A tale of restoration and the Masstransiscope

"When Bill Brand’s Masstransiscope, a zoetrope hidden behind a slitted wall at the long-abandoned Myrtle Ave. stop just north of DeKalb Ave., first debuted in 1980, straphangers could view it from the Manhattan-bound QB train. One of those things, it seems, is ready for a revival. After an extensive restoration that involved removed layers of graffiti, the Masstransiscope is back."
Second Avenue Sagas (Video)
W - Zoetrope
NYT: Attention Passengers! To Your Right, This Trip Is About to Become Trippy (Video)
Moving Pictures: attaining underground momentum with Bill Brand’s Masstransiscope (Video)
YouTube: Masstransiscope Debut, Zoetrope Replica Optical Toy Ancient Magic Toys

Paris hotels attempt to lure customers by playing up literary links

L'Hotel, Rue des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
"Marcel Proust once wrote: 'The real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking new landscapes, but of having new eyes.' Words full of insight. But it is doubtful that the author of À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) imagined that his oft-cited quote would be used to brand 'literary-themed' hotels 100 years after the first publication of his defining work. The rise of the belles-lettres establishment, celebrating France's literary culture, and even that of its neighbours, is the latest marketing sensation in the French capital, as hoteliers come up with ever more innovative – or desperate – ways to attract guests."
Guardian

Ten Chi - Pina Bausch (2004)

"... A giant whale tail sticks up in the middle of the stage, with hump and dorsal fin at the back. The first half of the work contains a lot of swimming actions, as if the stage were a sea, but the overriding sense is of falling asleep: Dominique Mercy snores softly at the front row, as if encouraging them to drift off; Helena Pikon turns a man into a big bear and snuggles down on to his back; a goodnight kiss leads to a lullaby chorus of kissy noises as the cast search for imaginary songbirds. Hushed music and a slow, continuous fall of white petals impart a dreamlike quality to the sharper second half."
Guardian
Ten Chi
NYT: An Olympian Twirl Around the Globe
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch – Ten Chi – London
Ten Chi, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Barbican Theatre
Renate Stendhal
DailyMotion: Ten Chi
YouTube: JAPON CREATION TEN CHI

2008 May: Pina Bausch, 2009 June: Pina Bausch 1940-2009, 2012 August: Pina Bausch Costumes.

Five Spot Café

David Amram At The Five Spot, 1957
Wikipedia - "The Five Spot Café was a jazz club located at 5 Cooper Square in the Bowery neighbourhood of New York City. ... Artists such as painters Herman Cherry, David Smith, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, Alfred Leslie, Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan, Jack Tworkov, Mike Goldberg, Roy Newell, Howard Kanovitz and writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, Ted Joans, and Gregory Corso began frequenting the club. ... On 4 July 1957, Thelonious Monk's quartet featuring John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Shadow Wilson on drums began a six month stay at the club. Ware was later replaced by Ahmed Abdul-Malik and Wilson by Roy Haynes. This was Monk's first extended engagement."
Wikipedia
The Story - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane: Evidence
Ornette Coleman and The Battle of The Five Spot
Monk And Coltrane = Magic A Recently Released Live Recording From 1957 Documents A Meeting Of The Jazz Greats

Bob Dylan's Lost 1970 Gem 'Pretty Saro'

"Bob Dylan ran through the 18th century English folk song 'Pretty Saro' six consecutive times during the Self Portrait sessions in March 1970, but none of those versions made the final cut for the album and the song remained in Columbia's vault for the past 43 years."
Rolling Stone (Video)
Vanity Fair: Bob Dylan’s New Self Portrait: Is It Time to Give Rock's "Shittiest Album Ever" a Second Chance? Yes!
Wikipedia
NPR - First Listen: Bob Dylan, Highlights From 'Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)' (Video)
amazon: The Making of Another Self Portrait
Guardian: Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series, Vol 10: Another Self Portrait (Video)
Pitchfork: Bob Dylan Announces Bootleg Series, Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) (Video)

