Please Feed The Meters: The Next Parking Revolution

"There’s plenty to hate about driving—traffic jams, car accidents, speeding tickets—not to mention the endless headache of finding a spot to park. So what if you discovered an invention that could wean us from our vehicles, combating suburban sprawl and making city streets less dangerous, congested, and polluted? Well, that device has been around for nearly 80 years: It’s called the parking meter. Contrary to popular belief, the parking meter was originally designed to keep traffic moving and make more spaces available for shoppers, a measure often lauded by local businesses as much as the public who paid their hourly rates."
Collectors Weekly
W - Parking meter

The American Circus

"The circus is a source of nostalgia for Americans of all ages, either from memories of attending P. T. Barnum's 'Greatest Show on Earth,' or through the colorful evocations in many movies, television programs, and books. Interest in the circus phenomenon is unflagging, yet there have been few publications that look closely at how the circus's European origins were refashioned for an American audience. Lavishly illustrated and carefully researched, this volume explores how American culture, values, demography, and business practices altered the fundamental nature of the European circus, and how, by the end of the 19th century, they had transformed it into a distinctly American pastime."
Yale
Huffington Post (Photos)
Yale: Circus and the City: New York, 1793-2010
History Extra: The American circus (Photos)

Bookbinding

Wikipedia - "Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching a book cover to the resulting text-block. There is no way to be certain where book crafting originated; it was an evolving art encompassing techniques from a variety of cultures and civilizations."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Bookbinding
Google

Patti Smith - Hey Joe / Piss Factory (1974)

"Patti Smith released a cover of the song as the A-side of her first single, 'Hey Joe' b/w 'Piss Factory', in 1974. The arrangement of Smith's version is based on a recording by blues guitarist Roy Buchanan that was released the previous year (and dedicated to Hendrix). Smith's version is unique in that she includes a brief and salacious monologue about fugitive heiress Patty Hearst and her kidnapping and participation with the Symbionese Liberation Army. Smith's version portrays Patty Hearst as Joe with a 'gun in her hand'. Tom Verlaine on lead guitar. 'Piss Factory' is a protopunk song written by Patti Smith and Richard Sohl, and released as a B-side on Smith's debut single 'Hey Joe' in 1974."
popsike
Daily Motion: Hey Joe (Video - 1976)
YouTube: Piss Factory

Hannah Williams & The Tastemakers

"Funky sounds have taken us by storm the past weeks and months with a constant flow of outstanding releases from Dojo Cuts, the Hannah Williams & The Tastemakers Souljazz Orchestra, Antibalas, Elikeh and even bass-driven glitch-hop producers like Opiuo and KOAN Sound. However, more than anyone on the list Hannah Williams & The Tastemakers dive far back into the history of the genre to craft new, irresistible tunes. Here it is slow, brutish soul that overpowers and considering Hannah’s impressive, hoarse, earth-shuttering vocals that is not a bad thing at all, even for skank-rhythm junkies like us."
Freegan kolektiva (Video)
amazon: Hannah Williams & the Tastemakers
YouTube: I'm A Good Woman, Work it out, Don't Tell Me, Deep Fried Funk Computer, I've Been Waiting

Allan Kaprow

Wikipedia - "Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the 'Environment' and 'Happening' in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years. Eventually Kaprow shifted his practice into what he called 'Activities', intimately scaled pieces for one or several players, devoted to the study of normal human activity in a way congruent to ordinary life. Fluxus, Performance art, and Installation art was, in turn, influenced by his work."
Wikipedia
Allan Kaprow (1927–2006) - The Brooklyn Rail
MoCA: Allan Kaprow–Art as Life
FLUXLIST
frieze: Allan Kaprow
How to Make a Happening
YouTube: Allan Kaprow at Zwirner & Wirth, NYC (Sept 2009), Fluids: A Happening by Alan Kaprow's, Interacting in Allan Kaprow´s Vacuum Cleaner Fluxus Happening Space. 2010, Allan Kaprow, Meters (1972/2007) Version by Nina Langensand

Paris 1914

"As surprising as this may seem, there are many photographs of Paris shot in direct color from 1907 to 1930. The Autochrome process was developed by the Lumière brothers in 1903. The technique was based on a composite of black and white emulsions passed through a series of color filters (red, blue and green) designed based on potato starch."
PARIS 1914
PARIS UNPLUGGED

