A Century of Proust

"May 2 - Reading Proust: An Introduction. ... One hundred years after its publication, 'Swann’s Way,' the first volume in Marcel Proust’s cycle 'À la Recherche du Temps Perdu' — 'In Search of Lost Time,' better known to many Anglophone readers as 'Remembrance of Things Past,' the Shakespearian title used by Proust’s first English translator — doubles as thematic 'overture' and Michelin guide to the most captivating, ambitious and elusive of modern novels. The glittering surface of 'Swann's Way' presents a Manet-like canvas of belle époque France, a sumptuous world of fashionable salons and tranquil summer homes populated by characters — old and young, rich and poor, artists and aristocrats, footmen and physicians — who spring at us with comic ferocity: their sufferings and delusions, their petty cruelties, their self-destructive obsessions and corrosive vanities. By the end of the giant cycle (some 4,000 pages) these fictitious beings will seem realer than the members of one’s own family."
NY Times
Paris Review – Proust, Lost in Translation
Slate: In Pursuit of Proust

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.

Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions

Wikipedia - "Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions is a 2012 box set album featuring the lyrics of American folk musician Woody Guthrie set to music by English folk rock guitarist Billy Bragg and American alternative rock band Wilco. The set contains all the tracks from the previously-released Mermaid Avenue (1998) and Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (2000) as well as a third disc of outtakes from the original album sessions. Nonesuch Records released the album for Record Store Day to commemorate Guthrie's 100th birthday. In addition to the three albums, the box set includes the documentary Man in the Sand about the making of the Mermaid Avenue project."
Wikipedia
Christian Century (Video)
ZPitchfork
Salon: Greil Marcus on “Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions”
YouTube: Go down to the water, Listening To The Wind That Blows, She Came Along to Me, Walt Whitman's Niece, Airline to Heaven, Remember the Mountain Bed, Natalie Merchant - Birds and Ships

Aryz New Mural In San Francisco, USA

"After a series of progress shots last week (covered), Aryz has now completed his new piece in San Francisco, USA. As usual with the Barcelona-based artist, he delivers a large scale mural featuring his signature colour palette combined with always impeccable technique. Organised by Upper Playground in association with Fifty24SF and WALLSPACE SF, this mural can be found on Polk Street. Make sure to peep some more extra shots after the jump..."
Street Art News

"3 a.m. Eternal" - The KLF

Wikipedia - "'3 a.m. Eternal' is a song by the British acid house group The KLF. Numerous versions of the song were released as singles between 1989 and 1992. ... When, the following year, The KLF accepted an invitation to perform at the BRIT Awards ceremony, they caused controversy with a succession of anti-establishment gestures that included a duet performance of '3 a.m. Eternal' with the crust punk band Extreme Noise Terror, during which The KLF co-founder Bill Drummond fired machine-gun blanks over the audience of music industry luminaries."
Wikipedia
YouTube: 3am Eternal HD (sNEaKY uPLOaDeR miX), 3AM Eternal (Guns of Mu Mu) 12 inch HD (sNEaKY uPLOaDeR ExCLUsIVe), 3 a m eternal (Complete)

2009 May: The KLF
2011 June: Justified & Ancient

Saul Bass

Wikipedia - "Saul Bass (... May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was an American graphic designer and Oscar winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos. During his 40-year career Bass worked for some of Hollywood's most prominent filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Among his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, the credits racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of a skyscraper in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that races together and apart in Psycho."
Wikipedia
Saul Bass’s Title Sequences (Video)
YouTube: The Man With The Golden Arm">, Edge of the City, North by Northwest, West Side Story, Anatomy of a murder, Vertigo, Psycho

Chris Cutler - Domestic Stories (1992)

"Alternately harrowing and slyly humorous, this collaboration between Chris Cutler and Lutz Glandien plays more like an Art Bears reunion featuring, Fred Frith on guitar and the irrepressible Dagmar Krause on vocals. What Glandien brings to these compositions is a modern manipulation of sound using digital and tape effects, creating rumbling beds of disturbance for the music to play against. The texts by Cutler take a look at the power relationships in marriage -- from a concerned Marxist, the outlook is pretty grim as one could imagine. But the accompanying music is fascinating, dramatic, theatrical, and strange."
allmusic
W - Lutz Glandien
Domestic Stories
Song Cycle on Texts by Chris Cutler, 1992
YouTube: None are disbarred, Unquiet Days in Eden, Seven Veils, Up to our Elbows, the same river

