Einstürzende Neubauten - Alles Wieder Offen (2007)

"If Einsturzende Neubauten's 2007 effort Alles Wieder Offen ('All Open Again') seems to be more of a follow-up to 2000s Silence Is Sexy than 2004's Perpetuum Mobile, it could be because it delivers on EN's 2002 dream of a listener-supported official album. Mobile appeared on the band's usual home label Mute so a tour could be financed. Even if it was hardly a throwaway album, the group's hunger for progress seemed undercut by the use of air horn blasts, metal crashes, and other devices that referenced the sound that made early Neubauten so infamous. Alles, on the other hand, was paid for by 'supporters' who received interim recordings and an expanded final product different from the general release with bonus tracks and a DVD. ..."
allmusic
W - Alles Wieder Offen
Einstürzende Neubauten - Alles Wieder Offen
YouTube: Nagorny Karabach, Alles was irgendwie nützt, Die Wellen, Weil Weil Weil, Ich hatte ein Wort, Ich Warte

2010 September: Einstürzende Neubauten, 2012 September: Imaginary Sounds Feature

Little Syria

Harper's Weekly Aug. 10, 1895
"'When one leaves the hurry and roar of lower Broadway and walks southward through narrow Washington-st., the average New-Yorker of Caucasian descent might easily believe he was in the Orient. A block to the east roar the trains of the elevated. A little further eastward are the rushing throngs of Broadway. In the midst of all this tumult and confusion is situated the quiet village of Ahl-esh-Shemal.' And so, in 1903, the New-York Tribune endeavors to take its readers into Little Syria. ..."
The Paris Review
W - Little Syria, Manhattan
Saudi Aramco World : Little Syria, NY
Little Syria, NY: The Life & Legacy of an Immigrant Community
Helene Wecker
NYT - A Brief Encore for Little Syria: Sights, Sounds and Even Smells
NPR: Trying To Preserve What's Left Of Manhattan's Little Syria (Video)
BBC: Preserving New York City's 'Little Syria' (Video)
YouTube: Little Syria @ Washington Street, Manhattan, New York City

Sensitive Geometries. Brazil 1950s – 1980s

Anna Maria Maiolino — Capítulo II, from Mapas Mentais series, 1976
"In the years after World War II, Brazil found itself in a state of dramatic change. Economic prosperity, political democratization, and social reorganization marked the decade of the 1950s as one of the most expansive in Brazilian history. In the cultural realm, urban renewal propelled the construction of Brasilia and witnessed the creation of modern art museums in both Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The first São Paulo Biennale was held in 1951, signaling the advent of an artistic revolution that would capture the attention of both the Brazilian public and wider circles of artists, intellectuals, and critics abroad. Brazil in the mid-20th century was emerging as a dynamic cultural center of international significance."
Hauser & Wirth
Hauser & Wirth - 1

Horace Andy Meets Naggo Morris/Wayne Jarrett -- Mini Showcase (2002)

"This intriguing reissue (packaged to look like a vintage Jamaican dub plate) brings together two samplers of 12" singles from Lloyd 'Bullwackie' Barnes' New York-based Wackies label, both of which were originally released in 1983. The first sampler (originally called Wayne Jarrett-Mini Showcase) features five tracks by Wayne Jarrett, along with dubs of three of the songs, while the second (originally entitled Horace Andy Meets Naggo Morris) offers two songs each (and their corresponding dubs) from Horace Andy and Naggo Morris."
allmusic
YouTube: Satta Dread, Bubble Up, Magic in the air, Brimstone & Fire, Every Tongue Shall tell, Holy Mount Zion

Contemporary Cape Cod Artists: Images of Land and Sea

Anne Packard, Dusk, Provincetown
"27 artists included in the show are Donald Beal, Mark Brennan, Ed Chesnovitch, Carmen Cicero, Salvatore Del Deo, Jon Friedman, Elspeth Halvorsen, Megan Hinton, Jim Holland, Brenda Horowitz, Larry Horowitz, Joyce Johnson, Maryalice Johnston, Marc Kundmann, Bao Lede, Mary Moquin, Sky Power, Daniel Ranalli, Paul Resika, Paul Schulenburg, Matthew Schulz, Cleber Stecei, Donald Stoltenberg, Tabitha Vevers, Peter Watts, and Bert Yarborough."
Cape Cod Today
Addison Art Gallery
amazon: Contemporary Cape Cod Artists

Outerbridge Reach - Robert Stone (1993)

