Charles Olson: February 21, 1957

"The Poetry Center presents Charles Olson reading from The Maximus Poems and other works."
Poetry Center Digital Archive

Otis Spann

Wikipedia - "Otis Spann (March 21, 1930 – April 24, 1970) was an American blues musician. Many aficionados considered him then, and now, as Chicago's leading postwar blues pianist."
Wikipedia, Rubber City Review, YouTube - Aint Nobody's Business, Spann's Blues, Nine Bellow Zero - Otis Spann & Sonny Boy Williamson, Chicago Blues and Nobody Knows Chicago Like I Do, Must Have Been The Devil

A Look Inside Mars Bar - the EV's Legendary Dive Bar

"The actual history of Mars Bar is not well documented which is part of its charm. Depending on who you talk to or what account you happen to read, you basically come up with a few vague facts. The owner Hank Penza opened Mars Bar in the early 1980s after a few decades of owning and operating several other bars on the Bowery. Anything else you could possibly learn is usually from colorful anecdotes of those who have had a drink or two (or three) there."
East Village & LES

Spanish Civil War - 75 Year, 18 July.

Male and female militia fighters march. Spanish Civil War, July 1936
"Living Utopia. Anarchism in Spain... This documentary film by Juan Gamero, Francesc Rios and Mariona Roca consists of 30 interviews with survivors of the 1936-1939 Spanish Revolution. It is - in my view - probably the best documentary ever made on the subject. The testimonies of the anarchist militants, most of them now dead, are both inspiring and moving, and illustrate the constructive work of the social revolution in Spain."
vimeo - Living Utopia. Anarchism in Spain..., YouTube - Anarchists in the 1936 Spanish Civil War, Mujeres Libres presentación. Free Women of Spain, YouTube - Women of the Spanish Revolution (1 of 3), (2 of 3), (3 of 3), 1936 - Spanish anarchist song w/English subtitles, The Clash - Spanish Bombs. PBS: Guernica: Testimony of War, amazon - Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell, amazon - The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

2010 February: Spanish Civil War

Justified & Ancient - The KLF

Wikipedia - "'Justified & Ancient' is a song by British band The KLF (Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) which featured on their 1991 album The White Room but with origins dating back to the duo's debut album, 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?). The song is best known for its remake that was released in November 1991 as a pop-house single subtitled 'Stand by The JAMs', with verses featuring the vocals of American country music singer Tammy Wynette."
Wikipedia, SO MANY RECORDS, SO LITTLE TIME, amazon, YouTube - Justified and Ancient (Stand By The JAMs), KLF - Justified & Ancient (Live)

History of Hip-Hop Vol. 9: 1987

"MC Lyte – Kickin’ 4 Brooklyn
Just Ice – Goin’ Way Back
LL Cool J – Kanday
Eazy E – Boys In The Hood
NWA – Dope Man
Boogie Down Productions – Criminal Minded
Kool G Rap – Rikers Island
MC Lyte – I Cram To Understand
Audio Two – Top Billin’
Black, Rock & Ron – That’s How I’m Living
The Jungle Brothers – Jimbrowski
EPMD – You’re A Customer
Big Daddy Kane & Biz Markie – Just Rhymin’ With Biz
Latee – This Cut’s Got Flavor
Boogie Down Productions – Poetry
Public Enemy – Timebomb
Schoolly D – Saturday Night
Eric B. & Rakim – Paid In Full
Steady B – Use Me
Biz Markie – Nobody Beats The Biz
Classical Two – Rap’s New Generation
Salt ‘N Pepa – I’ll Take Your Man
Super Lover Cee & Cassanova Rud – Do The James
Public Enemy – P.E. #1
LL Cool J – My Rhyme Ain’t Done
Roxanne Shante – Have A Nice Day
Spoonie Gee – The Godfather
Eric B. & Rakim – I Know You Got Soul
Ultramagnetic MCs – Funky (Remix)
Big Daddy Kane – Raw
Public Enemy – Bring The Noise
Dismasters – Small Time Hustler"
History of Hip-Hop Vol. 9: 1987

Fernando Trueba on ‘Chico and Rita’

