A New York painter creates “order against chaos”

“Morning in Brooklyn,” 1929
"George Copeland Ault’s still, ordered paintings of New York City in the 1920s and early 1930s look deceptively simplistic. Known for depicting landscapes and cityscapes in “simple lines and vivid color,” as Smithsonian magazine put it, Ault was considered a Precisionist painter—his work was informed by realism yet emphasized the geometrical forms of his subjects. But his work is more than tightly controlled stillness and smoothed-out lines. Painting was Ault’s way of creating 'order against chaos,' his wife later told an interviewer in The Magazine Antiques. ..."
Ephemeral New York
W - George Ault
Smithsonian American Art Museum

“From Brooklyn Heights”

Deutsche Elektronische Musik 1 (Experimental German Rock and Electronic Music 1972-83)

"Guardian - The first seeds of German rock and experimental electronic music were planted in 1968, as students and workers in Paris, Prague, Mexico and throughout the world demonstrated against mainstream society, the war in Vietnam, imperialism and bourgeois values. The birth of a counter-culture, drug experimentation and social change expanded musical worlds. Germany experienced its own cultural revolution fuelled by these worldwide student and worker revolts and by a generation’s desire to rid itself of the guilt of war. German rock and experimental electronic music grew out of this worldwide counter-cultural revolution of 1968. The objectives were to create new music, ‘free’ from the past, many German youth turning their back on mainstream society. ..."
Holland Tunnel
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Deutsche Elektronische Musik 1, Volume 1

Rage and Promises Followed Ferguson, but Little Changed

"America has been here before: a black man on the asphalt dying at the hands of the police. Convulsive protests across the country. A national reckoning. Vows to change. The last time was August 2014. Michael Brown was the victim. Darren Wilson was the officer. Ferguson, Mo., was the place.After the unrest that followed that fatal shooting, police departments spent tens of millions of dollars on body cameras, revised use-of-force policies and held training sessions in implicit bias and de-escalation. A presidential task force issued 153 recommendations and action items. The Justice Department forced seven troubled police departments into consent decrees with mandatory benchmarks aimed at reducing racial disparities and police brutality. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: How Black Lives Matter Reached Every Corner of America
The “abolish the police” movement, explained by 7 scholars and activists
the intercept_: Police Budgets, Austerity, and Tax Cuts for the Rich Are Colliding in Democratic States and Cities
ROAR - Reform is not enough: defund the police, then abolish it
NY Times: Calls for Transforming Police Run Into Realities of Governing in Minnesota
New Yorker: The Bicycle as a Vehicle of Protest

Signs and flowers remained on Friday at the memorial site near where George Floyd was detained by the police in Minneapolis.

Broadsides - William S. Burroughs Collecting

"Recently, I got into a conversation with a book collector friend of mine about collectible broadsides. This discussion forced me to realize that I did not really know what a broadside technically was. I knew one when I saw one. In bibliographic terms, a broadside (or a broadsheet) is merely a large sheet of paper printed on one side only. As a result, a poster, a handbill, and an advertisement, as well as a printed poem, can all technically fit the definition. (For a full set of dictionary entries concerning the term broadside, see Google). For the collector of modern books, the term usually refers to a single poem sometimes accompanied by artwork printed on a single sheet by a fine printer. Ken Lopez Booksellers has a large gallery full of wonderful examples of this fine press art. ..."
RealityStudio

2009 May: Cut-up technique - 1, 2010 March: Cut-up technique, 2010 December: The Evolution of the Cut-Up Technique in My Own Mag, 2014 February: William Burroughs at 100, 2014 September: The Ticket That Exploded, 2014 November: What Is Schizo-Culture? A Classic Conversation with William S. Burroughs, 2015 June: The Electronic Revolution (1971), 2015 August: Cut-Ups: William S. Burroughs 1914 – 2014, 2015 December: Destroy All Rational Thought, 2016 January: Commissioner of Sewers: A 1991 Profile of Beat Writer William S. Burroughs, 2016 June: Nothing Here Now But The Recordings (1981), 2016 September: # 1 – A Descriptive Catalogue of the William S. Burroughs Archive, 2016 December: #6 – Call Me Burroughs LP, 2017 January: A Visit to William S. Burroughs at the Beat Hotel in Summer, 1958, 2017 December: The Nova Trilogy (The Cut-up Trilogy), 2018 September: Material - The Road to the Western Lands (1998), 2019 March: Insect Trust Gazette (1964 / 1968)

Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Minnesota Tackles Police Overhaul

Port workers and longshoremen hold nine-minute work stoppage to honor George Floyd
"State legislatures have begun responding to calls to change policing. Shaken by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and inspired by the protests that followed, the Minnesota State Legislature will convene a special session on Friday to consider a package of bills aimed at overhauling policing and redressing policies that have led to systemic economic inequality. The measures include a ban on the use of chokeholds, creating community alternatives to policing and restoring voting rights for paroled prisoners. Some of the bills have been stalled for years, though Democratic lawmakers vowed they would push them through this time. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: On the Future, Americans Can Agree: It Doesn’t Look Good
NY Times: As Public Opinion Shifts on Racism, Trump Digs In
Is the Trump Regime Crumbling? (Audio)
The Paris Review: I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free
The Nation - The Rev. Jesse Jackson: ‘Every City Has Its George Floyd’
The Nation - Dockworkers to Shut Down West Coast Ports in Memory of George Floyd
The Guardian - 'It's a big turning point': is this the end of racist monuments in America?
ROAR - “Claim no easy victories”: reexamining Black rebellion

Rev. Jesse Jackson

Robert Fripp - Music for Quiet Moments (2009)

"King Crimson mastermind Robert Fripp is hoping to keep fans’ minds at ease with his new series 'Music for Quiet Moments'. Each Friday for the next 50 weeks, Fripp will release an original soundscape recorded in collaboration with produce David Singleton. In a note announcing the series, Fripp said some of his soundscapes 'are inward-looking, reflective,' while others 'move outwards, with affirmations.' Still others 'go nowhere, simply being where they are'. Read Fripp’s full comments below. ..."
Consequence of Sound (Video)
Rock Cellar (Video)
YouTube: Music For Quiet Moments

Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Top General Apologizes for Role in Trump Photo Op

Protesters outside the Mission Police Station in San Francisco include some calling for defunding of police departments.
"... Trump tells the Seattle mayor to ‘take back your city’ from protesters. As protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis have grown into a vast American reckoning with racism, President Trump renewed his threat to take federal action against local protesters in Seattle, telling government officials in Washington State that they needed to crack down on demonstrators in the city. ... Mr. Trump had previously discussed deploying active-duty troops to quell the protests in American cities, which experts said would require invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807. That led to blowback from former military leaders who warned that such action could cause the military to lose credibility with Americans. ..."
NY Times (Video)

Audio from a briefing that National Guard troops received in relation to protests in Washington D.C.
NY Times: Aggressive Tactics by National Guard, Ordered to Appease Trump, Wounded the Military, Too (Video)
NY Times: Federal Arrests Show No Sign that Antifa Plotted Protests
W - Antifa, W - Response from law enforcement and government officials/Trump administration
the intercept_: White House Forced to Retract Claim Viral Videos Prove Antifa Is Plotting Violence (Video)
The Nation: The Bravery of Marching for Black Lives in the Middle of a Pandemic
Jacobin: The Police Will Do Everything They Can to Resist Accountability — They Have to Be Defunded and Demilitarized

Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, give emotional testimony at a House Judiciary Committee hearing to discuss police brutality and racial profiling.

7 Flushing Local

"The 7 Flushing Local and <7> Flushing Express are two rapid transit services in the A Division of the New York City Subway, providing local and express services along the full length of the IRT Flushing Line. Their route emblems, or 'bullets', are colored purple, since they serve the Flushing Line. 7 trains operate at all times between Main Street in Flushing, Queens and 34th Street–Hudson Yards in Chelsea, Manhattan. Local service operates at all times, while express service runs only during rush hours and early evenings in the peak direction and during special events. The 7 route started running in 1915 when the Flushing Line opened. Since 1927, the 7 has held largely the same route, except for a one-stop western extension from Times Square to Hudson Yards in 2015. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: Here's What the First Night of the Subway Shutdown Looked Life (May 2020)
NY Times: Key to Improving Subway Service in New York? Modern Signals (May 2017 - Video)
YouTube: The 7 Train and Driver's view in Queens New York City (2012) 10:06

