisible. Mr. Affleck, in one of the most fiercely disciplined screen performances in recent memory, conveys both Lee’s inner avalanche of feeling and the numb decorum that holds it back. ..."
NY Times: ‘Manchester by the Sea’ and the Tides of Grief
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert
YouTube: Manchester by the Sea

Africa's Great Civilizations

"In his new six-hour series, Africa's Great Civilizations, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes a new look at the history of Africa, from the birth of humankind to the dawn of the 20th century. This is a breathtaking and personal journey through two hundred thousand years of history, from the origins, on the African continent, of art, writing and civilization itself, through the millennia in which Africa and Africans shaped not only their own rich civilizations, but also the wider world."
PBS (Video)
PBS: Map (Video)
NY Times: Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s ‘Africa’s Great Civilizations,’ Shows a Continent’s Grand Sweep
‘Africa’s Great Civilizations’: Henry Louis Gates on Why Understanding Africa’s History Is More Vital Than Ever

An Inner World

Gabriel Metsu, Woman Reading a Book by a Window, c. 1653–54
"An Inner World features seven exceptional genre paintings by Dutch artists working in or near the city of Leiden in the seventeenth century. Genre paintings, or scenes that take everyday life as their subject matter, flourished in the Dutch Republic in this period. Explored through the theme of an inner world, the works in this focused exhibition represent figures in interior spaces and individuals in moments of study, contemplation, and quiet exchange. Paintings by Gerrit Dou (1613–1675), Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667), Domenicus van Tol (c. 1635–1676), Willem van Mieris (1662–1747), and Jacob van Toorenvliet (1640–1719) demonstrate the artists’ sustained interest in the illusionism of space, candlelight, and painted surfaces. By encouraging a focused—and intimate—experience, this exhibition presents new ways of looking at tradition and innovation in genre painting in Leiden. ..."
The Clark
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Genre Painting in Northern Europe
'An Inner World: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings' at The Clark Institute