Amusing Ourselves to Death

Wikipedia - "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) is a book by educator Neil Postman. The book's origins lie in a talk Postman gave to the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1984. He was participating in a panel on Orwell's 1984 and the contemporary world. In the introduction to his book Postman said that the contemporary world was better reflected by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, whose public was oppressed by their addiction to amusement, than by Orwell's 1984, where they were oppressed by state control."
Wikipedia, amazon, Amusing Ourselves to Death - Stuart McMillen

Bruce Conner

Wikipedia - "Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 – July 7, 2008) was an American artist renowned for his work in assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography, among other disciplines."
Wikipedia, artnet, Bruce Conner: The Art of Montage, YouTube - Mea Culpa, Experimental Movie, Mutants: Homage to Bruce Conner: Missing In Action, The Dynamics of Progress, Life in Your Hands, (About) Robots

Lanquidity -Sun Ra

Wikipedia - "Lanquidity is a jazz album by Sun Ra and his Arkestra released in 1978. It is quite different from his earlier recordings in the sense that it was more of a fusion inspired recording. It also features two guitarists which was seldom used in the Arkestra. The funk influence is also considerable, especially on 'That's How I Feel'."
Wikipedia, amazon, YouTube - Lanquidity, That's How I Feel, Where Pathways Meet, Twin Stars Of Thence

"Respect For Things As They Are" - by John Ashbery

"In his introduction to Fairfield Porter's posthumous collection of art criticism, Art in Its Own Terms, Rackstraw Downes quotes a remark Fairfield Porter made during what must have been one of the more Byzantine discussions at the Artists' Club on Eighth Street, around 1952. The members were arguing about whether or not it was vain to sign your paintings. With the flustered lucidity of Alice in the courtroom, Porter sliced this particular Gordian knot once and for all: 'If you are vain it is vain to sign your pictures and vain not to sign them. If you are not vain it is not vain to sign them and not vain not to sign them.'"
ThisRecording

Memories of Sugar Hill

"In a time of discrimination and segregation, young people growing up in an area of Harlem known as Sugar Hill right before and after World War II found success and inspiration all around them. Explore the people who lived in Sugar Hill and hear the stories of those who grew up there."
NYT - Video

The Shadows of Knight

Wikipedia - "The Shadows of Knight are an American rock band from the Chicago suburbs, formed in the 1960s, who play a form of British blues mixed with influences from their native city. At the time they first started recording, the band's self-description was as follows: 'The Stones, Animals and Yardbirds took the Chicago Blues and gave it an English interpretation.'"
Wikipedia, The Shadows of Knight, YouTube - Gloria, I'll make you sorry, Potato ship, Oh Yeah

William Gibson

Wikipedia - "William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist who has been called the 'noir prophet' of the cyberpunk subgenre. Gibson coined the term 'cyberspace' in his short story 'Burning Chrome' (1982) and later popularized the concept in his debut novel, Neuromancer (1984). In envisaging cyberspace, Gibson created an iconography for the information age before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s."
Wikipedia, W - Neuromancer, William Gibson, amazon, The Atlantic: William Gibson and the Future of the Future, Salon: William Gibson, William Gibson Bibliography / Mediagraphy, YouTube - William Gibson anticipates Susan Boyle, William Gibson: The New Cyber/Reality

2 Tone

Wikipedia - "2 Tone (or Two Tone) is a music genre created in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s by fusing elements of ska, punk rock, rocksteady, reggae, and New Wave. It was called 2 Tone because most of the bands were signed to 2 Tone Records at some point. Other labels associated with the 2 Tone sound were Stiff Records and Go Feet Records. Within the history of ska, 2 Tone is classified as its second wave, the product of an early 1980s nostalgia for vintage music."
Wikipedia, W - 2 Tone Records, 2 Tone, YouTube - The Two Tone story (Documentary - Prologue) I, II, III, IV, V

2:12

"2:12 is a Houston based artist with a passion for urban decay. His tools of choice are the x-acto knife, for cutting painstaking details, and the spray can, for stenciling layer by layer to create each painting. His canvas is the grit and grime of the city and his mission is to bring attention to those areas that are often unnoticed or neglected. By using vivid colors, eye catching patterns and sometimes physical objects his works add considerable interest to what was otherwise uninteresting."
tx2twelve, Wooster Collective - Video

Pissarro’s People

Jeanne Pissarro, Called Minette, Sitting in the Garden, Pontoise, ca. 1872
"Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) has been called the 'dean of Impressionism.' His work embodied Impressionism’s radical character more consistently than the paintings of Monet and the other artists associated with the movement. While he experimented with different styles and techniques, Pissarro remained committed throughout his life to portraying the modern world with a remarkably constant directness and objectivity."
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Video Highlights, amazon

Army Arrangement - Fela Kuti

"In this music video, Afrobeat rebel Fela Kuti performs 'Army Arrangement' in London and Lagos (at The Shrine in Okeja). His performance is beautifully intercut with images of Lagos, including military occupation and police beating. It ends with news of Fela's arrest in 1984. Fela died in 1997."
YouTube

Kota Ezawa: Re-Animating History

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 2005
"Employing computer animation, Ezawa retells historical and current events, building a new narrative that relies upon visual cues, our cultural memory of these events, and the subtlety of human mannerisms, such as a smirk of the mouth or shift in the eyes. In The Simpson Verdict, Ezawa animates actual footage of the proceedings. This breaking down of the images forces the viewer to look more closely at the nuances of character and iterates the issues of race, celebrity, and police investigation that plagued the case."
Williams College Museum of Art, UbuWeb: Kota Ezawa (Video), Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Animated Videos on the Recent History of Culture and Society

Dub Echoes

"A journey from th birth of Dub in Jamaica to our days. Featuring artists and producers like King Tubby, Lee "Scratch" Perry, U-Roy... Mad Proffessor, Thievery Corporation, Roots Manuva..."
Hellucinogenic - Video, amazon, Soul Jazz Records, YouTube - Dub Echoes - King Tubby 1, 2

Love Kills Demons - 12 short films about the work of Chris Rubino

"Shot over the course of one year, Love Kills Demons consists of 12 short films, beautifully made by Jim Helton, documenting the work of New York artist, Chris Rubino as he searches for a new direction in his work. You can watch all of them here."
Wooster Collective, Love Kills Demons - 12 short films

East Village, Manhattan

Wikipedia - "The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City which lies east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side. Within the East Village are several smaller neighborhoods, including Alphabet City and The Bowery. The area was once generally considered to be part of the Lower East Side, but began to develop its own identity and culture in the 1960s, when many artists, musicians, students and hippies began to move into the area, attracted by cheap rents and the base of Beatniks that had lived there since the 1950s."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Manhattan Walk Throughs: East Village, New York City : Video Tour of the East Village (Manhattan, NY)

Tupac Shakur - 2Pac

Wikipedia - "Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), known by his stage names 2Pac (or simply Pac) and Makaveli, was an American rapper. ... In addition to his career as a rap artist, he was also an actor. The themes of most of Tupac's songs are the violence and hardship in inner cities, racism, other social problems, and conflicts with other rappers during the East Coast – West Coast hip hop rivalry."
Wikipedia, 2Pac, YouTube - Keep Ya Head Up, Under Pressure, Papa'z Song, Street Fame, Dear Mama, I Ain't Mad At Cha, Starin' Through My Rear View, Brenda's Got A Baby

Max Kozloff

Wikipedia - "Max Kozloff (b. 1933 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American Art Historian, art critic of modern art and photographer. He has been art editor at The Nation, and Executive Editor of Artforum. His essay, 'American Painting During the Cold War' is of particular importance to the criticism on American Abstract Expressionism."
Wikipedia, HigherPictures, (2)

Bob Marley - Tuff Gong Studios 1980

"Studio Kingston Rehearsal"
YouTube - Forever Loving Jah, Bad Card, Pimpers Paradise, Concrete jungle, I shot the sheriff, Zion Train

The Empress

Wikipedia - "The Empress (III) is the third trump or Major Arcana card in traditional Tarot decks. It is used in Tarot card games as well as divination."
Wikipedia

Uncle Tupelo

Wikipedia - "Uncle Tupelo was an alternative country music group from Belleville, Illinois, active between 1987 and 1994. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn formed the band after the lead singer of their previous band, The Primitives, left to attend college. ... Shortly after the release of the band's major label debut album Anodyne, Farrar announced his decision to leave the band due to a soured relationship with his co-songwriter Tweedy."
Wikipedia, Factory Belt, Gumbo Pages: Uncle Tupelo, last.fm - Video, amazon, YouTube - The Long Cut, Chickamauga, Whiskey Bottle, Atomic Power, No Depression, Gun, Life Worth Livin', Effigy, Critical Mass - Part 1 - Interview, Part 2

The Barnes Foundation

Wikipedia - "The Barnes Foundation is an educational art and horticultural institution in Lower Merion, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. It was founded in 1922 by Albert C. Barnes, a chemist who collected art after making a fortune by co-developing an early antimicrobial drug marketed as Argyrol. Today, the Foundation possesses more than 2500 objects, including 800 paintings estimated to be worth about $25 billion. These are primarily works by Impressionist and Modernist masters, but the collection includes many by leading European and American artists, as well as ancient works from other cultures."
NYT: Collector as Artist: The Barnes Foundation (Video), NYT: An Interactive Tour Through the Barnes Foundation, NYT: Barnes Foundation

The Bowery Poetry Club

Wikipedia - "The Bowery Poetry Club is a New York City poetry performance space founded by Bob Holman in 2002. Located at 308 Bowery, between Bleecker and Houston Streets in Manhattan's East Village, the BPC provides a home base for established and upcoming artists."
Wikipedia, The Bowery Poetry Club, YouTube - Bowery: Arts-Bowery Poetry Club and Amato Opera

Lady Blue Shanghai - David Lynch

"How come no one told me this existed? I may be a year late to the game, but this seems to be the longest video/film work David Lynch has directed since INLAND EMPIRE. Filmed as a commission for Dior, Lady Blue Shanghai stars Marion Cotillard in a work that strongly continues the stripped down 'amateur' digital aesthetic introduced by Lynch's 2006 masterpiece, working in a vein closer to video art / avant-garde video than his feature film-films."
mubi - Video

Brian Eno Documentary

"Brian Eno first starred as the feather-crested electronic keyboard genius of Roxy Music forty years ago. Since then he has been hailed as a pioneer, with his revolutionary experiments in ambient music and audio visual art and as featured producer on benchmark albums by David Bowie, Talking Heads, U2 and Coldplay."
viddler - Part 01, Part 02, Part 03

Percy Sledge

Wikipedia - "Percy Sledge (born November 25, 1941, Leighton, Alabama) is an American R&B and soul performer who recorded the hit 'When a Man Loves a Woman' in 1966."
Wikipedia, W - When a Man Loves a Woman, YouTube - When a Man Loves A Woman

The Illuminatus! Trilogy - Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

Wikipedia - "The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson first published in 1975. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex- and magick-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, which hinge around the authors' version of the Illuminati. The narrative often switches between third and first person perspectives and jumps around in time. It is thematically dense, covering topics like counterculture, numerology and Discordianism."
Wikipedia, amazon

Horses - Patti Smith

Wikipedia - "Horses is the debut album by American musician Patti Smith, released in 1975 on Arista Records. The record was a key factor and major influence on the New York punk rock scene."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - Gloria, Horses, DailyMotion - Redondo Beach, YouTube - Birdland, Free Money, My Generation, Kimberly, Elegie

The Bit-52s Play Rock Lobster

"The Bit-52s are the creation of Toronto’s James Cochrane, who’s programmed an array of mechanical and electronic contraptions to crank out music, sans human musicians. The 'band' features everything from a solonoid-controlled guitar, keyboard and tambourine to a set of old scanners which help give the group its squeaky Kate Pierson-esque backing vocals. The whole rig is is controlled by a pair of PIC16F84A microcontrollers. Here, have a listen…"
Technabob (Video), EOL/The Beautiful People, Funkytown by Lipps Inc.

Lucifer

Gustave Doré, illustration for Paradise Lost, Book III
Wikipedia - "Traditionally, Lucifer ... is a name that in English generally refers to the devil before being cast from heaven, although this is not the original meaning of the term. In Latin, from which the English word is derived, Lucifer means 'light-bearer' (from the words lucem ferre). It was the name given to the dawn appearance of the planet Venus, which heralds daylight. For this meaning, English generally uses the names 'Morning Star' or 'Day Star', and rarely 'Lucifer'."
Wikipedia

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - Dee Brown

Wikipedia - "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by American writer Dee Brown is a history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century, and their displacement and slaughter by the United States federal government."
Wikipedia, amazon.
W - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (film), HBO, YouTube - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

Lynda Barry

Wikipedia - "Lynda Barry (born January 2, 1956) is an American cartoonist and author. One of the most successful non-mainstream American cartoonists, Barry is perhaps best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek. Barry's cartoons often view family life from the perspective of pre-teen girls from the wrong side of the tracks – Arna (the sensitive, freckled observer) and the cousins with whom she lives; pig-tailed Marlys (gifted, exuberant, snarky, and spastic); and the older Maybonne (concerned with social justice, music, makeup, hairdos and boys) and Freddie (gay, sweet, bullied, fascinated with bugs and monsters); but she often ventures far afield from this, such as in her strips featuring a Beat Poet poodle named Fred Milton."
Wikipedia, amazon, Salon

Bluegrass Roots

"This is the 1st TV Special (1964) shot documentary style in the Mountain of North Carolina. It follows Old Man Bascom Lunsford as he casts the talent for his Asheville Mountain Music Festival (also the first such event). 'Bluegrass Roots' takes viewers presents a who's who of the most extraordinary singers, players and dancers the Bluegrass Mountains had to offer. Many later became famous."
amazon, YouTube - Bluegrass Roots

The Braille Trail

"A self-guiding nature trail for the blind — both seeing and non-seeing — teaches us to comprehend the natural world through the purest form of communication — touch, smell, hearing — without first filtering it through sight. The Aspen Braille Trail was built high up in the Independence Pass wilderness, at 10,400 feet, by a small band of Aspenites and White River Forest Service personnel."
Aspen no. 4, item 7 - The Braille Trail

Talking with Gillian & David - "When she sings, she sounds lonesome - what are you going to do?"

"Sam Parton - I had spent days trying to line up an interview with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, but had had no success at all, so I’d pretty much resigned myself to simply reporting on their concert at the Vancouver Folk Festival. I hadn’t had a chance to hear them play live together since 2003 when a friend and I drove down to Seattle to take in their show at the Moore Theater."
No Depression - Part I, Part II

Art of the States

"Since 1993, Art of the States has been expanding audiences for United States-based composers and performers through its international radio music distribution service. Art of the States began as a production in association with WGBH Radio Boston participating in musical exchange with broadcasters of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)."
Art of the States