"Few contemporary cineastes have enjoyed so estimably varied a career as Fernando Trueba. A onetime book editor whose film oeuvre has garnered no fewer than twenty-eight Goyas, he won an Oscar for Belle Epoque (1993), his sexy tale of a young deserter from Spain’s Civil War landing up at the farm of an aging artist whose comely daughters—one craven, one queer, one a young Penélope Cruz—impart a barnful of lessons about women and love. ... I caught up with Trueba a few days after Chico and Rita opened the Miami International Film Festival to a rousing ovation."
The Paris Review, Chico and Rita, amazon, YouTube - Chico and Rita

Centuries of June (made with Stan Brakhage) (1955) - Joseph Cornell

"This is a film about an old house which was to be torn down. I think Cornell was interested in showing us the beauty of this fine old structure, but it seems dead and lifeless and cut off from the life all around it. We see children and workmen and insects. The neighborhood really is alive and vital, but the house has had its day."
UbuWeb

The BRD Trilogy

Wikipedia - "The BRD Trilogy consists of three films directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder: The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Veronika Voss (1982), and Lola (1981). The films are connected in a thematic rather than in a narrative sense. All three deal with different characters (though some actors recur in different roles) and plotlines, but each one focuses on the story of a specific woman in West Germany after World War II. The three letter acronym 'BRD' stands for Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the official name of West Germany and of the united contemporary Germany."
Wikipedia, W - The Marriage of Maria Braun, W - Veronika Voss, W - Lola, amazon, Jim's Reviews - The Films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, YouTube - The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss, Lola

Music Downtown - Kyle Gann

"This collection represents the cream of the more than five hundred articles written for the Village Voice by Kyle Gann, a leading authority on experimental American music of the late twentieth century. Charged with exploring every facet of cutting-edge music coming out of New York City in the 1980s and '90s, Gann writes about a wide array of timely issues that few critics have addressed, including computer music, multiculturalism and its thorny relation to music, music for the AIDS crisis, the brand-new art of electronic sampling and its legal implications, symphonies for electric guitars, operas based on talk shows, the death of twelve-tone music, and the various streams of music that flowed forth from minimalism."
University of California, amazon, Music downtown:
writings from The Village voice (Google eBook), W - Downtown_music

Shoot Out the Lights - Richard and Linda Thompson

Wikipedia - "Shoot Out the Lights is the sixth and final album by British husband-and-wife folk rock duo Richard and Linda Thompson. It was produced by Joe Boyd and released in 1982 on his Hannibal label."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Shoot Out The Lights, Just The Motion (live, 1981), Wall of Death, Walking on a Wire

The Wheels Of Steel: An Ode To Turntables

"The turntable is more than just a hi-fi music player for the home. To the DJ, it's also a creative tool for remixing music in real-time. The turntable gave birth to a culture of disc jockeys and is an important element of hip-hop; it also plays a role, quite literally, in the evolution of electronic music."
Schillmania, Wheels Of Steel, YouTube - Wheels Of Steel Prototype - Cue Points (Sampling) Demo, Wheels Of Steel Prototype - Cueing, Pitch and Beat Matching / Mixing (scratch/demo routine). YUIBlog, A JavaScript Sound API supporting MP3, MPEG4 and HTML5 Audio

Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, et al 1950

"This is one of two surviving sound films of Charlie Parker playing (and certainly the longest; the other is only 52 seconds long). Until recently, this film was a rumor, and only still photos of it existed. Watch Bird's amused expression as he watches Hawkins solo, and also how he cuts off the older Tenor man's solo. Although the musicians are filmed playing against tracks recorded earlier, it's still a fascinating and rare look at Bird on film."
YouTube - 1 of 2, 2 of 2

Impressionism

Woman with Parasol by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1875
Wikipedia - "Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s. The name of the style is derived from the title of a Claude Monet work, Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which provoked the critic Louis Leroy to coin the term in a satiric review published in the Parisian newspaper Le Charivari."
Wikipedia, WebMuseum, YouTube - Impressionist painters

"Poet Among Painters" by James Schuyler

"I first met Frank O'Hara at a party at John Myers' after a Larry Rivers opening: de Kooning and Nell Blaine were there, arguing about whether it is deleterious for an artist to do commercial work. I was most impressed by the company I was suddenly keeping."
In Which The Clouds Get Enough Attention As It Is - This Recording, Poets: Meditations in an Emergency

