The Quiet American - Graham Greene (1955)

"The Quiet American is a 1955 novel by English author Graham Greene. Narrated in the first person by journalist Thomas Fowler, the novel depicts the breakdown of French colonialism in Vietnam and early American involvement in the Vietnam War. A subplot concerns a love triangle between Fowler, an American CIA agent named Alden Pyle, and Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman. The novel implicitly questions the foundations of growing American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s and is unique in its exploration of the subject topic through the links among its three main characters – Fowler, Pyle and Phuong. The novel has received much attention due to its prediction of the outcome of the Vietnam War and subsequent American foreign policy since the 1950s. ..."
Wikipedia
NPR: The Disquieting Resonance of 'The Quiet American' (Audio)
NY Times: In Our Time No Man Is a Neutral (March 11, 1956)
Guardian: Shades of Greene - Zadie Smith
amazon, amazon DVD

2017 December: The Heart of the Matter (1948), 2019 June: Our Man In Havana (1958)

Players to Watch in the 2019-20 College Basketball Season

Cole Anthony of the North Carolina Tar Heels could be among the best players this college basketball season as he operates in the system of Coach Roy Williams.
"There are roughly 4,000 players in Division I men’s college basketball every season, but only a select few who can truly affect the game every time they are on the floor. This season begins after a year in which many of the top players — Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett, to name two — left college for professional opportunities. That has created an opening for many new names to emerge. Here are a few you should get to know long before March Madness arrives. ..."
NY Times (Video)
SB Nation: 10 predictions for college basketball’s 2019-2020 season
The Ringer: Meet College Basketball’s National Championship Contenders
ESPN - 2019-20 College basketball preview: Preseason picks, rankings, complete coverage
SB Nation: College basketball’s top 100 players for 2019-20 season: No. 50 through No. 1
SB Nation: Cole Anthony is college basketball’s new freshman king
Wikipedia: 2019–20 NCAA Division I men's basketball season
amazon: 2019-2020 Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook

Big East

That Tiny Dot? It’s the 2019 Transit of Mercury

"The planet Mercury slid across the face of the sun on Monday. Mercury is the fastest planet, and if it orbited on the same plane as Earth we would see it pass in front of the sun every 166 days. But Mercury’s orbit is tipped, so we only see it cross the sun in the rare November or May when Mercury rises or falls directly between the Earth and sun. Mercury appeared as a tiny black dot at 7:35 a.m. Eastern time. Its full transit across the sun took five and a half hours. Transits of Mercury happen about 13 times a century. Here are all transits since 1900. November transits are angled upward, as Mercury rises above the plane of Earth’s orbit. During these transits Mercury is close to the sun and moving quickly. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: How to Watch Mercury’s 2019 Transit of the Sun (Video)

An observation of the 1631 Mercury transit by Pierre Gassendi.

‘Point me and I’ll march’: Mick Herron re-reads the novels of John le Carré

"My memory tells me it happened like this: I was watching TV; it was 1979. The programme was a new drama serial, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, about the search for a mole in the British secret service – and if 'mole' was a part of my vocabulary then, it would have been from reading about this very programme. My parents were in their usual chairs. I can’t remember who else was in the room, or whether it was a weeknight, or what time of year it was, but I do remember that during the opening scene we watched the characters assemble for a meeting. One – who would turn out to be Bill Haydon, as played by Ian Richardson – entered carrying a cup of tea, on top of which he’d balanced a saucer, to prevent spillage. ... Memory also tells me that by the time the second part of the drama was screened I had read the novel, and knew who the mole was, and if an unconventional manner of carrying a cup and saucer wasn’t explicitly cited as indicative of treachery, it probably counted as circumstantial evidence. This was a world of nuance, after all. ..."
TLS
W - John le Carré
Guardian: John le Carré
amazon: John le Carré

Young Marble Giants Week – Day 5: Video Vault: Live at the Western Front, Vancouver, November, 1980

