"Jo Johnson and Hilary Robinson’s album Antenna Echoes has its
origins in chance and error: a meeting in a shared neighborhood, and a
broken piano. The result of those external influences is a Covid-era
collaboration of deeply interior music, all cavernous echoes and warm
feedback. Piano is the near constant through the album’s three tracks
('Maze Echoes,' 'Antenna Gain,' 'Fresh Air and the Usual Low-grade
Hedonism'), but it would be inaccurate to claim its presence necessarily
grounds the plush synthesizer and pervasive sound-design drones. ..."
disquiet (Audio)
Discogs
"This is a journal about reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time at the rate of at least ten pages a day. The
text I've chosen is the recent Penguin translation, the first four
volumes of which were published in America by Viking. The last three
have not been published here because of copyright limitations, but are
available in paperback editions imported from Britain. The page numbers,
unfortunately, may not correlate with other editions, so I've added the
beginning and ending phrases for each day's section. ..."
182 Days of Marcel Proust
182 Days of Marcel Proust: Day-by-Day Summary
182 Days of Marcel Proust: People, Places, Things, Ideas
Got a Spare 153 Hours? Listen to Proust’s Masterpiece, Unabridged, Naxos Audio
 | | "Landscape with a Calm (Un Tem[p]s calme et serein)," Nicolas Poussin, 1650 - 1651. |
2008 June: Marcel Proust, 2011 October: How Proust Can Change Your Life, 2012 April: Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu, 2013 February: Marcel Proust and Swann's Way: 100th Anniversary, 2013 May: A Century of Proust, 2013 August: Paintings in Proust - Eric Karpeles, 2013 October: On Reading Proust, 2015 September: In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel, 2016 January: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (1919), 2016 February: Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy and Translator, 2016 May: The Guermantes Way (1920-21), 2016 August: Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time — Patrick Alexander, 2016 October: My Strange Friend Marcel Proust, 2017 March: Sodom and Gomorrah (1921-1922), 2017 August: Letters To His Neighbor by Marcel Proust; translated by Lydia Davis, October: Proust's À la recherche – a novel big enough for the world, 2017 October: Proust Fans Eagerly Await Trove of Letters Going Online, 2017 December: The Prisoner / The Fugitive (1923-1925), 2018 May: Time Regained (1927), 2018 September: Céleste Albaret, 2018 November: In the Footsteps of Marcel Proust, 2019 February: On the Anxiety and Vanity of Marcel Proust, Debut Novelist
 | | Newsboys and newsgirls on Newspaper Row, Park Row, NYC. |
"The reporters would pant up five flights of stairs to reach their
dingy, dim newsrooms, where light eked through the dirt-cloaked windows
and the green shades over the oil lamps were burned through with holes.
They wended through hobbled tables piled high with papers, walked past
cubbies so chaotically stuffed with scrolled proofs no outsider could
guess the system. The reporters reeked of five-alarm smoke, or had coat
pockets bulky with notes and a pistol from the front, or were tipsy from
a gala ball, or dusty from a horse race. If they held important news in
those notebooks, a copy boy would crowd by their elbow as they wrote,
snatch the ink-wet sheets from their hands, and rush them off to the
copyholder to 'put them into metal.' The center of news in the nineteenth century lined the streets around
City Hall Park, only a short sprint to Wall Street, close to the
harbor. ..." The Paris Review
"Of all the things President Trump has destroyed, the Republican Party is among the most dismaying. 'Destroyed'
is perhaps too simplistic, though. It would be more precise to say that
Mr. Trump accelerated his party’s demise, exposing the rot that has
been eating at its core for decades and leaving it a hollowed-out shell
devoid of ideas, values or integrity, committed solely to preserving its
own power even at the expense of democratic norms, institutions and
ideals. Tomato, tomahto. However you characterize it, the Republican Party’s dissolution under Mr. Trump is bad for American democracy. ..."
