William Burroughs - Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted

"Laurie Anderson profiles one of the most extraordinary writers and thinkers of the 20th century. William Burroughs was a leading figure of the Beat generation, hugely influential among musicians and artists from the 1970s to the present day and responsible for the dark side of American culture entering mainstream consciousness. The programme features recordings of Burroughs's spoken word performances over a soundscape of noise and music from artists whom he inspired."
soundcloud (Video)
amazon: Nothing Is True - Everything Is Permitted: The Life of Brion Gysin

The Tyranny of the Alphabet Book

"A is for A show I just Assembled About Artists’ Alphabet books. Each letter of the Alphabet is represented by A book. You’ll be Amazed how many different ways that Artists interpret the ABCs. B is for the Books, of course. They were fun to Bring together. ..."
MoMA
MoMA: Artists’ Alphabets

Where Is Cuba Going?

An urban garden, Matanzas, 2012
"On the plane, something odd but also vaguely magical-seeming happened: namely, nobody knew what time it was. Right before we landed, the flight attendant made an announcement, in English and Spanish, that although daylight saving time recently went into effect in the States, the island didn’t observe that custom. As a result, we had caught up — our time had passed into sync with Cuban time."
NYT: Where Is Cuba Going?
NYT: Reinventing Cuba (Slide Show)

Jeff Greinke - Cities in Fog

"Jeff Greinke is a musician, composer, performer, sound sculptor and visual artist known worldwide for his unique sound. Through a highly developed process of layering, Jeff composes and performs music rich in texture, depth, mood and subtle detail. Using various acoustic and electronic instruments, found sounds and extended studio techniques, Jeff sculpts sound worlds that conjure a strong sense of location, hovering somewhere between the familiar and the exotic. Key elements include mood, texture, space, motion and a perception of place, with no one element being primary."
Mutant Sounds
amazon: Cities in Fog
Review Revue: Jeff Greinke – Cities in Fog
YouTube: Moving Through Fog, Low Ceiling, Among Icebergs

2009 December: Jeff Greinke

Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings : By The Mark (2004)

"This song is one of the earliest performances by Gillian and David in the online archive. This performance was recorded in 1999. 'By the Mark' is the first gospel song that Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings have written. Garrison stated he remembered 'thinking that it sounded like something people had passed on for generations. It sounded like something that had come down through the churches.'"
A Prairie Home Companion
YouTube

2009 February: Gillian Welch
2011 March: Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings NPRP
2012 July: Harrow Harvest

Conrad Schnitzler (1937–2011)

"In the early 1960s, Conrad Schnitzler met Joseph Beuys in a bar in Düsseldorf. Beuys was at the start of his legendary run as a professor of ‘monumental sculpture’ at Düsseldorf’s Kunstakademie. Schnitzler was a sailor, who specialized in fixing the engines of merchant ships in nearby ports. Beuys took a liking to Schnitzler, inviting him to be one of his students. Schnitzler enrolled at the Kunstakademie, but dropped out a year or two later, much to Beuys’ dismay."
frieze: Conrad Schnitzler (1937–2011)
Wikipedia
WFMU: Remembering Conrad Schnitzler (Video)
Conrad Schnitzler, Interview by Carlos M. Pozo
Conrad Schnitzler  
YouTube: Live 1977 (better image & sound), Big in Japan: Live in Tokyo 2010, Rheingold. Alberich, Live at Loreley 2008, Schatten - Stuhl, KratzRhythmic, Cluster '71, Cluster & Eno 1977, Cluster - "21.14" ('71), Mut, Zug Berlin - Köln 1978, Krautrock, Electric Garden

The Lathe of Brooklyn

 "The great Touch Radio podcast has uploaded audio from just a few days ago. The concert in question was a show at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Brooklyn Heights, New York. Eleh was the headliner, and the opener was Lary 7 (pictured above in a photo of the event from Touch). Charactertistic for the Touch Radio series, there’s close to no information about the event provided. What there is is half an hour of increasingly violent chafing, noises of mechanisms in action, echoed in a reverberant space."
disquiet
NYT: In a Dark Church, Nuances of Sound Turn Symphonic Eleh (US Debut) + Lary 7