"This video documents Young Marble Giants’ entire November 1980 performance at the Western Front in Vancouver. As far as we know, it’s the only footage of an entire YMG concert available online; this absence of documentation, makes their distinctive fashion style and stage presence (or deliberate lack thereof) entertaining and illuminating. Just two months later, in January of 1981, the band would officially announce their breakup—due to a culmination of longstanding personal tensions—but they appear completely at ease in this video, moving through a fifteen-song set of tracks from Colossal Youth, plus the newly released Final Day EP and older songs like 'Ode to Booker T.' ..."
333SOUND (Video)
vimeo: Concert by Young Marble Giants (1980)

2015 August: Young Marble Giants

Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15

"Since its inception in 1991, The Bootleg Series of Bob Dylan has evolved to the point where each successive release has become distinct and complete unto itself. ... The three-CDs or LPs posit the Nobel Laureate continuing the musicological expeditions of those two aforementioned periods, reacquainting himself with a variety of styles in order to choose the optimum means of expression for himself as a songwriter. ... The cachet of Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969 lies in part with a single song,'Western Road.' A Nashville Skyline outtake, it is the only version of the song ever sung by Dylan and he does so in the presence of Johnny Cash, a long-time admirer of the Bard from Minnesota. ... The aforementioned rarity appears alongside a clutch of alternate taken from earlier sessions for the John Wesley Harding album that, when it appeared in all its spartan glory late in 1967, was so at odds with the psychedelic times. ..."
Glide Magazine (Video)
Bob Dylan Plays Nashville on Insightful Travelin’ Thru Bootleg Installment (Video)
Bob Dylan (Featuring Johnny Cash) – Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15 out now!
Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series to Tackle 1969 Johnny Cash Sessions (Video)
amazom
YouTube: The Story Of Travelin' Thru, 1967 - 1969 7:18

How to pick a New York City neighborhood

Jackson Heights, Queens.
"I’ve lived in New York City for nearly 20 years, and in that time, I’ve called nine different neighborhoods home. Some have felt more like 'home' than others: Boerum Hill, where I lived for three years, was by far my favorite, with everything I needed—a decent grocery store, some mom-and-pop businesses, access to Brooklyn Bridge Park, and two of my favorite bars—all within a 20-minute walk from my apartment. But ultimately, I decided that I wanted more space for less money, which is how I ended up in my current neighborhood, Bed-Stuy. These are the calculations that many New Yorkers end up making when choosing where to live: Do I want space, or do I want to be surrounded by people? How important is it to be close to a park? Can I really live off of just one subway line? And how much is all of this going to cost? ..."
Curbed New York
Which NYC Neighborhood Should You Move To?
The best New York City neighborhoods for families (Video)
New Tool Maps NYC Economy by Neighborhood

Jackson Heights, Queens.

A Slave Rebellion Rises Again

Performers in a reenactment of an 1811 slave rebellion marched through LaPlace, La., on Friday.
"LaPLACE, La. — The insurgents, dressed in the linen uniforms of slaves and wielding clubs and guns, swarmed the sprawling white plantation house and attacked its owner. The anger and resentment that had grown over years of oppression had boiled over into an uprising. The rebels and slave owner were performers — actors, students, engineers and teachers who had been enlisted in the ambitious undertaking on Friday to recreate a rebellion in 1811 in which some 500 enslaved people of African descent marched from the sugar plantations along River Road to New Orleans. The re-enactment, led by the New York artist Dread Scott, excavated the memory of an event that organizers saw as an inspiring display of courage. The uprising ultimately ended in bloodshed and settled into a chapter of history that was largely ignored for two centuries. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: With a Slave Rebellion Re-enactment, an Artist Revives Forgotten History
W - 1811 German Coast uprising
Hundreds March In Reenactment Of A Historic, But Long Forgotten Slave Rebellion (Audio)
The former slave who opened the first French Market coffee stand

In the 1811 rebellion, slaves killed a plantation owner and his son and then set off toward New Orleans, carrying weapons and recruiting others as they marched.