"... In Outerbridge Reach the Converse figure, much cleaned up, is a handsome fortyish husband and father named Owen Browne. A 1968 graduate of the Naval Academy who served in Vietnam, Browne uses no drugs and drinks very sparingly, reads, keeps himself fit and tries to be a good man around the house. Soon after we meet him, he thinks about the morning he left Penn Station bound for Annapolis and wonders how the Owen Browne of those days might have imagined himself 20 years later: 'The image would have been a romantic one, but romantic in the postwar modernist style. Its heroic quality would have been salted in stoicism and ennobled by alienation. As an uncritical reader of Hemingway, he would have imagined his future self suitably disillusioned and world-weary.'"
NYT: Sailing Over The Edge
LRB: Where mine is at - Gordon Burn
LATimes: Against the Tides of Mediocrity
amazon

"What Moves Me" - Pina Bausch

"... The war experiences are unforgettable. Solingen suffered a tremendous amount of destruction. When the air raid sirens went off, we had to go into the small shelter in our garden. Once a bomb fell on part of the house as well. However, we all remained unharmed. For a time, my parents sent me to my aunt's in Wuppertal because there was a larger shelter there. She thought I would be safer there. I had a small black rucksack with white polka dots, with a doll peering out of it. It was always there packed ready so that I could take it with me when the air raid siren sounded. I remember too our courtyard behind the house. There was a water pump there, the only one in our area. People were always lining up there to fetch water. ..."
[PDF] "What Moves Me" (English version) - Pina Bausch

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

Fela Kuti - Unknown Soldier (1981)

"... This thing wey happen
Happen for my country
Na big big thing
First time in the whole world
If you hear the name, you go know
Government magic
Tell me the name now"
YouTube: Unknown Soldier 31:10

Großes Wasser - Cluster (1979)

Wikipedia - "Großes Wasser is the seventh album by the electronic music outfit Cluster. It was co-produced by former Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann. Großes Wasser marked the return to Cluster working as a duo of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius after two albums collaborating with Brian Eno. Großes Wasser was recorded and released in 1979 on the Hamburg, Germany based Sky label."
Wikipedia
iskspZ
YouTube: Grosses Wasser 35:49

2009 July: Kluster, 2010 April: Cluster, 2012 September: Conrad Schnitzler (1937–2011).

Montauk - Max Frisch

Wikipedia - "Montauk is a story by Swiss writer Max Frisch. It first appeared in 1975 and takes an exceptional position in Frisch's work. While fictional stories previously served Frisch for exploring the possible behavior of his protagonists, in 'Montauk', he tells an authentic experience: a weekend which he spent with a young woman at the American East Coast. The short-run love affair is used by Frisch as a retrospective on his own biography. ... On their last weekend Lynn and Frisch come closer together and take a trip to Long Island, New York to the village of Montauk on the Atlantic coast. For the author this weekend sparks the desire to describe the shared days, without any addition. The presence of Lynn triggers reflections and memories in Frisch. He ponders on age and his growing feeling to be an imposition for others, his success and its effect on enviers, admirers and women."
Wikipedia
W - Max Frisch
Paris Review: Max Frisch, The Art of Fiction No. 113
amazon: Max Frisch

Janet Cardiff - The Forty Part Motet

"The Forty Part Motet (2001), a sound installation by Janet Cardiff (Canadian, born 1957), will be the first presentation of contemporary art at The Cloisters. Regarded as the artist's masterwork, and consisting of forty high-fidelity speakers positioned on stands in a large oval configuration throughout the Fuentidueña Chapel, the fourteen-minute work, with a three-minute spoken interlude, will continuously play an eleven-minute reworking of the forty-part motet Spem in alium numquam habui (1556?/1573?) by Tudor composer Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505–1585)."
Metropolitan Museum - Janet Cardiff: The Forty Part Motet
Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller | The Forty Part Motet | 2001 (Video)
W - Janet Cardiff
NYT: Moved to Tears at the Cloisters by a Ghostly Tapestry of Music (Play)

Watch Audio Ammunition: Google’s New Documentary Series on The Clash and Their Five Classic Albums

"The Clash are big in music news again with the arrival of their box set Sound System, which Mick Jones promises will be their final official release of all time. Jones also tells The Guardian it’s the 'best box set ever,' and I just might believe it. It’s certainly one of the coolest looking. The band’s music holds up perfectly well; in fact it’s taken on renewed relevance as so much of the cultural and economic conflicts they wrote in response to have emerged like zombies from the grave to torment us again (this time, perhaps, pace Marx, as zombie farce)."
Open Culture (Video)
Guardian: The Clash to release new box set of remastered albums and rarities (Video)
The Clash to Release Massive Box Set Shaped Like a Boombox, Plus Greatest Hits Comp (Video)
Google (Video)
amazon: 5 Album Studio Set, Hits Back (2-CD Set)

