The Soul of Black Peru (1995)

"The Afro-Peruvian style heard on The Soul of Black Peru compilation originated hundreds of years ago from the Spanish slave trade. The music is a mix of African, Spanish, and Andean traditions, due to the fact that the slaves who came to Peru were not from one specific region, so they did not have a common language to communicate with. It's easy to break the music down and see which culture contributed what -- the lyrics are all sung in Spanish (Spain), have a slight melancholy approach (similar to the Yaravi form from the Andes), and boast interesting rhythms (Africa). The musical form is just starting to catch on in other parts of the world, and deservedly so. And since this is heartfelt, emotional music, fans outside of the world music circle can easily grasp and appreciate it."
allmusic
W - The Soul of Black Peru
YouTube: The Soul of Black Peru

Dancing in the dark - John O'Mahony

"One of the world's most influential choreographers, she is based in an obscure German town where her avant garde, often violent, work attracted furious hostility. Her own company rebelled over her methods but more recently, after she overcame personal tragedy, critics have noted a lighter touch."
Guardian

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

Storm de Hirsch - Peyote Queen (1965)

"Storm de Hirsch was a very important player in the New York Avant-Garde film scene of the 1960s, though her biography and work are generally left out of the history. Like many experimental filmmakers at the time, she did not begin her artistic career as a filmmaker. She had been a poet and published a number of works in the early 60's. She wanted to find a new mode of expression for her thoughts that went beyond words on the page, which is when she turned to filmmaking. Despite lack of recognition, she was very present in the underground film movement and socialized with every big name on the scene, filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke and others."
UbuWeb (Video)
W - Storm de Hirsch
Storm De Hirsch Filmography
YouTube: Divinations

The 78 Project

"The 78 Project is a documentary and recording journey inspired by Alan Lomax and his quest to capture music where it lived throughout the early 20th century. Our project brings the spirit of his work into the present as we pair breakthrough musicians with the songs and the fascinating recording technology of the past. With just one microphone, one authentic 1930′s Presto direct-to-acetate disk recorder, and one blank lacquer disc, musicians are given one take to cut a record anywhere they choose. What we have found is that the film, music and feelings that result defy space and time, living music inspired by ghosts."
The 78 Project (Video)
The 78 Project Feature-length Documentary Film (Video)
NPR: That Old-Time Sound, Captured Live In The Moment (Video)
Back to the Future By William Gibson

Brownstone

Fort Greene
Wikipedia - "Brownstone is a brown Triassic or Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States to refer to a terraced house (rowhouse) clad in this material. ... There are many brownstones throughout numerous New York City neighborhoods, especially in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope, Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, Cobble Hill, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn Heights, and Bedford Stuyvesant. The Manhattan neighborhood of the Upper West Side, too, retains many brownstones. New York City brownstones are highly desired, and usually cost several million dollars to purchase."
Wikipedia
NYT: Bidding Farewell to a City’s Precious Stone
New York City is Officially Out of Brownstone
Historic Preservation Victory: Brooklyn Brownstones Saved from Demolition
Brownstone Quarry That Helped Build New York Closes

The 5000 Spirits or Layers of the Onion - Incredible String Band (1967)

"In 1967, Joe Boyd had signed the Incredible String Band, who were then down to Robin Williamson, Mike Heron, and Licorice McKechnie, to Elektra. The 5000 Spirits or Layers of the Onion had been crafted in a cottage in Glasgow, but Boyd wanted a proper recording studio to get it on tape. He chose engineer John Wood's Chelsea studio for the sessions. Recorded on a four-track machine, Boyd and Wood proceeded to capture the very best of the dozens of songs Williamson and Heron brought in. ... The meld of all ISB’s influences are heard on 'Gently Tender,' a beautiful if somewhat anarchic tune where flutes, acoustic blues, hand drums, bass, gimbri, and sitar are all employed. This set stands as one of the true masterpieces in the group's catalog."
allmusic
W - The 5000 Spirits or Layers of the Onion
YouTube: First Girl I Loved, Painting box, My Name Is Death, The Mad Hatter's Song, The Hedgehog's Song, The 5000 Spirits or Layers of the Onion...

2008 August: Incredible String Band, 2012 April: Troubled Voyage In Calm Weather - The Early Years of the Incredible String Band

Up Close on Baseball's Borders

"Steve Rushin of Sports Illustrated has called the line running through Connecticut that separates Yankee fans and Red Sox fans the Munson-Nixon line. Mr. Rushin came up with the name — in honor of the late Yankee catcher Thurman Munson and the retired Red Sox right fielder Trot Nixon — in 2003, and he had to guess where the line ran: 'north of New Haven but south of Hartford, running the breadth of central Connecticut.' We don’t have to guess anymore."
NYT: Up Close on Baseball's Borders
Atlantic Cities: Every U.S. County's Favorite Baseball Team (According to Facebook)
Baseball’s Borders

The Perfect Symmetry of Wes Anderson’s Movies

"Video essayist Kogonada previously made some brilliant observations about the visual obsessions of some of cinema’s greatest formalists. Stanley Kubrick, as Kogonada elegantly points out, composes most of his shots using one-point perspective. Once called out, it becomes a motif that’s really hard to ignore. Yasujiro Ozu – a director who has more cinematic eccentricities than just about any other major director – had a fascination with windows, doorways and corridors."
Open Culture (Video)

Gustave Caillebotte

Vue de toits (Effet de neige)
Wikipedia - "Vue de toits (Effet de neige) ... is an oil painting by French impressionist Gustave Caillebotte executed in the winter of 1878 and 1879. The canvas measures 81 by 65 centimetres (32 in × 26 in). It was originally gifted by Caillebotte's brother in 1894 to the Musée du Luxembourg, then transferred to the Musée du Louvre in 1929. ... Vue de toits depicts snow covered rooftops in Montmartre, Paris from a high vantage point, possibly a balcony. Here Caillebotte employs a largely monochromatic palette of grays, adding additional color to highlight building features. This perspective was not at all common in French paintings, and in fact Caillebote may have been inspired by the photographic works of Hippolyte Bayard."
W - Vue de toits (Effet de neige)
Musée d'Orsay: Gustave Caillebotte, Rooftops in the Snow (snow effect)
W - Gustave Caillebotte
Gustave Caillebotte
NPR - Gustave Caillebotte: Impressions Of A Changing Paris (Video)
YouTube: The Complete Paintings

"Jealous Guy" - John Lennon (1971)

Wikipedia - "'Jealous Guy' is a song written and performed by John Lennon which first appeared on his 1971 album Imagine. It is one of the most commonly covered Lennon songs, with at least 92 recorded cover versions, the most notable being Roxy Music's version, which reached number one in several countries three months after John Lennon's death. ... A promotional video was made for the song in 1971. It showed, mostly in a continuous overhead shot by helicopter, John and Yoko travelling in a hearse from their Tittenhurst Park mansion to a nearby lake, where they were then shown hopping into a rowing boat."
Wikipedia
YouTube: "Jealous Guy" (Original Video 1971)

2009 September: John Lennon - Live in New York City (Madison Square Garden 1972)

Irit Batsry

Fuller's Flow, 2003
"Born in Israel in 1957, Irit Batsry has lived and worked in New York since 1983. She received a degree in fine art from the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem in 1983 and, once settled in New York City, became an instructor and on-line editor for Film/Video Arts. She has had an extensive video and media art career and is renowned for her experimental videos in the early eighties. Her single and multi-channel videos and installations have been shown in museums and galleries around the world, including the Institute of Contemporary Art (London, England), the National Gallery (Washington, U.S.), the Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid, Spain) and the Witte de With (Rotterdam, the Netherlands)."
The Daniel Langlois Foundation
Irit Batsry (Video)
Irit Batsry, Recent Work
Shoshana Wayne Gallery
Volta Show (vimeo)
vimeo: Recently Uploaded
YouTube: There are not my images (Neither there nor Here)

Raúl Ruiz

Wikipedia - "Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino (25 July 1941 – 19 August 2011) was an experimental Chilean filmmaker, writer and teacher whose work is best known in France. He directed over 100 films. ... According to Ruiz in a 1991 interview, Three Sad Tigers 'is a film without a story, it is the reverse of a story. Somebody kills somebody. All the elements of a story are there but they are used like a landscape, and the landscape is used like story.' He was something of an outsider among the politically oriented Chilean filmmakers of his generation such as Miguel Littín and Patricio Guzmán, his work being far more ironic, surrealistic and experimental. In 1973, shortly after the military coup d'état led by the dictator Augusto Pinochet, Ruiz and his wife (fellow director Valeria Sarmiento) fled Chile and settled in Paris, France."
Wikipedia
MUBI
NYT: Raúl Ruiz, Prolific Director of Cryptic Films, Dies at 70
Guardian
YouTube: Exiles - Raul Ruiz, Visions - 1985, The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting

Johnny Cash - Ridin' The Rails The Great American Train Story (1974)

"There's nothing that stirs my imagination like the sound of a steam locomotive - that lonesome whistle cutting through the night and that column of black smoke & steam throwing shadows across the land. When I was a boy the trains ran by my house and they carried with them a promise that somewhere down the track anything would be possible." --Johnny Cash
YouTube: Ridin' The Rails The Great American Train Story 51:39

Massacre (Live - Warsaw Summer Jazz Days, Poland, 2000)

"British guitarist Fred Frith moved to N.Y.C. in 1979, and within a year had formed the improv rock trio Massacre with bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Fred Maher. The group released Killing Time in 1981 and then called it quits a year later. Frith and Laswell rejoined, this time with drummer Charles Hayward, in 1998 to record an album in the same vein, under the Massacre name. Funny Valentine was released on the Tzadik label later that same year. In 2001 the group released Meltdown, a six-track set recorded at Robert Wyatt's Meltdown Festival in London in June 2001, followed by 2007's Lonely Heart, which was recorded live at two festivals in Europe in January and June 2003."
allmusic
W - Massacre
YouTube: Massacre (2001) 1:04:54

Bonfire of the Humanities

"People dress like kings and queens in the capital of Mali, even in the dirt streets on the far side of the river. The women walk down mud lanes wearing immaculate gowns with puffed shoulders, gold detailing, and beadwork. The dudes are natty, too, in safari suits, crisp office boy outfits, or the grand boubou, the national robing that makes any man walk like a giant. Only the heroic boys everywhere—young teens carrying loads, pushing groceries, directing trucks—go around in recycled jeans and T-shirts. In squalor the people must be regal."
Outside
Tuareg region
The smuggled hard drives of Timbuktu
Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu

"I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)" - James Brown (1967)

Wikipedia - "'I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)', also known as 'I Can't Stand It', is a song written and recorded by James Brown in 1967. It is the most successful of the handful of recordings he made with The Dapps, a band of white musicians led by Beau Dollar. The single release of the song, on which its tempo was mechanically sped up, rose to #4 on the Billboard R&B chart and #28 on the Pop chart. The single's B-side, 'There Was a Time', also charted. 'I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)' was included on the 1968 album I Can't Stand Myself When You Touch Me, where it was labeled 'Pt. 1'. A 'Pt. 2', which appeared later in the album, never received a single release."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Can't Stand It & Give It Up 1969

The Gutters in Buena Vista Park are Made Out of Old Headstones

"San Francisco is a city of secrets. Hidden tunnels and bricked-up passageways, sunken ships and rebuilt palaces. With our backfilled downtown, railcar tracks that lead into empty parking lots, and stairways that sneak you from one neighborhood to another, we are the Winchester Mystery House of urban areas. One of the secrets is right beneath your nose, and you’ve likely passed it at least once. Maybe you’ve walked your dog there. Or gone to play tennis at one of the hidden-gem tennis courts that locals like to keep all to themselves. Maybe, like me, you’ve cut through Buena Vista Park from Haight Street, zigzagging your way down toward Market on your morning commute-with-a-view, all blissfully ignorant that you were in the presence of hundreds of headstones. ..."
The Bold Italic

Hear Patti Smith Read 12 Poems From Seventh Heaven, Her First Collection (1972)

"So it’s National Poetry Month, and the Academy of American Poets recommends 30 Ways to Celebrate, including some old standbys like memorizing a poem, reading a poem a day, and attending a reading. All sensible, if somewhat staid, suggestions (I myself have been re-reading all of Wallace Stevens’ work—make of that what you will). Here’s a suggestion that didn’t make the list: spend some time digging the poetry of Patti Smith. A living breathing legend, Smith doesn’t appear in many academic anthologies, and that’s just fine. What she offers are bridges from the Beats to the sixties New York art scene to seventies punk poetry and beyond, with spandrels made from French surrealist leanings and rock and roll obsessions."
Open Culture (Video)
YouTube: Reading at St. Mark's Church, NYC (1972), St Marks - "Oath", "Oath" 1973 reading, Babelfield 1978, Feedback and Poetry, Interview, Stockholm October 1976, A Reading Of Virginia Woolf, Letter to Mapplethorpe

Richard Baker

Installation view, “Richard Baker: Holiday”
"For the past decade, Richard Baker has developed two distinct but related bodies of work, one in oil and the other in gouache: the oil paintings depict tabletops covered with all sorts of printed ephemera and bric-a-brac; the gouaches are of book covers and, more recently, record covers. In 2012, however, Baker began breaking down the neat division between the oil paintings and works on paper by making something silly — a Whoopee cushion — out of paper and painting it pink. At the same time, while a poetry book cover and a novelty store standby might not seem to have that much in common, it seems to me that they are or were a part of the artist’s life, and that he is unembarrassed about these details."
Richard Baker Kicks Out the Jams
Tibor de Nagy
artnet
RICHARD BAKER with JOHN YAU