Der Tunnel (2001). Top 10 Berlin Wall Movies

Wikipedia - "Der Tunnel is a made-for-television German film released in 2001 and loosely based on true events in Berlin following the closing of the East German border in August 1961 and the subsequent construction of the Berlin Wall. Roland Suso Richter directed the film. ... The central character of the film is Harry Melchior, played by Heino Ferch and based on the real tunneler, Hasso Herschel. Despite being imprisoned for several years for his role in the June 1953 uprising in East Germany, Melchior competes for and wins the national swimming championship in 1961. With the aid of a false passport and disguise, Harry succeeds in fleeing to West Berlin."
Wikipedia
Review: Der Tunnel (2001)
YouTube: "Der tunnel" (trailer), Drama an der Mauer.
YouTube: |)ER T\_/ NNE|_ 1 2002 (1 - 12) 167 minutes

Tony Fitzpatrick

Wikipedia - "Tony Fitzpatrick (born 1958) is an American artist born and based in Chicago. ... Fitzpatrick's early artistic career focused primarily on multi-colored drawings on slate, followed by printmaking, although he has more recently shifted his focus to producing mixed media 'drawing/collages.' Fitzpatrick's drawing/collages often blend central cartoon-like drawings, found images and ephemera such as baseball cards and matchbooks, and poetic or narrative text. His main subjects have been Chicago and memories of his father, although more recent subjects have included New Orleans, hobo symbology, superheroes, Crazy Horse, and Japan."
Wikipedia
No.9
artnet
amazon: Tony Fitzpatrick
Davidson Galleries
Jonathan Ferrara Gallery New Orleans
YouTube: Tony Fitzpatrick at the Art Intstitute

Blitz the Ambassador

Wikipedia - "Samuel Bazawule (born in 1982), known by the stage name Blitz the Ambassador, is a Ghanaian-American hip-hop artist and visual artist based in Brooklyn, USA. ... After graduation, Blitz moved to New York City to pursue his dream. In NYC, Blitz recorded another album, Double Consciousness (2005), and more recently he released Stereotype, a live-instrument-heavy musical exploration, that tests the limits of Hip Hop. Drawing from his diverse musical background, he immersed himself in the project with explicit intent of changing Hip Hop forever. In order to achieve the live sound he was looking for, he formed a band, The Embassy Ensemble, and brushed off his own djembe skills."
Wikipedia
Dikembe music video by Blitz the Ambassador, shot in Morocco (Video)
Warm up EP (Video)
YouTube: Dikembe! The Warm Up EP, Blitz the Ambassador ft.Rob Murat - Breathe, Nothing to Lose, Kate Mattison and Bajah, StereoLive EP, Remembering The Future, Best I Can ft. Corneille (Native Sun), Something to Believe - Director's Cut

The Homemade Hand Puppets of Bauhaus Artist Paul Klee

"My kids used to beg their dad to help out with their impromptu puppet shows. He complied by having our daughter’s favorite baby doll deliver an interminable curtain speech, hectoring the audience (me) to become subscribers and make donations via the small envelope they’d find tucked in their programs. Like my husband, artist Paul Klee (1879-1940) loomed large in his child’s early puppet work. To mark his son Felix’s ninth birthday, Klee fashioned eight hand puppets based on stock characters from Kasperl and Gretl — Germany’s answer to Punch and Judy."
Open Culture
flickr: Paul Klee - Hand Puppets
amazon

Patti Smith - We're gonna have a real good time (Oct. 3, 1976--Conserthouse, Stockholm)

"We're gonna have a real good time together
We're gonna have a real good time together
We're gonna have a real good time together
We're gonna laugh and dance and shout together"
Velvet Underground - We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together
YouTube: We're gonna have a real good time

The March at 50

"When Daniel R. Smith was born dirt poor more than three-quarters of a century ago, there were only about 20 other blacks in his small Connecticut town. His own father had been born a slave in Virginia in 1862. Mr. Smith served as a medic in Korea in the years just after the Army had been desegregated. And in August 1963, he found himself standing beside the Reflecting Pool with tens of thousands of others listening to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver one of the most famous speeches in American history."
NY Times
CBS News (Video)
CNN - March on Washington: Throngs mark 'I Have a Dream' anniversary (Video)
YouTube: 50 Years Later, the Untold History of the March on Washington & MLK, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Brooklyn Mural Project featuring Faith47, DALeast, Shepard Fairey, Eltono, Buff Monster & more