Forbidden Words: Selected Poetry of Eugenio de Andrade

"Eugénio de Andrade’s poetry has always exhibited a carefully evoked simplicity. Through naked word and image, he strives to convey what he calls 'the rough or sweet skin of things.' Distrustful of abstractions, he focuses on the world of matter, proclaiming a love for 'words smooth as pebbles, rough as rye bread. Words that smell of clover and dust, loam and lemon, resin and sun.'"
Poetry International Rotterdam
amazon: Forbidden Words: Selected Poetry of Eugenio de Andrade

Ghost Signs

"A ghost sign is an old hand-painted advertising signage that has been preserved on a building for an extended period of time. The signage may be kept for its nostalgic appeal, or simply indifference by the owner. Ghost signs are found across the world with the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada having many surviving examples. Ghost signs are also called fading ads and brickads. In many cases these are advertisements painted on brick that remained over time. Old painted advertisements are occasionally discovered upon demolition of later-built adjoining structures. Throughout rural areas, old barn advertisements continue to promote defunct brands and quaint roadside attractions."
Wikipedia
The Basement Geographer
Ghost Sign Project (Video)
Ghost signs: Jersey's commercial history is written large in faded paint on city buildings
Ghost Signs Part 1, Part 2
Portland's ghost signs
Ghost Signs
American Ghosts : About Ghost Signs
Ghostsigns
San Francisco Ghost Signs: A Tour of SF's Historical Advertisements
NYT: The Handwriting on the Wall Says, ‘GiGi Young Originals’

Trampin' - Patti Smith

"Patti Smith kicks off her ninth album, Trampin', with what sounds like a call to arms: 'Come on, girl/ Come on, boy/ Be a jubilee.' That word, 'jubilee,' hangs heavy with meaning. Commonly connoting a commemorative celebration, this Biblical term also refers to a period of emancipation for Hebrew slaves. It was adopted by the abolition movement in the 1800s and by the civil rights movement a century later."
Pitchfork
W - Trampin'
YouTube: My Blakean Year, Mother rose, Trampin', Peaceable Kingdom, Trespasses, Cash, Cartwheels, Gandhi

Ultimate Dr. Sir Warrior

"Christogonus Ezebuiro Obinna (1947, Imo State, Nigeria – June 2, 1999), the Ultimate Dr. Sir Warrior, was the leader of the Oriental Brothers International Band which ruled the Nigerian highlife music scene for several decades. He modernized highlife music. His style remains an epitome of defined music with meaning, direction, and purpose."
Wikipedia
amazon: Oriental Brothers
YouTube: Uwa atuola m ujo, Nwanyi Di Ya Bu Eze, Onye Tara Nye Ibe Ya, Otu nwa, Onye Oma Mmadu, Nwa da di nma, Chi awu otu

Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years

"For decades, critics have observed that Andy Warhol exerted an enormous impact on contemporary art, but no exhibition has yet explored the full nature or extent of that influence. Through approximately forty-five works by Warhol alongside one hundred works by some sixty other artists, Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years juxtaposes prime examples of Warhol's paintings, sculpture, and films with those by other artists who in key ways reinterpret, respond, or react to his groundbreaking work. What emerges is a fascinating dialogue between works of art and artists across generations."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Images
About the Exhibition
amazon
Reuters: Warhol’s art influence shown at the Met (Video)

"Naima" - John Coltrane

Wikipedia - "'Naima' is a ballad composed by John Coltrane in 1959, and named after his then-wife, Juanita Naima Grubbs. It first appeared on the album Giant Steps, and is notable for its use of a variety of rich chords over a bass pedal. It is mainly made up of a slow, restrained melody, though there is also a brief piano solo. One of Coltrane's most famous compositions, he recorded it numerous times."
Wikipedia
John Coltrane: Naima
YouTube: Naima (Belgium 1965), Naima (alternate take)

Vollmond - Pina Bausch

"It’s been over a week since I saw Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch perform Vollmond (Full Moon) at Brooklyn Academy of Music, yet many of the images from the piece – and the endless downpour of water – still linger in my memory. ... But the twelve dancers were utterly mesmerizing as they frolicked, climbed, kissed, yearned, tumbled, and flung themselves through a nonstop array of dream-like vignettes set against a rainstorm. A large boulder and a dip in the stage to create a flowing river transported the audience to a separate, mystical setting far from earth. At full moon, these fierce spirits let themselves go."
Dancing Perfectly Free
Interview Working with Pina Bausch
Tanztheater Wuppertal
NYT: Swimming Through Bausch’s World
YouTube: Vollmond (Full Moon), Dominique Mercy solo 2007, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch at BAM