NY Times: The Editorial Board
Rolling Stone - R.I.P., GOP: How Trump Is Killing the Republican Party (Video)
Pell Center: R.I.P., G.O.P. amazon: RIP GOP: How the New America Is Dooming the Republicans, Stanley B. Greenberg
YouTube: 6 Crucial Races That Will Flip the Senate | Robert Reich, Kornacki Breaks Down Where Things Stand In Battleground States Heading Into Final Debate, Battleground Tracker: Tight race in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina
2020 October: Trump
"1959 was the seismic year jazz broke away from complex bebop music to
new forms, allowing soloists unprecedented freedom to explore and
express. It was also a pivotal year for America: the nation was finding
its groove, enjoying undreamt-of freedom and wealth social, racial and
upheavals were just around the corner and jazz was ahead of the curve.
Four major jazz albums were made, each a high watermark for the artists
and a powerful reflection of the times. Each opened up dramatic new
possibilities for jazz which continue to be felt Miles Davis Kind of
Blue Dave Brubeck, Time Out Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um; and Ornette
Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come.
Rarely seen archive performances help vibrantly bring the era to life
and explore what made these albums vital both in 1959 and the 50 years
since. ..."
YouTube: 1959 The Year that Changed Jazz 58:58
"What shall we read before bed? Georgia O’Keeffe was a fan of cookbooks, telling her young assistant Margaret Wood that they were 'enjoyable nighttime company, providing brief and pleasant reading.' ... In addition to recipes—inscribed by the artist’s own hand in ink from
a fountain pen, typed by assistants, clipped from magazines and
newspapers, or in promotional booklets such as the one published by the
Waring Products Company—the box housed manuals for O’Keeffe’s kitchen
appliances. The booklet that came with her pressure cooker includes a spattered
page devoted to cooking fresh veggies, a testament to her abiding
interest in eating healthfully. O’Keeffe had a high regard for salads, garden fresh herbs, and simple, locally sourced food. ..."
Open Culture
NY Times: Own the Recipes of Georgia O’Keeffe
amazon  | | Georgia O’Keeffe cutting herbs, New Mexico 1960 by Tony Vaccaro |
 "Regarded as one of reggae's most distinctive voices, vocalist Horace Andy
had wild success early on with his career-defining single 'Skylarking' as well as a host of other hits. As far as full-length statements are
concerned, Andy's 1977 album In the Light may be his strongest. The album's ten tracks found Andy's
quivering vocals floating in a dreamlike tension above tightly wound
rocksteady rhythms, looming darkly on pensive tracks like 'Problems' (a
tune that revisits the burning bassline from one of Andy's
earlier hits, 'Mr. Bassie'), exploding on fun jaunts like 'Do You Love
My Music,' and lingering meditatively on the lighthearted anthem of
self-awareness and cultural pride that is the title track. ... Skillfully remastered and even stronger with both originals and dubs occupying the same space, In the Light/In the Light Dub
is a triumph of roots reggae and a necessary chapter for anyone even
remotely enthusiastic about Jamaican music and culture, especially at
this critical point of reggae's evolution in the late '70s. ..."
all music (Audio), W - Horace Andy
Discogs: In The Light (Video), In The Light Dub (Video) amazom
YouTube: In The Light + Dub, Government Land + Dub
"Hosting a gathering of friends at your
home may not be advisable at this time, but getting together with a
flock of feathered friends is a great diversion. During the pandemic,
birding has become a popular escape with sales for seed suppliers,
birdhouse builders and other bird related businesses 'through the roof,'
according to Audubon Magazine. Extending
an invitation to the bird community is simply a matter of offering a
meal. A backyard rich with trees and shrubs is an ideal place to hold
the get together, but a patio or rooftop will suffice. ..." NY Times 2008 September: Birds, 2008 June: Bird Songs, 2017 April: Of a Feather, 2017 June: Bird Sounds, 2017 July: Beautifully Designed Tiny Houses... For Birds, 2019 September: The Crisis for Birds Is a Crisis for Us All, 2019 March: She Invented a Board Game With Scientific Integrity. It’s Taking Off., 2019 June: Where Birds Meet Art . . . After Dark, 2019 September: The Crisis for Birds Is a Crisis for Us All, 2019 October: A Quest to Protect the World's Last Silent Places, 2020 June: Making a Garden That Welcomes the Birds, 2020 July: New Bird Song That ‘Went Viral’ Across This Species of Sparrow Was Tracked by Scientists For the First Time, 2020 August: How to Use Binoculars - Jason Ward
"The season is still young. The sample
size is far too small to draw conclusions. Over the next month or two,
order most likely will be restored. As the weeks clog with matches, as
muscles tire and injuries occur, chances are that the familiar faces
will be the ones left standing. That is the privilege of having deep
pockets, of course: They tend to contain the deepest squads. But
a glance at the standings across Europe’s major leagues this week is
enough, at least, to make you wonder if something strange is happening,
if something, however small, has shifted, if all those factors that
might have made this season less predictable — the absence of fans, the
shortened preseason, the compacted schedules — have had some sort of
effect. ..."