The Techniques

Wikipedia - "The Techniques were a Jamaican rocksteady vocal group mainly active in the 1960s. The group was formed by Winston Riley in 1962 while still at school, with the initial line-up also featuring Slim Smith, Franklyn White, and Frederick Waite. They regularly performed at Edward Seaga's Chocomo Lawn club, where they were spotted by talent scouts from Columbia Records, who released their first single, 'No One', released only in the United Kingdom in 1963. Their Jamaican debut came in 1965 when they were introduced to producer Duke Reid by singer Stranger Cole, with Reid-produced singles such as 'Don't Leave Me', 'When You Are Wrong', and 'Little Did You Know' appearing on labels such as Island Records, and Reid's own Duke and Treasure Isle labels."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: It's You I Love, I'm So In Love With You, Day O (The Banana Boat Song), I Specialise In Good Girls, My Best Girl (With Dave Barker)

The Lost Album - Dennis Hopper

"Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present photographs from The Lost Album of the late Dennis Hopper. This historically significant body of work from the 1960s has not been exhibited in the United States since 1970. ... Before his rise to Hollywood stardom, he captured the establishment-busting spirit of the 1960s in photographs that travel from Los Angeles to Harlem to Tijuana, and which portray iconic figures including Tina Turner, Andy Warhol, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Lost Album in its entirety comprises over 400 black and white photographs taken between 1961—when his first wife Brooke Hayward gave him a Nikon camera for his birthday—and 1967. He would not make photographs again until the early 1980s."
Gagosian
Gagosian: Exhibition
NYT: Off Camera, Hopper Wielded His Own Lens
Dennis Hopper Photos Bring California Cool To Gagosian Gallery (PHOTOS)
Telegraph - Dennis Hopper: the Lost Album (PHOTOS)

2009 November: Easy Rider (1969), 2010 May: Dennis Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010), 2010 November: The American Friend (1977), Dennis Hopper Documentary (90s).

Rodney Graham

Rheinmetall Victoria installation
Wikipedia - "Rodney Graham (born January 16, 1949) is an artist and musician born in Abbotsford, British Columbia. He is most often associated with the Vancouver School. ... Coming out of Vancouver's 1970s photoconceptual tradition, Rodney Graham's work is often informed by historical literary, musical, philosophical and popular references. He is most often associated with other West-coast Canadian artists, including Vikky Alexander, Jeff Wall, Stan Douglas, Roy Arden and Ken Lum."
Wikipedia
Rodney Graham (Video)
BOMB: Rodney Graham by Kim Gordon
YouTube: "Rodney Graham. Through the Forest", Rheinmetall/Victoria8 @ MoMA
vimeo: 'The Phonokinetoscope' film on view at Matthew Marks

Flappers

Wikipedia - "Flappers were a 'new breed' of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms. Flappers had their origins in the liberal period of the Roaring Twenties, the social, political turbulence and increased transatlantic cultural exchange that followed the end of World War I, as well as the export of American jazz culture to Europe."
Wikipedia
'The Great Gatsby' Still Gets Flappers Wrong
Smithsonian - The History of the Flapper, Part 1: A Call for Freedom
YouTube: The Roaring 20s, flappers dancing the Charleston, The Fabulous Flappers

The North Star Grassman and the Ravens

Wikipedia - "The North Star Grassman and the Ravens is a 1971 album by English folk rock singer-songwriter Sandy Denny. Built mostly around her own compositions, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens is distinguished by its elusive lyrics and unexpected harmonies."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: The North Star Grassman And The Ravens, Crazy Lady Blues and Late November, The Sea Captain, Blackwaterside, John the Gun, The Optimist

