Once Upon a Time

Wikipedia - "Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 epic crime film directed and co-written by Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The story chronicles the lives of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City's world of organized crime. The film explores themes of childhood friendships, love, lust, greed, betrayal, loss, broken relationships, and the rise of mobsters in American society."
Wikipedia, YouTube, amazon

Cheba Zahouania

Wikipedia - "Halima Mazzi, alias Cheba Zahouania (also spelled Chaba Zahouania) is an Algerian-born singer known for raï music. She has lived in France since her singing partner was murdered."
Wikipedia, Rhapsody, YouTube - Mazal Galbi, Bakitouni Bakitouni, Rijal El Allah, The Sheltering Sky

The Chiffons

Wikipedia - "The Chiffons was an all girl group originating from the Bronx area of New York in 1960."
Wikipedia, last.fm, W - He's So Fine, YouTube - One Fine Day, George Harrison - My Sweet Lord

The Skatalites

Wikipedia - "The Skatalites are a ska band from Jamaica. They played initially between 1963 and 1965, and recorded many of their best known songs in the period, including 'Guns of Navarone'. They also played on records by Prince Buster and many other Jamaican artists who recorded during the period. They reformed in 1983 and have played together ever since."
Wikipedia, The Skatalites, last.fm, YouTube - Guns of Navarone, Ska Ska Ska, Simmer down, Rude Boy Dreams, Little irene

The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free

Wikipedia - "The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free is an anarchist parody of the popular Tintin series of comics. An exercise in detournement, the book was written under the pseudonym J. Daniels and published by Attack International in April of 1988 and then republished in 1999."
Wikipedia, amazon

Rem Koolhaas

Wikipedia - "Remment Lucas Koolhaas (... born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and 'Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design' at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, USA."
Wikipedia, Lava, WIRED

Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg

"In the first scholarly exhibition of American poet Allen Ginsberg's photographs, all facets of his work in photography will be explored. Some 79 works on display will range from the 1950s 'drugstore' prints to his now celebrated portraits of Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, snapshots of Ginsberg himself taken just before he achieved literary fame, and his later portraits of the Beats and other friends made in the 1980s and 1990s."
National Gallery of Art, The New York Review of Books - "The Beats: Pictures of a Legend", Edmund White, amazon

From Hobby Horses to Moose

"The prodigal son returns. On my trip I read Anne Sanouillet's expanded edition of Michel Sanouillet's Dada in Paris. The chapters on Dada publications were my favorite parts of the book. While in Rangeley State Park in western Maine near the Wilhelm Reich Museum, I read about Paul Dermee's Z, the second issue of which was a four page mimeo."
Mimeo Mimeo

2010 Tour de France

Wikipedia - "The 2010 Tour de France is the 97th Tour de France. It started with an 8.9 km prologue in Rotterdam on 3 July, the first start in the Netherlands since 1996, and ends on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 25 July. The first three stages passed through the Netherlands and Belgium on routes designed to replicate some features of the spring classics, including seven cobblestone sectors totaling 13.2 km, the longest distance of cobblestones in the Tour since 1983, on stage 3."
Wikipedia, W - Tour de France, Guardian, steephill, SBS, WSJ

Remix

Wikipedia - "A remix is an alternative version of a song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song (film, literature etc.). A remixer uses audio mixing to compose an alternate master recording of a song, adding or subtracting elements, or simply changing the equalization, dynamics, pitch, tempo, playing time, or almost any other aspect of the various musical components."
Wikipedia, Remix, Slate - "The Remixmasters", remix.vg

Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art, and Landscape Design

"Scenic vistas, winding paths, bucolic meadows, and rustic retreats suitable for solitary contemplation are just a few of the alluring naturalistic features of gardens created in the Romantic spirit. Landscape designers of the Romantic era sought to express the inherent beauty of nature in opposition to the strictly symmetrical, formal gardens favored by aristocrats of the old regime."
The Morgan Library & Museum

Pere Ubu

Wikipedia - "Pere Ubu is an experimental rock music group formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975. Despite many long-term band members, singer David Thomas is the only constant."
Wikipedia, The Ubu Projex Web Site, Breath, Waiting for Mary, Birdies (Urgh! A Music War), Final Solution, Love Love Love, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, Heart Of Darkness, The Modern Dance, Non-alignment Pact, Dub Housing, On The Surface, Dave Thomas of Pere Ubu - Part 1, Pt 2