"As part of our 10 Years of Wooster Collective 2003-2013 exhibition, we organized a mural project around Brooklyn, New York. The project involved Faith47, DALeast, Eltono, Shepard Fairey, Buff Monster, Microbo, Bo130, Galo and 3rd World Pirate. If you're in the area, be sure to visit the locations and check them out in person! The 10 Years of Wooster Collective: 2003-2013 exhibition is only up for another week until August 24th. Don't miss your chance to see over 50 amazing artists under one roof."
Wooster Collective (Video)

The Banquet Years of Apollinaire, Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, and Erik Satie - Roger Shattuck

"... Roger Shattuck's book The Banquet Years is a book devoted to five subjects: Henri Rosseau, the self taught painter who would influence Picasso, Léger, Jean Hugo, Beckmann, and the Surrealists; Alfred Jarry, who is most famous for his play Ubu Roi (King Ubu) and its rather famous opening word 'merde' that caused a quarter of an hour of pandemonium with the traditional theater attending public booing and jeering while the avant-garde countered with cheers and applause; Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki), who is accredited as the coiner of the term 'Surrealism', Apollinaire was the impressario of the avant-garde, who met his end of the very last day of the first World War; and Erik Satie, the true progenitor of 'Musak' with his 1920 manifesto advocating 'musique d'ameublement' (furniture music), the brilliant composer that beat both Debussy and Ravel in the race to create modern music, and brought together in his own way the avant-garde, Surrealists, the Dadaists, and the old and the new."
La Femme Flâneuse (Video)
Gord's Café (Video)
New Republic: Half Tame
Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years (1) -- La belle époque
amazon

Various Artists - Don't Call Us Immigrants (2000)

"The fact the informative liner notes are written by Pressure Sounds label founder and modern dub avatar Adrian Sherwood is a sure sign of the historical importance attached to this compilation. The music on Don't Call Us Immigrants marks the emergence of the original wave of U.K. reggae bands, many of them the children of the original post-WWII immigrant wave from Jamaica to the U.K. It features the first-ever recordings by Steel Pulse and Aswad, chronicles the emergence of Dennis Bovell as a producer and major creative force with Matumbi and others, and spotlights U.K. scene mainstays like Misty in Roots, Black Slate, and Reggae Regular. ..."
allmusic
YouTube: Don't Call Us Immigrants - Tabby Cat Kelly, Where is Jah? - The Regulars, Black Slate - Sticksman, Steel Pulse - Nyah Love, Aswad - It's Not Our Wish, Misty In Roots - Six One Penny, Lion Youth - Rat A Cut Bottle, AFRICAN BROTHERS - 'Gimme Gimme African Love' + Dub Version - 7" 1976

Harper's Magazine

Wikipedia - "Harper's Magazine (also called Harper's) is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in June 1850, it is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (Scientific American is the oldest). The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010. Harper's Magazine has won many National Magazine Awards."
Wikipedia
Harper's Magazine

Emmet Gowin

Maggie and Donna Jo, Danville, Virginia
Wikipedia - "Emmet Gowin (born 1941 in Danville, Virginia) is an American photographer. He first gained attention in the 1970s with his intimate portraits of his wife, Edith, and her family. Later he turned his attention to the landscapes of the American West, taking aerial photographs of places that had been changed by humans or nature, including the Hanford Site, Mount St. Helens, and the Nevada Test Site. Gowin taught at Princeton University for 25 years and has influenced an entire generation of new photographers through his own work and his academic career."
Wikipedia
Pace/MacGill Gallery
John Paul Caponigro
Imaging a Shattering Earth
YouTube: Emmet Gowin

Rudy Green

"Rudy Green (also spelled Greene on the label of some of his recordings) is not exactly a household name. Rock n roll fans may know him from his two wildest songs, 'Juicy Fruit' and 'Wild Life', which have been included on several compilations that claim to offer 'frantic', 'red hot' or 'screaming' R&R. ... Only two photographs have ever been published of Green, one of which shows him picking with the guitar behind his head, a stunt for which T-Bone Walker was well known. The guitar playing on Green's recordings shows him to be an ardent disciple of T-Bone. Rudy made his first, unremarkable recordings in Nashville, for Jim Bulleit's Bullet label in 1946."
Rockabilly
YouTube: My Mumblin' Baby, Juicy Fruit, Wild Life, Teeny weeny baby, It's you I love