Fall of the Berlin Wall

East German police sprayed water on West Germans as they broke through the wall at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Nov. 11, 1989.
"The fall of the Berlin Wall (German: Mauerfall), on 9 November 1989, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the falling of the Iron Curtain. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit three weeks later, and the reunification of Germany took place during the following year. Following the April 1989 dismantling of an electric fence along the border between Hungary and Austria, by early November refugees were finding their way to Hungary via Czechoslovakia or via the West German embassy in Prague. The emigration was initially tolerated because of long-standing agreements with the communist Czechoslovak government, allowing free travel across their common border. However this movement of people grew so large it caused difficulties for both countries. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: The Fall of the Berlin Wall in Photos: An Accident of History That Changed The World
YouTube: The rise and fall of the Berlin Wall - Konrad H. Jarausch, Fall of the Berlin Wall

Looking through the wire from the West to East Berlin on Stallschreiberstrasse in 1961.

What Happens When a President and Congress Go to War?

"In early October, President Trump’s White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, sent a defiant letter to four leaders of the House of Representatives. No one in the Trump administration, Cipollone declared, would participate in the impeachment inquiry that Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened in September after Trump’s phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine came to light. 'Because participating in this inquiry under the current unconstitutional posture would inflict lasting institutional harm on the executive branch and lasting damage to the separation of powers, you have left the president no choice,' Cipollone concluded. Cipollone’s warning came at a pivotal moment for the balance of power between Congress and the presidency. Some political scientists have called Trump a weak president for failing to push through a legislative agenda. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Inside Adam Schiff’s Impeachment Game Plan
W - War Powers Resolution

Senator Joseph McCarthy and the counsel Roy Cohn, right, at a subcommittee hearing in 1953.

Venetian glass

A section from a larger view of Venice with the island of Murano in the distance (circa 1600 attributed to Danckerts in the style of the famous woodcut print by Jacopo de’Barbari circa 1500).
"Venetian glass is thought to have been made for over 1,500 years, and production has been concentrated on the Venetian island of Murano since the 13th century. Today Murano is known for its art glass, but it has a long history of innovations in glassmaking in addition to its artistic fame—and was Europe's first major glassmaking center. During the 15th century, Murano glassmakers created cristallo—which was almost transparent and considered the finest glass in the world. Murano glassmakers also developed a white-colored glass (milk glass called lattimo) that looked like porcelain. They later became Europe's finest makers of mirrors. Originally, Venice was controlled by the Byzantine Empire, but it eventually became an independent city state. ... Although Venetian glassmaking in factories existed as far back as the 8th Century, it became concentrated in Murano by law, beginning in 1291. ..."
Wikipedia
The History of Glassmaking in Murano
Discovering the Secrets of Venetian Glass (Video)
YouTube: Blowing Glass on Murano Island in Venice, Italy, Venice Murano glass blower makes a Horse figurine in a matter of seconds, Murano Glass Blowing of a Flower Vase with 2 handles, Vetreria Badioli Murano Venezia

Philip Glass Is Too Busy to Care About Legacy

Anthony Roth Costanzo in the title role of “Akhnaten” at the Met.
"A Joan Mitchell painting looms at the top of the grand staircase at the Anderson Collection, Stanford University’s modern art museum here. It’s a sweaty, emotive work, bright colors moodily smeared across a huge canvas. On a recent Monday evening, Philip Glass sat at a piano placed between the painting and a few dozen potential donors to the Days and Nights Festival, his annual works-in-progress showcase south of Palo Alto. Mr. Glass, the master of musical Minimalism, is known for the precision of his endlessly undulating arpeggios. When he plays his own pieces, though, they tend to blur and smear, like Mitchell’s brush strokes. Rhythms that in other hands are almost clinical in their regularity begin to smudge, the music newly volatile and feeling. ..."
NY Times

Mr. Glass, right, rehearsing with the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1974.