2009 October: The Lumière Brothers

The Chantays - "Pipeline" (1963)

Wikipedia - "The Chantays are an American surf rock band from the early 1960s, known for the hit instrumental, 'Pipeline' (1963). Their music combined electronic keyboards and surf guitar, creating a unique ghostly sound."
Wikipedia
YouTube: "Pipeline"

Xu Bing: Phoenix

"Drawing inspiration from the contemporary realities of his fast-changing country, Chinese artist Xu Bing spent two years creating his newest work, Phoenix. The installation features two monumental birds fabricated entirely from materials harvested from construction sites in urban China, including demolition debris, steel beams, tools, and remnants of the daily lives of migrant laborers. At once fierce and strangely beautiful, the mythic Phoenixes bear witness to the complex interconnection between labor, history, commercial development, and the rapid accumulation of wealth in today's China."
MASS MoCA
Xu Bing's 'Phoenix' takes flight at Mass MoCA
Google - Xu Bing: Phoenix

Vicki Bennett

Vitrine, Leeds College of Art (2012)
"Since 1991 British artist Vicki Bennett has been an influential figure in the field of audio visual collage, through her innovative sampling, appropriating and cutting up of found footage and archives. Using collage as her main form of expression, she creates audio recordings, films and radio shows that communicate a humorous, dark and often surreal view on life. These collages mix, manipulate and rework original sources from both the experimental and popular worlds of music, film, television and radio."
People Like Us (Video)
UbuWeb: Back to People Like Us in UbuWeb Film (Video)
W - People Like Us
vimeo: Vicki WFMU, A Selection of Works by People Like Us (Vicki Bennett)
The Wire - Collateral Damage: Vicki Bennett
WFMU: Something Engaging & Trasformative: An Interview with Vicki Bennett
YouTube: vicky bennett people like us
archive: We Edit Life (2002), Story Without End (2005), Resemblage (2004)

69 “Rabbit Foot Blues” by Blind Lemon Jefferson

"There are three tracks from Blind Lemon Jefferson on the third volume of the Anthology and this is the first one. He was a very popular recording artist during his time and his success launched the standard of the male Blues singer with guitar. The blind Texas street singer remains a mythic and influential figure of the Blues, even if his style was so unique that it was rarely imitated by others during his time. With his high and expressive voice, his creative guitar style, full of licks up and down the neck, his music is one the most lyrical ever recorded in the Blues idiom."
The Old, Weird America (Video)
W - Blind Lemon Jefferson
Where Dead Voices Gather: The Anthology of American Folk Music Project - "Rabbit Foot Blues" - Blind Lemon Jefferson
amazon: Blind Lemon Jefferson
YouTube: Black Snake Moan,He arose from the dead, Match Box Blues, Bakershop Blues, Jack of Diamonds, Southern Woman Blues, How Long How Long

Cafe Au Go Go

Wikipedia - "The Cafe au Go Go was a Greenwich Village night club located in the basement of 152 Bleecker Street. The club featured many well known musical groups, folksingers and comedy acts between the opening in February 1964 until closing in October 1969. Originally owned by Howard Solomon who sold the club in June 1969, to Moses Baruch who closed the club in October 1969. Howard Solomon became the manager of singer Fred Neil. The club was the first New York venue for the Grateful Dead. Richie Havens and the Blues Project were weekly regulars, and the Stone Poneys featuring Linda Ronstadt played frequently."
Wikipedia
Café au Go-Go 1964 - 1967
Google
YouTube: Cafe au Go Go Documentary Trailer

Cronopios and Famas - Julio Cortazar

"Saturated with the starkness of the pampas, Cronopios and Famas is at once a disturbing and exhilarating collection of short, short vignette-proclamations. Containing little to do with anything and yet much to do with everything, I'd call this a surrealist's fairy-fragments, a lazy Sunday afternoon sundae that at once calls to be slurped in a gulp and teases us into enjoying it languorously."
subir
From "The Instruction Manual" by Julio Cortazar
Google: Cronopios and Famas, Julio Cortazar/Paul Blackburn
amazon