Kate Brooks

Wikipedia - "Kate Brooks (born 1977) is an American photojournalist who has covered the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan since September 11, 2001. At age 20, while studying Russian and photography, Kate became actively involved in the plight of Russian orphans, starting a non-profit aid group to help the children at an institution outside of Moscow, while documenting their lives. ... Immediately after the September 11 attacks, Brooks moved to Pakistan to photograph the impact of U.S. foreign policy on the region and life in post-Taliban Afghanistan. In 2003, she covered the American invasion of Iraq and the beginning of the insurgency for Time Magazine."
Wikipedia
Kate Brooks
The Atlantic: Photojournalist Kate Brooks Reveals the Human Cost of War (Video)

Cuba 2012 (BBC Documentary)

"Adventurer and journalist Simon Reeve heads to Cuba to find a communist country in the middle of a capitalist revolution. Two years ago Cuba announced the most sweeping and radical economic reforms the country has seen in decades. From ending state rationing to cutting one million public-sector jobs, one of the last communist bastions in the world has begun rolling back the state on an unprecedented scale."
YouTube: Cuba 2012 58:50

2009 April: Chelsea Visits Havana, 2011 June: Robert Farris Thompson, 2012 September: Where Is Cuba Going?, 2012 November: Carlos Garaicoa.

Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006)

Wikipedia - "Neil Young: Heart of Gold is a 2006 documentary and concert film by Jonathan Demme, featuring Neil Young. The film was made in the summer of 2005 in Nashville, Tennessee, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and was released to theaters on February 10, 2006. The film documents Young's premiere of his songs from his album Prairie Wind at the Ryman Auditorium."
Wikipedia
Jonathan Demme Talks NEIL YOUNG JOURNEYS
amazon
YouTube: Neil Young: Heart of Gold CLIP 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Los Angeles Review of Books

"The Los Angeles Review of Books is a nonprofit, multimedia literary and cultural arts magazine that combines the great American tradition of the serious book review with the evolving technologies of the Web. We are a community of writers, critics, journalists, artists, filmmakers, and scholars dedicated to promoting and disseminating the best that is thought and written, with an enduring commitment to the intellectual rigor, the incisiveness, and the power of the written word."
Los Angeles Review of Books
W - Los Angeles Review of Books
Soundcloud

Detropia (2012)

Wikipedia - "Detropia is a 2012 documentary film, directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, about the city of Detroit, Michigan. It focuses on the decline of the economy of Detroit due to long-term changes in the automobile industry, and the effects that the decline has had on the city's residents and infrastructure."
Wikipedia
Detropia (Video)
PBS: Independent Lens (Video)
Washington Post
NY Times

Hamburger

Wikipedia - "The hamburger most likely first appeared in the 19th or early 20th centuries. The modern hamburger was a product of the culinary needs of a society that was rapidly changing due to industrialization, and therefore, people had less time to prepare as well as to consume meals. Americans contend that they were the first to combine two slices of bread and a steak of ground beef into a 'hamburger sandwich'. Part of the controversy over the origin of the hamburger is because the two basic ingredients, bread and beef, were prepared and consumed separately for many years before their combination. Shortly after its creation, the hamburger was prepared with all of the now typically characteristic trimmings, including onions, lettuce, and sliced pickles."
W - History of the hamburger
W - Hamburger
A Hamburger Today
Online Etymology Dictionary
YouTube: Hamburger America Trailer, Hamburger America Documentary 54:03

Out to Lunch! - Eric Dolphy

"Out to Lunch! stands as Eric Dolphy's magnum opus, an absolute pinnacle of avant-garde jazz in any form or era. Its rhythmic complexity was perhaps unrivaled since Dave Brubeck's Time Out, and its five Dolphy originals -- the jarring Monk tribute 'Hat and Beard,' the aptly titled 'Something Sweet, Something Tender,' the weirdly jaunty flute showcase 'Gazzelloni,' the militaristic title track, the drunken lurch of 'Straight Up and Down' -- were a perfect balance of structured frameworks, carefully calibrated timbres, and generous individual freedom. Much has been written about Dolphy's odd time signatures, wide-interval leaps, and flirtations with atonality."
allmusic
W - Out to Lunch!
YouTube: "Hat and Beard" – 8:24; "Something Sweet, Something Tender" – 6:02; "Gazzelloni" – 7:22; "Out to Lunch" – 12:06; "Straight Up and Down" – 8:19.