2009 March: Sandy Denny
2013 January: "A Sailor’s Life" - Fairport Convention

Daguerreotype

Wikipedia - "The daguerreotype ... (French: daguerréotype) was the first commercially successful photographic process, invented around 1837 by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. The physical daguerreotype itself is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate. The raw material for plates was called Sheffield plate, plating by fusion or cold-rolled cladding and was a standard hardware item produced by heating and rolling silver foil in contact with a copper support. The surface of a daguerreotype is like a mirror, with the image made directly on the silvered surface; it is very fragile and can be rubbed off with a finger, and the finished plate has to be angled so as to reflect some dark surface in order to view the image properly."
Wikipedia
YouTube: The Daguerreotype: Photographic Processes, Daguerreotypes at the Met

Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui

Earth’s Skin, 2007
"The first solo exhibition in a New York museum by the globally renowned contemporary artist El Anatsui, this show will feature over 30 works in metal and wood that transform appropriated objects into site-specific sculptures. Anatsui converts found materials into a new type of media that lies between sculpture and painting, combining aesthetic traditions from his birth country, Ghana; his home in Nsukka, Nigeria; and the global history of abstraction."
Brooklyn Museum (Video)
NYT: A Million Pieces of Home (Slide Show)
arrestedmotion
YouTube: Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui

Sera Cahoone

Wikipedia - "Sera Cahoone (born August 4, 1975) is a singer-songwriter from Seattle, Washington. Cahoone's music combines elements of both classic country-western and modern indie rock and lo-fi. ... In 2006, Cahoone focused on singing, songwriting, and guitar playing, skills she'd been honing for nearly 15 years on her own. Her first album was Sera Cahoone (2006)."
Wikipedia
Sera Cahoone
Sub Pop
YouTube: Nowhere To Be Found, Naked, Baker Lake, You Might As Well, Nervous Wreck, Full Performance (Live on KEXP) 27:09

Jeff Greinke - Timbral Planes

"Jeff Greinke is one of the world's leading practitioners of dark minimalism. He recorded Timbral Planes in 1986 and 1987 at Simultaneous Studios in Seattle, WA. Dossier Records (in Germany) released it in 1988. Greinke remixed it in 1993, and Linden Music reissued it in 1994. It is a very worthy reissue. Greinke builds vast atmospheres on top of deep drones. He surrounds those dark atmospheres with darker and drearier textures. Experimental sounds add the finishing touch and push this soundscape to the limit."
allmusic
amazon
Rhapsody: Timbral Planes (Video)

2009 December: Jeff Greinke
2012 September: Cities in Fog

Rawiya: She Who Tells a Story

Laura Boushnak
"Rawiya is a photography collective founded by female photographers from across the Middle East. Rawiya presents an insider’s view of a region in flux balancing its contradictions while reflecting on social and political issues and stereotypes. As a collective, Rawiya’s photographers respect the human dignity of the stories they tell, pooling resources and vision to produce in-depth photo-essays and long-term projects. Rawiya, meaning ‘she who tells a story’, brings together the experiences and photographic styles of Myriam Abdelaziz, Tamara Abdul Hadi, Laura Boushnak, and Tanya Habjouqa."
Rawiya
She Who Tells a Story: Interview with the Photography Collective Rawiya
Tanya Habjouqa
Tamara Abdul Hadi
Myriam Abdelaziz
Laura Boushnak
Newsha Tavakolian
Dalia Khamissy
Rawiya / She who tells a story (Video)

Société des Artistes Indépendants

Grand Palais, 1901
Wikipedia - "The Société des Artistes Indépendants (Society of Independent Artists), Salon des Indépendants, formed in Paris 19 July 1884. The association began with the organization of massive exhibitions in Paris, choosing the device 'No jury nor awards' (Sans jury ni récompense). Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac were among its founders. For the following three decades their annual exhibitions set the trends in art of the early 20th century, along with the Salon d'Automne. This is where artworks were often first displayed and widely discussed. World War I brought a closure to the salon, though the Artistes Indépendants remained active. Since 1920, the headquarters is located in the vast basements of the Grand Palais (next door to the Société des Artistes Français, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the Société du Salon d'Automne, and others)."
Wikipedia

