Creative Africa

"From contemporary photography, fashion, and architecture to centuries-old sculpture, Creative Africa presents the visionary work of artists throughout Africa. At the heart of the season is Look Again: Contemporary Perspectives on African Art, a major exhibition drawn from the Penn Museum’s distinguished African collection. Creative Africa also boasts a dynamic schedule of programs, artist talks, family festivals, and community conversations."
Philadelphia Museum of Art
NY Times: Philadelphia Offers a Full-Fledged Summer of African Art
New Exhibit: Creative Africa Opens at Philadelphia Museum of Art
YouTube: Creative Africa at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Fame Game - 20 Years of Skewville, Escape from New York

"Rough edged humorists and twin brothers Droo and Ad Deville are closing down the bong factory in Queens and the former Factory Fresh gallery space in Bushwick, Brooklyn and heading out of town.
No one is saying it is for good. Beginning on the streets as art hoodlums named Skewville in 1996, the brothers embraced a netherworld of art-making that adroitly courted fame among peers, echoing the graffiti credo of claiming territory, commanding space, and earning respect from a fan base of informed New York urban art watchers. ..."
Brooklyn Street Art

New Archive Presents The Chicagoan, Chicago’s Jazz-Age Answer to The New Yorker (1926 to 1935)

"Chicago’s famed 'second city complex' didn’t spring from organic feelings of inferiority, but rather from the poisonous pen of visiting New Yorker writer, A.J. Liebling: Seen from the taxi, on the long ride in from the airport, the place looked slower, shabbier, and, in defiance of all chronology, older than New York… the low buildings, the industrial plants, and the railroad crossings at grade produced less the feeling of being in a great city than of riding through an endless succession of factory-town main streets.  – A.J. Liebling, Chicago: The Second City, 1952 ..."
Open Culture
History of The Chicagoan
U Chicago: The Chicagoan; A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age
W - The Chicagoan

# 1 – A Descriptive Catalogue of the William S. Burroughs Archive

"... Do not bore me with the facts, as fascinating as they are and as much as I enjoy immersing myself in them. Sometimes the myths mean and say more. Yes, truth is stranger than fiction, but on occasion you just want to curl up with a good story. With Burroughs, his biography and his bibliography, nothing is true; everything is permitted. Case in point, years ago, I made a pilgrimage up to Columbia University for a bibliographic rock festival of sorts. Brian Schottlaender, Oliver Harris, Issac Gewirtz, Barry Miles, Regina Weinreich, Ann Douglas, Bradford Morrow and Barney Rosset performed. ..."
Reality Studio
Reality Studio: The Top 23 Most Interesting Burroughs Collectibles

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, 2015 June: The Electronic Revolution (1971), 2015 August: Cut-Ups: William S. Burroughs 1914 – 2014, 2015 December: Destroy All Rational Thought, 2016 January: Commissioner of Sewers: A 1991 Profile of Beat Writer William S. Burroughs, 2016 June: Nothing Here Now But The Recordings (1981).

Twin Peaks Tarot Cards For The Magician Who Longs To See Through The Darkness Of Future Past

"Earlier this year, illustrator and comic maker Benjamin Mackey told Welcome to Twin Peaks he was toying with the idea of designing a Twin Peaks tarot deck inspired by the influential Rider-Waite-Smith deck (Amazon) originally published in 1910. ... Ben’s favorite card to draw? The Death card. 'What’s not to love about Ray Wise riding a white horse?' Which one is your favorite card of this Twin Peaks tarot adaptation? ..."
Welcome To Twin Peaks
The occult meets cult TV with these damn fine ‘Twin Peaks’ tarot cards!
Society6

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....

Vicki Anderson: Mother Popcorn - The Anthology

"James Brown said in his autobiography that Vicki Anderson was the best singer he ever had in his revue, which should give you a hint as to her ability when you consider that JB's revue also employed the likes of Lyn Collins and Marva Whitney, who were amazing singers. This collection is the only release of Vicki Anderson's material that is currently available. The majority of the material contained here is from her work with the James Brown band, from the mid ‘60s to the early ‘70s, starting with a live version of ‘Message from the Soul Sisters', with its extremely catchy piano riff and a vampin' groove by the JB's. ..."
Classic and Rare Soul Sisters 50s - 70s
W - Vicki Anderson
Discogs
YouTube: Mother Popcorn (2004)

Mother Earth - Bring Me Home (1971)