Paul Laffoley

Wikipedia - "Paul Laffoley (born August 14, 1940) is a U.S. artist and architect from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Following his formal education in the classics at Brown and architectural studies at Harvard, Laffoley came to New York in 1963 to work with the visionary artist and architect Frederick Kiesler, and was also recruited to view late-night TV for Andy Warhol. ... As a painter, his work is usually classified as visionary art or outsider art. Most of Laffoley's pieces are painted on large canvases and combine words and imagery to depict a spiritual architecture of explanation, tackling concepts like dimensionality, time travel through hacking relativity, connecting conceptual threads shared by philosophers through the millennia, and theories about the cosmic origins of mankind."
Wikipedia
Official Paul Laffoley Website
MIQEL.com - Visionary Art Galleries (YouTube)

Wrapped Floor and Stairway, 1969 - Christo and Jeanne-Claude

"The installation of Wrapped Floor and Stairway was completed on May 20, 1969, and remained in place until June 6, 1969. The entire floor of the gallery, which had been emptied of everything and then painted white, as well as the Flemish staircase with its banister and handrail were covered with house painters' cotton drop cloths. Although the transformation was minimal, it drastically altered the space, generating an atmosphere of silence and spiritual tranquility. As visitors walked on the fabric it changed into rhythmic ripples and folds with a high degree of textural surface and nuance."
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Chicago, 1968-69
vimeo: Christo during the installation of Wrapped Floor and Stairway

 2007 November: Christo & Jeanne-Claude
2009 November: Jeanne-Claude
2010 April: Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence
2010 September: Christo and Jeanne-Claude - The Gates
2010 November: Over The River - Christo and Jeanne-Claude
2012 January: 5 Films About Christo & Jeanne-Claude
2012 June: The Pont Neuf Wrapped

Timelapse-icus Maximus 2012 "A Burning Man for Ants"

"A Miniature Journey to the Black Rock Desert, Home to Burning Man. A whimsical time-lapse film about the Art, People, Mutant Vehicles and Playa that makes Burning Man such a unique place on this tiny planet in our tiny solar system in our tiny galaxy in our tiny universe. Audio Playlist: 1. Passion Pit 'Swimming in the flood' 2. Clams Casino 'I'm God' 3. Tipper 'Puzzle Dust'"
vimeo: Timelapse-icus Maximus 2012 "A Burning Man for Ants" Tilt-Shift Time-lapse by James Cole, Byron Mason & Jason Phipps

2007 November: Burning Man
2009 August: Burning Man - 1

30 Under 30 Women Photographers

"In photography, the traditional place for women is in front of the lens. Visit a modern photography tradeshow like Photokina in Cologne, and most of the visitors you see swarming past are male, with their photography gadgets slung round their necks; whilst the models posing at each booth waiting for you to take their picture on new, state-of-the-art cameras, are predominantly young and female. You could say this is a picture of photography convention: as it has always been, and as it still is now."
30 Under 30 Women Photographers

The 30th Anniversary Of MIDI: A Protocol Three Decades On

"... The MIDI manufacturer's association, or MMA, is also celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Musical Instrument Digital Interface - a protocol, a specification, a language spoken amongst music-making machines. MIDI was developed in the early 1980s by a group of five synthesizer manufacturers - Sequential Circuits, Roland, Yamaha, Korg, and Kawai - and quietly conferred in 1983. In January of that year, along with MIDI's chief engineer Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits, electronics pioneer Bob Moog demonstrated a MIDI connection between two synthesizers, a happening Moog recorded in a 1986 article as taking place 'without formality or ceremony.' But 30 years is a significant milestone worthy of ceremony for a standard that has endured in its original 1.0 dialect, while other networking languages are updated and replaced with exponential speed."
The Quietus (Video)
BBC: How MIDI changed the world of music (Video)
roland: 30th Anniversary of MIDI (Video)

Of Gods and Glamour

"This fall, the past returns as over 550 works from 4,000 years of artistic achievement in the Mediterranean region come together in the beautiful new Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art. With over 150 exceptional loans from private collections and public institutions around the world complementing the museum’s own rich holdings, this inaugural display allows the Art Institute to present for the first time the origins and early development of Western art from the dawn of the third millennium B.C. to the time of the great Byzantine Empire."
The Art Institute of Chicago
Conservation Station
Chicago Tonight (Video)