2009 November: Philip Glass, 2010 April: Satyagraha, 2010 May: Koyaanisqatsi, 2010 July: The CIVIL warS, 2010 November: Akhenaten, 2011 January: Landscape with Philip Glass (1975), 2011 May: Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera (1985), 2011 August: Philip Glass Ensemble - "Train/Spaceship", 2011 December: The Satyagraha protest, 2011 December: Glassworks, 2015 June: THE EARTH MOVES. A documentary about Einstein on the Beach., 2015 December: Composing Myself: Philip Glass (2015)

The Vehicule Poets

Endre Farkas, Claudia Lapp, Artie Gold, John McAuley, Ken Norris, Tom Konyves, Stephen Morrissey
"The Vehicule Poets was a collective formed in Montreal in the 1970s by poets Endre Farkas, Artie Gold, Tom Konyves, Claudia Lapp, John McAuley, Stephen Morrissey and Ken Norris, who shared an interest in experimental American poetry and European avant-garde literature and art. While they were each distinct in their own writing, and published books as individuals, they were collectively involved in organizing readings, art events, and in controlling their own means of literary production through the development of a variety of periodicals and collective publishing ventures. In 1979, John McAuley’s Maker Press published a collective anthology, The Vehicule Poets. Six of the original Vehicule poets are still active as poets, artists and teachers. ..."
Wikipedia
The Vehicule Poets (Audio)
Cross Posted From Vimeo See Also The Vehicule… - Tom Konyves
Vehicule Days: An Unorthodox History of Montréal’s Vehicule Poets - Ken Norris
Ken Norris, Véhicule Poet; Endre Farkas, Montrealer and Véhicule Poet, Artie Gold
amazon: The Vehicule Poets Now

Larry Young - Lawrence Of Newark (1973)

"First ever reissue of 1973 album for jazz artist called 'the John Coltrane of the organ'. Because of it's freeform, avant garde, experimental nature, Young used a loose aggregate of floating musicians, including guitarist James (Blood) Ulmer & a 'Mystery Guest' (maybe Pharaoh Sanders?). plus numerous percussionists. A welcome reissue of this pure underground jazz classic from Newark, NJ's own Larry Young. He's in 'out' mode here, putting aside his more well-known styles (as heard on his classic Blue Note LP Unity) and laying down some Arkestra-style jamming alongside the shredding of James Blood Ulmer and some other underground cats. A killer melting of funky, cosmic, Eastern, Afro and free music vibes. ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
W - Lawrence Of Newark
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Lawrence Of Newark 38:20

Guy Fawkes Night

Festivities in Windsor Castle by Paul Sandby, c. 1776
"Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Firework Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in the United Kingdom. Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605 O.S., when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords. Celebrating the fact that King James I had survived the attempt on his life, people lit bonfires around London; and months later, the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure. Within a few decades Gunpowder Treason Day, as it was known, became the predominant English state commemoration, but as it carried strong Protestant religious overtones it also became a focus for anti-Catholic sentiment. Puritans delivered sermons regarding the perceived dangers of popery, while during increasingly raucous celebrations common folk burnt effigies of popular hate-figures, such as the pope. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: The Story of Guy Fawkes

Guy Fawkes was one of 13 conspirators involved in the gunpowder plot to blow up King James I, the protestant King at the time.

Henry David Thoreau, Tree-Hugger - Richard Higgins

"In the fall of 1860, trees were at the center of Thoreau’s life. His long interest in how they live, grow, and propagate intensified after his lecture on succession on September 20, the acclaim for which gave him a rare bit of outside encouragement. He threw himself into forest history, measuring trunks, counting rings, and digging up the roots and shoots of trees with almost the same youthful zeal with which he had fathomed the bottom of Walden Pond years earlier. His enthusiasm for this left little room for anything else. As he rushed around to record findings and test insights about trees from October 1 to November 30, he poured out a torrent of words in his journal, nearly 900 a day on average—but said not one about the election of the gangly but promising senator from Illinois as president on November 6. Thoreau classified local forests by age. ..."
LitHub
Thoreau on Nature as Prayer
amazon

Thoreau’s Cove in Concord, Massachusetts.