Tracy Everly

"A painter I know asked me one simple question a few months ago that I couldn’t adequately answer. He asked me if I knew what I did well. This was the first painting I did after circling back to reacquaint myself with the importance of values. I was consciously aware of separating my light and shadow families when I painted this. It’s a great question and one that I’m still trying to answer for myself. Because I had come to work in a way that was largely intuitive, I couldn’t necessarily break down the parts, so to speak. I knew that sometimes a painting I did 'worked,' and I may have had some idea why- but not to the extent that I wanted to. ..."
what do you do well?
Tracy Everly

Live Updates on Protests: George Floyd’s Brother Testifies Before Congress

Demonstrators marched in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Friday.
"... Public opinion rarely moves fast, but it is now on Black Lives Matter. American public opinion can sometimes seem stubborn. Voters haven’t really changed their views on abortion in 50 years. Donald J. Trump’s approval rating among registered voters has fallen within a five-point range for just about every day of his presidency. But the Black Lives Matter movement is proving to be an exception. Public opinion on race and criminal justice issues has been steadily moving left since the first protests ignited over the fatal shootings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. And since the death of George Floyd in police custody on May 25, public opinion on race, criminal justice and the Black Lives Matter movement has shifted leftward. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: How Public Opinion Has Moved on Black Lives Matter
Letter From Oakland: Black Motherhood in Sleepless Times
Sierra: Racism Is Killing the Planet

Police advance on demonstrators who are protesting the killing of George Floyd on May 30, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
NY Times: Black Lives Matter Is Winning
NPR: Unmasking The 'Outside Agitator' (Audio)
The Paris Review: An Open Letter to All the Future Mayors of Chicago
Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop
Jacobin: Police Brutality Against Protesters Only Stoked the Anti–Police Brutality Movement

A Guide to Soul Jazz, Which Used Black Music History to Speak to the Present and to Build the Future

"Jazz, like all popular music, is in and of the world—responsive to its conditions. In the late 1950’s, as the civil rights movement was rising, East Coast jazz musicians were asserting their Black identities through the music they made. 'There is in the music a new note of racial pride,' Lerone Bennett, Jr. wrote in a 1961 article for Ebony. That pride included a deliberate reaching back, a reassessment of 'the Negro folk idiom—the cries, chants, shouts, works songs, and pulsating rhythmic vitality of gospel singers and shouting choirs. […] [They] turned from the academy and faced the storefront church.' This was a powerful way to be seen. Reaching back into the history of Black music to assert that it, like the more 'refined' jazz sounds, was as important to shaping the music as anything else. ..."
bandcamp (Audio)

George Floyd Funeral Updates: Mourners Fill Houston Church

A mural memorializing George Floyd in Houston on Friday.
"After more than two weeks of demonstrations and anguished calls for racial justice, the man whose death gave rise to an international movement, and whose last words — 'I can’t breathe' — have become a rallying cry, will be laid to rest on Tuesday at a private funeral in Houston. George Floyd, 46, will then be buried in a grave next to his mother’s. The service, which began with a procession of mourners at the Fountain of Praise church, comes after five days of public memorials in Minneapolis, North Carolina and Houston and two weeks after a Minneapolis police officer was captured on video pressing his knee into Mr. Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. A large crowd flowed into the church for more than half an hour, beginning about 11 a.m. Central time, with many people wearing masks because of the coronavirus. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: George Floyd, From ‘I Want to Touch the World’ to ‘I Can’t Breathe’
Aljazeera - George Floyd to be buried in Houston: Live updates (Video)

Protesters arrested during a recent demonstration in Manhattan that went past the 8 p.m. curfew.
NY Times: Why Secrecy Laws Protecting Bad Officers Are Falling
How Designers Can Help The Black Lives Matter Movement (Video)
NY Times: A Small Mississippi Town, ‘Asking for a Breath’ After Mayor’s Remarks Unleash Protests
NY Times: Floyd Case Forces Arts Groups to Enter the Fray
The Nation: Black Lives Matter Protests and Posters
NPR: Peaceful Anti-Police Brutality Protests Continue Across The Country (Video)

Protesters and activists walk across the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday in New York. Cities saw some of their biggest gatherings of the past two weeks on Saturday.

