61 “James Alley Blues” by Richard (Rabbit) Brown

"Recorded in New Orleans in 1927, Richard (Rabbit) Brown was a songster, a black folk singer and musician, often itinerant, busking on street corners and working as a boatman on Lake Pontchartrain. He grew up in the late 19th century on Jane Alley (or Jane’s Alley, as the residents called it), the turpentine distillery district of New Orleans. ... Video: Bob Dylan (The Minnesota Tapes), Judy Roderick (Woman Blue), Fox and Branch (Bootlegger’s Blues), Alice Stuart (All the Good Times), Jeff Tweedy (The Harry Smith Connection: A Live Tribute to the Anthology), Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard (Hazel & Alice), Big Moe & Jolly Jumper (Rooster Soup), Sweet Ginger Heat (Healy Heartache)"
The Old, Weird America - (Video)

Pigbag

Wikipedia - "Pigbag were a British post-punk band, active from 1980 to 1983. Pigbag were formed in Cheltenham in late 1980 by Chris Hamlin, a fashion student at Cheltenham Art College. Hamlin recruited multi-instrumentalist Roger Freeman, an old friend from his hometown of Birmingham, along with Chris Lee on trumpet and James Johnstone, a guitarist, record shop assistant and newcomer to the alto sax, for initial jam sessions which would eventually evolve into Pigbag."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Getting Up, Papa's got a brand new pigbag, Weak At The Knees, Big Bean

Johann Dieter Wassmann

Das Ehestand, (The Wedlock), 1897
Wikipedia - "Johann Dieter Wassmann (1841–1898) is a fictitious artist and sewerage engineer, purportedly from Leipzig, Germany. He is the creation of the American-born artist and writer Jeff Wassmann. According to his fictitious biography, Johann Dieter Wassmann was born in Leipzig, Germany, where he witnessed the industrial revolution rapidly alter the once agrarian, guild-based and perhaps idealised Electorate of Saxony."
W - Johann Dieter Wassmann
W - Jeff Wassmann
NYT: British Author Espies a Funerary Violin Vacuum and So Fills It
The Wassmann Foundation
YouTube: The Foundation

The Boombox Project: The Machines, the Music, and the Urban Underground

"On the heels of the graffiti renaissance comes a vibrant look at an old-school icon that figured prominently in the hip-hop, rock & roll, and punk movements of the 1970s and 80s. The Boombox Project features contemporary fine art portraits of an array of vintage boomboxes, as well as scores of documentary photographs of the people who brought the boombox movement to life back in the day. The book is more than just a collection of images, though; it’s also an oral history of the early days of hip-hop, featuring memories from Fab 5 Freddy, Bob Gruen, Rosie Perez, Kool Moe Dee, LL Cool J, Lisa Lisa, DJ Spooky, and Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, among others, on the role this once ubiquitous machine played."
amazon (Video)
The Boombox Project | Lyle Owerko
The Boombox Project, A Photobook of Vintage Boomboxes (vimeo)
YouTube: CBS Sunday Morning - The Boombox Project Segment

The Other Side of Modern Sculpture - Charles Kessler

Cady Noland, Tanya as Bandit, 1989
"I've been thinking more about my post on how the backs of sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum, backs that were never intended to be seen, are nevertheless beautifully finished. It's occurred to me that traditional sculptures were usually commissioned by rich and powerful people. They were not only sacred objects, but they were also luxury objects, and anything that looked cheap or unfinished would be unseemly."
Left Bank Art Blog

Arkology - Lee "Scratch" Perry

Wikipedia - "Arkology is a compilation album by Lee 'Scratch' Perry. Released in 1997, the album collects tracks produced by Perry and recorded at the Black Ark studio. The album was listed in the 1999 book The Rough Guide: Reggae: 100 Essential CDs."
Wikipedia
Stylus Magazine: Lee "Scratch" Perry - Arkology
Reggae Vibes
YouTube: Dreadlocks In Moonlight, Reel I - Max Romeo, The Heptones ft. Lee Scratch Perry - Make Up Your Mind, Junior Dread - Sufferers Heights, Mikey Dread - Dread At The Mantrols, Dread Locks

2009 November: Lee "Scratch" Perry
2010 November: The Upsetters
2011 April: The Silvertones

Dance/Draw

Juan Capistran, The Breaks, 2000
"On the occasion of its 75th anniversary, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents Dance/Draw, an ambitious thematic show tracing the journey of the line from changes in drawing in the 1960s to its explosion off the page and into three-dimensional space—ultimately finding itself in the realm of dance. In particular, this exhibition investigates the connections between visual art and dance over the past 50 years, culminating in the exploration of a new generation of artists deeply interested in dance."
ICA Boston
Slideshow: ''Dance/Draw'' exhibit at the ICA
Fuse Feature: Lining It Up — Dance/Draw at the ICA
YouTube: Dance/Draw exhibit at the ICA

2011 January: Trisha Brown - Floor of the Forest (1970)

Norman Blake

Wikipedia - "Norman Blake (born March 10, 1938 in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is an instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter. In a career spanning more than 50 years Blake has played in a number of folk and country groups. He is considered one of the leading figures in the bluegrass revival of the 1970s and is still active today, playing concert dates and making albums with his wife Nancy Blake."
Wikipedia
Nancy & Norman Blake
YouTube: Franklin D. Roosevelt's Back Again, Nashville Blues, Randall Collins and Done Gone, Elzic's Farewell, My Dear Old Southern Home and New Money, Salty, The Fields of November, Graycoat Soldiers

Jazz Photos

"Since Gottlieb was shooting pictures for free, The Post allowed him to keep his negatives, giving him the start of what would become a valuable library of photographs used on many album covers, posters, T-shirts and other products. He photographed the likes of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington."
Jazz Photos
LOC: William P. Gottlieb Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz
flickr: Gottlieb Jazz Photos
Wikipedia
YouTube: Don't Get Around Much Anymore - Valentine Ryder
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Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), The Umbrellas
"The Frick Collection presents an exhibition of nine iconic Impressionist paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, offering the first comprehensive study of the artist's engagement with the full-length format, which was associated with the official Paris Salon in the decade that saw the emergence of a fully fledged Impressionist aesthetic. The project was inspired by La Promenade of 1875–76, the most significant Impressionist work in the Frick's permanent collection. It explores Renoir's portraits and subject pictures of this type from the mid-1870s to mid-1880s. Intended for public display, these vertical grand-scale canvases are among the artist's most daring and ambitious presentations of contemporary subjects and are today considered masterpieces of Impressionism."
The Frick Collection
NYT: Soigné Parisians, Fit for a Grand Canvas
YouTube: Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting: An Introduction to the Exhibition

Junior Giscombe

Wikipedia - "Junior Giscombe (born Norman Washington Giscombe, 6 June 1957, Wandsworth, London) is a singer-songwriter (frequently known simply by the mononym, Junior) who was one of the first British R&B artists to be successful in the United States."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Mama Used To Say, Too Late

Civilisation - Kenneth Clark

Wikipedia - "Civilisation — in full Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark — is a television documentary series outlining the history of Western art, architecture and philosophy since the Dark Ages. The series was produced by the BBC and aired in 1969 on BBC2. Both the television material and an accompanying book were written by art historian Kenneth Clark (1903–1983), who also presented the series. The series is considered to be a landmark in British Television's broadcasting of the visual arts."
Wikipedia (TV Series)
W - Kenneth Clark
amazon: Civilisation: The Complete Series (1969)
amazon: Civilisation: A Personal View
YouTube: 1 - Civilisation: The Skin of Our Teeth

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

"First Mary Wells, then Oma Page. Kim Weston followed, and later Diana Ross, but it was Tammi Terrell who is remembered as Marvin Gaye's ultimate singing partner. Author David Ritz says, 'The fourth of Marvin's five musical marriages was the most intense--intensely melodic, spectacularly successful, devastatingly tragic.' The duo could summon the spirits of friendship, warmth, passion, church, romance, and fire; their songs embody some of the beautiful sentiments ever sent out into the world. Kim Weston exited the company in early '67, leaving Marvin in search of a duet partner. This time the label teamed him with vivacious Philly native Terrell. From the outset, it was a match made in heaven."
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell: Perfect Together
W - Tammi Terrell
YouTube: Ain't no Mountain High Enough, Your Precious Love, If I Could Build My Whole World Around You

Daniel Pitin

"My most recent work has been focused on an investigation into the past. I try to dig up lost experiences (or at least those whose significance has been lost to me) that I have, for whatever reason, buried deep down in my subconscious. Something comes over me, an unexplainable impulse that can only be given shape through painting. In painting, I attempt to expose the real significance of some forgotten experience that has been buried under the dense layers of the preceding years."
hunt kastner
Daniel Pitin
artnews

Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis

Wikipedia - "Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis ... is a 1927 German film directed by Walter Ruttmann, co-written by Carl Mayer and Karl Freund. The film is an example of the city symphony film genre. A musical score for an orchestra to accompany the silent film was written by Edmund Meisel. As a 'city symphony' film, it portrays the life of a city, mainly through visual impressions in a semi-documentary style, without the narrative content of more mainstream films, though the sequencing of events can imply a kind of loose theme or impression of the city's daily life."
Wikipedia
Berlin: Temporal Topographies
amazon
MUBI
YouTube: Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Silent film of Berlin shot)

Rubén Blades

Wikipedia - "Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna (... born July 16, 1948) is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres. As songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of Central American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova as well as experimental tempos and political inspired Nuyorican salsa to his music, creating thinking persons' (salsa) dance music."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Rubén Blades
YouTube: Juan Pachanga, Y Puedo Vivir Del Amor, Maestra Vida, Pedro Navaja, Maria Lionza, Desaparecidos, Como un huracán, Amor y control, Virgilio Marti Todos Vuelven (practice) 1, Todos Vuelven (on roof) 2

Neil Young, the Donkey and Digital Music: The Full Dive Into Media Interview (Video)

"Neil Young has a long and storied career, but he didn’t want to talk about it when he came onstage at D: Dive Into Media last week. Instead, the musician was pushing his vision of the future: One where lots of people listen to really good-sounding music. To be clear: Young isn’t complaining about today’s songs. He’s complaining about the way those songs are recorded and distributed. There’s a colorful donkey input-output metaphor here, which Young uses to make his point. And he also has a plan to fix the problem."
All Things D (Video)
All Things D: Neil Young and the Sound of Music

The Observation Deck

"John Berendt - "Naomi Epel presents a fascinating compendium of the devices that professional writers have concocted over the years in order to trick themselves into writing better -- or writing at all. The Observation Deck is highly entertaining to read, and at the same time it is the most innovative, practical guide to writing I've ever seen.'"
The Observation Deck
amazon

Ron Kuivila

Wikipedia - "Ron Kuivila (born December 19, 1955) is an American sound artist from Boston, MA. He is primarily known for his sound installations, which often utilize computers."
Wikipedia
V2_: Ron Kuivila
Foundation for Contemporary Arts
Continuo: Ron Kuivila – Fidelity
MASS MoCA: Ron Kuivila: Visitations
YouTube: The Weather, at Six

The Hidden Card

"After turning up Venus and the Moon, I found another little known Open Space item. Janet Thormann's The Tarot Suite was printed in 1964 by White Rabbit and included as a supplement to Open Space 5. I am so happy to get a copy that I will show you my hand. Above is the complete Tarot Suite."
MimeoMimeo

