Downtown music

Wikipedia - "Downtown music is a subdivision of American music, closely related experimental music. The scene the term describes began in 1960, when Yoko Ono—one of the Fluxus artists, at that time still seven years away from meeting John Lennon—opened her loft at 112 Chambers Street to be used as a noise music performance space for a series curated by La Monte Young and Richard Maxfield."
Wikipedia

YouTube

"Over the last few years YouTube has become the very epitome of digital culture. With more than 70 million unique users each month and approximately 100 million videos online, this brand-name video distribution platform holds the richest repository of popular culture on the Internet."
YouTube, YouTube Reader

Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés

Etant donnés, 1946-66
"Marcel Duchamp’s enigmatic assemblage Étant donnés: 1. La chute d’eau, 2. Le gaz d’éclairage (Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas) has been described by the artist Jasper Johns as “the strangest work of art in any museum.” Permanently installed at the Museum since 1969, this three-dimensional environmental tableau offers an unforgettable and untranslatable experience to those who peer through the two small holes in the solid wooden door."
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Duchamp's Secret Masterpiece, Fresh Widow

Living Decay (fairy tales in the middle on nowhere)

"In the summer of 2008 Dolk and Pøbel, two talented Norwegian street artists, took on the challenge of Lofoten Islands countryside in Norway to create large-scale murales on the faces of abandoned houses which are about to be demolished. 'Living Decay' is suggestive daily log that narrates through 4 tales, the making of these huge paintings inside the unique northern landscape."
Wooster Collective

Ennio Morricone

Wikipedia - "Ennio Morricone, OMRI (born November 10, 1928), is an Italian composer and conductor. He has composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and television productions. Morricone is considered as one of the most influential film composers since the late 1950s."
Wikipedia, Ennio Morricone, IMDb, last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2), (3)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

2009 November 5
"Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer."
Astronomy Picture of the Day

Poems-for-All, Сибирский Левша, 2-inch books

"They're scattered around town -- on buses, trains, cabs, in restrooms, bars, left along with the tip; stuffed into a stranger's back pocket. Whatever. Wherever. Small poems in small booklets half the size of a business card. A project of the 24th street irregular press, which cranks them out to be taken by the handful and scattered like seeds by those who want to see poetry grow in a barren cultural landscape."
Poems-for-All, "Сибирский Левша", 2 inch book and print

Chicago house

Wikipedia - "Chicago house is the earliest style of house music. The term "House music" is thought to have originated in North America at a Chicago, USA, nightclub called The Warehouse. While the origins of the name are unclear, one of the most popular beliefs is that the term can be traced to the name of that club."
Wikipedia, Global Darkness, YouTube, (1), (2), (3)

Richard Mosse

"NPR, The Bryant Park Project - Traveling along the Mexico border on a drive from San Diego, photographer Richard Mosse spotted a rucksack lying by the side of the road. Curiosity got the better of him, and he looked inside. He found clothes, jewelry and cards for learning English. description."
Richard Mosse< BLDGBLOG, NYT

Laura Keeble

"laura keeble is a london based artist who produces traditional works as well as street art interventions. her work is subversive and often references consumerism, brands and the contemporary art market."
designboom, Laura Keeble

John Cale

Wikipedia - "John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground."
Wikipedia, MySpace, last.fm, Fear Is A Man's Best Friend, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7)

Jinoos Taghizadeh

"Rock, paper, scissors and a hard place. David’s picture of Marat - the murdered journalist and hero of the French Revolution - contrasts with a report that the Iranian press, censored under the shah, was to be free under the new regime."
Guardian, (1), Jinoos Taghizadeh, Aaran Gallery

Satchel Paige

Wikipedia - "Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (July 7, 1906 – June 8, 1982) was an American baseball player whose pitching in the Negro leagues and in Major League Baseball made him a legend in his own lifetime. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, the first player to be inducted from the Negro leagues."
Wikipedia, Satchel Paige, Baseball Almanac, ESPN, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, YouTube: Satchel Paige, (2). YouTube

Romance comics

Wikipedia - "Romance comics was a genre of American comic books that featured dramatic scripts and art about love, domestic strife and heartache."
Wikipedia, (1), (2), The Golden Age Romance Comics Archive

NYC Grid

4th St between Layfatte and Mercer from NYC Grid
"NYC Grid is a photo blog dedicated to exploring and discovering The City of New York block by block and corner by corner. Updated every weekday, each post covers a new block with a focus on the mundane and ephemeral."
NYC Grid

The Rascals

Wikipedia - "The Rascals (known initially as The Young Rascals) were an American soul and rock musical team of the 1960s."
Wikipedia, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, YouTube, (1)

Mark Bloch

Wikipedia - "Mark Bloch (born January 23, 1956), also known as Pan, P.A.N., Panman, Panpost and the Post Art Network, is an American multi-media artist from Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Since 1982 he has lived in New York City. He is a conceptual artist in the tradition of Dada, the Surrealists, Marcel Duchamp, the Fluxus group and Ray Johnson."
Wikipedia, panmodern, Matthew Rose Paris

Shoah

Wikipedia - "Shoah is a nine-hour film completed by Claude Lanzmann in 1985 about the Holocaust (or Shoah). Though Shoah is conventionally classified as a documentary film, director Lanzmann considers it to fall outside of that genre, as, unlike most historical documentaries, the film does not feature reenactments or historical footage; instead it consists of interviews with people who were involved in various ways in the Holocaust, and visits to different places they discuss."
Wikipedia, NYT, Institute for Historical Review, Guardian, SHOAH'S ABSENCE, YouTube, (1), (2) - Raul Hilberg