Worlds within a self: V. S. Naipaul and modernity

"V. S. Naipaul’s work speaks eloquently to the contemporary world. His focus is on migration and displacement, and his abiding theme is 'the great movement of peoples in the second half of the twentieth century'. Naipaul is ripe for reassessment now that work can be seen as a whole, following his death in 2018 – and time has only made his legacy clearer. Moreover, Naipaul is no longer around to stir up controversy with outrageous statements in interviews – a form of deliberate provocation that George Lamming likened to carnival masquerading. Naipaul was born in 1932 in rural Trinidad; a scholarship enabled him to study in Oxford, and so his life followed the trajectory to which Sanjay Krishnan’s subtitle alludes. ..."
TLS

2012 February: V. S. Naipaul, 2013 February: A Bend in the River (1979), 2015 July: Guerrillas (1975), 2016 March: In a Free State (1971), 2017 September: The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief - V.S. Naipaul (2010), 2018 August: V.S. Naipaul, Who Explored Colonialism Through Unsparing Books, Dies at 85

Other Protests Flare and Fade. Why This Movement Already Seems Different.

Chicago Ave. and E 38th St. in Minneapolis, Minnesota
"DENVER — Ever since people across the country began pouring into the streets to protest police violence, Dakota Patton has driven two hours each day to rally on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol. He has given up his gig jobs delivering food and painting houses. He is exhausted. But he has no plans to leave. ... As Monday marks two full weeks since the first protest sparked by the killing of George Floyd, the massive gatherings for racial justice across the country and now the world have achieved a scale and level of momentum not seen in decades. And they appear unlikely to run out anytime soon. Streets and public plazas are filled with people who have scrapped weekend plans, canceled meetings, taken time off from work and hastily called babysitters. ..."
NY Times
***NY Times: Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Democrats Unveil Police Reform Bill
NY Times: An Antiracist Reading List
Open Culture: An Anti-Racist Reading List: 20 Books Recommended by Open Culture Readers (Video)
Vox: A reading list to understand police brutality in America

New Yorker: How Do We Change America?
Institute for Social Ecology: Reimagining a World where Justice is Possible
W - List of George Floyd protests in the United States
W - Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter
The Paris Review: Let It Burn
The Atlantic: America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic
Letter from Minneapolis: Why the Rebellion Had to Begin Here

A protester holds up a sign showing a fist and reading “Black Lives Matter” during a Black Lives Matter protest in front of the US Embassy on June 5, 2020, in Vienna, Austria.

The Age of Innocence - Martin Scorsese (1993)

"The Age of Innocence is a 1993 American historical romantic drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. The screenplay, an adaptation of the 1920 novel The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, was written by Scorsese and Jay Cocks. The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder and Miriam Margolyes, and was released by Columbia Pictures. The film recounts the courtship and marriage of Newland Archer (Day-Lewis), a wealthy New York society attorney, to May Welland (Ryder); Archer then encounters and legally represents the Countess Olenska (Pfeiffer) prior to unexpected romantic entanglements. ..."
Wikipedia
Criterion - The Age of Innocence: Savage Civility
NY Times - The Age of Innocence; Grand Passions and Good Manners By Vincent Canby
Criterion, amazon
YouTube: THE AGE OF INNOCENCE - Trailer, Scorsese's The Age of Innocence: An Analysis 18:00

Spiritmuse Records presents From The Vaults #35

"Spiritmuse Records presents From The Vaults #35 • World Deep Jazz. An 1hr set of spiritual, deep jazz and avant-garde sounds from around the globe. It includes gems from Mary Lou Williams, Jef Gilson and Malagasy, David Amram, Shintaro Quintet and many more. Recorded live at a London venue in FEB 2018. All vinyl. Enjoy
MixCloud (Audio)

Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: A National Movement

Alan Michnoff, center, protests police brutality and the death of George Floyd in front of the North Hollywood police station.
"Demonstrations that began as spontaneous eruptions of outrage after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police two weeks ago coalesced this weekend into a nationwide movement calling for police reforms and racial justice. Tens of thousands gathered in big cities like New York, Washington and Seattle and small towns like Vidor, Texas, and Marion, Ohio — in swelling crowds that have been multiethnic, spanning generations and overwhelmingly peaceful. The movement has also spread around the world, with protests this weekend in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. The calls for change come as United States faces its starkest economic crisis since the Great Depression, largely the result of measures put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 110,000 lives in the country. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: Bird’s Eye View of Protests Across the U.S. and Around the World
LitHub - Readings on Racism, White Supremacy, and Police Violence in America

N.J. will track police use of force, require licensing cops, AG says as protests roil nation
The antiracist resources Fortune staffers are reading and sharing (Video)
Reckoning with white supremacy: Five fundamentals for white folks
LitHub - The Middle of History: Readings on Democracy, Fascism, and the Uncertain Space Between
Democratic Leaders’ Shamefully Tepid Response to Trump’s Threat of Military Crackdown on Protests
LA Times - George Floyd protests have created a multicultural movement that’s making history
Jacobin - The Best Way to “Reform” the Police Is to Defund the Police

A Distant Episode - Paul Bowles (1947)

"A Distant Episode is a short story by Paul Bowles. It was first published in the Partisan Review (January–February, 1947) and republished in New Directions in Prose and Poetry, #10, 1948. It is also the title story in a 1988 collection of Bowles's short stories. The story is a fictional account of a Professor of linguistics (likely an ethnic and national French citizen) traveling through what is likely Morocco in the late 1940s. The nation is never, however, specifically mentioned and the cities that are referred to appear to be entirely fictional. Only references to local languages and tribes (especially the Reguibat and Ouled Nail) suggest that the events take place in Morocco, Algeria, or possibly Western Sahara. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: Distant Episodes
Guardian - Scary stories for Halloween: A Distant Episode by Paul Bowles
amazon

Paul Bowles preparing mint tea ... Marrakesh, Maroc, July 20, 1961.

2007 November: The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site, 2010 February: Paul Bowles (1910-1999), 2011: January: Halfmoon (1996), 2013 July: Tellus #23 - The Voices of Paul Bowles, 2014 January: Let It Come Down: the Life of Paul Bowles (1998), 2014 March: The Sheltering Sky (1949), 2015 January: Things Gone & Things Still Here, 2015 October: The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles – a cautionary tale for tourists, 2015 November: The Rolling Stone Interview (May 23, 1974), 2016 June: Let It Come Down (1952), 2016 December: Paul Bowles & the Music of Morocco, 2017 July: Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles, 2018 July: The Sheltering Sound, 2019 September: Jane Bowles, 2019 December: So Why Did I Defend Paul Bowles?

Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Global Rallies Decry Racism and Police Brutality

Demonstrators march away from the White House during a peaceful protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, on June 3, 2020 in Washington, DC.
"... Large protests against police brutality are expected across the world. Protesters across the United States, Australia and Europe were staging major demonstrations on Saturday, in the latest sign that anger over police violence has not abated since the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota last month. In response, some American cities are cracking down on overly aggressive policing with an urgency never seen before. On Friday, city leaders and judges in Minneapolis, Denver and Seattle moved to rein in tactics like officers’ use of chokeholds, tear gas or rubber bullets. In recent years, reform efforts to curb police violence were aimed at accountability for officers or legislative changes, but the current wave of protests has amplified calls across the country to defund, downsize or abolish police departments altogether. ..."
NY Times (Video)
The Paris Review: Policing Won’t Solve Our Problems
The Paris Review: The Art of Distance No. 11

Law enforcement monitor protesters in Washington, D.C.
Politico: The Story Behind Bill Barr’s Unmarked Federal Agents (Video)
PBS: What’s behind racial disparities in American policing — and how to solve them (Video) 13:20
NBC - 'I was horrified': Democrats seek to outlaw unmarked police as they patrol D.C. protests (Video)
Vox: How to reform American police, according to experts (Video)
NY Times: As Images of Pain Flood TV, ‘Where Is Our Leader?’
NBC: D.C. Mayor Bowser has 'Black Lives Matter' painted on street leading to White House (Video)

"Black Lives Matter" painted on 16th Street near the White House on June 5, 2020.