2009 April: Henry David Thoreau, 2012 September: Walden, 2015 March: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), 2017 March: Civil Disobedience (1849), 2017 April: The Maine Woods (1864), 2017 June: This Ever New Self: Thoreau and His Journal, 2017 July: Pond Scum - Henry David Thoreau’s moral myopia. By Kathryn Schulz, 2017 July: Walden, a Game, 2017 October: Walden Wasn’t Thoreau’s Masterpiece, 2017 December: Walden on the Rocks - Ariel Dorfman, 2018 March: A Map of Radical Bewilderment, 2018 April: On Tax Day, Reread Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience’, 2018 October: Against Everything: Thoreau Trailer Park, 2018 November: Walking (1862), 2019 August: Huckleberries on hot summer days

The Ad Men

"For the past decade, Colossal Media has been enlivening the walls of New York City with their hand-painted advertisements — not to mention helping clients from Smirnoff and Heineken to Adidas and Converse hawk their wares. Their pieces, products of painstaking and meticulous days of work, are destined to be urban ephemera, lasting from just one week to one month before they’re painted over. Built in 2004 by founders Paul Lindahl, Adrian Moeller, and Patrick Elasik (who died in 2005), the Brooklyn‐based advertising and mural company is reviving and modernizing a sign-painting tradition that hails from an earlier era. The team currently has sixteen members, including both apprentice and lead painters. Completing an apprenticeship takes a year or two; becoming a lead painter takes five to seven. ..."
BKLYNR

Why the Clash Matter

"'The only band that matters.' There is charismatic hubris in this phrase, a declaration of radical faith. Fuck the past, the future is here and everything in music will be ruthlessly revamped in its wake. And when the description was applied to the Clash, it was easy to believe. Today, though, it’s easy to scoff at. Since the death of front-man Joe Strummer in 2002, the Clash have ascended into rock-and-roll mythos. No fewer than thirty books have been released on the band or on Strummer. Some of them are wonderful. Others are shallow and sloppy hagiographies. Their music has been used to hawk everything from boots to smartphones. Centrists in progressive clothing like Beto O’Rourke receive high praise for quoting 'The Clampdown' to Ted Cruz. Separating what’s commodity and spectacle from the band’s actual contribution is getting harder. ..."
Jacobin
Voice: We Have to Deal With It: Punk England Report by Robert Christgau (January 9, 1978)
Music you need: The Clash. This is punk rock. This is the only band that matters. (Video)

The Moth Poem - Robin Blaser (1963)

"The Moth Poem is Robin Blaser’s first book publication, which was preceded by a broadside printed by Auerhahn Press in 1963. I love this chapbook format which is perfect for the serial poem. Spicer’s work of the period published by Auerhahn and White Rabbit provide the model, along with Robert Duncan’s groundbreaking Medieval Scenes. ... The Moth Poem with the gray wrappers and the endpapers is a moth itself when opened to be read. The gray covers suggest the wings of the common gray moth and the front and back endpapers have illustrated moth wings on them. ... The work of Dante and the image of the moth are just two of the threads that hold this serial poem together. The Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso tie into the image of the moth at various points. ..."
MIMEO MIMEO
Visitation by Divination: A Ghost Story
W - Robin Blaser
Robin Blaser at SGWU, 1969 (Audio)
amazon

November 2007: EPC, November 2009: Robin Blaser (1925 - 2009), March 2010: Les Chimeres, 2011 February: The Holy Forest, 2011 July: "Image-Nation 21 (territory", 2010 April: Manroot and Acts,  2015 January: 'Absolutely temporary': Spicer, Burgess, and the ephemerality of coterie, 2015 March: San Francisco Renaissance, 2016 March: The Astonishment Tapes: Talks on Poetry and Autobiography with Robin Blaser and Friends, 2017 May: The Pacific Nation, 2016 March: The Astonishment Tapes: Talks on Poetry and Autobiography with Robin Blaser and Friends

Elodie Lauten - Piano Works Revisited (2010)

"Back in the days when there were a plethora of record stores in lower Manhattan that trafficked in independent releases of new music, by total serendipity I picked up an LP featuring music by Elodie Lauten. I was attracted by its provocative title, Concerto for Piano and Orchestral Memory, and its somewhat mysterious cover. The cover consisted of nine photographs—presumably from someone’s apartment—including the top of a kitchen stove and a cat on a bed, but also an upright piano and a synthesizer. There wasn’t much information about the piece, whose eight movements filled both sides, but I took a chance anyway; I was really glad I did. As the vagaries of independent releases go, it was not widely distributed and soon went out of print, and yet, as is so often the case, the music it contained was extraordinary. It’s a bizarre amalgam of minimalism, musique concrète, free jazz, and psychedelic freakout that inexplicably all fits together seamlessly. ..."
Sounds Heard: Elodie Lauten—Piano Works Revisited
1983-2010: Elodie Lauten - Piano Works Revisited
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Tempo Di Habanera, Imaginary husband, Revelation
YouTube: Sonate Modale part 1 of 3 - Live at Music Gallery, 1985, 2 of 3, 3 of 3.