"Song for song, BRING IT HOME is just about my favorite Mother Earth album--at least among those records featuring the great Tracy Nelson as their sole vocalist. The very first two albums LIVING WITH THE ANIMALS and MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE have a very special place in my heart, precisely because they, like the Big Brother and Jefferson Airplane albums of the late '60s, are collective efforts DESPITE the presence of a major female vocal talent who could be (and often was) the focus. ... There may be a certain irony that the very earliest Mother Earth albums, with one or two other vocalists, actually feature enough vocal highlights on Tracy's part to satisfy Tracy devotees as well. ..."
TC's Old & New Music Review
W - Mother Earth (American band)
Discogs
YouTube: Mother Earth - Bring Me Home

2016 March: Make a Joyful Noise - Mother Earth (1969), 2016 April: Living with the Animals (1968)

Hieronymus Bosch’s Lost Masterpiece

"Hello! My name is T. P. Finnerty. The 'T' stands for Thornton and the 'P' stands for Placido and I am the person who found that painting by Hieronymus Bosch that you may have heard about in the news. I’m not an expert on paintings, but it is a pretty wild one—about sixty feet wide and two feet high, sort of like a comic strip, but just one panel. I have no clue what it’s about. ... The painting is of hundreds of characters and they’re all in a mountain or maybe on the moon or something like that. Everything is on fire and there are some parts where the fire is on fire, if that’s a thing. The art is really amazing, I will say that much. Hieronymus Bosch was a heck of a painter. ..."
New Yorker: Hieronymus Bosch’s Lost Masterpiece
Open Culture: Take a Virtual Tour of Hieronymus Bosch’s Bewildering Masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights (Video)

2016 February: The Garden of Earthly Delights - Hieronymus Bosch (1490 - 1510)

Saturnia Perfume - Sun Ra

"... Saturnia Pefume is created from the highest quality Neroli distillate of bitter orange blossoms. Native to the Far East and cultivated in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, this heavenly scent stimulates the brain waves and works well as an Afrodisiac. Note that Neroli was the seductive essence of Narcisse Noir, created in 1911, immortalized in Sunset Boulevard, and was, more importantly, singing brakeman Jimmie Rodgers' favorite fragrance. Neroli blossoms would transport Jimmie far from tuberculine huff and smokestack lightning. Now let the scent transport you out of the doom, and into orbit, as you ponder THIS PLANET IS DOOMED. Saturnia arrives in limited presentation box with a dice keychain keepsake and was bottled by Gigi of Midwood during the Capricornus July full hay moon. This is the constellation that provides passage for the soul at death. Saturnia is truly...out of this world!"
Norton Records - Saturnia Perfume
Norton Records

Prince Buster

"Lester Sterling, the celebrated saxophonist trained at Kingston's famous Alpha Boys School and member of the legendary Skatalites, didn't realize Jamaican music pioneer Prince Buster was so multitalented when he first met him. None of the big producers in the 1950s and Sixties, after all, were also musicians, singers or performers. ... From biking around Kingston delivering records by hand to becoming one of the foundational giants in Jamaican music, Cecil 'Prince Buster' Campbell, who died on Thursday, left an enormous legacy as the King of Ska. The musician's telltale bounce and clap of Jamaican ska is unmistakably as unique as its creator. ..."
Rolling Stone - Prince Buster: Jamaica's True Voice of the People (Video)
allmuic
Wikipedia
Guardian (Video)
Discogs
YouTube: Madness, Enjoy Yourself, One Step Beyond, Rough Rider, Al Capone, Ten Commandments, Lion Of Judah, 30 Pieces Of Silver, Wings Of A Dove, They Got To Come, They Got To Go, Hard Man Fe Dead, Black Head Chiniman, Whine And Grine (Behind Bars), Why Am I Treated So Bad (Dub), Sata A Miss Gana (Dub), Swing Low (Dub), Etc.
YouTube: She Was A Rough Rider (Full Album), National Ska - Pain In My Belly - 1964, Tutti Frutti Completo, What A Hard Man Fe Dead, The outlaw, Ska lip Soul, Etc.

Underground Tehran: Techno & Experimental Electronic Music In Iran

"Nurture may not be one of the first things that come to mind when listening to something like Sote's Hardcore Sounds From Tehran. It's something perhaps more often associated with warmth and patience, rather than crushing, noisy techno. Yet it's Ata Ebtekar who first talks about nurture to me, as it plays a large part of the release, and his practice to boot. The whoppingly heavy record is comprised of recordings from six of Sote's performances in Tehran in the past two years - a country whose strict cultural regulations have been a major obstacle for artists for over the past four decades. ..."
The Quietus (Video)
Facebook: Experimental Electronic Music Scene of Iran (Video)
Watch a trailer for Raving Iran, a documentary on Tehran’s underground techno scene (Video)

Jill Stein’s Ideas Are Terrible. She Is Not the Savior the Left Is Looking For.