Joyce Theater

Wikipedia - "The Joyce Theater is a 472-seat dance performance venue located in the Chelsea area of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The Joyce Theater Foundation, the organization founded in 1982 that operates the theater, also owns the Joyce SoHo dance center located in a former firehouse on Mercer Street between Houston and Prince Streets."
Wikipedia, Joyce Theater

Old-time music

St. Regis String Band
Wikipedia - "Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music, with roots in the folk music of many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland and countries in Africa. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dance, buck dance, and clogging. The genre also encompasses ballads and other types of folk songs. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle and plucked string instruments (most often the guitar and banjo)."
Wikipedia

Surrealist cartomancy

"Reworking the illustrations of the standard fifty-two card playing deck has become quite a common thing in recent years with numerous themed decks being produced in costly limited editions. The same goes for decks of Tarot cards which have now been mapped across a number of different magical systems and produced in sets that often add little to the philosophy of the Tarot but merely vary the artwork."
{ feuilleton }

Mark Bloch

Venice 2006: Everything Right
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, Welcome to P A N M O D E R N . C O M

TED

"Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world"
TED

What the Hell Just Happened on Letterman?

"One night after M.I.A.'s disastrous Late Show performance, David Letterman welcomed 'experimental performance artist' (according to her Wikipedia) Laurie Anderson on the program to, well, do some weird ass spoken-word/repetitive thing involving experts, problems, and the oil spill? Video inside."
Gawker, The Awl -"Difficult Listening Hour: An Introduction to Laurie Anderson"

Café Pamplona

Wikipedia - "Café Pamplona, located at 12 Bow St. beside the intersection of Bow and Arrow Streets near Harvard Square, is an unusual and renowned café. When it opened in 1959 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it was the first café in the Square. The owner, Josefina Yanguas, claimed the café had the first espresso-maker in the city. Down a short flight of exterior stairs, past a patio with tables, customers enter the café's subterranean interior. The once austere decor includes bright yellow lights which make the thickly-plastered walls glow under low ceilings, and a black and white checked floor."
Wikipedia,

Streephers

Las Vegas, Nevada - Kenneth Kit Lamug
"We have the ambitious project, to collect, catalog and show images of the best today's Photoreporters and Street Photographers, from all over the world."
Streephers

Maggie May

Wikipedia - "'Maggie May' is a song written by singer Rod Stewart and Martin Quittenton and recorded by Stewart in 1971 for his album Every Picture Tells a Story. 'Maggie May' expresses the ambivalence and contradictory emotions of a young man involved in a relationship with an older woman, and was written from Stewart's own experience."
Wikipedia - "Maggie May", W - "Reason to Believe", YouTube - "Maggie May", "Reason To Believe"

Pinball

Wikipedia - "Pinball is a type of arcade game, usually coin-operated, where a player attempts to score points by manipulating one or more metal balls on a playfield inside a glass-covered case called a pinball machine. The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible. Secondary objectives are to maximize the time spent playing (by earning extra balls and keeping the ball in play as long as possible) and to earn free games (known as replays).
Wikipedia, Magic City Pinball 1967 - vimeo, 1977 Gottlieb Vulcan Pinball - YouTube, 2010 Northwest Pinball and Gameroom Show - vimeo

My Boyfriend's Back

Wikipedia - "'My Boyfriend's Back' was a hit song in 1963 for The Angels, an American girl group. It was written by the songwriting team of Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer. The recording was originally intended as a demo for The Shirelles, but ended up being released as recorded."
Wikipedia, W - The Angels, DailyMotion

Kulchur

"Onward, as Robert Creeley would say. Let’s move to Kulchur 4. What strikes me about this issue is Burroughs and Kerouac’s picture on the cover. Gilbert Sorrentino guest-edited this issue. In his essay in The Little Magazine in America collection, Sorrentino writes, 'Marian Zazeela, Marc Schleifer’s wife, gave me a snapshot of Kerouac and Burroughs taken in Paris about 1955, and that became the cover; the title page identifies it as a photograph of Inspector Maigret and Sam Spade.'"
Reality Studio - Kulchur 4, Reality Studio - Kulchur, Reality Studio - Kulchur 13, Kulchur magazine, The Little Magazine A Hundred Years On: A Reader’s Report