2010 July: Elodie Lauten, 2016 July: Orchestre Modern (EP - 1981), 2017 October: Transform EP (2014)

Giant Skeletons Emerge from the Streets of Mexico for Día de los Muertos

Jaén Cartonería
"Mexico City is gearing up for its annual Day of the Dead celebrations and in one neighborhood, something strange is emerging from the city streets. In the Tláhuac municipality, two giant skeletons have burst through the asphalt, resting their weary limbs on the pavement. Measuring over 11 feet wide and 7 feet tall, the sculptures are welcome forebearers of the annual celebrations that take place on November 1 and November 2. The appropriately ghoulish sculptures were created by Jaén Cartonería, a family-run collective of artisans who have been carrying out this tradition for the past eight years. The design was dreamed up by Raymundo Medina Jaen as a way to show children in the Santa Cecilia neighborhood about cultural heritage. Made from cardboard, the sculptures took about one year to create and two days to assemble. ...."
My Modern Met

Metro Tacubaya

Patience Is a Virtue in the Premier League. Isn’t It?

Three years after parting ways with Manager Quique Sánchez Flores, Watford brought him back.
"The Premier League season was only a few weeks old when, in the middle of a quiet Saturday evening, Watford revealed that it had fired its manager, Javi Gracia. He would be replaced, the club said, by his countryman Quique Sánchez Flores, who had himself been fired by Watford three years earlier. This was, in the eyes of most observers, the madness of modern soccer boiled down to its very essence. Gracia had, only a few months earlier, led Watford to the F.A. Cup final. He had, it was broadly agreed, done a reasonable job at one of England’s top-flight makeweights. Watford — owned by Italy’s Pozzo family, and operated according to a model in which the manager is just an employee, not some sort of all-powerful medieval potentate — stood accused of short-termism, shortsightedness, and doing things in a conspicuously foreign way. ..."
NY Times

This Week’s Sky at a Glance, November 1 – 9

"... Saturday, Nov. 2. Saturn shines right of the Moon in early evening, as shown here. Look much higher above them for Altair, a little brighter than Saturn. Capella sparkles low in the northeast these evenings. Look for the Pleiades cluster, fingertip-size, about three fists at arm's length to Capella's right. These harbingers of the cold months rise higher as evening grows late. Upper right of Capella, and upper left of the Pleiades, the stars of Perseus lie astride the Milky Way. Standard time resumes at 2 a.m. Sunday morning for most of North America. Clocks fall back an hour. And for astronomers, darkness henceforth arrives an hour earlier! Sunday, Nov. 3. First-quarter Moon (exactly so at 5:23 a.m. Monday morning EST). On Sunday evening the Moon shines inside the huge triangle of Saturn to its lower right, Altair much higher to its upper right, and Fomalhaut way off to the Moon's left. Sometime around 10 p.m., depending on where you live, zero-magnitude Capella will have risen exactly as high in the northeast as zero-magnitude Vega has sunk in the west-northwest. How accurately can you time this event? Astrolabe not required. . . but it would help. ..."
Sky & Telescope

How To Beat Trump in 2020: Four opinion writers show the way

"2020 Meme Team, Assemble By Charlie Warzel. A long time ago, on a different internet — where Photoshopped images of 'God Emperor' Donald Trump riding atop a velociraptor were just a faint glimmer in a young meme lord’s eye — the Republicans were in trouble. Barack Obama’s 2008 win over John McCain was heralded as a digital over an analog. In 2012, Mitt Romney’s technological secret weapon to track voters in real time crashed on Election Day. A 2012 profile of Obama’s digital team in The Atlantic exclaimed that the 'nerds shook up an ossifying Democratic tech structure.' By 2014, the conventional wisdom was that progressives had lapped the Republican Party in the tech space. I heard rumors swirling that some of the Republican National Committee staff were scouring Silicon Valley churches for tech-company hoodies, looking for programmers to hire. ..."
NY Times: Win the Internet
NY Times: Electrify the Base
NY Times: Focus on His Corruption
NY Times: Seize the Center