Bar Kokhba and Masada - John Zorn

Wikipedia - "Bar Kokhba is a double album by John Zorn, recorded between 1994 and 1996. It features music from Zorn's Masada project, rearranged for small ensembles. The Allmusic review by Marc Gilman awarded the album 4½ stars noting that 'While some compositions retain their original structure and sound, some are expanded and probed by Zorn's arrangements, and resemble avant-garde classical music more than jazz. But this is the beauty of the album; the ensembles provide a forum for Zorn to expand his compositions. The album consistently impresses'."
Wikipedia
amazon
vimeo: John Zorn - Bar Kokhba & Acoustic Masada @ Jazz In Marciac 2007
YouTube: Sippur - 01. - Live '99 (Masada String Project), Bikkur - 02., Malkhut - 03., Meholalot - 04., Khebar - 05., Teli - 06., Kisofim - 07., Gevurah - 08., Paran - 09., Shihim - 10., Karaim - 11., Beeroth - 12., Kochot - 13., Lahum- 14.

2009 March: John Zorn
2010 August: Spillane
2011 October: Filmworks Anthology : 20 Years of Soundtrack Music 
2012 September: Marc Ribot

Wanda Jackson - "Let's Have a Party", etc.

"Wanda Jackson was only halfway through high school when, in 1954, country singer Hank Thompson heard her on an Oklahoma City radio show and asked her to record with his band, the Brazos Valley Boys. By the end of the decade, Jackson had become one of America's first major female country and rockabilly singers."
YouTube: Let's Have a Party, Mean Mean Man - Queen for a Day, Pick me up on your way, Fujiyama Mama, Hot Dog That Made Him Mad

2009 August: Wanda Jackson
2012 October: Honky Tonk Women: The Changing Role of Women

Black History Pearls of Wisdom

"Black History Month, wasn't always a month. At first it was a single day, then two dates, February 12th and 14th -- Abraham Lincoln's and Frederick Douglass' birthdays. In 1926, historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson organized, as it was then called, 'Negro History Week'."
NYPL - Schomburg Center Black History Month 2012 (Video)
Debunking the 10 biggest myths about black history
Pearls of Wisdom Storytellers

Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg

"One of the most visionary writers of his generation, Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) was also a photographer. He began photographing actively in New York City in 1953, having his film developed and printed at a drugstore near his apartment on the Lower East Side. After looking through the snapshots and perhaps giving a few to friends, he tossed them to the back of a drawer or the bottom of a closet. Ginsberg later said that these photographs were 'meant more for a public in heaven than one here on earth—and that’s why they’re charming.' Between 1953 and 1963 he took numerous, often exuberant portraits of himself and his close-knit group of friends—such as Beat writers William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, and Jack Kerouac."
juxtapoz
NYT: A Beat Poet’s Colorful Crew, in Black and White, NYT:
‘Beat Memories’
amazon

On Creating Reality by Andy Kaufman

"... The show presents an extensive collection of ephemera and artifacts from Andy Kaufman's personal and professional life: photographs, correspondence, performance notation, scripts, props and costumes, including his childhood record collection, transcendental meditation materials, hand written drafts of his novel 'The Huey Williams Story,' hundreds of pieces of hate mail he received from women challenging him to wrestle, in addition to numerous personal effects. The exhibition will act as a portrait of an unclassifiable figure in American cultural history whose work has been seminal in the evolution of performance art, new media and relational aesthetics."
NY Art Beat
W - Andy Kaufman
Wrestling Museum
Funny and Fascinating Relics from the Life of Andy Kaufman
Goofing on Elvis: The Short and Extraordinary Life of Andy Kaufman
YouTube: Andy Kaufman performs Mighty Mouse, Andy Kaufman Does Elvis, The Real Andy Kaufman