Robert Wyatt - Solar Flares Burn for You (2003)

"Coinciding almost concurrently with the issue of Cuckooland, an entirely new studio recording by composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Robert Wyatt on Hannibal, Solar Flares Burn For You is a welcome 'other-dimension.' This is not a repackaging of material that has been released countless times before. While certain tracks, such as the title and 'I'm A Believer' have been released elsewhere, these versions have not; they come from projects where their inclusion here is not only warranted but necessary. What is included here are both of Wyatt's BBC Top Gear Shows, one from 1972 with Francis Monkman, and another from 1974 on solo piano, the original soundtrack version of the title cut, and the film it was composed for, two new tracks with Hugh Hopper, and a brand new demo."
allmusic
Dusted Magazine
YouTube: 'twas brillig, blimey o'riley, God Song, Alifib, Little Child, The Verb, Solarflares Burn For You (1973), Sea song (Peel Session) 1974

2010 November: Robert Wyatt, 2011 October: Sea Song, 2012 October: Comicopera, 2013 March: The Last Nightingale.

Ismini Samanidou

‘Ismini Fabric’, Interior textile woven with cotton and paper.
"Athens born and London based artist Ismini Samanidou trained at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art specialising in woven textiles. Her practice touches on the boundaries of craft, art and design and involves developing textile works through commissions and interdisciplinary collaborations. Weaving is used as a language to communicate and express ideas through a ‘hands on’ approach integrating digital technologies and craft skills. Ismini has travelled and researched textile techniques worldwide and is interested in the way weaving exists as an autonomous language. Crossing cultural and political boundaries, weaving retains local identity with global connections, articulating narrative, space and history."
Ismini Samanidou
Artists' stories | Artists talking
Weave Waves
YouTube: Ismini Samanidou

Sweet Revenge - John Prine (1973)

"Prine's third album is louder and more jaded than his first efforts, a set of rowdy country-rockers that tear along at a reckless speed. Sympathy takes a back seat to cynicism here, and while that strips the record of some depth, Prine's irreverence is consistently thrilling, making this one of his best. It's not as uniformly brilliant as the debut, but it did steer his music in a new direction -- where that record is often hallmarked for its rich sensitivity, Sweet Revenge established cynicism as Prine's dominant voice once and for all. Although he could still crank out a great ballad when he felt like it, from now on his records largely followed a more conventional rock & roll muse, a choice that eventually gained him more mainstream attention. 'Please Don't Bury Me,' 'Christmas in Prison,' 'Blue Umbrella,' and 'A Good Time' are a few of the jewels on this one."
allmusic
Wikipedia
YouTube: Please Don't Bury Me, Christmas in Prison, Sweet Revenge, Dear Abby (Old Grey Whistle 1973), Grandpa Was A Carpenter, The Accident, Blue Umbrella, A Good Time

Stasi Museum

"The Stasi was an Eastern Germany version of the KGB, established by the Soviets in 1952. Just like the KGB, the Stasi was mostly busy looking for enemies of the people, employing round-the-clock surveillance, and eavesdropping on German citizens. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, people assaulted the Stasi headquarters, dissolved the organization, opened its archives to the public, and created a museum in the main building."
Egor Egorov
Stasimuseum Berlin
W - Stasi
W - Stasi Museum
39 things you might learn if you visit the Stasi Museum with a 10½ week old baby…
YouTube: A visit to the Stasi Museum - Berlin, Stasi Files: The Lives of Others, Secret Files: How shredded Stasi files are reconstructed

The Ugly American

Wikipedia - "The Ugly American is a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer upon which a 1963 movie starring Marlon Brando was based. The novel became a bestseller, was influential at the time, and is still in print. The book is a quasi-roman à clef; that is, it presents, in a fictionalized guise, the experience of Americans in Southeast Asia (Vietnam) and allegedly portrays several real people who are represented by pseudonyms. [1958 novel] The novel takes place in a fictional nation called Sarkhan (an imaginary country in Southeast Asia that somewhat resembles Burma or Thailand, but which is meant to allude to Vietnam) and includes several real people, most of whose names have been changed. The book describes the United States's losing struggle against Communism—what was later to be called the battle for hearts and minds in Southeast Asia—because of innate arrogance and the failure to understand the local culture. ... [1963 film] The story of this novel was made into a film in 1963 starring Marlon Brando as Ambassador Harrison Carter MacWhite. Its screenplay was written by Stewart Stern, and the film was produced and directed by George Englund."
Wikipedia
NYT: Still ‘Ugly’ After All These Years
NYT: The Ugly American Telegram
Atlantic: How Chinese Tourists Usurped the Ugly Americans
amazon: The Ugly American
YouTube: The Ugly American (1963, George Englund) - Trailer