Merrrrdrrrre!: Alfred Jarry and Père Ubu

Detail from front cover of Ubu Roi, 1896
"Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) is best known for creating Père Ubu, the monstrous anti-hero of his plays Ubu Roi, Ubu Cocu and Ubu Enchaîné, but, as Alastair Brotchie reveals in this immensely enjoyable journey through Jarry’s life and work, the origins of Ubu are far from straightforward. It all began with the “classroom martyrdom” of one Félix-Frédéric Hébert (1832–1917), a physics teacher at the lycée in Rennes. Possessed of a large stomach, short legs and an air of bluff pomposity, Hébert was ragged mercilessly by his pupils. ... Two brothers, Charles and Henri Morin, began writing and illustrating a series of satirical sketches recounting the exploits of the ridiculous Père Hébert, and these stories were added to by other boys. The 'Hébert cycle' consists of long poems, plays, mock newspapers and fantasy adventures, many exhibiting a protosurreal wit. ..."
The Times Literary Supplement
How a 19th-Century Absurdist Playwright Accidentally Predicted Trump

Poster for Ubu Roi in France, 1896.

2011 April: The Insolent Eye: Jarry in Art, 2013 August: The Banquet Years of Apollinaire, Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, and Erik Satie - Roger Shattuck, 2015 September: An Inglorious Slop-pail of a Play

Wailing Souls - Very Well (1978)

"An undeniable classic straight from 29 Maxfield Avenue. The Wailing Souls' 'Very Well', all-time epic roots reggae, and as impassioned a song about repatriation as ever sung. This 12-inch reissue replaces the B-side 'Fire Coal Man' from the original release with a full extended dub of 'Very Well'!"
DKR
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Very Well

2018 August: Wailing Souls / Soul & Power

‘To Particularize Is the Alone Distinction of Merit’: Blake’s Visionary Imagination

Beatrice Addressing Dante from the Car, 1824–1827
"The Blake exhibition at Tate Britain, the first major exhibition in nearly twenty years, shows 300 of his prints and paintings, with manuscripts and printed books, gathered from galleries and libraries across the world. There have been other, smaller Blake shows with particular emphases, but this one sets out bravely to guide us through the whole range of his ideas, his art and his working life. A lot to see, a lot to take in. To corral this, the curators have imposed a chronological arrangement, setting Blake’s work in the context of the French Revolution, the spread of industry and the growing British empire, and devoting rooms to his patrons and his career as an engraver to show how he scraped a living until the relative freedom of his final years. ..."
NYBooks

2009 April: William Blake, 2010 December: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 2011 June: The Ghost of a Flea, 2012 August: Isaac Newton (1795), 2015 November: America a Prophecy (1793), @019 May: The Notebook of William Blake

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker: Work/Travail/Arbeid

"The starting point for Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Work/Travail/Arbeid is a simple question: Can choreography be performed in the form of an exhibition? To answer that question, one of today's most important dancer/choreographers reimagined her stage performance Vortex Temporum (2013)—choreographed to the eponymous work by the late French composer Gérard Grisey—for a museum space, away from a conventional theater setting. Work/Travail/Arbeid is not De Keersmaeker’s first project to be performed in the museum space; in 2011 she performed the solo Violin Phase, part of her very first piece, Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich (1982), in MoMA's Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium. But with Work/Travail/Arbeid the artist imagines the choreography as an exhibition. ..."
MoMA (Video)

2009 July: Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, 2012 December: Rosas Danst Rosas (1983), 2013 September: Re : Rosas!, 2014 March: Maison Martin Margiela with H&M (2012), 2016 October: Vortex Temporum, 2017 March: Counter Phrases (2000)