Guitar Wizards: 1926-1935

"Guitar Wizards: 1926-1935 showcases some of the finest six-string players who resided in the Carolinas and along the Atlantic coast during the period. While it has consistently been afforded less significance than its Mississippi and Memphis counterparts, the area has one of the oldest blues traditions. Still, its recorded legacy remains small in comparison. Many of the musicians here had to make their way to larger cities for recording opportunities."
allmusic
YouTube: You Gonna Quit Me Blues (Blind Blake, October 1927), Farewell To You Baby - CARL MARTIN (1936, Chicago), BLIND BLAKE (May 1928), Badly Mistreated Man - CARL MARTIN (1936), BO WEAVIL JACKSON - Jefferson Country Blues, Wabash Rag (Blind Blake, November 1927), Memphis Minnie - Bumble Bee, Ragtime Millionaire (William Moore, January 1928), Guitar Chimes' BLIND BLAKE (1929), Sam Butler - Some Scream High Yellow, Carl Martin ~ Joe Louis Blues, Sam Butler ~ Poor Boy Blues, Billy Bird - Mill Man Blues

Meara O'Reilly

"Meara O'Reilly is a sound artist and educator, in residence at the Exploratorium. Current ongoing projects include a curated collection of auditory illusions as found in indigenous folk music traditions, as well as adapting more scientifically established auditory illusions to be presented on homemade acoustic instruments. Instruments under construction include a midi-controlled 18th century pipe organ and a hand-cut glass bell gamelan."
Meara O'Reilly
vimeo: Meara O'Reilly
boing boing: Meara O'Reilly (Video)
YouTube: Chladni Song, Sun Ceremony, Meara's Solo Show, Hemlock Tavern, #2

Runestone

Möjbro Runestone, ca. 5th century.
Wikipedia - "A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition began in the 4th century, and it lasted into the 12th century, but most of the runestones date from the late Viking Age. Most runestones are located in Scandinavia, but there are also scattered runestones in locations that were visited by Norsemen during the Viking Age. Runestones are often memorials to deceased men. Runestones were usually brightly colored when erected, though this is no longer evident as the color has worn off."
Wikipedia
W - Picture stone
W - Pictish stones

Mass: John Wieners

"This segment of Jim Dunn and Kevin Gallagher’s feature, 'Mass: Raw Poetry from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,' focuses on poet John Wieners, and includes contributions from Dunn, Seth Stewart, Ruth Lepson, John Landry, Steve Prygoda, Lewis Hammond Stone, and Wieners himself."
Jacket2

2008 July: John Wieners
2009 December: John Wieners - 1
2011 May: John Wieners: June 21, 1959
2012 May: Behind the State Capitol: Or Cincinnati Pike
2012 August: John Wieners - 707 Scott Street

The Electric Flag

Wikipedia - "The Electric Flag was a blues rock soul group, led by guitarist Mike Bloomfield, keyboardist Barry Goldberg and drummer Buddy Miles, and featuring other well-known musicians such as vocalist Nick Gravenites and bassist Harvey Brooks. Bloomfield formed the Electric Flag in 1967, following his stint with the Butterfield Blues Band. The band reached its peak with the 1968 release, A Long Time Comin', a fusion of rock, jazz, and R&B styles that charted well in the Billboard Pop Albums chart. Their initial recording was a soundtrack for The Trip, a movie about an LSD experience by Peter Fonda, written by Jack Nicholson, and directed by Roger Corman."
Wikipedia
The Electric Flag
amazon: Electric Flag
YouTube: Drinkin' Wine (Live), View from the Bottom (Harvey Brooks), 1."Killing Floor" (Chester "Howlin' Wolf" Burnett) 2."Groovin' Is Easy" (Nick Gravenites) 3."Over-Lovin' You" (Mike Bloomfield, Barry Goldberg)4."She Should Have Just" (Ron Polte) 5."Wine" (Traditional) 6."Texas" (Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles) 7."Sittin' in Circles" (Barry Goldberg) 8."You Don't Realize" (Mike Bloomfield) 9."Another Country" (Ron Polte) 10."Easy Rider" (Mike Bloomfield) 11."Sunny" (Bobby Hebb) 12."Mystery" (Buddy Miles) 13."Look into My Eyes" (Harvey Brooks, Buddy Miles) 14."Going Down Slow" (James Oden), Fine Jug Thing (The Trip 1967 - Live)

Luanda Baldijão

"High quality ecletic mixtapes by Luanda Baldijão. Lounge, jazz & rare finds." - Tom-B. São Paulo, Brazil.
Mixtapes (Video)
Luanda Baldijão