Tom Gauld

"Tom Gauld is a cartoonist and illustrator. He draws a weekly cartoon for the Guardian newspaper and has created a number of comic books. He lives and works in London."
Tom Gauld, Cabanon Press, flickr, Angry Robot, The Tools Artists Use

Anne Theresa De Keersmaeker FASE at Walker Art Center

"Interview with Anne Theresa De Keersmaeker –overview of her dance career and her group, Rosas and specifically, FASE: Four Movements to The Music of Steve Reich with excerpts from the dance directed by Thierry De Mey."
vimeo

Mikey Dread

Wikipedia - "Michael George Campbell (born 4 June 1954 in Port Antonio, Jamaica - died 15 March 2008 in Connecticut, United States), better known as Mikey Dread, was a Jamaican singer, producer, and broadcaster. He was one of the most influential performers and innovators in reggae music. His abilities, technical expertise, and unique vocal delivery combined to create a unique sound that tells the listener emphatically that it is the 'Dread at the Controls'."
Wikipedia, Mikey Dread, Roots Archives, YouTube - Money in my pocket, Bankrobber, Rasta in Control, Choose me, The Master Recordings [Dub], Tricky Track (Dub), Break Down The Walls

A Salty Dog - Procol Harum

Wikipedia - "A Salty Dog is an album by the Rock band Procol Harum, released in June 1969. Having an ostensibly nautical theme, as indicated by its cover (a pastiche of the famous Player's Navy Cut cigarette pack), interspersed with straight rock, blues and pop items A Salty Dog showed a slight change of direction from its predecessors, being thematically less obscure. The title track itself was the first Procol track to use sound effects and an orchestra, as would be referred to in the live album performance some three years later."
Wikipedia, YouTube - A Salty Dog, Pilgrim's Progress, Too Much Between Us, The Devil Came From Kansas

John Ashbery - Postcard Collages

"JOHN ASHBERY’s most recent book of poems was Where Shall I Wander. His next, A Wordly Country, will be published this winter. He is a Leo, born the same day as Marcel Duchamp and Gerard Manley Hopkins, as well as film comedian Joe E. Brown. The collages reproduced in the current issue were all executed in the early 1970s."
Sienese Shredder Editions, Tibor De Nagy

"Brooklyn Bodega" - Fresh Stuff From Spektor in Paris

"The piece above, entitled Brooklyn Bodega, was hand painted with brush on the streets of Paris. It coincides with the opening to Spektor's first solo in Paris at since/upian
'things change'."
Wooster Collective, Specter Art

The Cradle Is Rocking

"The Cradle Is Rocking was directed by Frank DeCola who died in the early 1970s, shortly after this film was made."
folkstreams

Marshall McLuhan

Wikipedia - "Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar—a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communication theorist. McLuhan's work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory, as well as having practical applications in the advertising and television industries."
Wikipedia, W - The Medium Is the Massage, W - Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan, McLuhan Project, UbuWeb

Marshall McLuhan Speaks (Video), Introduction by Tom Wolfe, Hot and cool media (1965), Etc., Vision of the future (1965), Etc., My definition of technology (1965), Etc., Old versus new assumptions (1960), Etc., TV as a depth medium (1960), Etc.

BBC - Your Paintings

"Your Paintings is a website which aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings, the stories behind the paintings, and where to see them for real. It is made up of paintings from thousands of museums and other public institutions around the country."
BBC - Your Paintings, Your Paintings - Tagger, YouTube - Your Paintings

Johanna Drucker

Wikipedia - "Johanna Drucker (b. May 30, 1952) is an author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital aesthetics."
Wikipedia, The Work of Johanna Drucker, EPC, PennSound, EPC:
A Chronology of Books from 1970 to 1994

Avant-Garde Art in Everyday Life

"Nearly one century ago, progressive artists in central and eastern Europe demanded that true art revolutionize the objects and habits of daily life. Their new ideas responded to the innovative rhythms and images of the industrial marketplace, the nascent mass media, and urban popular culture. For the first time in the museum's history, this vibrant and critically important moment in east-central European modernism is comprehensively explored in this exhibition of nearly 300 works of photography, photomontage, and photographically illustrated posters and books, as well as rare examples of porcelain and glassware by six of the period's most influential international artists."
The Art Institute of Chicago, (1), (2), (3)