"Now that Hillary Clinton has officially won the Democratic presidential nomination, chances are we're going to hear a lot more about Jill Stein. The Green Party candidate, currently polling in the low single digits nationally, has been gunning for the support of disaffected Bernie Sanders fans, urging them to 'keep the revolution going' by getting behind her own long-shot White House bid. ...  Thanks to progressive grassroots rage, she may well peel off a few percentage points of the vote come the fall, when she's expected to be on the ballot in about 47 states. ..."
Slate - July 27 2016
Democracy Now!
Think You’ve Got It Locked, Hillary? Meet Jill Stein. (June 2016)
The Nation:  There Is an Arrest Warrant Out for Jill Stein (Sep. 9)

2016 August: Jill Stein, 2016 September: “The Spoiler” Speaks

Black Classical History Of Spiritual Jazz 1955-2012

"There’s been a slow but steady resurgence in the interest of the deep spiritual jazz sound of the 1960s and 1970s, as more and more record labels strive to find and reissue obscure private press and long out of print works to meet the insatiable tastes of record collectors and modern-day music historians. Labels like London’s Jazzman Records and Universal Sound imprints, the Parisian Heavenly Sweetness, and Porter Records based out of Wisconsin, USA have all recently put out compilations or completely remastered releases of long-lost (or highly sought after) records that remain relevant in a genre that often is deemed to have lost its way. ..."
the jazz meet
NTS: Black Classical charts the history of spiritual jazz through a 12 hour mega-mix. (Video)
Archive: Spiritual Jazz 1955 - 2012 (Video)
YouTube: Spiritual Jazz 1955 - 2012 5:14:02

Disquaires de Paris

"As a collector of 78rpm records, I often come across visual evidences of the activity of now disappeared record stores: illustrated sleeves, stickers, stamps, advertisements, postcards. That’s how I discovered that there used to be a lot of record stores all around Paris and had the idea of Disquaires de Paris. I wanted to provide data and visual documents to researchers and people interested in the history of records industry. I also wanted to pay a tribute to these disappeared stores. Disquaires de Paris aims at listing, on an interactive map, every records and phonographic cylinders sellers that existed in Paris since the late 19^th century. ..."
Disquaires de Paris
Untapped Cities

Clark Coolidge - 88 Sonnets (2012)

"An engagement with language's musicality plays a significant role in the writing of Clark Coolidge. His poetical works are diverse in form and content reflecting the longevity of his career, and yet an interest in bebop continues to influence his writing (Coolidge himself is also a jazz drummer). His latest offering, 88 Sonnets, is no exception; one trips across these poems with their multitude of riff-like disjuncts, ever aware of his brilliant use of caesura. As one progresses through the text, one finds that the work seems to heave itself together, growing exponentially, far beyond the smallish sonnet form. ..."
The Quietus
Colorado Review
amazon
YouTube: Clark Coolidge at Private Line 4/13

The Greek Islands - Lawrence Durrell

"Nobody knows the Greek islands like Lawrence Durrell. He fled from them in 1940 when the Nazis came. He wrote memorably about them in 'Bitter Lemons' (1943) and in 'Prospero's Cell' (1945). Even more than the Alexandria that made him famous when he used it as the setting for his famous trilogy of novels, the whitewashed, beetling Greek islands can inspire Mr. Durrell to feats of metaphor and loquacity. Patmos, he writes in this personal but thoroughly researched tour of all the major islands (except politically embroiled Cyprus) 'lies like a tortoise in a spatter of atolls.' Mykonos, overrun by tourists since Durrell first strolled there, is a 'flaring nightmare of whiteness,' and still worth visiting.  ..."
NY Times: Dec. 3, 1978
Telegraph - Corfu: A novel insight into Durrell's island
Songs of Blue and Gold: Lawrence Durrell’s Island of Corfu
amazon

2011 December: The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell, 2013 September: Villa that inspired Lawrence Durrell faces demolition, as Egypt allows heritage to crumble, 2014 August: Prospero’s Cell (1945), 2015 April: Bitter Lemons (1953–1956), 2015 May: Caesar's Vast Ghost: Aspects of Provence, 2016 July: Reflections on a Marine Venus (1953).