The Seagull - Michael Mayer (2018)

"The Seagull is a 2018 American historical drama film directed by Michael Mayer with a screenplay by Stephen Karam, based on the 1896 play of the same name by Anton Chekhov. The film stars Annette Bening, Saoirse Ronan, Corey Stoll, Elisabeth Moss, Mare Winningham, Jon Tenney, Glenn Fleshler, Michael Zegen, Billy Howle and Brian Dennehy. ... Set in Russia in the early 1900s, an aging actress named Irina Arkadina pays summer visits to her brother Pjotr Nikolayevich Sorin and her son Konstantin at a country estate. On one occasion, she brings her lover Boris Trigorin, a successful novelist. Nina, a free and innocent girl on a neighboring estate, who is in a relationship with Konstantin, falls in love with Boris. ..."
Wikipedia
Guardian: The Seagull review – all-star cast brings out the comedy in Chekhov
Roger Ebert
amazon
YouTube: Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Drama Movie

At George Floyd Memorial, an Anguished Call for Change

George Floyd’s casket is carried out to the hearse after a family memorial service on Thursday, June 4, 2020, outside Frank J. Lindquist Sanctuary at North Central University in Minneapolis.
"Hundreds of people filed into a Minneapolis chapel on Thursday to remember George Floyd, the man whose death at the hands of the police opened a nationwide flood of anguish, protest and demands for change in American policing. By turns somber and defiant, the mourners celebrated Mr. Floyd as a friend and father and uncle to those closest to him, but also as a victim of racial injustice whose killing had drawn a legion of people to the streets. 'George Floyd’s story has been the story of black folks,' the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a eulogy of Mr. Floyd, who died after a white police officer held him down on a Minneapolis street with a knee to Mr. Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. 'Because ever since 401 years ago, the reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed of being is you kept your knee on our neck.' ..."
NY Times (Video)
Photos: Outside the George Floyd memorial service in Minneapolis

NY Times - Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Witness Videos Put Spotlight on Police (Video)
the intercept_ - Buffalo Police Said Protester With Head Wound “Tripped and Fell.” Video Shows They Lied. (Video)
NY Times - Trump and the Military: A Mutual Embrace Might Dissolve on America’s Streets
The Atlantic - I Can’t Breathe: Braving Tear Gas in a Pandemic
NY Times - Debatable: Why it’s different this time
The Atlantic - These Protests Are Different, but They’re Also the Same
ROAR - Solidarity means dismantling the system everywhere
The Nation - Don’t Stop Organizing By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis

Protestors raise their fists outside of the Fifth Police Precinct in Minneapolis in response to the death of George Floyd on May 30, 2020.

June 2020: Stars of Early Summer

"As told in this month's Sky Tour astronomy podcast, June is a minimalist month for stargazing because the nights are so short. For most of us evening twilight doesn’t end until 9 p.m. or later, which makes it tougher to observe. The solstice, when daylight is longest and nighttime shortest, comes on June 20th at 5:44 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Planet-wise, almost all the action occurs late at night or in the predawn sky. Venus has disappeared from the evening sky but reappears in the east just before dawn. As June begins, Jupiter and Saturn rise within about 15 minutes of one another just before midnight. ..."
Sky and Telescope (Audio)

Protest Updates: Ahmaud Arbery Suspect Used Racist Slur After Shooting, Investigator Says

Demonstrators marched on Wednesday in New York, Washington and Los Angeles, among other cities, defying curfews but also avoiding confrontation with the police.
"... George Floyd’s family prepares for a memorial in Minneapolis, one of many planned in coming days. For nearly three months, Americans have avoided most collective outpourings of grief as fears of the coronavirus converted funerals of lost friends and family into painfully socially distanced affairs. That will not be the case on Thursday when large crowds are expected to gather for a memorial service for George Floyd, a man whose recent death in police custody has elicited such outrage across the country that it has pushed fears of a global pandemic into the background. ... Here’s what you need to know: A suspect in the Ahmaud Arbery case used a racist slur after the shooting, an investigator testified., ... Senate Democrats hold 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence., Three officers newly charged in the death of George Floyd have their first court appearance on Thursday., ... A student struck with a bean-bag round at a protest in Austin has brain damage, his brother says., ‘He tries to divide us,’ Jim Mattis says of President Trump. ..."
NY Times (Video)