The Illuminated Mixtapes 2007 – Present

"I am currently the Design Director for BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn, so Gigawatt is on hiatus. I would still love to hear about any projects or collaboration opportunities you might have, even if just to be able to suggest a talented colleague who would be perfect for it."
The Illuminated Mixtapes

Gil J Wolman

Métagraphie, 1954
Wikipedia - "Gil Joseph Wolman was a French artist, born in Paris in 1929 and dying there in 1995. His work encompassed painting, poetry and film-making. He was a member of Isidore Isou's avant garde Letterist movement in the early 1950s, then becoming a central figure in the Letterist International, the group which would subsequently develop (without Wolman himself) into the Situationist International."
Wikipedia, Gil J Wolman, Independent, art tattler, YouTube - "Gil J Wolman. I am immortal and alive" Notes by Bartomeu Marí, Lettrisme, letterism, letrismo, poesia sonora, "La mémoire" - from Mégapneumes

UB40

Wikipedia - "UB40 are a British reggae band formed in 1978 in Birmingham. The band has placed more than 50 singles in the UK Singles Chart, and has also achieved considerable international success."
Wikipedia, UB40, YouTube - Can't Help Falling In Love, Red Red Wine, Kingston Town, Here I Am Baby

The making of "Tender Buttons"

"Tender Buttons is enigmatic on its own, but to add to its legend, few readers know that the manuscript was untitled until the final few weeks before publication, that Stein almost did not have the book reach publication at all, and that she would not publish another book until eight years later. A brief history of the publication of Tender Buttons can provide insight into Stein’s focus on composition, and offer some new directions for reading it."
Jacket2, Tender buttons: objects, food, rooms (1914), amazon

Wikipedia, The Poetry Foundation

2007 November: Gertrude Stein

Word Above the Street

"Imagine the opportunity to engage millions of people through the transformative power of art, with the purpose of raising awareness of Water as one of our most precious resources. Word Above the Street seeks to combine forces with sponsors whose commitment in the area of environmental sustainability is in harmony with our goal of drawing worldwide attention to Water."
Word Above the Street

Roy Chicago & His Rhythm Dandies

Wikipedia - "Roy Chicago (John Akintola Ademuwagun) (d. February 5, 1989) was an indigene of Ikare-Akoko in Ondo State, Nigeria. He was a musician and band leader who played in the Highlife style, introducing talking drums into the musical style. He moved to Lagos from Ibadan in the late 1950s, and was most popular during the 1960s. In contrast to Victor Olaiya, whose music was based on Ghanaian melodies and progressions, Roy Chicago based his music on Nigerian indigenous themes and folklores. He was one of the highlife musicians who changed his name to a purely Western form, perhaps to make it sound more cool."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Roy Chicago & His Rhythm Dandies - Ranti Ola, Maria / Iyawo Pankeke, Onile Gogoro, Olubunmi

The Kids in the Hall

Wikipedia - "The Kids in the Hall is a Canadian sketch comedy group formed in 1984, consisting of comedians Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson."
Wikipedia, IMDb - Video, YouTube - Sarcasm at its best, or worst., Buddy Cole, Chicken Lady: Blind Date, My Pen!, French Fur Trappers, Crushing your head, "How the hell could I know?" (Guest Party), Comfortable High, Gavin and the Evangelists

Christian Marclay's Video Quartet

"A few minutes of Christian Marclay's 13-minute music/video installation Video Quartet, as shot on DV at the Tate Modern in London. Christian Marclay (born 1955) is a visual artist and musical composer based in New York, who is exploring the pattern languages connecting sound, photography, video, and film."
YouTube - Excerpt #1, Excerpt #2

The Rings of Saturn - W.G. Sebald

"Early on in W.G. Sebald‘s strange and beautiful novel The Rings of Saturn, the erudite narrator (seemingly) offhandedly alludes to Albrecht Dürer’s 1514 engraving Melencolia I. Rings is larded with such references, stuffed to the gills with analysis of history and literature and art (and so much more), but the quick allusion to Melencolia I seems a particularly informative way of interpreting–or at least comprehending–Sebald’s grand, glorious book."
biblioklept, amazon, NYT: In the Company of Ghosts, A SHORT WALK THROUGH THE RINGS OF SATURN