How To Listen To Dylan

"Those of us that are Dylan fanatics have heard various versions of the above objections throughout our whole Dylan-listening careers. To be sure, Bob Dylan, like great Scotch—is an acquired taste. Yes, his voice is “nasally.” Yes, his inflection is odd. Yes, he can be hard to understand and way off-key. Yet, his sound, his instrumentation and above all his songs can be salvation to the ears of those who learn to appreciate him."
How To Listen To Dylan

Moyra Davey

Greatest Hits
"For anyone in the Cambridge area, artist Moyra Davey's first museum retrospective is currently up at the Fogg Art Museum. Davey's quiet and often mundane subjects exist antithetically to the driving trends of contemporary photography, which promote digital manipulation, large scale printing and staged photography."
Exposure Project, Moyra Davey

Pet Sounds

Wikipedia - "Pet Sounds was created several months after Brian Wilson had quit touring with the band in order to focus his attention on writing and recording. In it, he wove elaborate layers of vocal harmonies, coupled with sound effects and unconventional instruments such as bicycle bells, buzzing organs, harpsichords, flutes, the Electro-Theremin, and dog whistles, along with the more usual keyboards and guitars."
Wikipedia, last.fm, Beach Boys Fan Club.

W - Wouldn't It Be Nice, W - You Still Believe in Me, W - That's Not Me, W - Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder), W - I'm Waiting for the Day, W - Let's Go Away for Awhile, W - Sloop John B, W - God Only Knows, W - I Know There's an Answer, W - Here Today, W - I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, W - Pet Sounds, W - Caroline, No.

Cuban Baseball Cards

Fermin Guerra
"As in the United States, Cuban Baseball Cards began as Trade Cards, Cabinet Photos and promotional giveaways with Tobacco products. But instead of cardboard being the main printing media of choice in Cuba it was a thinner paper with cards made mostly to paste into accompanying albums. Cuban Baseball Cards are some of the rarest and most difficult for collectors to find."
Cuban Ball, Cuban Baseball Cards, npr - "Baseball Cards Tell Story Of Negro, Cuban Leagues"

Jules Bastien-Lepage

Les Foins, 1878
Wikipedia - "Jules Bastien-Lepage (November 1, 1848 – December 10, 1884), French painter, was born in the village of Damvillers, Meuse and spent his childhood there. Bastien's father grew grapes in a vineyard to support the family. His grandfather also lived in the village; his garden had fruit trees of apple, pear, and peach up against the high walls."
Wikipedia, Google

Bruce Nauman - Raw Material (2005)

"Bruce Nauman is one of the most important artists of our time. Early in his career, he abandoned painting in favour of sculpture, performance, installation, film, video, photography and neon. This restless exploration of different media reflects a continual questioning and reinvention of his artistic practice."
UbuWeb

Life After God

Wikipedia - "Life After God is a collection of short stories by Douglas Coupland, published in 1994. The stories are set around a theme of a generation raised without religion. The jacket for the hardcover book reads 'You are the first generation to be raised without religion.' The text is an exploration of faith in this vacuum of religion. The stories are also illustrated by the author."
Wikipedia, amazon

Kerouac's Copies of Floating Bear

"Jack Kerouac does not appear in a ton of mimeos. Unlike Burroughs and Ginsberg, Kerouac did not flood the little mag circuit with material. He liked to get paid. Kerouac appears most often in Beatitude. He also appears in Issue 34 of Floating Bear ('How to Meditate')."
MIMEO MIMEO

Jean-Léon Gérôme

The Caravan
Wikipedia - "Jean-Léon Gérôme (May 11, 1824 – January 10, 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax."
Wikipedia, Getty

Freedom Tunnel by Carlito Brigante

"Under Manhattan’s Upper West side, runs the 'Freedom' Tunnel. Built in the 30’s by Robert Moses, the passage boasts legendary graffiti murals and piles of debris remaining of the past homeless city era."
Wooster Collective

Nathan's Famous

Wikipedia - "Nathan's began as a nickel hot dog stand in Coney Island in 1916 and bears the name of co-founder Nathan Handwerker (June 14, 1892, Poland – March 25, 1974), who started the business with his wife Ida Handwerker. Handwerker, an employee of Feltman's hot dog stand, was encouraged by celebrity clients Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante to go into business in competition with his former employer."
Wikipedia, Nathans Famous