James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution
"James Mattis, the esteemed Marine general who resigned as secretary of defense in December 2018 to protest Donald Trump’s Syria policy, has, ever since, kept studiously silent about Trump’s performance as president. But he has now broken his silence, writing an extraordinary broadside in which he denounces the president for dividing the nation, and accuses him of ordering the U.S. military to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens. ... In his j’accuse, Mattis excoriates the president for setting Americans against one another. ..."
The Atlantic
***NY Times - Bishop Budde: Trump’s Visit to St. John’s Church Outraged Me
The Nation: Trump Is Using the Military to Hide His Weakness
The Atlantic: Trump Gave Police Permission to Be Brutal
Donald Trump Is a Nazi. Full Stop.
NYBooks: How Police Became Paramilitaries
The Nation: Where Does America Go From Here?
Performative Allyship Is Deadly (Here’s What to Do Instead)
ROAR: We defend ourselves so we can all breathe in peace
ROAR: Rising up against white revenge

T-Bone Walker’s ‘Complete Imperial Recordings’: The Fountainhead Of Modern Blues Guitar

"Born on 28 May 1910, Texaan bluesman Aaron Thibeaux Walker remains one of the most innovative and influential musicians of the 20th Century. Walker is the fountainhead of modern blues guitar – the first person to play blues an electric model – who led the way for countless others, including BB King. When the man known as T-Bone Walker started recording for Imperial Records, in April 1950 (the first of several sessions later collected together as The Complete Imperial Recordings), he was a month shy of his 40th birthday and at the peak of his talent as a singer and guitarist, famous for his ‘Stormy Monday’ hit. He had a sound and playing style all his own; unique phrasing with smooth and melodic staccato runs. ..."
udiscover (Video/Audio)

Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Esper Opposes Use of Troops for Now

"Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said Wednesday that he does not think the current state of unrest in American cities warrants the deployment of active-duty troops to confront protesters, just days after President Trump said he was considering use of the Insurrection Act to do exactly that. In a Pentagon news conference, Mr. Esper said ordering active-duty troops to police American cities should be a 'last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations.' He said that, for now, this was not warranted. About 1,600 airborne troops and military police have been ordered to be positioned outside the capital, officials said Tuesday night. Officials said that Mr. Trump had discussed the invoking the Insurrection Act, but had been dissuaded by Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Attorney General William P. Barr. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: How Trump’s Idea for a Photo Op Led to Havoc in a Park (Video)
NY Times: Trump Deploys the Full Might of Federal Law Enforcement to Crush Protests
NY Times: In Rare Break, Some Republicans Reject Trump’s Harsh Response to Unrest

Minneapolis Police Use Force Against Black People at 7 Times the Rate of Whites
"Video of George Floyd’s last conscious moments horrified the nation, spurring protests that have led to curfews and National Guard interventions in many large cities. But for the black community in Minneapolis — where Mr. Floyd died after an officer pressed a knee into his neck for 8 minutes 46 seconds — seeing the police use some measure of force is disturbingly common. About 20 percent of Minneapolis’s population of 430,000 is black. But when the police get physical — with kicks, neck holds, punches, shoves, takedowns, Mace, Tasers or other forms of muscle — nearly 60 percent of the time the person subject to that force is black. And that is according to the city’s own figures. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Protests Draw Shoulder-to-Shoulder Crowds After Months of Virus Isolation
Guardian: George Floyd killing: announcement on additional charges expected today – live (Video)

Protesters and activists move along 5th Ave. Tuesday, June 2, 2020, in New York City. George Floyd Protests...

Airmail - Edwin Boyd Johnson (1937)

"Airmail is a 4-by-8-foot (1.2 × 2.4 m) American fresco painting by Edwin Boyd Johnson. It was painted in 1937 and was originally located in the Melrose Park, Illinois, United States Post Office, which later became the village's public library. The fresco features a giant barefoot and bare-chested male mailman flying over a town scene whilst holding a winged letter. An airplane is seen in the skies behind him. This was chosen as Melrose Park was one of the first airmail facilities used by the United States Post Service and the fresco was painted to commemorate it. ..."
Wikipedia, W - Edwin Boyd Johnson