Tillie Walden

A self-portrait by the artist.
"Tillie Walden’s first comic was about her paternal grandmother, who died before Walden was born, and who is her namesake. The late Tillie was an artist, too, and her paintings hang in Walden’s childhood home. 'I made a simple black-and-white comic about never knowing her but following in her footsteps, and when I showed it to my dad, he cried,' she said. That was when she realized she could make people feel something with her art. It was her dad who talked her into putting comics and drawings on her website, which is how Avery Hill Publishing discovered her work. ..."
Vulture
Tillie Walden
tumblr, twitter
Drawn to Comics: Announcing Tillie Walden’s All-New Figure Skating Graphic Memoir, “Spinning”
amazon: Tillie Walden

Jaune and Axel Void On the Streets At NUART 2016

Stavanger, Norway. September 2016.
"Jaune and Axel Void are street practitioners of vastly different scale, yet both are on the streets of Stavanger right now putting up new work. Each have a way of engaging children with their work here, and probably the imaginations and memories of adults as well. Jaune carries a miniature world that he recreates in many cities, and it invariably intersects with the sanitation workers who keep our daily existence so much cleaner. ..."
Brooklyn Street Art

Nigeria Disco Funk Special: The Sound Of The Underground Lagos Dancefloor 1974-79

"Lagos, Nigeria, 1974-79: the funk and disco capital of west Africa. More nightclubs, bars, spots and dance-floors than any place along the coast from Dakar all the way to Kinshasa. As we've come to expect from Soundway, 'Nigeria Disco Funk Special' is an another amazing collection of heavy dancefloor grooves from urban Lagos in the 70s – hot and driving slices of funk, disco and boogie that show just how vibrant the music scene was in one of West Africa's most populous and culturally diverse cities. ..."
Piccadilly Records
Discogs
Spotify
YouTube: Nigeria Disco Funk Special: The Sound Of The Underground Lagos Dancefloor 1974-79 42:49

A History and Future of Resistance

"Mounted Lakota warriors, their horses resplendent in traditional regalia, charge a line of law enforcement. They gallop headlong, push back the police, pull up only at the last moment, and then circle back for more. The scene could be the Battle of the Little Bighorn, circa 1876. But it’s not. Here, along the banks of the Missouri River, just beyond the boundary of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota, indigenous land and water defenders are standing together to block the Dakota Access Pipeline, which threatens their land, water, ancestral burial grounds, and future generations. ..."
Jacobin
W - Wounded Knee incident
W - American Indian Movement
W - Red Power movement
W - Wounded Knee Massacre
W - Russell Means

Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (2011)

Wikipedia - "Ravedeath, 1972 is the sixth studio album by Canadian electronic music musician Tim Hecker, released on February 14, 2011 by Kranky. Musically sparse, the album was recorded primarily in Frikirkjan Church, Reykjavík, with contributions from Ben Frost. The album's central theme is of the degradation of music itself. Critical response was largely warm, with many reviewers acknowledging the album as Hecker's finest. ... Reviewers found that the record did not conform to a typical structure. 'The record seems to have no center, no shining single moment, no climax or vortex. Instead it hovers lightly but ominously, like the notes in the songs themselves, hanging in midair without ever dropping to the floor. Each time a track threatens to spill over and crash, it doesn’t.' ..."
Wikipedia
Pitchfork
amazon
YouTube: The Ravedeath 1972 [Full Album]

Carmen Herrera: Lines Of Sight

Green and Orange, 1958
"Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight is the first museum exhibition of this groundbreaking artist in New York City in nearly two decades. Focusing on the years 1948 to 1978, the period during which Herrera developed her signature style, the show features more than fifty works, including paintings, three-dimensional works, and works on paper. It begins with the formative period following World War II, when Herrera lived in Paris and experimented with different modes of abstraction before establishing the visual language that she would explore with great nuance for the succeeding five decades. ..."
Whitney
NY Times: An Artist at 100, Thinking Big but Starting Small
The 101-Year-Old Artist Finally Getting Her Due
W - Carmen Herrera
Lisson Gallery
The 100 Years Show
YouTube: Artist in Exile part 1, part 2, part 3

J. Hoberman

"Film critic J. Hoberman (Jim to friends, Jimmy to cousins and a few aging relatives) was born in Brooklyn, brought home to Manhattan (a block from the still extent Third Avenue El), and schooled in the depths of Queens (Francis Lewis ’66). His brand-new baby boom high school was on triple session during senior year, so he was out by 12:30 to take the E, F, or 7 into the city to go to movies at MoMA or wander around the Village. He first saw Chelsea Girls in the basement of a midtown skyscraper. ..."
j. hoberman: Biography
j.hoberman
Film Criticism After Film Criticism: The J. Hoberman Affair
W - j.hoberman
j.hoberman - Village Voice
NYBooks
NY Times - On DVD
amazon