Manhole cover

Kraków
Wikipedia - "A manhole cover is a removable plate forming the lid over the opening of a manhole, to prevent anyone or anything from falling in, and to keep out unauthorized persons and material. They date back at least to the era of ancient Rome, which had sewer grates made from stone."
Wikipedia
W - Manhole

1959: The Year That Changed Jazz

"Luckily we have BBC4’s 2009 documentary, 1959: The Year That Changed Jazz to do just that. Produced by documentarian Paul Bernays and UK jazz DJ Jez Nelson, 1959 scrutinizes the impact of Brubeck’s classic Time Out album alongside three others from that year: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus’s Ah Um and Ornette Coleman’s The Shape Of Jazz To Come."
Dangerous Minds
amazon: 1959: The Year That Changed Jazz
YouTube: 1959: The Year That Changed Jazz

"Atmosphere"/ "Dead Souls" - Joy Division

Wikipedia - "'Atmosphere' is a song by the band Joy Division. It was originally released on 18 March 1980 as a France-only single under the title Licht und Blindheit. It was limited to 1578 copies and had 'Dead Souls' as the B-side."
Wikipedia
YouTube: "Atmosphere", "Dead Souls"

2008 March: Ian Curtis, 2009 August: Factory: Manchester From Joy Division To Happy Mondays, 2010 November: Love Will Tear Us Apart, 2012 February: An Ideal for Living EP, 2012 May: Unknown Pleasures

Spalding

Wikipedia - "A Spalding Hi-Bounce Ball, often called a Spaldeen (with the accent on the second syllable), is a small pink rubber ball, somewhat similar to a racquetball, supposedly made from the defective core of a tennis ball without the felt. It was the more expensive and more popular version of the Pensie Pinkie (made by the Penn tennis ball company). These balls are commonly used in street games developed in the mid-20th century, such as Chinese handball (a variation on American handball), stoop ball, hit-the-penny (involving trying to make a penny flip on a sidewalk), butts up, box ball, punchball, half-rubber, and stickball (a variation of baseball)."
Wikipedia
Streetplay
NYT: The Spaldeen Is Back (Even if the Dodgers Aren't)

Jeonghan Yun

Handmade Paper
"I feel my heart beats when Dak trees are found and appetized when the barks are peeled off. As they are steamed, my taste buds get erected; the buds detect the smell of the soil and porridge. While the soft cellulose of the barks becomes untangled in the water, I feel hungry. Then, all of sudden, as if I were fed by the colors of the dying paints, I feel energized, watching the white bark fibers get dyed. It is my hands sensing these unique experiences of the papers from Dak trees."
Jeonghan Yun
Bill Lowe Gallery
YouTube: Bill Lowe Presents: Jeong-han and Choon-Hyang Yun

Janis Joplin - Summertime, Ball And Chain (Live)

Gröna Lund 1969 - Stockholm. Germany 1969.
YouTube: Summertime, Ball And Chain

2008 May: Janis Joplin
2010 October: Janis Joplin: 1962-1965
2012 December: "Little Girl Blue"

Henry Miller

Wikipedia - "Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American writer and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer (1934), Black Spring (1936), and Tropic of Capricorn (1939). He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis."
Wikipedia
Henry Miller
Henry Miller Memorial Library
Walking Paris with Henry Miller
The Paris Review: Henry Miller, The Art of Fiction No. 28
Work Schedule 1932-1933
amazon: Henry Miller
NYT: The Male Mystique of Henry Miller

YouTube: The Big Sur Brooklyn Bridge, The Henry Miller Odyssey (1969) 1:31:35, Reflections on Writing - Robert Synder, 1974 Part 1 14:44, Reflections on Writing - Robert Synder, 1974 part 2 14:44, To Paint Is To Love Again 4:38, Henry miller reads 7:27, Interview with Henry Miller Screener 4:19, Henry Miller (1980) 2:52

2010 March: Dinner With Henry (1979)
2011 December: Asleep & Awake (1975)

The Surreal Beauty of a New York Commute in 'Sub City New York'

