Ritchie Valens

Wikipedia - "Ritchie Valens (born Richard Steven Valenzuela; May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959) was a Mexican-American singer, songwriter and guitarist. A rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, Valens' recording career lasted only eight months. During this time, however, he scored several hits, most notably 'La Bamba', which was originally a Mexican folk song that Valens transformed with a rock rhythm and beat that became a hit in 1958, making Valens a pioneer of the Spanish-speaking rock and roll movement."
Wikipedia
Ritchie Valens
YouTube: La Bamba, Come on Let's go, Donna, Cry Cry Cry

The Cartoon Crier

"The word 'comic' has always been a bit of a misnomer and The Cartoon Crier hopes to set the record straight. Sorrow and woe is the focus of this free 36-page newspaper tabloid that highlights the work of The National Cartoonists Society members and of The Center for Cartoon Studies’ community."
The Cartoon Crier: Read It and Weep
The Cartoon Crier (Issue 1)

Pedrito Martinez Group

"The Pedrito Martinez Group has its roots planted firmly in the Afro-Cuban Rumba tradition and in the bata rhythms and vocal chants of the music of Yoruba and Santeria. Ben Ratliff summed it up aptly for the New York Times (June 15, 2010) calling it, 'complex, blenderized Africa-to-the-New-World funk.' With its formation in the current lineup in 2008, the group has developed into an extraordinarily tight and creative unit."
Pedrito Martinez Group
YouTube: La Luna, Live at Guantanamera in New York City, Que Palo, Foundation, Richmond Folk Festival 2011

George Bellows

Dempsey and Firpo
Wikipedia - "George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 - January 8, 1925) was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, 'the most acclaimed American artist of his generation'."
Wikipedia
Google
National Gallery: An American Experiment, George Bellows and The Ashcan Painters
NGA

100 Notes – 100 Thoughts

"As a prelude to the 2012 exhibition, dOCUMENTA (13) and Hatje Cantz are publishing a series of notebooks, 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts, that is comprised of facsimiles of existing notebooks, commissioned essays, collaborations, and conversations. A note is a trace, a word, a drawing that all of a sudden becomes part of thinking, and is transformed into an idea."
dOCUMENTA (13)
Documenta 13: 100 Notes, 100 Thoughts
Leftloft

CDM & The Verge on Disquiet.com Projects

"The Disquiet-commissioned projects Junto, LX(RMX), and Instagr/am/bient got some great attention this past weekend when both createdigitalmusic.com and theverge.com covered them."
disquiet (Video)
Music Making, Shared: Communal Ambient Tracks Explore Instagram Photos, Lisbon, and More - CDM’s Peter Kirn (Video)
Ambient Music Community Finds Inspiration in Instagram and Ice Cubes by Jeff Blagdon (Video)

Van Gogh Up Close

"Vincent van Gogh was an artist of exceptional intensity, not only in his use of color and exuberant application of paint, but also in his personal life. Drawn powerfully to nature, his works--particularly those created in the years just before he took his own life--engage the viewer with the strength of his emotions. This exhibition focuses on these tumultuous years, a period of feverish artistic experimentation that began when van Gogh left Antwerp for Paris in 1886 and continued until his death in Auvers in 1890."
Philadelphia Museum of Art
NYT: In the Eye of His Storms (Multimedia)
amazon
YouTube: Introducing Van Gogh: Up Close - the National Gallery of Canada's 2012
YouTube: Power Of Art - Van Gogh part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

Sonic Arts Union

Wikipedia - "The Sonic Arts Union was a collective of experimental musicians that was active between 1966 and 1976. The founding members of the group were Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Alvin Lucier and Gordon Mumma, all of whom had worked together in the instrumental performances of the ONCE festivals. They initially toured under the name Sonic Arts Group, until, at Ashley's suggestion, the name was changed to Sonic Arts Union."
Wikipedia
UbuWeb: THE SONIC ARTS UNION. LP, Electric Sound, Mainstream, LP, 1971 (Video)
Sonic Arts Union Retrospection
Sonic Arts Union Retrospective Takes a Look Back at Electronic Music
YouTube: Re-interpretation of Alvin Lucier, Robert Ashley "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon" 1972, David Behrman - On the Other Ocean (excerpt), Gordon Mumma - 1978 Santa Cruz Saw Festival

2008 March: Robert Ashley
2011 November: Perfect Lives - Robert Ashley
2009 February: David Behrman
2010 October: Roulette TV: David Behrman
2009 March: Alvin Lucier

Classic Country Cuties

Patsy Cline
"A lovely look back. Here are the honeys: Anita Carter, Goldie Hill, Jean Shepard, Maxine Brown, June Carter, Mimi Roman, Lorrie Collins, LaDell Sisters, Brenda Lee, Wanda Jackson, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline."
YouTube

Wrapit-tapeit-walkit-placeit

Kindskopf (Head of a Child), State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
"There’s only one thing I love more than art installations. And that’s watching an art installation come together. This past year, I had the pleasure to work on a number of complex art installations and learned so much about the works, their structure, the artists’ thinking. Every art lover should have this opportunity."
wrapit-tapeit-walkit-placeit

Lewis Baltz

Wikipedia - "Lewis Baltz (born September 12, 1945 in Newport Beach, California) is a visual artist and well known photographer who became an important figure in the New Topographic movement of the late 1970s. ... He is now living in Paris and Venice. His work is focused on searching for beauty in desolation and destruction. Baltz images describe the architecture of the human landscape, offices, factories, and parking lots. His pictures are the reflection of control, power, and influenced by and over human beings."
Wikipedia
George Eastman House
NGA: Prototypes/Ronde de Nuit
artnet
vimeo: CONTACTS Vol.2 Lewis Baltz (Video)

Gregorian chant

Wikipedia - "Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services. It is named after Pope Gregory I, Bishop of Rome from 590 to 604, who is traditionally credited for having ordered the simplification and cataloging of music assigned to specific celebrations in the church calendar, although it is known now that he could not have done it as a system for notating music had not been established at the time. The resulting body of music is the first to be notated in a system ancestral to modern musical notation."
Wikipedia
Chant Links
Gregorian Chant
YouTube: Deum verum, Canto Gregoriano, Chant of the Early Christians

The Naked City - Jules Dassin

Wikipedia - "The Naked City is a 1948 black-and-white film noir directed by Jules Dassin. Based on a story by Malvin Wald, the film depicts the police investigation that follows the murder of a young model. A veteran cop is placed in charge of the case and he sets about, with the help of other beat cops and detectives, to find the girl's killer. The movie, shot partially in documentary style, was filmed on location on the streets of New York City and features landmarks such as the Williamsburg Bridge, the Whitehall Building, and an apartment building on West 83rd Street in Manhattan as the scene of the murder."
Wikipedia
Noir of the Week
Classic Noir
Criterion
YouTube: The Naked City (1948), Williamsburg Bridge 1948 from The Naked City

Le Morte d'Arthur

King Arthur lay dying at Avalon. (Painting by Edward Burne Jones)
Wikipedia - "Le Morte d'Arthur (originally spelled Le Morte Darthur, Middle French for 'the death of Arthur') is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. ... First published in 1485 by William Caxton, Le Morte d'Arthur is perhaps the best-known work of English-language Arthurian literature today. Many modern Arthurian writers have used Malory as their principal source, including T. H. White for his popular The Once and Future King and Tennyson for The Idylls of the King."
Wikipedia
W - The Once and Future King, T. H. White

Cai Guo-Qiang: Sky Ladder

"The launch of Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang's first West Coast exhibition went off with a bang Saturday night as 40,000 rockets exploded in the sky above the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. In this video uploaded by Sarah St. Clair Renard, a gathered crowd counts down to the rocket launch and then cheers at the massive display of smoke and fire."
Huffington Post (Video)
designboom
Arrested Motion

2008 March: Cai Guo-Qiang
2009 October: Cai Guo-Qiang - An Introduction
2012 March: Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe

#4 Gregg Kowalsky – Battery Townsley (Senufo Editions, 2011)