System Requirements for the Interactive Sky Chart

This applet has been developed using Java 1.1.0 library, Netscape's LiveConnect, ECMAScript (also known as Javascript), and related technologies. Some browsers don't offer full support for these technologies in their default configurations. If you have trouble getting the Sky Chart to appear, or if you have trouble printing, please read the instructions below. For help using the applet once it's launched in your Web browser, see Sky Chart Help. ..."
Sky and Telescope
Sky and Telescope: Fun with S&T’s Interactive Sky Chart
Sky and Telescope: Sky Chart Help
stellarium
Microsoft - Star Chart

"Maggie's Farm"/"On the Road Again" - Bob Dylan (1965)

Wikipedia - "'Maggie's Farm<' is a song written by Bob Dylan, recorded on January 15, 1965, and released on the album Bringing It All Back Home on March 22 of that year. Like many other Dylan songs of the 1965–66 period, 'Maggie's Farm' is based in electric blues. ... The song, essentially a protest song against protest folk, represents Dylan's transition from a folk singer who sought authenticity in traditional song-forms and activist politics to an innovative stylist whose self-exploration made him a cultural muse for a generation. ... While some may see 'Maggie's Farm' as a repudiation of the protest-song tradition associated with folk music, it can also (ironically) be seen as itself a deeply political protest song. ..."
W - "Maggie's Farm"
W - "On the Road Again"
Genius
vimeo: Maggie s Farm Live at the Newport Folk Festival ‘63 ‘65

2014 November: Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Too Much Too Soon - New York Dolls (1973)

Wikipedia - "Too Much Too Soon is the second studio album by American hard rock band the New York Dolls, released on May 10, 1974, by Mercury Records. The group was dissatisfied with the sound of their 1973 self-titled debut album, so frontman David Johansen enlisted veteran producer Shadow Morton for Too Much Too Soon. Morton had become disenchanted by the music industry, but was motivated by the band's energy and agreed to work with them as a challenge. They recorded the album at A&R Studios in New York City. Although the New York Dolls shared an affinity for Morton, they produced little original material with him. ..."
Wikipedia
Sputnik Music
allmusic
Rolling Stone (Dave Marsh - June 24, 1974)
Spotify
YouTube: Jet Boy, Looking for a kiss, Stranded in the jungle, Musikladen, 1973, Bad Girl, Stranded in the Jungle, Chatterbox, Frankenstein
YouTube: Too Much Too Soon (Full Album)

2015 June: New York Dolls (1973), 2016 February: David Johansen (1977)

The Treasures in the Trash Collection

"The collection was started by a single sanitation engineer by the name of Nelson Molina who started plucking treasures from his route over 20 years ago with the simple intention of giving his corner of the garage a little flare. However his hoarding quickly caught on as some of his fellow coworkers began adding weird little pieces to his collection. Everything from exotic lamps to fake flowers to pieces of pop kitsch are carefully extracted from the deluge of upper Manhattan waste, but everything that is admitted into the collection is approved by Molina. The collection is not organized in any formal way but Molina tends to group the pieces by size, general theme, and color. ..."
Atlas Obscura
New Yorker
Video: Treasurees In the Trash

Keeping the Student Strike Alive

"At the end of May 2012, the Quebec student movement joined the international anti-austerity protests as thousands of students and workers held rallies protesting the government’s repressive measures. By then, two hundred thousand students — which accounts for almost half of all postsecondary students in the province — had already been on strike for three months against a tuition hike. The student assemblies who organized the action were supported by artistic rallies, nightly demonstrations, economic blockades, and massive marches. ..."
Jacobin
Jacobin: Feeling Their Power
Jacobin: A Maple Fall in Quebec?

Frisbee

Wikipedia - "A frisbee (sometimes called a flying disc) is a disc-shaped gliding toy or sporting item that is generally plastic and roughly 20 to 25 centimetres (8 to 10 in) in diameter with a lip, used recreationally and competitively for throwing and catching, for example, in flying disc games. The shape of the disc, an airfoil in cross-section, allows it to fly by generating lift as it moves through the air while spinning. Frisbees are thrown and caught for free-form (freestyle) recreation and as part of many flying disc games. A wide range of frisbees variants are available commercially...."
Wikipedia
amazon

Routine: Grand Master Flash Tutorial (1983)

"In 1983, Grand Master Flash was making history and paving the way for the future of turntablism. Grand Master Flash pioneered the way for DJs and innovated numerous techniques. Today we have an antique routine that doubles as a fun tutorial from the master himself. Grand Master Flash demonstrates what the whole world wants to know, 'What is a break mix?' Break out your notebook and watch how to do a break mix below. ..."
DJTechTools (Video)