Bryan Schutmaat

"My name is Bryan Schutmaat. I’m a photographer and this is my blog. In the 'news' section you’ll find announcements about my work – exhibitions, publications, awards, press, etc – as well as new photos that typically haven’t been shown on the net before. The 'inspiration' section contains other people’s work that I like and want to remember. I rarely reblog material, as I like to put stuff on tumblr that I haven’t seen on tumblr before. You can find my portfolio and more info about me on my main site, here. Thanks for stopping by."
Bryan Schutmaat Tumblr
Bryan Schutmaat
aperture
vimeo: Grays the Mountain Sends

‘Mad Men’s’ Split Season 7: You’re Killing Me, AMC

"... Mad Men, however, will have a total of 14 episodes over the split season. 'The first half of the season, dubbed The Beginning, will air in spring 2014,' the Los Angeles Times reports. ... If you’re keeping count, that’s exactly one more episode (roughly 42 minutes) longer than its first six seasons. In other words, there is no real added value to making fans wait an extra year to find out where Don, Peggy, Joan, and Roger end up; it’s just the network wringing some extra prestige from the show on its way out the door (and some extra coin, for themselves and the show’s producers)."
AMC

2013 January: Mad Men

Sten & Lex • Gaia at Brooklynite (2010)

"Two different approaches to portraiture are working side by side in Brooklyn right now- and the styles are distinct. Comparing the two in the charged energy of an October day, you’ll agree the contrast is pronounced – drawing attention to individual techniques and influences. Sitting with the portraits for a few minutes, one sees that their similarities may lie in something weightier. Sten and Lex began working in mundane portraiture on the streets of Rome in 2001 – a romance that continues almost a decade later. Drawing their inspiration from black and white images of European businessmen and the women who love them in stilted studio photos from the 1960’s and 70’s, they have plundered successive decades of posed formalized faces that are at times stoic, frank, and slyly droll."
Brooklyn Street Art (Video)

Kenneth Anger - Lucifer Rising (1970-80)

"Lucifer Rising is a short film by director Kenneth Anger. The film was completed in 1972 but was only widely distributed in 1980. Anger began filming around 1966, hiring a young musician named Bobby Beausoleil to act and compose the soundtrack. The film was abandoned in 1967 because Anger claimed the film footage had been stolen by Beausoleil. (Beausoleil and others said that Anger had simply spent all the money for the film). Anger then used some of the existing footage in another short film, Invocation of My Demon Brother. Beausoleil was convicted of killing Gary Hinman under the orders of Charles Manson in 1970. Anger began filming again several years later, with British singer Marianne Faithfull appearing in the film. Jimmy Page was brought in to record the soundtrack, but after he had a falling out with Anger, he was replaced by Beausoleil, who wrote and recorded the music in prison."
UbuWeb (Video)

2009 September: Kenneth Anger

SoHo

Wikipedia - "SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores. The area's history is an archetypal example of inner-city regeneration and gentrification, encompassing socio-economic, cultural, political and architectural developments."
Wikipedia
ArtSEENsoHo SoHo nEw YOrk CiTy
YouTube: Manhattan Walk Throughs: SOHO, Travel New York: SoHo, Video Tour of SoHo, Manhattan, Street Style Fashion 2012 / SoHo, New York

The Lives of Others (2007) Top 10 Berlin Wall Movies

Wikipedia - "The Lives of Others (German: Das Leben der Anderen) is a 2006 German drama film, marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, about the monitoring of East Berlin by agents of the Stasi, the GDR's secret police. It stars Ulrich Mühe as Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur as his boss Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch as the playwright Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck as Dreyman's lover, a prominent actress named Christa-Maria Sieland."
Wikipedia
TIME
Roger Ebert
NYT: A Fugue for Good German Men
YouTube: The Lives of Others trailer, (Das Leben der Anderen) beginning

2013 July: The Legend of Rita - Volker Schlondorff (2001), 2013 August: Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), 2013 August: Der Tunnel (2001).