“Orpheus and Eurydice” - Pina Bausch

"The German choreographer Pina Bausch is celebrated (and occasionally denounced) for her epic tragicomic productions, in which her performers speak as much as they dance, offering vignettes of human life and behavior that are absurd, uncomfortable and moving amid strange and powerful stage landscapes. But in Ms. Bausch’s 1975 'Orpheus and Eurydice,' a rarely seen early piece currently being performed by the Paris Opera Ballet, she has created an exquisite work of pure dance that possesses as much theatrical power as any of her better-known later works, perhaps more."
NYT: Two Immortal Lovers Have a Rematch in Paris
Pina Bausch's Orpheus Charms the Underworld of the Paris Opera Ballet
BelAir media: Interview (Video)
YouTube: Overture to Orpheus & Eurydice (composer Christoph Willibald Gluck), Orpheus and Eurydice - Pina Bausch 2:02:52

2008 May: Pina Bausch
2009 June: Pina Bausch, 1940-2009

The Young Insurgent's Commonplace-Book: Adrienne Rich's "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law"

"I wish I could remember when I first read 'Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law.' It could have been in 1963, when the eponymous book appeared, but if it had, it would have been a revelation (which I did not have for some years) that other women poets were grappling with the issues I was at twenty, that there might be dialogue and exchange, if not in conversations and letters, in the way a poem in a book calls another poet back to notebook and pen. Like Rich herself at twenty, my literary dialogues on and off the page were largely with men: on one hand, Auden, Lowell, Berryman, on the other, the acolytes of the 'San Francisco Renaissance' talking of and reading the work of Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan to their East Coast juniors."
Poets.org
Snapshots Of A Daughter-In-Law - Adrienne Rich
amazon: Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law; Poems, 1954-1962
The Young Insurgent's Commonplace Book by Marilyn Hacker

2007 December: Adrienne Rich

The Carter Family

Wikipedia - "The Carter Family was a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. Their music had a profound impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop and rock musicians as well as on the U.S. folk revival of the 1960s. They were the first vocal group to become country music stars. Their recordings of such songs as 'Wabash Cannonball', 'Can the Circle Be Unbroken', 'Wildwood Flower' and 'Keep On the Sunny Side' made them country standards."
Wikipedia
The Carter Family
amazon: The Carter Family: 1927-1934
amazon: The Carter Family - Will the Circle Be Unbroken (2005)
YouTube - The Carter Family
YouTube: Wildwood Flower, Keep On The Sunny Side, Waitin' on the Far Side Banks of Jordan, Diamonds In The Rough, Sad and Lonesome Day, No Depression In Heaven - 1936 Radio Transcription, Gospel Ship, Bury me under the Weeping Willow Tree

Ad Reinhardt

Wikipedia - "Adolph Frederick Reinhardt ("Ad" Reinhardt) (December 24, 1913 – August 30, 1967) was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. ... Most famous for his 'black' or 'ultimate' paintings, he claimed to be painting the 'last paintings' that anyone can paint. He believed in a philosophy of art he called Art-as-Art and used his writing and satirical cartoons to advocate for abstract art and against what he described as 'the disreputable practices of artists-as-artists'."
Wikipedia
MoMA
Ad Reinhardt papers, 1927-1968
ARTFORUM: Opining Lines
YouTube: AB EX NY: Ad Reinhardt, AB EX NY: The Painting Techniques of Ad Reinhardt: Abstract Painting

The Heart Of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Every Made

"In The Heart of Rock & Soul, veteran rock critic Dave Marsh offers a polemical guide to the 1,001 greatest rock and soul singles ever made, encompassing rock, metal, R&B, disco, folk, funk, punk, reggae, rap, soul, country, and any other music that has made a difference over the past fifty years. The illuminating essays—complete with music history, social commentary, and personal appraisals—double as a mini-history of popular music. Here you will find singles by artists as wide-ranging as Aretha Franklin, George Jones, Roy Orbison, the Sex Pistols, Madonna, Run-D.M.C., and Van Halen. Featuring a new preface that covers the hits—and misses—of the '90s, The Heart of Rock & Soul remains as provocative, passionate, and timeless as the music it praises."
amazon
The Dave Marsh Lists
Listology

Henry Cow - Live in Vevey, Switzerland 1976

"1. Vevey Improv. 2. March. 3. Erk Gah."
YouTube: Henry Cow - Live in Vevey, Switzerland 1976

2010 September: Henry Cow Concerts 1976

Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Wikipedia - "The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) was a collective of performing musicians created by classically trained British guitarist, composer and arranger Simon Jeffes. Jeffes and cellist co-founder Helen Liebmann were core members throughout its life and a number of other musicians joined as the band grew and developed, many of whom appear on the PCO's six studio albums."
Wikipedia
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
amazon
YouTube: Perpetuum Mobile, Telephone and Rubber Band, Prelude and Yodel, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter, Air A Danser, Pythagoras's Trousers

The Mill and the Cross - Lech Majewski

Wikipedia - "The Mill and the Cross is a 2011 drama film directed by Lech Majewski and starring Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling and Michael York. It is inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting The Way to Calvary, and based on Michael Francis Gibson's book The Mill and the Cross. The film was a Polish-Swedish co-production."
Wikipedia
The Mill and the Cross
NYT: The Mill and the Cross (2011)
Roger Ebert
W - Pieter Bruegel the Elder
YouTube: The Mill & The Cross | trailer SUNDANCE 2011

2011 March: "The Harvesters", Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Words without Borders

Jérôme Ruillier, Detail from "Les Mohameds"
"Words without Borders translates, publishes, and promotes the finest contemporary international literature. Our publications and programs open doors for readers of English around the world to the multiplicity of viewpoints, richness of experience, and literary perspective on world events offered by writers in other languages."
Words without Borders
Words without Borders: Afghanistan Issue (Video)

Tacita Dean

Wikipedia - "... Tacita Dean is best known for her work in 16mm film, although she utilises a variety of media including drawing, photography and sound. Her films often employ long takes and steady camera angles to create a contemplative atmosphere. Her anamorphic films are shot by cinematographers John Adderley and Jamie Cairney. Her sound recordist is Steve Felton."
Wikipedia
Frith Street Gallery
BOMB 95/Spring 2006
Exhibition in focus: The Unilever Series, Tacita Dean at Tate Modern (YouTube)
Tacita Dean's Film is the reel deal - video
YouTube: Tate Modern: Tacita Dean Film, Tacita Dean. El garabato del fraile, Tacita Dean Film at the Tate Modern 2011 negative cutting

Charles Bradley: Soul of America

"This is the OFFICIAL TRAILER for the documentary feature Charles Bradley: Soul of America, which will have its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in March 2012. Charles Bradley: Soul of America captures the incredible late in life rise of 62 year old aspiring soul singer Charles Bradley, whose unprecedented debut album rocketed him from a hard life in the projects to Rolling Stone magazine's top 50 albums of 2011."
YouTube

2011 October: Charles Bradley

Patti Smith featured in the Janet Hamill Archive

"The Janet Hamill Archive offers a rare glimpse into the life and work of Patti Smith as seen through the letters, manuscripts, photographs and documents collected by Janet Hamill during her and Patti's 40-year-long friendship."
Granary Books

James Welling

"James Welling was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1951. He grew up in nearby Simsbury where, in 1963, he began to study art with Julie Post. In 1965 he took drawing classes at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and began to work independently in watercolor. Welling was deeply influenced by the work of Charles Burchfield, Edward Hopper and most importantly by Andrew Wyeth."
James Welling
artnet
artforum
YouTube: New Pictures 3: James Welling

Typewriter

Wikipedia - "A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the sorts used in movable type letterpress printing. From their invention in 1868 through much of the 20th century, typewriters were indispensable tools for recording the written word."
Wikipedia

Marble Sculpture from 350 B.C. to last week

"Sperone Westwater presents an exhibition of white marble sculptures dating from 350 B.C. to the present day. This survey includes Greek and Roman antiquities, Neoclassical sculptures, and works by modern and contemporary European and American artists. Marble is one of the oldest and most fundamental materials of sculpture with wide-ranging use in the fine arts, decorative arts, and architecture."
artdaily
YouTube: Marble sculpture from 350 b.c. to last week at Sperone Westwater