"For years I have been following the work of Gregg Kowalsky, first under his moniker Osso Bucco and later with his normal name. His break through must have been his first album on Kranky “Though the Cardinal Window” in 2006, after which a stream of releases on Root Strata, Kranky and other labels got released. In the beginning Kowalsky was mainly active with laptop-based music (as far as I know the source of the sound) but after his first one on Kranky he switched to manipulated tape sounds. Which is since end 2006 he has been exploring."
Collecting Records (Video)
SoundCloud: gregg kowalsky - battery townsley (Video)
Gregg Kowalsky (Video)
senufo edition (Video)
YouTube: The Sound of Battery Townsley

Stiff Little Fingers - "Alternative Ulster"

"Jake Burns formed Stiff Little Fingers In 1977 after seeing the Clash play in his hometown Belfast. (The band’s name was taken from a 1977 Vibrators lyric 'If it wasn’t for your stiff little fingers nobody would know you were dead'…) Gordon Ogilvie, a local journalist, caught their live show and was impressed. He encouraged them to write their own songs about what they knew best--life in Belfast."
SLF
YouTube: Alternative Ulster, Suspect Device, Belfast 1980 -1, 2, 3. Tin soldiers.

2009 February: Stiff Little Fingers

Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu

"This site is devoted to Marcel Proust's novel À la recherche du temps perdu- known in English as In Search of Lost Time and Remembrance of Things Past—for an audience of general readers. While my interest in Proust is broad these pages focus on the novel rather than on biography. I believe a genuine homage to Proust, to paraphrase Alain de Botton, means looking at our world through his eyes, rather than looking at his world through ours."
Temps perdu
"The Threat to Proust" by Roger Shattuck
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust - Translated from the French by C. K. Scott Moncrieff
amazon: In Search of Lost Time: Proust 6-pack (Proust Complete)
Lydia Davis's version of Swann's Way

2008 June: Marcel Proust
2011 October: How Proust Can Change Your Life

Big Bill Broonzy

Wikipedia - "Big Bill Broonzy (June 26, 1903 – August 15, 1958) was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences. In the 1950s a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the emerging American folk music revival and an international star."
Wikipedia
Big Bill Broonzy
npr - Big Bill Broonzy: History's Musical Chameleon (Video)
YouTube: Hey Hey, 1957: 3 Songs, Just A Dream, Roll Dem Bones, Key to the Highway, Baby Please Don't Go, I Can't Be Satisfied, Good Liquor Gonna Carry Me Down, You Drink Too Much, Sun Gonna Shine In My Back Door Someday

Renzo Piano’s Addition to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston

"Isabella Stewart Gardner was one of the great patrons of the arts in the early 20th century and counted the artists James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent and the writer Henry James among her friends. Because she disliked the dark, cold, institutional spaces typical of the American museums of her day (the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, for example — a short walk from the Gardner), she designed her home/museum to look like a 15th-century Venetian-style palazzo with three stories of galleries around a central courtyard filled with flowers."
Left Bank Art Blog
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston
Wikipedia
REDUR: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (Video)
YouTube: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Webisode (3)

Levon Helm (May 26, 1940 – April 19, 2012)

"Mark Lavon 'Levon' Helm (May 26, 1940 – April 19, 2012) was an American rock multi-instrumentalist and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band. Helm was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice, and creative drumming style highlighted on many of the Band's recordings, such as 'The Weight', 'Up on Cripple Creek', 'Ophelia' and 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down'."
Wikipedia
Levon Helm
YouTube: The Hawks - Farther Up The Road (1961), Up on Cripple Creek, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, A Fool in Love, Promised Land, Mystery Train, When I paint my masterpiece, Atlantic City, Only Halfway Home, Poor Old Dirt Farmer, Anna Lee - Levon Helm 2011 Ramble at the Ryman

Jack Kirby’s Collages in Context

Hannah Hock, Raoul Hausmann, Dada
"Jack Kirby had choices to make, especially considering he could do it all: writing, penciling, inking, coloring. Along the way he found it prudent to concentrate on what he could do best: dream big and render those flights of fancy in graphite. Why then would he choose to break his stride and search through various magazines in search of the right image, rubber cement in hand?"
Jack Kirby’s Collages in Context
Wikipedia

1980 - A Pina Bausch

"Here is another excerpt from the superb work entitled '1980-A PIECE BY PINA BAUSCH' which was filmed at The Sadlers Wells Theatre in London." Montreal, Place des Arts, 1985
YouTube 1980 - A Pina Bausch (another excerpt), 1980
Guardian: Dancing in the dark
NYT: Premiere Of '1980, A Pina Bausch'
YouTube: Wim Wenders on Pina Bausch

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

Ahh...The Name Is Bootsy, Baby!

Wikipedia - "Ahh...The Name Is Bootsy, Baby! is a funk album by Bootsy's Rubber Band, released on January 14, 1977. It reached number one on Billboard magazine's Top R&B/Soul albums chart, the first P-Funk release to achieve this goal. The album was produced by George Clinton and William 'Bootsy' Collins and arranged by Bootsy and Casper (names William Collins uses to refer to his various roles)."
Wikipedia
amazon
YouTube: Ah The name is Bootsy baby/Disco to go, Rubber Duckie & Psychoticbumpschool, I'd Rather Be With You, The Pinocchio Theory

John Cage Unbound: A Living Archive

"Welcome to a living archive featuring narrated performance videos professional musicians, students, and performers from all walks of life. Watch, listen to, and compare artistic interpretations. Get an up-close look at rare John Cage manuscripts housed at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Most important, submit your own video: how do you bring Cage's music to life?"
John Cage Unbound: A Living Archive (Video)
WNYC: A John Cage Web Reliquary
John Cage Online
UbuWeb: "Writing Through Finnegans Wake" (1977) and "Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegans Wake" (1977)

PBS American Roots - Episode 1: Chapter 1: Fisk Jubilee Singers

"When First Unto This Country traces the emergence of roots music in America from its European and African origins through its maturation into American musical genres such as spirituals, blues, country and gospel. For the first time, American 'folk' music is defined as scholars and music industry entrepreneurs travel throughout the nation to record authentic cultural expression through field recordings, photographs, early newsreels, and ethnographic footage. "Hillbilly" and "race" records become profitable recording industry genres that popularize regional music. The emergence of radio broadens audiences and helps the crossfertilization of various musical forms."
YouTube: Episode 1: Chapter 1: Fisk Jubilee Singers

Roberto Musci

Wikipedia - "Roberto Musci (b. March 27, 1956 in Milan, Italy) is a music composer, performer, saxophonist and guitar player. Musci studied saxophone and guitar. From 1974 to 1985 he travelled around the world to study African, Indian, and Near & Far Eastern music, to make field recordings and collect musical instruments. He recorded LPs and CDs for different European labels (including Raw Materials, Recommended Records, Victò, Lowlands, and Island Records)."
Wikipedia
Roberto Musci
YouTube: Water Messages, Dialogue Between A Dreamer And Others, Urban & tribal, Broken Oxygen, Keep tree funeral march, Alchemy

Stamen's watercolour maps are things of great beauty - now there's a print version

"My favourite thing about the internet is how it facilitates communities coming together around any number of specialist and obscure interests, so that whatever floats your boat you can easily find and connect with like-minded obsessives. The mapping community (my new favourite community) was a flutter with excitement a couple of weeks back when superb San Francisco studio Stamen released the second part of their city tracking project, particularly with regards to the eye-meltingly gorgeous watercolour style."
It's Nice That
stamen

Floating Bear

"After my deal to obtain Floating Bear #24 fell through a month or so ago, Floating Bears have been much on my mind. I broke down and bought a run of 31 of these fragile mimeos from William Reese Company. This bookstore is proof positive of the value and importance of the true bookman. I received three catalogs along with my purchase including a two volume catalog of 20th Century periodicals."
Reality Studio
Reality Studio Archive
Reality Studio, Floating Bear 24
Jacket2: Bibliographic Bunker
ZineWiki: The Floating Bear

Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Wikipedia - "Kate and Anna McGarrigle is the self-titled 1975 debut album by Kate and Anna McGarrigle. The album includes 'Heart Like a Wheel,' the McGarrigles' most famous song, which was first released by Linda Ronstadt in 1974."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Talk To Me Of Mendocino, Foolish You, Go Leave, Heart Like a Wheel (Caffe Lena, 1990), Kate & Anna McGarrigle and Linda Ronstadt : Heart Like A Wheel, Complainte pour Ste Catherine, Be My Baby, My Town

2008 July: Kate and Anna McGarrigle
2010 January: Kate McGarrigle 1946 – 2010
2012 January: Entre Lajeunesse et la sagesse

Clouds 365 Project

"Kelly DeLay: This is Year Three of the Clouds 365 Project. I started the Clouds 365 Project on July 1, 2009, as a commitment to do something creative every day. My goal was, and still is, to shoot an image or video of clouds every day for 365 days. On days that are cloudless or rainy, I have to stretch creatively to illustrate the day. There are no rules; I just want to react and see where this project takes me."
Clouds 365 Project
Clouds 365 Project - Year 3(Video)
Clouds 365 Project - Blog

Dub Syndicate

Wikipedia - "Dub Syndicate is a dub band, formed by Adrian Sherwood, and it became a showcase for Adrian Sherwood's collaboration with Style Scott, former ace drummer with the Roots Radics and Creation Rebel. Dub Syndicate initially evolved out of Creation Rebel and had a classic dub sound until the third album, Tunes From The Missing Channel (1985), where Dub Syndicate gave birth to a highly experimental more technological dub sound. Dub Syndicate's new sound centered around the interaction of Scott, Sherwood, and members of Tackhead, Skip McDonald, Keith LeBlanc, and Doug Wimbish."
Wikipedia
Dub Syndicate biography
YouTube: Brighton's Stanmer Park, 30th May 1994, Lee Scratch Perry & Dub Syndicate - Jungle, Brancaleone 10 Nov 2011, Ravi Shankar Rootsman (Rare Version), Forward Not Back, Bim Sherman & Dub Syndicate, Let the Spirit Rise

2011 September: Adrian Sherwood

Skipping rope

Kids playing jump-rope on the sidewalk in NYC, 1946
Wikipedia - "Jump rope (American English) or skipping rope (British English) is the primary tool used in the game of skipping played by children and many young adults, where one or more participants jump over a rope swung so that it passes under their feet and over their heads. This may consist of one participant turning and jumping the rope, or a minimum of three participants taking turns, two of whom turn the rope while one or more jumps. This is called long rope. Sometimes the latter is played with two turning ropes; this form of the activity is called Double Dutch and is significantly more difficult. Jump-rope rhymes are often chanted beginning when the skipper jumps in and ending when the skipper is tripped up."
W - Skipping rope
W - Skipping-rope rhyme
W - Double Dutch (jump rope)
W - Clapping game
YouTube: Jump Rope Cinderella, Jump rope tricks, Hand Clapping Game "Sevens"

Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy - Robert Farris Thompson

"Introduction: The Rise of the Black Atlantic Visual Tradition. Listening to rock, jazz, blues, reggae, salsa, samba, bossa nova, juju, highlife, and mambo, one might conclude that much of the popular music of the world is informed by the flash of the spirit of a certain people specially armed with improvisatory drive and brilliance. Since the Atlantic slave trade, ancient African organizing principles of song and dance have crossed the seas from the Old World to the New. There they took on new momentum, intermingling with each other and with New World or European styles of singing and dance."
Web Archaeolgy
amazon: Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy
Flash of the Spirit: Big Freedia’s Sissy Bounce & Sierra Leone Tribal (YouTube)
Mashpedia: Kongo people (Video), Haitian Vodou, Oshun

Rosanne Cash - "I Was Watching You"

"Rosanne Cash casts an eye on life, love and loss on The Tonight Show in Feb.2006."
YouTube

2010 March: Rosanne Cash
2012 January: Black Cadillac