On the Road - Jack Kerouac

Wikipedia - "On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac. On the Road is based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across America. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat Generation with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry and drug use. The idea for On the Road formed during the late 1940s. It was to be Kerouac's second novel, and it underwent several drafts before he completed it in April 1951."
Wikipedia
NPR: Kerouac's On the Road (Video)
The New York Review of Books - Jack Kerouac: Crossing the Line
Vanity Fair: Kerouac Unbound
Messy Nessy Chic
Paul Rogers Studio

2009 November: Another Side of Kerouac: The Dharma Bum as Sports Nut, 2010 July: Kerouac's Copies of Floating Bear, 2011 March: Jack Kerouac on The Steve Allen Show

Rockin' Tabby Thomas

"... This man rocks with that swampy beat that contains all the Hoodoo and Gris Gris mystery that one associates Louisiana swamp music. The beat is deep and full of a resonation that seems to suck you into it much like the inexorable force of quicksand. It is a primal rhythm that lives and breathes a heavy and fecund air that completely envelops the listener until he is moving with its cadence. The album can faulted for one issue, though: the liner notes don't tell you who is playing in the fine band that is playing behind him. They not only support him, but they give him the underpinning that gives the music its genuine feel. This is the heavy boogie blues of the Delta joining forces with more jumping and lighter in feel, East Texas style, with a heavy jolt of the mysterious and treacherous footing and Spanish moss-draped primal rhythmic music of the swamps. ..."
allmusic
allmusic - Biography
Ernest J. "Tabby" Thomas - Blues Artist
Wikipedia
YouTube: Popeye Train, Hoodo Party, Swamp Man Blues, One Day, Long About Midnight, Big Fat Woman, Tomorrow, Mmm... I Don't Care, Mr. Buzzard

New Photography 2013

Anna Ostoya, Lee No. 1, 2013
"New Photography 2013 presents recent works by eight international artists who have expanded the field of photography as a medium of experimentation and intellectual inquiry. Their porous practices—grounded in photographic artist’s books, sculpture, photomontage, performance, and science—creatively reassess the themes and processes of making pictures today."
MoMA
MoMA - New Photography 2013

The Chilean muralists who defied Pinochet

"Walk around the side of the GAM, the main cultural centre in the Chilean capital Santiago, and you come across a striking mural, 25m (80ft) wide and 3m high, covering an entire wall. In bold, bright colours, it shows a copper miner, a student, a fisherman and a member of Chile's largest indigenous community, the Mapuche. Wander down the road to the headquarters of the CUT, the country's main trade union federation, and you find another mural overlooking a courtyard. This one tells the history of the country's workers. Both walls are painted in the same distinctive style. The colours are primary and the faces - often indigenous in their features - are outlined in thick black lines."
BBC

Wire - Chairs Missing (1978)

"Chairs Missing marks a partial retreat from Pink Flag's austere, bare-bones minimalism, although it still takes concentrated listening to dig out some of the melodies. Producer Mike Thorne's synth adds a Brian Eno-esque layer of atmospherics, and Wire itself seems more concerned with the sonic textures it can coax from its instruments; the tempos are slower, the arrangements employ more detail and sound effects, and the band allows itself to stretch out on a few songs. ..."
allmusic
Wikipedia
Pitchfork
New York Night Train
YouTube: [Part 1] 01) Practice Makes Perfect 02) French Film Blurred, [Part 2] 03) Another the Letter 04) Men 2nd 05) Marooned 06) Sand in My Joints, [Part 3] 07) Being Sucked In Again 08) Heartbeat, [Part 4] 09) Mercy 10) Outdoor Miner, [Part 5] 11) I Am the Fly 12) I Feel Mysterious Today 13) From the Nursery, [Part 6] 14) Used To 15) Too Late

2009 January: Wire, 2012 January: On the Box 1979.

Gore Vidal’s Gore Vidal – BBC Omnibus 1995

"Gore Vidal’s Gore Vidal is a BBC Omnibus documentary first screened in 1995. The two part film biography covers Vidal’s life by visiting scenes from his past."
P U L S E (Video)

2011 May: An American history lesson with Gore Vidal

Popol Vuh - Hosianna Mantra (1972)

"Florian Fricke pioneered the use of synthesizers in German rock, but by the time of Hosianna Mantra he had abandoned them (eventually selling his famous Moog to Klaus Schulze). While In den Gärten Pharaos had blended synths with piano and African and Turkish percussion, Hosianna Mantra focuses on organic instrumentation. Conny Veit contributes electric guitar, but other than that, Fricke pulls the plug and builds the album around violin, tamboura, piano, oboe, cembalo, and Veit's 12-string, often with Korean soprano Djong Yun's haunting voice hovering above the arrangements."
allmusic
Wikipedia
YouTube: Hosianna Mantra.
01 Ah! 02 Kyrie 03 Hosianna Mantra 04 Abschied 05 Segnung 06 Andacht (Devotion I) 07 Nicht Hoch Im Himmel 08 Andacht (Devotion II) 09 Maria (Ave Maria)

2008 August: Popol Vuh, 2010 December: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 2011 May: Abschied (1972), 2013 May: Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog