Gustave Marissiaux

"Gustave Marissiaux (1872 - 1929) was a Belgian pictorial photographer. As a law student, he took up photography in 1894, and was elected the same year to the Belgian Association of Photography (B. A.P.). His country views denote a symbolist influence. Portrait is also an important part of his work. He not only practised it as a professional, in the studio he opened in Liиge in 1899, but also as an artist, in numerous 'Studies.' Recognized as one of the most important Belgian Pictorialist, he not only took part in the national Salons of the B. A.P., but also in several European Salons. By combining photography projection, poetry and music, he created a new form of 'total spectacle,' based on his images of Venice (1903)."
ND Magazine
Photogravure
YouTube: Visions d'Artistes, 1908

Bushwick Industrial Train Tracks

"Here are a couple of shots of the old industrial train tracks that zig zag through east Williamsburg, Bushwick and Maspeth in Brooklyn. I teamed-up with Billy on a cold and sunny Saturday morning to visit what used to be a thriving freight and commercial passage."
Charles le Brigand

The Tracks: A Glimpse into Bushwick’s Past
W - Bushwick Branch
W - Atlantic Terminal
YouTube: Railtrip NY LIRR Atlantic Branch

Bonfire

Wikipedia - "A bonfire is a controlled outdoor fire used for informal disposal of burnable waste material or as part of a celebration. Celebratory bonfires are typically designed to burn quickly and may be very large. The name 'bonfire' is from 'bone-fire'. In many regions of continental Europe, bonfires are made traditionally on 16 January, the solemnity of John the Baptist, as well as on Saturday night before Easter. Bonfires are also a feature of Walpurgis Night in central and northern Europe, and the celebrations on the eve of St. John's Day in Spain. In Finland bonfires are tradition on Midsummer Eve and Easter, also in midst of May celebrations."
Wikipedia

Joseph Montgomery: Five Sets Five Reps

"A selection of new and existing works from three closely-related bodies of work (2010- 2013) by New York-based painter Joseph Montgomery will be on view in our Brown Gallery from May 26, 2013, through April 7, 2014. This will be the artist's first solo museum exhibition. Montgomery creates compact abstract assemblages (many measuring only 12 x 10 inches) which have an uncanny familiarity. The small paintings vibrate with texture and movement and bursts of color amidst a mostly subdued and earthy palette. Despite their small size, the works have an intense visual and visceral impact - made from an array of elements which curve up, out, and beyond the confines of the support. Montgomery builds his layered images with a range of materials -- a base vocabulary of sorts -- including wood, clay, cardboard, fiberglass, paper, and wire."
MASS MoCA
Slow Muse · Joseph Montgomery

Wes Anderson Honors Fellini in a Delightful New Short Film

"While it’s 'presented' by Prada, the new Wes Anderson short is every inch a Wes Anderson film. In fact, just about the only thing that’s 'Prada' about it is the insignias on the racing jackets—and if you blink, you’ll miss them. Starring Anderson favorite Jason Schwartzman, an American who crashes into a piece of his own past, the short is—like so many Wes Anderson ads—also an opportunity for Anderson to pay tribute to his cinematic ancestors. Specifically, Castello Cavalcanti seems to be full of nods to the work of Federico Fellini."
Slate: Wes Anderson Honors Fellini in a Delightful New Short Film
Prada (Video)

“Garden at Sainte-Adresse,” Claude Monet (1867)

Wikipedia - "The Garden at Sainte-Adresse is a painting by the French impressionist painter, Claude Monet. (Oil on canvas, 98.1 cm x 129.9 cm). The painting was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art after an auction sale at Christie's in December 1967, under the French title La terrasse à Sainte-Adresse. The painting was exhibited at the 4th Impressionist exhibition, Paris, April 10–May 11, 1879, as no. 157 under the title Jardin à Sainte-Adresse. Monet spent the summer of 1867 at the resort town of Sainte-Adresse on the English Channel, near Le Havre (France). It was there, in a garden with a view of Honfleur on the horizon, that he painted this picture, which combines smooth, traditionally rendered areas with sparkling passages of rapid, separate brushwork, and spots of pure colour."
Wikipedia
NGA
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Marc Ribot - "The Nearness Of You"

"American guitarist Marc Ribot playing 'The Nearness Of You' on a Public Radio program in Oregon. Lynn Darroch, KMHD."
YouTube: "The Nearness Of You"

2011 February: Selling Water By the Side of the River - Evan Lurie, 2012 September: Marc Ribot, 2013 February: Silent Movies.

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (1965)

"Easily one of the most important records ever made, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme was his pinnacle studio outing that at once compiled all of his innovations from his past, spoke of his current deep spirituality, and also gave a glimpse into the next two and a half years (sadly, those would be his last). Recorded at the end of 1964, Trane's classic quartet of Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Jimmy Garrison stepped into the studio and created one of the most thought-provoking, concise, and technically pleasing albums of their bountiful relationship (not to mention his best-selling to date). From the undulatory (and classic) bassline at the intro to the last breathy notes, Trane is at the peak of his logical yet emotionally varied soloing while the rest of the group is remarkably in tune with Coltrane's spiritual vibe. Composed of four parts, each has a thematic progression leading to an understanding of spirituality through meditation. ..."
allmusic
W - A Love Supreme
John Coltrane’s Handwritten Outline for His Masterpiece A Love Supreme (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Rare Coltrane Video - Only Public Performance of A Love Supreme and Ascension
YouTube: A Love Supreme (1964) 1. Acknowledgement 2. Resolution 3. Pursuance 4. Psalm

Bob Dylan - Mood Swings, Welding and Metal Work

"Since he is a factually elusive storyteller, it was hard to know how seriously to take Bob Dylan when he said in his autobiography Chronicles that he keeps welding supplies at his home in Malibu where he makes 'ornate iron gates out of junk scrap metal.' But it turns out to be entirely true. An exhibition of Dylan’s art — paintings as well as his iron work — goes on display at London’s Halcyon Gallery this weekend."
22 Words
Halcyon Gallery

Experimental Sounds From Poland: A Rum Music Special

"Rory Gibb, Luke Turner and John Doran round up some of the Quietus' favourite Polish experimental records of the year so far, from grinding tectonic plates and noise-blasted techno to jazzy sample collage and creeping dread."
The Quietus (Video)

Rare footage of Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, and Amiri Baraka reading in 1959*

"Via the Allen Ginsberg Project, I just learned of the existence of some rare, but apparently now-available, footage by the experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas that features Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones), and Ray Bremser giving a poetry reading and hanging out together at the Living Theater in 1959.* ... There are so few moving images of O’Hara available at all that it’s a thrill to be able to see him in action. It’s also extraordinary and moving to see these poets, looking impossibly young, reading their poems, smoking, drinking, and goofing around (O’Hara even seems to be trying on a hat, possibly someone else’s, at one point). The footage also testifies to the close but complicated friendships and alliances between Beat and New York School poets in the later 1950s. ..."
Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets (Video)

Veedon Fleece - Van Morrison (1968-1974)

"The final album of Van Morrison's remarkably prolific and innovative 1968-1974 period (followed by three years of silence), Veedon Fleece brings the singer full circle, returning him to the introspection and poignancy of Astral Weeks. Composed following his sudden divorce from wife Janet Planet and subsequent retreat from the U.S., the songs are subtle and Spartan, the performances deeply felt; though less tortured and cathartic than Astral Weeks, it's a record fraught with emotional upheaval, as evidenced by such superior moments as 'Linden Arden Stole the Highlights,' 'Who Was That Masked Man,' and 'You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push the River.' That said, this is one of those -- and there are several -- forgotten classics in the Morrison catalog. ... Veedon Fleece is every bit the creative equal of its more famous predecessors. With its elegiac tone and deeply autobiographical lyrics, this was a Morrison who didn't so readily associate himself with the feel-good, peace, love, and rhythm & blues sound American audiences were used to. If any album reflects a real period of transition for an artist, it's this one. It's brilliant."
allmusic
W - Veedon Fleece
Rolling Stone
YouTube: Comfort You, You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push The River, Linden Arden Stole the Highlights, Who Was That Masked Man, Come Here My Love, Fair Play, Bulbs, Streets of Arklow, Cul De Sac

2007 July: Van Morrison, 2011 January: Astral Weeks, 2011 June: Van Morrison & The Caledonia Express, 2012 January: "Into the Mystic", 2012 March: Live at Montreux 1980/1974, 2013 May: Saint Dominic's Preview. 

julian peters comics - The Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud

"Here is my adaptation of an English translation of Rimbaud’s 'Le bateau ivre' (1871).   This work was commissioned for the 'The Graphic Canon', an anthology of visual adaptations of classic works of literature edited by Russ Kick and published by Seven Stories Press: http://www.sevenstories.com/book/?GCOI=58322100888750 "
julian peters comics

2008 May: Arthur Rimbaud, 2010 November: Arthur Rimbaud - 1, 2012 October: Patti Smith: Poem about Arthur Rimbaud (Subtitulado), 2013 August: Arthur Rimbaud Documentary.

King Crimson - Elephant Talk

"Talk, it's only talk
Arguments, agreements, advice, answers,
Articulate announcements
It's only talk

Talk, it's only talk
Babble, burble, banter, bicker bicker bicker
Brouhaha, boulder dash, ballyhoo
It's only talk
Back talk"
YouTube: Elephant Talk

“…como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si…” - Pina Bausch (2009)

"The moment the curtain rises on Pina Bausch’s masterpiece, '…como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si…' at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, we see a woman on all fours; a primal position that feels both demeaning and funny, all at once. By beginning the evening with this pose Bausch conveys that this work isn’t about the ethereal women of Marius Petipa or the idealized women of Balanchine. Instead, Bausch is interested in what it means to be a contemporary woman—and there is nothing otherworldly about it. Similar to Marcel Duchamp’s scandalous work 'Fountain' (1917), a porcelain urinal turned upside-down and placed in a museum, Bausch has her dancers reenact everyday female rituals, turns them on their heads and sets them on a stage: a woman applies makeup while a man pours a bottle of water on her head, and a woman sitting at a restaurant eats her meal beneath the table."
The Dance Critic
The New Yorker: Pina Bausch’s True Gifts
NYC Dance Stuff
The New Yorker: Pina Bausch’s Last Dance
NYT: The Swan Song of Pina Bausch
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
Review: The Last Testament Of Pina Bausch
YouTube: "...como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si ..."
facebook: "...como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si ..."
terra: Última Obra de Pina Bausch llega al Teatro Municipal

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

MUPS: (MashUPs) is an online sonic mashup engine

"... How does it work: MUPS can play multiple audio files (up to 32 streams) simultaneously. It can also WEAVE those files: by playing short segments of each voice until it encounters silence, then playing the next voice. MUPS offers users control over how the WEAVE occurs. Issues: after extended use, MUPS can get confused. Refresh your browser. Enjoy."
MUPS: PennSound

Sounds Like London

"Just finished a captivating and, to my mind, long overdue book, which covers the history of black music in the capital spanning (almost) 100 years, the recently published ‘Sounds Like London’. By bringing all the threads together, its author, Lloyd Bradley has made a telling contribution to our understanding of how British black music evolved, following the lineage of its direct influences in the Caribbean and Africa, in juxtaposition with the impact of African-American innovation throughout the 20th century."
Sounds Like London
SOUNDS LIKE LONDON: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital
New Statesman: Sounds Like London by Lloyd Bradley: An intensive, lovingly written account of 100 years of black music in the capital
Telegraph: Sounds Like London by Lloyd Bradley, review
amazon
YouTube: London: Sounds like London: the capital's black music history, Serpent's Tail: Sounds Like London

Watch Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train A Comin’, the New PBS Documentary

"Definitely worth a quick mention. For a limited time, PBS is making available its latest film from its great American Masters documentary series. My Train A Comin’ traces Jimi Hendrix’s 'remarkable journey from his hardscrabble beginnings in Seattle, through his stint as a US Army paratrooper and as an unknown sideman, to R&B stars until his discovery and ultimate international stardom.' It features 'previously unseen footage of the 1968 Miami Pop Festival, home movies, and interviews with those closest to Jimi Hendrix.' From what we can tell, PBS will keep this film online for only a matter of days. So watch it while you can."
Open Culture (PBS Video)

2010 September: Jimi Hendrix

Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story

Wikipedia - "Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story is a 2012 documentary film about Booker Wright, an African-American waiter who worked in a restaurant for whites only. In 1965, Wright appeared in Mississippi: A Self Portrait, a short NBC television documentary about racism in the American South. During his interview with producer Frank De Felitta, he spoke openly about racism, and his treatment as a waiter in an all-white restaurant. The broadcast of his remarks had catastrophic consequences for Wright. Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story was directed by the son of Frank De Felitta, Oscar-nominated, independent filmmaker Raymond De Felitta, and co-produced by one of Booker Wright’s four grandchildren, Yvette Johnson. It includes interviews with those who lived in the community. They discuss life at the time, and the restaurant Wright owned, which catered to African-American customers. The documentary premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 25, 2012."
Wikipedia
NYT: One Black Man’s Actions as a Piece of Civil Rights History
IMDb
amazon
YouTube: Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story: Trailer. Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story (Short)
Democracy Now!: "Booker’s Place": Documentary Tells Story of Black Mississippi Waiter Who Lost Life by Speaking Out - (Video)

New York Herald Tribune

Wikipedia - "The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly (unrelated to the magazine of that name), and the Whig Party's Log Cabin. The paper was home to such writers as Dorothy Thompson, Red Smith, Richard Watts, Jr. and Walter Kerr and begat the International Herald Tribune and New York magazine. The New York Herald Tribune ceased publication in August 1966."
Wikipedia
W - New-York Tribune
W - New York Herald
Library of Congress
Salon: Shedding a tear for the International Herald Tribune
TCM: Breathless (1960) - New York Herald Tribune
YouTube: International Herald Tribune celebrates 125 years

Peggy March - "I Will Follow Him"

Wikipedia - "Peggy March (born Margaret Annemarie Battavio, March 8, 1948, Lansdale, Pennsylvania) is an American and German pop singer. She is primarily known for her 1963 million-selling song 'I Will Follow Him'. She was discovered at age thirteen singing at her cousin's wedding and was introduced to the record producer partnership Hugo & Luigi. They gave her the nickname Little Peggy March because she was only 4 ft 9 in (1.45 m) tall, she was only 13, the record she did with them was 'Little Me,' and her birthday was in March. On April 24, 1963, her single 'I Will Follow Him' soared to number one on the U.S. charts. Recorded in early January 1963 and released January 22, March was only 14 at the time. March became the youngest female artist with a number one hit, at 15, in late April 1963, a record that still stands for the Billboard Hot 100."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Little peggy march (1963 Live) - I will follow him

The Decameron - Giovanni Boccaccio

Renaissance Man by Joan Acocella - "In 1348, the Black Death, the most devastating epidemic in European history, swept across the continent. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), at the beginning of his famous Decameron, describes its effects on his city, Florence. Many people just dropped dead in the street. Others died in their houses, often unattended by their families. Husbands and wives, fearing infection, sat and prayed in separate rooms. Mothers walked away from their children and closed the door. In the words of a new translation of the Decameron (Norton), by Wayne A. Rebhorn, a specialist in Renaissance literature at the University of Texas, the Florentines carried

the bodies of the recently deceased out of their houses and put them down by the front doors, where anyone passing by, especially in the morning, could have seen them by the thousands. . . . When all the graves were full, enormous trenches were dug in the cemeteries of the churches, into which the new arrivals were put by the hundreds, stowed layer upon layer like merchandise in ships, each one covered with a little earth, until the top of the trench was reached.

Shops stood empty. Churches shut down. An estimated sixty per cent of the population of Florence and the surrounding countryside died."
New Yorker
W.W. Norton: The Decameron
Decameron Web
W - The Decameron
amazon: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, Wayne A. Rebhorn

Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama—Manhattan, 1970–1980

Jared Bark (b. 1944), LIGHTS: on/off, performance at The Clocktower, June 21, 1974
"This exhibition illuminates a radical period of 1970s performance art that flourished in downtown Manhattan, or what filmmaker and performance artist Jack Smith called 'Rented Island,' and still remains largely unknown today. Working in lofts, storefronts, and alternative spaces, this group of artists, with backgrounds in theater, dance, music, and visual art, created complex new forms of performance to embody and address contemporary media, commercial culture, and high art."
Whitney
Whitney: Rituals of Rented Island: Julia Heyward, Rituals of Rented Island: Sylvia Palacios Whitman
NYT: Nothing to Spend, Nothing to Lose
amazon

Artists and Amateurs: Etching in Eighteenth-Century France

"Throughout the eighteenth century, a large number of artists—painters, sculptors, draftsmen, and amateurs—experimented with etching, a highly accessible printmaking technique akin to drawing. Some, like Antoine Watteau and François Boucher, encountered the process within the thriving commerce of the Paris print market. Others, like Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Hubert Robert, experimented with the technique during their student years in Rome. Over the course of the century, the free and improvisational aesthetic of the etching process increasingly was embraced, and French artists looked to seventeenth-century masters, such as Rembrandt in the north, and Salvator Rosa and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione to the south, for inspiration."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Exhibition objects - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
YouTube: Artists and Amateurs: Etching in Eighteenth-Century France

Studio 54

Wikipedia - "Studio 54 was a popular New York nightclub from 1977 until 1981 when it was sold by founders and creators Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. It was called the most famous nightclub of all time and was a sophisticated, groundbreaking multi-media visual extravaganza. It continued to operate as a nightclub until 1991 by other owners. Located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, New York City, the space was originally the Gallo Opera House, opening in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming CBS radio and television Studio 52. Since November 1998 it has been a venue for the Roundabout Theatre Company and is still called Studio 54, but is no longer a nightclub."
Wikipedia
NY Daily - Studio 54: Inside the world's most famous celebrity nightclub in its heyday
YouTube: Studio 54

30 for 30 Shorts: The Schedule Makers

"Welcome back to our 30 for 30 documentary short series. Each year, everyone from front-office executives to sports-radio callers ridicules the logic of the MLB schedule. Complaints aside, putting this together is a daunting task: 30 teams, 162 games a year, cross-country flights, night games, day games … you name it. So, who manages all of this? For almost a quarter-century it was the husband-and-wife duo of Henry and Holly Stephenson, two math and computer whizzes who did it all with nothing but a pencil and a piece of paper. This film is the story of how the Stephensons landed their first MLB contract and became The Schedule Makers."
Grantland (Video)

Poor-Man's Speed: Coming of Age in Wigan's Anarchic Northern Soul Scene

"One Saturday night ­in 1975, I met my mate at a shop in Manchester that would, for certain, sell you Bronchipax: ephedrine capsules, the poor-man’s speed, banned now but sold without prescription back then. We bought a packet each and swallowed the lot with tonic water: eight times the maximum adult dose. But what did we care about the adult dose? We were 15, and about to set off for the greatest dance club in the world. We reached Wigan Casino around midnight with my mate’s cousin who was a 'face' on the Northern Soul scene. That got us into a café nearby, packed – not with soul boys as I expected – but with music journos from London, cool Italians in micro-sunglasses, American vinyl collectors and other global bohemians."
Vice (Video)
W - Wigan Casino
BBC - Northern Soul: 40 years of the sound of Wigan Casino (Video)
YouTube: Wigan Casino - A Lifestyle Of Northern Soul

2012 October: Northern Soul, 2012 December: The obsession that is Northern Soul.

A Guide to The Maximus Poems of Charles Olson

"Praised by his contemporaries and emulated by his successors, Charles Olson (1910-1970) was declared by William Carlos Williams to be 'a major poet with a sweep of understanding of the world, a feeling for other men that staggers me.' This complete edition brings together the three volumes of Olson's long poem (originally published in 1960, 1968, and 1975) in an authoritative version. Praised by his contemporaries and emulated by his successors, Charles Olson (1910-1970) was declared by William Carlos Williams to be 'a major poet with a sweep of understanding of the world, a feeling for other men that staggers me.' This complete edition brings together the three volumes of Olson's long poem (originally published in 1960, 1968, and 1975) in an authoritative version."
Google
Google: A Guide to The Maximus Poems of Charles Olson by George F. Butterick
Aimless Reading: The O's, Part 5.32 (Charles Olson)

2009 January: Charles Olson, 2009 April: Rockport Harbor, 2010 September: Charles Olson: The Art of Poetry No. 12, 2010 December: "In Cold Hell, in Thicket", NET film, 2011 July: Charles Olson: February 21, 1957, 2012 April: A Trip to Charles Olson’s Gloucester, 2012 June: In Which We Lather Our Sensibilities At Length, 2013 January: Mass.Charles Olson, 2013 May: The Maximus Poems.

The Picture Collection - Taryn Simon

"... The Picture Collection comprises forty-four works inspired by the New York Public Library’s picture archive, one of the august institution’s lesser-known troves. The archive contains 1.2 million prints, postcards, posters, and printed images, most of which have been cut from secondary sources, such as books and magazines. It is the largest circulating picture library in the world, organized according to a complex cataloging system of over 12,000 subject headings. Since its inception in 1915, it has been an important resource for writers, historians, artists, filmmakers, fashion designers, and advertising agencies."
Gagosian
Gagosian - 1
Taryn Simon
W - Taryn Simon

P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)/Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker) - Parliament

Wikipedia - "'Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)' is a funk song by Parliament. It was released as a single under the name 'Tear the Roof off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk)'. It was the second single to be released from Parliament's 1976 album Mothership Connection (following 'P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)'), and was the highest-charting single from the album, reaching number five on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart and number fifteen on the Billboard Hot 100pop singles chart. With its anthemic sing-along chorus, it is one of the most famous P-Funk songs. It also became Parliament's first certified million-selling single, going Gold in 1976."
Wikipedia
W - "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)"
YouTube: P. Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up), Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)