John Fahey - Railroad (1983)

Wikipedia - "Railroad is an album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1983. It was originally released as Railroad 1 by mistake. The Shanachie Records reissue is correctly labeled as Railroad. It was his last principal recording for Takoma Records, the label he founded in 1959. ... [Stewart Voegtlin] commented Fahey 'coasted through enough records; he labored honestly at others. Railroad undoubtedly shows both approaches, but holds enough magic in its shallow well to keep those that seek a bare bones account of the man that made it mired in stubborn stories that do little to lay the self-proclaimed primitive bare.'"
Wikipedia
Stylus
YouTube: The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick, Delta Dog Through The Book Of Revelation, Life Is Like A Mountain Railroad, Imitation Train Whistles Po' Boy, Summer Cat By My Door, Afternoon Espee Through Salem, Enigmas And Perplexities Of The Norfolk And Western, Charlie Becker's Meditation

2009 March: John Fahey, 2011 March: Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You (The Fonotone Years 1958-1965), 2012 September: Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice), 2013 February: The Mill Pond

Open Content Program

Eugène Atget. Fête du Trône, 1923
"... The Getty adopted the Open Content Program because we recognized the need to share images of works of art in an unrestricted manner, freely, so that all those who create or appreciate art—scholars, artists, art lovers, and entrepreneurs—will have greater access to high-quality digital images for their studies and projects. Art inspires us, and imagination and creativity lead to artistic expressions that expand knowledge and understanding. The Getty sincerely hopes that people will use the open content images for a wide range of activities and that they will share the fruits of their labors with others."
The Getty - Open Content Program
Getty Museum Launches ‘Open Content Program,’ Shares 4,600 Images Free
The Public Domain Review
Explore the Collection
Getty Search Gateway
Videos: Touring the Collection

Rutu Modan

Wikipedia - "Rutu Modan (Hebrew: רותו מודן‎, born 1966) is an Israeli illustrator and comic book artist. ... Modan's first full length graphic novel tells the story of Koby Franco, a 20-something cab driver working in Tel Aviv. Franco's mundane everyday life is interrupted when a female soldier approaches him, claiming his estranged father was killed by a suicide bomber at a train station. He and the young woman begin searching for clues to see if Franco's father, whom the soldier was romantically involved with, is dead or alive."
Wikipedia
The Comics Journal: The Rutu Modan Interview
heflinreps:
The Paris Review - A Week in Culture: Rutu Modan, Cartoonist
NY Times: Rutu Modan - Mixed Emotions
amazon: Rutu Modan

Oliver "Tuku" Mtukudzi

"Gifted with a deep, gutsy voice and a talent for writing songs that reflect on the daily life and struggles of the people of his homeland, Oliver 'Tuku' Mtukudzi is one of Zimbabwe's greatest artists. His blending of Southern African music traditions, including mbira, mbaqanga, jit, and the traditional drumming styles of the Korekore, has created such a unique sound that it has been respectfully dubbed 'Tuku music.'"
allmusic
Wikipedia
NPR: 'Left Alone,' Oliver Mtukudzi Sees Music As Therapy (Video)
YouTube: Kupokana, Neria, Todii, Ndakuvara, Pindurai Mambo, Ngoma'ne Hosho, Kunze Kwadoka

1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in the same place

"A century ago, one section of Vienna played host to Adolf Hitler, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Tito, Sigmund Freud and Joseph Stalin. In January 1913, a man whose passport bore the name Stavros Papadopoulos disembarked from the Krakow train at Vienna's North Terminal station. Of dark complexion, he sported a large peasant's moustache and carried a very basic wooden suitcase."
BBC

Wikipedia - "Travesties is a play by Tom Stoppard. The play centres on the figure of Henry Carr, an elderly man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he was writing Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada, and Lenin leading up to the Russian Revolution, all of whom were living in Zürich at that time."
W - Travesties

James Brown - There It Is (1972)

"Brown's Polydor debut, Hot Pants, was nothing more than an inferior remake of the title track baited with a batch of half-baked vamps. There It Is, his second Polydor studio album, was a marked improvement. Not that he put much into this one either. This 1972 effort collected five of his best early-'70s tracks and mixed in minimal filler. 'Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing' and 'There It Is (Parts 1 and 2),' with its bebop-style horns, were both innovative and hard driving to a fault. ..."
allmusic
W - There Is Is
YouTube: Sinister Salad Musikal's Weblog (Video)