2009 August: Grand Master Flash, 2015 June: "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)" - Grandmaster Flash + Melle Mel (1983)

Shakespeare and Company, Paris - A History of the Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart

"This first-ever history of the legendary bohemian bookstore in Paris interweaves essays and poetry from dozens of writers associated with the shop--Allen Ginsberg, Anaïs Nin, Ethan Hawke, Robert Stone and Jeanette Winterson, among others--with hundreds of never-before-seen archival pieces, including photographs of James Baldwin, William Burroughs and Langston Hughes, plus a foreword by the celebrated British novelist Jeanette Winterson and an epilogue by Sylvia Whitman, the daughter of the store’s founder, George Whitman. The book has been edited by Krista Halverson, director of the newly founded Shakespeare and Company publishing house. ..."
ArtBooks
Shakespeare and Company: The Best Book Shop in the World
ArtBooks: Krista Halverson on the Making of 'Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A History of the Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart'
amazon

2012 December: Shakespeare and Company, 2016 January: What It's Like to Live Inside the Legendary Paris Bookstore Shakespeare & Co.

Hear 508 Hours of Songs Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder (1924-2016), the Engineer Who Created the Sound of Modern Jazz

"The art of audio engineering is mostly a dark one, an alchemy performed behind closed studio doors by people who speak a technical language most of us don’t recognize. That is until recently. ... But with the democratization of recording technology, I fear we may begin to forget what really great, really expensive, audio engineering sounds like, an unheard-of consideration in the fifties and sixties, when the process may as well have been magic to most record buyers, and when engineer Rudy Van Gelder recorded some of the greatest—and best sounding—jazz albums ever made. A Love Supreme? That was Van Gelder. Also Miles Davis’ Walkin’, Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus, Horace Silver’s Song for My Father… Dexter Gordon, Donald Byrd, Wayne Shorter, Art Blakey…. You’re getting the idea. ..."
Open Culture (Video)

Brooklyn, Lost and Found

Found at Plum Beach.
"The refuse that clutters Brooklyn’s neglected parks, vacant lots, and forgotten shorelines is typically considered an eyesore if it isn’t ignored altogether. But a closer examination can yield surprising rewards. When you adopt the perspective of an archaeologist, the experience of walking down a litter-strewn street can become a kind of treasure hunt, where puzzling relics of the city’s past await you in the most unexpected places. We can search through the urban rubble with the same fascination as the excavators of ancient civilizations, making discoveries that connect us to a more immediate ancestry. Decaying dolls and peeling lawn ornaments take on totemic significance as emblems of an imagined urban mythology. ..."
Bklynr
W - Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
CityLab - Interactive Map of the Day: The Age of Every Building in Brooklyn
NY Times: Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a ‘Small Town’ in a Big City
Bay Ridge: an oasis in the urban jungle of New York City
YouTube: Bay Ridge Living: A Personal Tour, Tour the Arab Community in Brooklyn, NYC

2015 December: An Introduction to Novelist Gilbert Sorrentino’s Bay Ridge

Robert Wyatt - Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard (1975)

Wikipedia - "Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard is the third solo album by Robert Wyatt. The follow-up to Rock Bottom, for which Wyatt had written all of the music and lyrics, Ruth... consisted of Wyatt's adaptations and arrangements of other people's music (either friends – Phil Manzanera, Fred Frith, Mongezi Feza, former Wilde Flowers bandmate Brian Hopper – or influences – Charlie Haden) with Wyatt adding his own lyrics in much the same way as he had done on Matching Mole's Little Red Record. ... Much of the album features Wyatt (on lead vocals and keyboards) backed by a "band" consisting of bassist Bill MacCormick, drummer Laurie Allan and saxophonists George Khan and Gary Windo, with Brian Eno adding his own idiosyncratic 'anti-jazz' touch. ..."
Wikipedia
The Quietus
Discogs
Spotify
YouTube: Ruth is Stranger Than Richard - Full Album

2010 November: Robert Wyatt, 2011 October: Sea Song, 2012 October: Comicopera, 2013 March: The Last Nightingale, 2013 September: Solar Flares Burn for You (2003), 2014 March: Cuckooland (2003), 2014 October: Robert Wyatt Story (BBC Four, 2001), 2014 December: Different Every Time (2014), 2016 March: Interviews (2014), 2016 June: Dondestan (Revisited)(1998).

Edward Hopper - "Drug Store" (1927)

"... Hopper also recorded architectural scenes, both rural and urban, instilling each with a similar feeling of abandonment; he chronicled the ravages of the Depression by depicting forsaken farms and 'For Sale' signs on suburban streets. ... Now known as Drug Store, the painting is one of Hopper’s early masterpieces. Many of the themes and devices seen in his later work are evident in this striking picture. In Drug Store Hopper utilized the brilliance of electric light, his love of architectural features, and his sense of drama to convey eerie nocturnal solitude. In many of his nighttime paintings, dazzling light streams from a window surrounded by darkness. ..."
MFA
Edward Hopper
Antiques and Fine Art

2008 July: Edward Hopper, 2010 October: Finding Nighthawks, 2010 December: Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time, 2012 Wednesday: Through Edward Hopper's eyes: in search of an artist's seaside inspiration, 2013 July: Hopper Drawing, 2014 May: INTERVIEW: “An Interview with Edward Hopper, June 17, 1959″., 2014 September: How Edward Hopper “Storyboarded” His Iconic Painting Nighthawks, 2015 February: Edward Hopper's New York: A Walking Tour, 2015 September: Edward Hopper life and works, 2016 May: "Night Windows," 1928, 2016 July: Sunday (1926).

Che - Steven Soderbergh (2008)

Wikipedia - "Che is a two-part 2008 biopic about Argentine Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Benicio del Toro. Rather than follow a standard chronological order, the films offer an oblique series of interspersed moments along the overall timeline. Part One is entitled The Argentine and focuses on the Cuban Revolution from the landing of Fidel Castro, Guevara, and other revolutionaries in Cuba to their successful toppling of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship two years later. Part Two is entitled Guerrilla and focuses on Guevara's attempt to bring revolution to Bolivia and his demise. Both parts are shot in a cinéma vérité style, but each has different approaches to linear narrative, camerawork, and the visual look. ..."
Wikipedia
Criterion (Video)
New Yorker: Che’s Way
NY Times: Saluting the Rebel Underneath the T-Shirt
Roger Ebert
YouTube: Che - Movie Trailer, Steven Soderbergh on Che

2010 March: Che, 2010 December: Che Guevara in popular culture, 2012 September: The Motorcycle Diaries, 2015 August: ¡Cuba, Cuba! 65 Years of Photography

Glen Baxter

"Over four decades and many books, 'Colonel' Glen Baxter has built a world and language all his own—slightly familiar, decidedly abnormal, irresistibly funny. Baxter’s drawings and prose poems are a delicious stew of adventure novels, highbrow hijinks, and outright absurdity. The following is a selection from Baxter’s new book, Almost Completely Baxter, which brings together highlights from the full sweep of his long career. —The Editors ..."
NYBooks: At Home with the Irrational
Flowers
Glen Baxter
Wikipedia

George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia (1938)

Wikipedia - "Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War. The first edition was published in the United Kingdom in 1938. The book was not published in the United States until February 1952, when it appeared with an influential preface by Lionel Trilling. The only translation published in Orwell's lifetime was into Italian, in December 1948. A French translation by Yvonne Davet—with whom Orwell corresponded, commenting on her translation and providing explanatory notes—in 1938–39 was not published until five years after Orwell's death. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: George Orwell's Prelude in Spain
[PDF] Homage to Catalonia
amazon

2011 July: Spanish Civil War - 75 Year, 18 July, 2011 August: Down and Out in Paris and London, 2012 March: 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother), 2012 June: "The Spanish Earth", Written and Narrated by Ernest Hemingway, 2013 January: The Real George Orwell, 2015 August: Songs of the Spanish Civil War

James Blood Ulmer - Black Rock (1982)

"Recorded and issued in 1982, Black Rock was James Blood Ulmer's second Columbia album, a follow-up to the previous year's Free Lancing. This was also Blood's first attempt to take the harmolodic jazz of Ornette Coleman and marry it directly to rock's visceral appearance and funk's in-the-pocket groove. Certainly all his records from Captain Black on displayed this penchant in varying degrees, but all were linked to the deep exploration of harmolodic's scalular heights and unknown territories. ... This is a fitting introduction to Blood Ulmer's unique, knotty, and truly original guitar and composition style. Black Rock is all funk, rock, jazz, and punk, indivisible and under a one world groove."
allmusic (Video)
W - Black Rock
Discogs
DUST IN THE NOSTRILS
YouTube: Black Rock (Live @ Jazzbuehne Berlin), Love Have Two Faces
YouTube: Black Rock, Love Have Two Faces, Fun House, Overnight, Revelation March, Open House

40 Colorful Kodachrome Photos Of 1940s NYC

"It's rare we can look back at an era of NYC like the 1940s and see it through such sharp, colorful images. Thanks to Charles W. Cushman, a tourist here during that time with a knack for photography, it's possible. We've looked at Cushman's vast archives before—which span the nation and overseas over a few decade—all in all containing 14,500 Kodachrome color slides. He donated the images to his alma mater, Indiana University, and they digitized everything after nearly tossing them in the garbage. Check out his 1960s NYC photos here, and click through for his shots of New York City in the early 1940s. ..."
Gothamist (Video)

Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul (1969)

"Released at the tail end of the '60s, Hot Buttered Soul set the precedent for how soul would evolve in the early '70s, simultaneously establishing Isaac Hayes and the Bar-Kays as major forces within black music. Though not quite as definitive as Black Moses or as well-known as Shaft, Hot Buttered Soul remains an undeniably seminal record; it stretched its songs far beyond the traditional three-to-four-minute industry norm, featured long instrumental stretches where the Bar-Kays stole the spotlight, and it introduced a new, iconic persona for soul with Hayes' tough yet sensual image. With the release of this album, Motown suddenly seemed manufactured and James Brown a bit too theatrical. Surprising many, the album features only four songs. ..."
allmusic
W - Hot Buttered Soul
Pitchfork
45 Years Ago: Isaac Hayes Changes Everything With ‘Hot Buttered Soul’ (Video)
Spotify
YouTube: Hot Buttered Soul

Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age

Nicole Eisenman, Beer Garden with Ash, 2009.
"The resurgent interest in contemporary painting in recent years has coincided with an explosion of new digital media and technologies. Contrary to canonical accounts premised on medium-specificity, painting’s most advanced positions since the 1960s have developed in productive friction with contemporaneous forms of mass media and culture. From the rise of television and computers to the Internet revolution, painting has assimilated precisely those cultural and technological developments that were held responsible for its presumed ‘death’. Moving far beyond its technical definition as ‘oil on canvas’, painting during the information age has consistently offered a site for negotiating the challenges of a mediated life-world. ‘Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age’ will be the first exhibition to tell the story of painting’s adaptation, absorption and transformation of information technologies in Western Europe and the United States since the 1960s. ..."
Museum Brandhorst
Brooklyn Rail
ArtNews
Frieze
amazon
YouTube: Ausstellung "Painting 2.0": Malerei im Informationszeitalter

Detroit Blues: Early 1950’s

"These 15 tracks are tough, raw-edged, primitive urban blues from the Motor City. Kicking off with four sides from Baby Boy Warren ('Sanafee,' 'Baby Boy Blues,' 'Mattie Mae' and the instrumental 'Chicken'), three of them feature the harmonica talents of Sonny Boy Williamson, Washboard Willie, Boogie Woogie Red on piano and former Robert Johnson running buddy Calvin Frazier on lead guitar, making this combo the Detroit equivalent of the original Muddy Waters band. ... Much cruder than the more polished sound of Chicago blues, this compilation highlights some of the very best that emerged from this early, embryonic period."
allmusic
Discogs
WFMU (Video)
YouTube: Big Maceo - Big City Blues, Baby Boy Warren - Baby Boy Blues, Baby Boy Warren - Mattie Mae, Eddie Kirkland - No Shoes, John Lee Hooker - House Rent Boogie, I Need $100 - One String Sam, Baby Boy Warren - Chicken, Bo-Bo Jenkins - 10 Below Zero, Hastings Street Opera Pt 1 & 2 - Detroit Count, L.C. Green - Remember Way Back

Culture - Africa Stand Alone (1978)

"Africa Stand Alone is a 1978 album by Jamaican roots reggae band Culture. It was recorded with engineer Sylvan Morris at Harry J's Studios, Kingston, Jamaica, in the interim between the band's sessions with producers Joe Gibbs and Sonia Pottinger, and produced by Jamie Hatcher and Seymour Cummings. Neither the backing group (christened the Sons of Jah by Culture's lead singer Joseph Hill) nor the producers of Africa Stand Alone had appeared on record before. Perhaps for this reason, the versions here of the tracks that also appear on 'Harder Than the Rest' are renowned for being rawer and less disciplined. The musical backing tracks are also known for being more minimal, thus allowing the vocals to take a more central role."
Heaven Street Records
W - Africa Stand Alone
Spotify
YouTube: Behold The Land, Garvey Rock, Innocent Blood, More Vacancy

2015 May: Two Sevens Clash: The 30th Anniversary Edition (1977/2007)