The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie

"In the world of early-20th-century African-American music and people obsessed by it, who can appear from one angle like a clique of pale and misanthropic scholar-gatherers and from another like a sizable chunk of the human population, there exist no ghosts more vexing than a couple of women identified on three ultrarare records made in 1930 and ’31 as Elvie Thomas and Geeshie Wiley. There are musicians as obscure as Wiley and Thomas, and musicians as great, but in none does the Venn diagram of greatness and lostness reveal such vast and bewildering co-extent. ..."
NY Times (Video)

2013 July: Geeshie Wiley

Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century

"This is the first international loan exhibition to explore the sculptural art produced in the earliest kingdoms of Southeast Asia. From the first millennium onward, powerful kingdoms emerged in the region, embracing much of Indic culture to give political and religious expression to their identities. Early Hinduism (Brahmanism) and Buddhism arrived early, first witnessed by Sanskrit inscriptions, and shortly thereafter by a proliferation of large-scale religious imagery."
MetMuseum
MetMuseum: Exhibition Objects
NYT: Gathering of Gods From Places Long Forgotten
YouTube: Ancient Sculptures from Myanmar on Display in New York

Ludlow Massacre

Wikipedia - "The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Some two dozen people, including women and children, were killed. The chief owner of the mine, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was widely criticized for the incident. The massacre, the culmination of a bloody widespread strike against Colorado coal mines, resulted in the violent deaths of between 19 and 26 people; reported death tolls vary but include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent. The deaths occurred after a daylong fight between militia and camp guards against striking workers. ..."
Wikipedia
Ludlow Massacre: A look back at Colorado's deadly coal war
Justice Story: Women, kids killed in bloody 1913 Ludlow Massacre during coal strike
YouTube: Howard Zin about Ludlow Massacre, Ludlow Massacre: The Bloody Debate Over Unions in Colorado. A documentary by Jackson Fields, Colorado Experience: Ludlow Massacre, "Ludlow Massacre" by Woody Gunthrie, April 20th 1914

Sabrosa

"Sabrosa Son Sistema (as the name suggests), bring a sound system style of fun, tropical, afro-latin good times sounds for the dancefloor. Dedicated to the forgotten rhythms of a tropical revolution, taking an unchartered exploration into the gritty sand swept back streets of Africa, the Caribbean Islands and Latin America, alongside it’s strongly rooted African lineage. Your guides, PepeSol and Paprika…..dig deep into an afro latin soundscape of dusty grooves, tropical heat and a syncopated sound system culture. ..."
Sabrosa
Mixcloud (Video)
Soundcloud (Video)

Carla Fernández: The Barefoot Designer: A Passion for Radical Design and Community

"Carla Fernández: The Barefoot Designer: A Passion for Radical Design and Community will explore the traditions and techniques of indigenous Mexican artisans and how they can be applied to modern fashion and styles. Carla Fernández has gained international recognition for her extraordinary approach to documenting and preserving the rich textile heritage of Mexico's indigenous communities by transforming it into beautiful contemporary clothing, and proving tradition is anything but static. This first-ever fashion exhibition at the Gardner Museum explores the development of a new language in visual design that Fernández has built over two decades. She uses a method called 'the Square Root' based on the Mexican tradition of making clothing from squares and rectangles. This process emphasizes forms of fabric and delicate, thoughtful construction based on whole fabric, as opposed to cutting in curves and molding to the body."
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Carla Fernández: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
T Magazine - On View | Turning Ancient Craft Techniques into Modern Fashion

Revisited & Remixed 1970-1999 - Popol Vuh (2011)

"It’s being released on June 24 by SPV Records to mark the 10th anniversary of Vuh founder Florian Fricke’s death. The first disc sub-titled Planet Side, is essentially a ‘best of’, showcasing twelve classic tracks from the catalogue of the seminal band, whose singular and acutely spiritual music traversed classical minimalism, Eastern music, new age electronics, progressive rock and, in their latter years, ambient techno. The majority are taken from their soundtracks for Werner Herzog’s movies Nosferatu, Cobra Verde and Aguirre, but there are also selections from their debut Affenstunde and a clutch of more electronic-leaning pieces from the 1990s. It’s hardly the definitive compilation – there are no selections from the wonderful Hosianna Mantra, for example – but it serves as a fine introduction to the band for newcomers."
FACT
amazon
YouTube: Cosmic Side/ Remixed (Revisted and Remixed) 1:18:29

2008 August: Popol Vuh, 2010 December: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 2011 May: Abschied (1972), 2013 May: Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog, 2913 September: Hosianna Mantra (1972).