NY Times - Rory Smith
"... This trivia event, hosted by the Leventhal Map & Education
Center in collaboration with the Boston Public Library's Department of
Special Collections, utilizes ATLASCOPE, a completely free online and
app-based resource for exploring and browsing the Map Center's
incredible digitized urban atlases collection.
The atlases appear as continuous, zoomable web layers, allowing
users to pull up specific maps for all areas of Boston, and compare the
current streetscapes with historical records to answer questions in a
geographic scavenger hunt. ..."
The Boston Calendar Blog
Leventhal Map & Education Center
YouTube: Leventhal Map & Education Center
'Originally released in 1974 on the
independent Tribe Records, this album features many of the Detroit
heavyweight artists such as Wendell Harrison and Phil Ranelin, who have
both had releases on Chicago's Hefty Records where they have worked with
and been re-mixed by current artists such as Telefon Tel Aviv, Morgan
Geist, Prefuse 73 and Kirk Degiorgio amongst others. Marcus
Belgrave's musical career spans over 4 decades. He has worked with
everyone from Sun Ra to Charles Mingus, from McCoy Tyner to Clifford
Brown. He worked as part of the Tribe collective in Detroit, working
with the same ideology as their musical neighbours, The Art Ensemble of
Chicago. ..."
Holland Tunnel
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Gemini II 38:50
"The date was April 20, 1978; the scene, the Great Hall of the Cooper
Union for the Advancement of Science and Art on Astor Place. On the
stage where Abraham Lincoln once spoke sat two men, the Italian
modernist Massimo Vignelli and the cartographer John Tauranac, constituting two sides of the Great Subway Map Debate.
Six years earlier, Vignelli’s firm had reimagined the New York subway
map into a groovy rainbowlike diagram, one that graphic designers loved
and many riders found hard to navigate. ..."
Curbed
vimeo: The Map 10:08
 | | A set of images taken by the
OSIRIS-REX spacecraft showing a full revolution of the asteroid Bennu.
|
"A NASA robot pogo-sticked off an
asteroid on Tuesday and grabbed a sample of dirt and rocks, material
that could give scientists new insights to the birth of the solar
system. From first impressions
recorded 200 millions away on Earth, the OSIRIS-REX spacecraft pulled
off its collection of bits of asteroid, a carbon-rich rock known as
Bennu, perfectly. It then backed away and headed back to orbit. ... It will take a few more days before scientists can completely declare
success. At present, they can only say that the spacecraft executed its
instructions exactly as programmed. What is not yet known is how much
material was actually grabbed. Scientists are hoping for at least a
couple of ounces, but the sampling mechanism can hold up to four pounds. ..."
NY Times
W - 101955 Bennu
"Early in 2016, Will Bankhead’s eclectic electronic label The Trilogy
Tapes dropped a thrilling run of club-melting 12"s from Rezzett, Four
Legs, and Call Super’s Ondo Fudd alias. Slotted among these was an eerie, queasy release credited to Carl Gari and Abdullah Miniawy,
with a stark photograph of Tahrir Square and the scorched exterior of
the former parliament building in Cairo. The music matched that
smoldering, post-revolutionary scene; the heavy atmosphere of the
country and the bitterness of the military dictatorship resonated in
haunting drones, ominous throbs, and a voice incanting in digitally
processed Arabic. ... The Act of Falling From the 8th Floor is a harrowing and
desolate listen that captures the mood and mindset of Miniawy and
numerous other Egyptians living under the brutal oppression of the
Al-Sisi regime. ..." Pitchfork (Audio)
Bandcamp (Audio)
Discogs (Video)
amazon
"The almost-certain confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme
Court has increased the chances that Roe v. Wade will be weakened or
overturned. If that were to happen, abortion access would decline in
large regions of the country, a new data analysis shows. Legal abortion access would be unchanged in more than half of states,
but it would effectively end for those living in much of the American
South and Midwest, especially those who are poor, according to the
analysis. (The analysis incorporates more recent data on research we wrote about last year.) ..."
NY Times
Planned Parenthood - Roe v. Wade: The Constitutional Right to Access Safe, Legal Abortion
What If Roe Fell?
 | Pieter Bruegel - The Return of the Herd (1565) |
"... Embroidery was deemed 'unseemly' as were 'light and variant
hues in clothing, as red, blue, yellow and such like, which declare the
lightness of mind.' Instead, the Scots were told to wear simple fabrics
in 'grave colour,' such as 'black, russet, sad grey, or sad brown.' This depressing list comes from a summary of the 1575 General
Assembly of the Kirk, recorded in the Domestic Annals of Scotland.
Although the upper classes continued to wear silks and velvets and
pretty bright dresses, most people wore their sad rags. It was more
practical, to be dressed in dark gray and black and brown. Life for the
lower classes was hard. The clothing reflected this fact.
And yet, thrown in with those drab colors was russet. ..."
The Paris Review
W - Russet (color)
"Because senator Kamala Harris is a prosecutor and I am a felon, I have
been following her political rise, with the same focus that my younger
son tracks Steph Curry threes. Before it was in vogue to criticize
prosecutors, my friends and I were exchanging tales of being railroaded
by them. Shackled in oversized green jail scrubs, I listened to a
prosecutor in a Fairfax County, Va., courtroom tell a judge that in one
night I’d single-handedly changed suburban shopping forever. Everything
the prosecutor said I did was true — I carried a pistol, carjacked a man, tried to rob two women. ..."
NY Times (Audio)
"Rosanne Cash has released the 'scathing yet hopeful' new song 'Crawl
Into The Promised Land,' complete with an official video by Phyllis
Housen and Eric Baker. Esteemed four-time Grammy winner Cash co-wrote the song with its
producer, John Leventhal, and its appearance is a call to the resilience
of the human spirit as America leads into next month’s presidential
election. Proceeds from the single will be donated to the Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement.
The educational online memorial commemorates the victims of lynchings
in the state of Arkansas, in collaboration with the Equal Justice
Initiative and Coming To The Table. ..."
See Rosanne Cash’s Video For Forthright ‘Crawl Into The Promised Land’ (Video)
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), 2015 June: King's Record Shop (1987), 2016 June: 10 Song Demo (1996), 2017 January: Rodney Crowell - "It Ain't Over Yet (feat. Rosanne Cash & John Paul White)", 2019 August: Everyone But Me, 2020 March: Long Way Home By Rosanne Cash
"Growing Up Absurd is a 1960 book by Paul Goodman on the relationship between American juvenile delinquency and societal opportunities to fulfill natural needs. Contrary to the then-popular view that juvenile delinquents should be led to properly regard society and its goals, Goodman argued that young American men were justified in their disaffection because their society lacked the preconditions for growing up, including meaningful work, honorable community, sexual freedom, and spiritual sustenance. The book drew from Goodman's prior works, psychotherapy practice, and personal experiences and relations in New York City. ..." Wikipedia
Writing the Riots NY Times: Gadfly of the ’60s, Getting His Due
NY Times: It's Purpose That Counts; GROWING UP ABSURD. ... By John K. Galbraith (Oct. 30, 1960) amazon YouTube: Paul Goodman Changed My Life (2011) Trailer
In 2019, British saxophonist Nat Birchall is celebrating twenty years as a bandleader. His specialism is post-John Coltrane spiritual jazz. Since 1999 he has released an album every two years or so. The most recent was the outstanding Cosmic Language (Jazzman, 2018). The next is due later this year. ... Before Birchall became a jazz musician, his big love was reggae, which is where African Shores
is coming from. The album is released on Birchall's reggae-focused
label Tradition Disc. It is headlined by Jamaican trombonist Vin Gordon with Birchall sharing the frontline and the writing credits. ..."
All About Jazz
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: African Shores 9 videos
"... On paper at least, Montgomery Clift had everything: matinee idol good
looks, natural acting talent bolstered by training from legends of the
New York theatre, the education of an aristocrat. It’s why Hollywood
pursued him for more than a decade, trying to tempt him over to the
movies with increasingly tantalising offers, until he finally relented.
Cinema audiences saw Clift for the first time the year he turned 28, in
post-WWII drama The Search, which earned him his first of four Oscar nominations, and the western Red River,
which was a huge box office success on release. These two films, each a
showcase for a novel kind of leading man practicing an immersive new
style of acting that would come to be known simply as ‘the Method’, made
Clift an instant star. ..." The Quietus
"Music journalist, cultural manager, booker, manager and DJ from Perú.
Lucho Pacora has been a Dj resident at El Directorio and Victoria Bar.
His interest in tropical roots music led him to found, with your partner
Marco Caballero, the project called 'Bomba Tropical', which rescues the
sound memorabilia of the vinyls records where many Latin American
tropical styles were published such as mambo, guaracha, porro, cumbia,
chicha, salsa, guaguancó, son, marimba, among others. This project has
taken the original Latin sounds to countries like Mexico, Brazil, Spain
and France. ..."
Soundcloud (Audio) 58:18
YouTube: Bomba Tropical • 45rpm Vinyl Set 58:18
"By the 1960s, the neighborhood took on
its bohemian title: the East Village, home to Beats, hippies and no wave
bands, to Allen Ginsberg, W.H. Auden, Abbie Hoffman, Fillmore East and the Poetry Project, to graffiti artists — and, in recent years, to droves of New York University students. It
used to be simply the northeast quadrant of Manhattan’s Lower East
Side, where, to repurpose a phrase by another former resident, William
S. Burroughs, layers of history are 'wrapped around each other like
hibernating rattlesnakes.' During the 17th century Lenape settlements gave way to Dutch plantations. By the 1830s, the Georgian-style St. Marks Church in-the-Bowery, which took on a Greek Revival spire and cast-iron portico, had risen on a piece of Peter Stuyvesant’s former estate. ..."
NY Times
2015 December: The Other Paris - Luc Sante, 2020 September: Luc Sante: ‘Money doesn’t kill people, but it changes the fabric of daily life’
"As of the writing of this blog post, there are over two million cases
of coronavirus worldwide. Sports have been particularly affected,
having all major seasons, events, and tournaments canceled. One of the
most prominent of which is the rescheduling of the Euro. Obviously,
these precautions were enacted with the safety of the athletes and their
families in mind. However, personally, as a fan, I have deeply missed
spectating these contests. As a result, I decided to simulate the
tournament that was supposed to be played this summer. I simulated these matches using the FootySimulator. For each match, I
simulated 99 games at a neutral venue. For elimination games, I played
extra time and then penalty kicks, while just full time was used for
group stage matches. The aggregate goal differential was recorded for
the group stage in the event of a need for a tiebreaker. ..."
Soccer Politics / The Politics of Football (April 2020)
 "Cape Breton Island is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. ... Although the island is physically separated from the Nova Scotia peninsula by the Strait of Canso, the 1,385 m (4,544 ft) long rock-fill Canso Causeway
connects it to mainland Nova Scotia. The island is east-northeast of
the mainland with its northern and western coasts fronting on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence; its western coast also forms the eastern limits of the Northumberland Strait. The eastern and southern coasts front the Atlantic Ocean; its eastern coast also forms the western limits of the Cabot Strait. Its landmass slopes upward from south to north, culminating in the highlands of its northern cape. ... Approximately 75% of the island's population is in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) which includes all of Cape Breton County and is often referred to as Industrial Cape Breton,
given the history of coal mining and steel manufacturing in this area,
which was Nova Scotia's industrial heartland throughout the 20th
century. ..."
W - Cape Breton Island  "Alistair MacLeod, OC FRSC
(July 20, 1936 – April 20, 2014) was a Canadian novelist, short story
writer and academic. His powerful and moving stories vividly evoke the
beauty of Cape Breton Island's
rugged landscape and the resilient character of many of its
inhabitants, the descendants of Scottish immigrants, who are haunted by
ancestral memories and who struggle to reconcile the past and the
present. MacLeod has been praised for his verbal precision, his lyric
intensity and his use of simple, direct language that seems rooted in an
oral tradition. ... In 2000, MacLeod's two books of short stories, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976) and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories (1986), were re-published in the volume Island: The Collected Stories. MacLeod compared his fiction writing to playing an accordion. ..."
W - Alistair MacLeod
A LESSON IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING: AN INTERVIEW WITH ALISTAIR MacLEOD
amazon: Alistair MacLeod
NY Times: "Out With the Tide" (Audio)
NY Times - "No Great Mischief" (Audio)
Guardian: The isle is full of noises " Cape Breton fiddling is a regional violin style which falls within the Celtic music idiom. Cape Breton Island's fiddle music was brought to North America by Scottish immigrants during the Highland Clearances. These Scottish immigrants were primarily from Gaelic-speaking regions in the Scottish Highlands and the Outer Hebrides. Although fiddling has changed considerably since this time in Scotland, it is widely held that the tradition of Scottish fiddle music has been better preserved in Cape Breton. ..."
Wikipedia
The Cape Breton Musical Heritage Series
The Amazing Music of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
YouTube: Angus Chisholm - Cape Breton Fiddle, Angus Chisholm - Rodeo, A.A Gillis Johnnie Cope - Cape Breton, Donald MacLellan - Strathspey & Reel Cape Breton, W.H (Bill) Lamey - Scottish Reels, Alick Gillis - Go To The De'il And Shake Yourself, Margaree's Fancy, Villeneuve & Bouchard - Set du Lac St-Jean, Willie Kennedy traditional Cape Breton Fiddle (Live), Fiddler Robbie Fraser at the Red Shoe in Mabou N.S. (Live), Cape Breton Fiddle | John MacDougall (Live)
Cape Breton Island - Protest Song (2012), Songs of Steel, Coal and Protest (2012)
"On Cape Breton Island, where coal mining and steel making were once an
essential part of the region’s culture and economy, protest song and
verse are found in abundance. ..."
Protest Songs, Protest Songs – Volume 1 (Audio), Songs of Steel, Coal and Protest – Volume 2 (Audio)
Industrial heritage remembered
YouTube: Albert Lionais - He Walked Right In
"Thelonious Monk once said: 'Weird means something you never heard
before. It’s weird until people get around to it. Then it ceases to be
weird.' By the time Monk and his quartet strode into the auditorium at
Palo Alto High School on October 27, 1968, people hadn’t just gotten
around to his oblong, minimalist take on jazz—they’d left it behind.
After decades of toiling in New York’s clubs to little outside
recognition, Monk had briefly tasted superstardom, culminating in a 1964
Time magazine cover. ...
The live album Palo Alto is a grainy snapshot of Monk and
his classic quartet taking a break from their two-week stand at San
Francisco’s Jazz Workshop to cut loose and get paid. ..." Pitchfork
NY Times: 52 Years Ago, Thelonious Monk Played a High School. Now Everyone Can Hear It.
LondonJazz
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Live At Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, CA / 1968 1/7 2012 September: Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, 2013 August: Five Spot Café, 2014 February: Thelonious Monk - Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1, Vol. 2, 2015 February: "Epistrophy" - Thelonious Monk / Kenny Clarke (1941), 2016 November: Underground (1968), 2017 May: The Thelonious Monk Quartet: The Complete Columbia Studio Albums Collection (2012), 2018 May: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (2017)
 "Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.
Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United
States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his
office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering
the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has
subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and
political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives
and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he
holds. The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. During Mr. Trump’s term, we have called out his racism and his xenophobia. We have critiqued his vandalism of the postwar consensus,
a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a
great many lives to establish and maintain. We have, again and again,
deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow
Americans. Yet when the Senate refused to convict the president for obvious abuses of power and obstruction, we counseled his political opponents to focus their outrage on defeating him at the ballot box.
Nov. 3 can be a turning point. This is an election about the country’s future, and what path its citizens wish to choose. ..." NY Times 2020 October, Trump
"Islamic metalwork — more than any other form of Islamic craftsmanship — represents a meeting point of different cultures, patterns, and traditions.
Drawing on some of the finest objects from the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, Cultures in Conversation presents a modern-day interpretation of Islamic metalwork in The Courtauld Gallery and the History of Science Museum collections.
From stunning court fashion and intricate astrolabes to beautiful bowls and candlesticks, immerse yourself in six centuries of Islamic artisanship.
Discover how each precious and rare object is a cultural conversation which starts and ends in a different place.
And those cultural conversations continue today in the online exhibition, with objects and stories from the Multaka-Oxford volunteers and local community — including an interactive digital programme where online visitors can design their own Islamic-inspired patterns. ..."
University of Oxford (Video)
 | | Bardsey Island, as seen from the warden’s house. In the distance is the island’s lighthouse, built in 1821. |
"The waters surrounding Britain are
speckled with thousands of small islands, only a small fraction of which
are inhabited, some by as few as one or two people. Among
those who call Britain’s small islands home are a collection of wardens
— caretakers who spend their lives in quiet solitude, away from the
crowded corners of our urban world. Often employed by nonprofit
conservation groups, their role is to maintain and manage the
preservation of their small speck of land — its natural beauty, its
wildlife — for future generations, often while conducting research into
delicate ecosystems. ..."
NY Times
 | | An assortment of skulls, collected by past wardens over the years, sits within the warden’s house. |
"We embark to Lagos with old lion Binda
Ngazolo. The chaotic megacity was often referenced by Fela, much like
in 'Confusion Break Bone' (1990). ... Abidjan, 2001: I receive an unlikely
offer. I’m invited to stage the play Le Fou du Carrefour ['the
crossroads’ madman'] in Lagos, Nigeria, under the title Madness
Junction. This urban fable was penned by the great Ivorian playwright
Hyacinthe Kakou in 1994, and depicts a frenetic African city invaded by
garbage and other toxic waste originating from industrialized countries.
The city’s arteries are blocked. Vehicles can no longer move freely,
workers can no longer get to their respective occupations… The people
grumble. The cops beat them down. The economy is blocked, the country is
suffocated. Everyone complains, but no one does anything. ..."
PAN (Video)
"Vermont locked itself down early and
reopened gradually. Washington state paid workers who couldn't do their
jobs while quarantined. And Louisiana zeroed in on students who were
most at-risk of falling behind and prioritized help for them first. When President Donald Trump decided to
delegate the pandemic response to the states, he gave them a chance to
call their own shots. Some states acted aggressively to contain
Covid-19, others far less so. We wondered with all those decisions put in states’ hands, which ones have done the best job so far? ..."
Politico
"T his is an old-school electric guitar fan’s
album, played by one of the most creative guitar fans in the world. Bill
Frisell is a lifelong lover of the quintessentially American invention,
drawing on everything from Charlie Christian
swing through 50s tremolo twangs to cutting-edge pedal technology. But
it’s also a fine display of bluegrass and rock-inspired contemporary
music, in which Frisell’s intelligent, jazz-informed sensibility is
applied to 1950s and 60s classics by Duane Eddy, the Beach Boys, the
Kinks and more. On a casual listen, he might seem to be treating the
Chantays’ Pipeline or the Junior Wells blues Messin’ With the Kid as if
he’s still a teenage guitar prodigy who has just excitedly learned them
off the singles – but in fact this is as serious, witty, layered and
subtle as any of his more abstract work. Check out a rapturously tender
Surfer Girl, a delicately spacey Tired of Waiting for You – and Kenny
Wollesen’s deep, casually flappy percussion, which elegantly
counterbalances the metallic clangs all the way through."Guardian - Bill Frisell: Guitar in the Space Age review – witty six-string celebrations
W - Guitar in the Space Age
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YouTube: Pipeline (Live), Surfer Girl (Live)
2018 April: Music IS (2018)
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