"The Sub City series explores the wonder in the humble experience of exiting the subway through dreamy slow motion and elegant steadicam cinematography. New York-based filmmakers Sarah Klein and Tom Mason talk about the inspiration for the project and where they'll film next in an interview with The Atlantic."
The Atlantic: Sub City New York (Video)

Dream of Life - Patti Smith

"The big difference between Patti Smith's four 1970s albums and this return to action after nine years lies in the choice of collaborator. Where Smith's main associate earlier had been Lenny Kaye, a deliberately simple guitarist, here her co-writer and co-producer (with Jimmy Iovine) was her husband, Fred 'Sonic' Smith, formerly of the MC5, who played guitar with a conventional rock competence and who lent his talents to each of the tracks, giving them a mainstream flavor. In a sense, however, these polished love songs, lullabies, and political statements are not to be compared to the poetic ramblings of Smith's first decade of music-making -- she's so much...calmer this time out."
allmusic
Patti Smith — Dream Of Life (Video)
Daily Motion: part 1, part 2

Xu Zhen

"Provocation has always been a main aspect in Xu Zhen’s creation, touching upon taboos, definitions and rules. His early work 8848-1.86, fully reflects doubts about power and truth - this installation is a ‘troublemaker’, ironizing humankind’s illusory and blind pursuit for a certain ‘apogee’- it encompasses the current chaotic situation in politics, economy, culture and history generated by ambitions of hegemony, selfish desires. With provocation as a stimulus, Xu Zhen builds a systematized ‘destruction/reconstruction’ cycle."
MOVEMENT FIELD
W - Xu Zhen
James Cohan Gallery
Xu Zhen's Forbidden Castle Exhibit Arrives At Muzeum Montanelli (PHOTOS)
vimeo: Xu Zhen 'In Just a Blink of an Eye' 2005

Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light

"Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light, the first solo exhibition of Labrouste’s work in the United States, establishes his work as a milestone in the modern evolution of architecture. The exhibition includes over 200 works, from original drawings—many of them watercolors of haunting beauty and precision—to vintage and modern photographs, films, architectural models, and fragments."
MoMA
A Daily Dose of Architecture
NYT: A Poetry Grounded in Gravity and Air
YouTube: Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light

Various Artists - Channel One Dubs 1974 - 79

"The kind of material on Maxfield Avenue Breakdown, recorded from 1974-1979 by the Revolutionaries with Ernest and JoJo Hookim at the Channel One studio controls, may lack the pure sonic invention of a Lee Perry or King Tubby, but it played an equally crucial role in the development of dub. Jamaican recordings from this era introduced the rockers style driven by Robbie Shakespeare's throbbing bass and Sly Dunbar's echoed rim-shot clicks and explosive snare shots, which became a fundamental definition of roots reggae. Over that fresh drum and bass foundation, the Hookims keep their dub easy to digest by retaining most of the original song structures and mutating one element at a time."
allmusic
YouTube: 1) Woman Is Like A Shadow, 2) King Of The Minstrels, 3) Have Mercy Version, 1) Ragnampaiza Version, 2) Speak Easy, 3) Natty A General Version

Sometimes a Great Notion - Ken Kesey (1964)

Wikipedia - "Sometimes a Great Notion is Ken Kesey's second novel, published in 1964. While One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) is arguably more famous, many critics consider Sometimes a Great Notion Kesey's magnum opus. The story involves an Oregon family of gyppo loggers who cut and procure trees for a local mill in opposition to striking, unionized workers. The story centers on the Stamper family, a hard-headed logging clan in the fictional town of Wakonda, Oregon. The union loggers in the town of Wakonda go on strike in demand of the same pay for shorter hours in response to the decreasing need for labor due to the introduction of the chainsaw."
Wikipedia
W - Sometimes a Great Notion (film)
Sometimes a Great Notion: The Story
of a Family Who Would Never Give an Inch
Ken Kesey: Sometimes a Great Notion Takes Root
Voice: Deserved Second Act for Paul Newman's Sometimes a Great Notion - J. Hoberman
YouTube: Sometimes a Great Notion - Incredible Scene, All His Children : Charley Pride, Sometimes a Great Notion 1971 CUT

2010 May: Ken Kesey