Kyle Gann - PostClassic

"So classical music is dead, they say. Well, well. This blog will set out to consider that dubious factoid with equanimity, if not downright enthusiasm.... "
Arts Journal, Wikipedia, Kyle Gann

Richard Wilson

Wikipedia - "Richard Wilson (born May 24, 1953) is a sculptor, installation artist and musician."
Wikipedia, Richard Wilson, bd, Google

David Toop

Wikipedia - "David Toop (born 5 May 1949) is an English musician and author, and as of 2001 was visiting Research Fellow in the Media School at London College of Communication. He was notably a member of The Flying Lizards. He was a prominent contributor to the British magazine The Face. He is a regular contributor to The Wire, the U.K. based music magazine."
Wikipedia, David Toop, MySpace, Perfect Sound Forever, Poetry Foundation - UbuWeb Featured Resources: David Toop & Pauline Oliveros, Ocean of Sound, Robert Christgau, last.fm, Vimeo

Why Your Stadium Sucks: Yankee Stadium

"For this, the season's final installment of our stadium series, I asked a wide range of writers, critics, community activists, urban planners and fans to explain all that's loathsome about Versailles-on-the-Harlem River."
Deadspin

Liquid Liquid

Wikipedia - "Liquid Liquid was a New York City post-punk band that was active from 1980 to 1983, and regained activity in 2008, playing in various venues across the globe. Their track 'Cavern', from the Optimo EP, recorded by Don Hunerberg was sampled (actually played by the Sugar Hill house band) on Grandmaster + Melle Mel's 'White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)'"
Wikipedia, MySpace, last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2), (3)

D*Face

"Check out this video of the brilliant UK street artist D*Face. Friendswelove.com has made this short video intro to his work and inspirations in honor of his first show exhibit at the Jonathan Levin Gallery. Although we still don’t know too well what he looks like, click the video below to see what the future has in store for this awesome street artist."
BPM Magazine

Allen Ruppersberg

#105 Pop
Wikipedia - "Born in 1944 in Cleveland, Ohio, Allen Ruppersberg is one of the first generation of American Conceptual artists that changed the way art was thought about and made. His work includes paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures, installations, and books."
Wikipedia, DIA, Elacumulador

Luigi Russolo

Wikipedia - "Luigi Russolo (April 30, 1885 – February 4, 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter and composer, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises (1913). He is often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers with his performances of 'noise concerts' in 1913-14 and then again after World War I, notably in Paris in 1921. He is also one of the first theorists of electronic music."
Wikipedia, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 'The Art of Noises', theremin.vox, Media Art Net, YouTube, YouTube - Noise with John Cage (1966), Ubu

John Baldessari

Stonehenge (With Two Persons) Orange, 2005
"John Baldessari, (b. June 17, 1931, National City, California) is a conceptual artist. His work often attempts to point out irony in contemporary art theory and practices or reduce it to absurdity. His art has been featured in more than 200 solo exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe."
Wikipedia, John Baldessari, artnet, (1)

The Edge of New York: Waterfront Photographs

"Since its founding, New York City’s waterfront has been essential to the life of the city. The harbor’s protected bay became the site for lucrative trade, first with Native Americans and later with the rest of the world, and provided the economic engine for the city’s growth for the next three centuries."
Museum of the City of New York, TimeOut, Woman Around Town, NYT

1989 - Europe's Revolution

"The BBC World Service has put together a special report on the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe."
BBC World Service, BBC - 1989: Key events in Europe's revolution, BBC - 1989: Children of the revolution, BBC - Mapping the fall of communism, BBC - The day I outflanked the Stasi

David Rees

"Let me know if you'd like me to come to your town and read my comics or just talk to you about my feelings."
mnftiu, Videos, Cartoons, Press

Hip hop

Wikipedia - "Hip hop music is a musical genre which developed alongside hip hop culture, and is commonly based on concepts of looping, rapping, freestyling, DJing, scratching, sampling and beatboxing. The music is used to express concerns of political, social, and personal issues. Hip hop began in the Bronx in New York City in the 1970s, primarily among African Americans, with some Jamaican immigrant influence. The term rap is often used synonymously with hip hop, however, the latter denotes the practices of an entire subculture."
Wikipedia

James Schuyler: Six New Recordings Added

"As promised in last week's conclusion to John Ashbery week, today, we're unveiling a bevy of new recordings from another stalwart of the New York School's fabled first generation: James Schuyler. Altogether, there are six new recordings, some provided by Ashbery, the rest recently unearthed by poet and scholar Nathan Kernan. We begin with Schuyler's half of the November 23, 1989 reading with Ashbery at New York's 92nd Street Y, that we highlighted on Friday."
PennSound - Reading at 92nd Street Y with John Ashbery in New York, November 23, 1989

James Ensor

Christ's Entry into Brussels
Wikipedia - "James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (April 13, 1860 – November 19, 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life. He was associated with the artistic group Les XX."
Wikipedia, MoMA, NYT, Brooklyn Rail

The Left Banke

Wikipedia - "The Left Banke was a 1960s American pop-music group best remembered for its two hit singles, 'Walk Away Renée' and 'Pretty Ballerina'. The band often utilized what was referred to as 'baroque' string arrangements, which led its music to be termed 'Bach-rock'."
Wikipedia, Left Banke, YouTube, (1)

The Bread and Puppet Theater

Wikipedia - "The Bread and Puppet Theater (often known simply as Bread & Puppet) is a politically radical puppet theater, active since the 1960s, currently based in Glover, Vermont. Its founder and director is Peter Schumann."
Wikipedia, The Bread and Puppet Theater, Video-Vermont, August, 19th, 1998, Bread & Puppet"s Domestic Resurrection Circus and Pageant, Affinity Project