A New Chapter

1938, Lower East Siders. Hester St. between Allen and Orchard Streets.
"For more than 25 years, the Tenement Museum has been telling the stories of 97 Orchard Street. And while 200,000 visitors a year can attest to its fascinating history, our beloved building does have one flaw: it closed in 1935, but the neighborhood kept evolving around it! That’s why we’re planning new exhibits exploring the stories of immigrants who settled on the Lower East Side in the mid to late 20th century. In the years following World War II, the Lower East Side became home to an increasing number of Chinese immigrants, Puerto Rican migrants, and Jewish Holocaust survivors. New foods, languages and customs came along with these residents, and the neighborhood reflected the change. At 103 Orchard Street – currently home to our visitor center – all three of these groups lived side by side, sharing struggles and aspirations despite their very different backgrounds."
Tenement Museum

2012 December: Lower East Side

"All Along the Watchtower" - Bob Dylan (1968)

Wikipedia - "'All Along the Watchtower' is a song written and recorded by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The song initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding, and it has been included on most of Dylan's subsequent greatest hits compilations. Since the late 1970s, he has performed it in concert more than any of his other songs. Different versions appear on four of Dylan's live albums. Covered by numerous artists in various genres, 'All Along the Watchtower' is strongly identified with the interpretation Jimi Hendrix recorded for Electric Ladyland with the Jimi Hendrix Experience."
Wikipedia
Reason to Rock
allmusic
YouTube: "All Along the Watchtower" - Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Willie Nelson and Crazy Horse (Farm Aid - September 18, 1994), Richie Havens (Mountain Jam V - 5/31/09), Eric Johnson, Dave Mason

Gray's Anatomy - Spalding Gray (1996)

Wikipedia - "Gray's Anatomy is an 80-minute film directed by Steven Soderbergh in 1996 involving a dramatized monologue by actor/writer Spalding Gray. The title is taken from the classic human anatomy textbook, Gray's Anatomy, originally written by Henry Gray in 1858. The monologist film is about Spalding Gray, the main character, who is diagnosed with a rare ocular condition called 'Macular pucker'. After hearing all of his options, such as Christian Science, Native American sweat lodges, and the 'Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons' to name a few, and the dangers of what surgery could bring, he decides to go through the other forms of medicine provided. This in turn takes him on a journey around the world and steers him away from surgery more so because of religious reasons, often in a dramatic and humorous fashion."
Wikipedia
Criterion: Gray’s Anatomy: The Eyes of the Beholder By Amy Taubin
YouTube: Gray's Anatomy - Trailer
YouTube: Gray's Anatomy (1996) Directed by Steven Soderbergh 1:19:14

2011 November: Spalding Gray, 2013 March: A Personal History of the American Theatre

Happy Motoring

"Rand McNally published its first road atlas on April 15, 1924. It was called—in a touching testament to the marketing of yore—the Rand McNally Auto Chum. Many hours of intrepid googling have failed to yield a photo of the Chum, but I did find a retrospective of atlas covers, and this commemorative press release, which catalogs some of the decidedly unchummy features of the 1924 atlas."
The Paris Review
Yale: Hitting the Road: The Art of the American Road Map

Hillsborough anniversary: You'll Never Walk Alone

"A service marking the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster has ended with the crowd uniting to sing You'll Never Walk Alone. The song has long been associated with Liverpool Football Club and has also come to symbolise the families' campaign for justice. The tribute was led by singer Gerry Marsden, with 96 balloons released, one for each of the people who lost their lives."
YouTube: BBC - Hillsborough anniversary: You'll Never Walk Alone, Bells rung to mark anniversary
Guardian: Families and fans mark 25 years since the Hillsborough disaster (Video)
Independent: Hillsborough disaster anniversary: 25th anniversary of tragedy that claimed lives of 'The 96' marked as nearly 25,000 attend Anfield service (Video)
W - Hillsborough disaster
YouTube: HILLSBOROUGH DISASTER LIVE NEWS COVERAGE OF THE DAY 1989
YouTube: Hillsborough - Searching for the Truth (2012) | Part 1, Part 2
NYT: When a Game Turned Into a Disaster
ESPN: HILLSBOROUGH Directed by Daniel Gordon