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

"Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)" - Pet Shop Boys

Wikipedia - "'Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)' is a 1991 single by UK synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys. The song is a medley of covers of U2's 'Where the Streets Have No Name' and 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You', the 1960s single by Frankie Valli, though in an arrangement informed by the 1981 disco version of the song by Boystown Gang rather than the original."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You) 1991 album, Live - Performance, Live - Mexico City

Christopher Felver

"Even a partial list of photographer/filmmaker Christopher Felver’s subjects reads like a roster of America’s mid-century avant garde. The collection presented here is new work—photographs of structural elements transformed through his critical eye into lyrical mosaics. There is a mysterious nature to these images, and when juxtaposed into a grid system, the division of space and contrasting tonal values result in a new language, functioning almost as an ancient alphabet—agents of a short story."
Natural Curiosities
Christopher Felver
amazon: Christopher Felver
vimeo: Ferlinghetti - Trailer
YouTube: BEAT Book, John Cage - Talks About Cows & One/Seven
musica: Cecil Taylor: All The Notes

Talking Heads: Live at Wembley Arena 1982

"Intro, Life During Wartime, Big Blue Plymouth, Once in a Lifetime, Mind, Big Business, I Zimbra, Slippery People, Psycho Killer, My Big Hands, Swamp, What a Day That Was, Crosseyed and Painless"
YouTube: Talking Heads: Live at Wembley Arena 1982

Ghosts in the Machine

"... The works assembled trace the complex historical passage from the mechanical to the optical to the virtual, looking at the ways in which humans have projected anthropomorphic behaviors onto machines that have become progressively more human. In place of a traditional, chronological approach, 'Ghosts in the Machine' is conceived as an encyclopedic cabinet of wonders: bringing together an array of artworks and non-art objects to create an unsystematic archive of man’s attempt to reconcile the organic and the mechanical."
new museum
new museum: Time Machines (Video)
NYT: Technology Advances, Then Art Inquires
TimeOut: "Ghosts in the Machine"

Gangnam Style

Wikipedia - "'Gangnam Style' is a 2012 Korean pop single by the South Korean rapper PSY. It is widely praised for its humor, catchy rhythm as well as Psy's unusual dance moves. The song was released on July 15, 2012, where it debuted at number one on the Gaon Chart. The music video has been viewed over 180 million times as of September 15, 2012, making it the most watched K-pop video in YouTube history."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Gangnam Style
Wired: William Gibson on Punk Rock, Internet Memes, and ‘Gangnam Style’
The Atlantic: Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea's Music Video Sensation

Biutiful - Alejandro González Iñárritu

Wikipedia - "Biutiful is a drama film directed by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring Javier Bardem. It is González Iñárritu's first feature since Babel and fourth overall, and his first film in his native Spanish language since his debut feature Amores perros. The title Biutiful refers to the phonological spelling in Spanish of the English word beautiful."
Wikipedia
Guardian: Biutiful – review (Video)
NYT: Biutiful (2010)
YouTube: Biutiful, Birds, Arrest

2011 June: Babel

Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice) - John Fahey

Wikipedia - "Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice) (or simply, Fare Forward Voyagers) is an album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1973. It contained three songs, one comprising a complete side of the original LP. ... In reviewing Fare Forward Voyagers for Allmusic, music critic Eugene Chadbourne compared it to Indian ragas, but diverging from ragas in that "\'the compositions are something in the order of unpredictable miniature symphonies, each with different sections, variations, and developments.'"
Wikipedia
amzon
MUTANT SOUNDS
YouTube: Fare Foward Voyagers, When The Fire & The Rose Are One, Thus Khrishna On The Battlefield

2009 March: John Fahey
2011 March: Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You (The Fonotone Years 1958-1965)

Wilbert Harrison

Wikipedia - "Wilbert Harrison (January 5, 1929 – October 26, 1994) was an American rhythm and blues singer, pianist, guitarist and harmonica player. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, Harrison had a Billboard #1 record in 1959 with the song 'Kansas City'. The song was written in 1952 and was one of the first credited collaborations by the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Harrison recorded 'Kansas City' for the Harlem based entrepreneur Bobby Robinson.
Wikipedia
YouTube: Stagger lee, Kansas City, Wilbert Harrison - Let's Work Together, Lets Work Together-Canned Heat, The horse, A Woman In Trouble, 1960

Sugar Minott - No vacancy + dub Version

"Another tough cultural number that was rounded up for Sugar Minott's 1984 self-produced Slice of the Cake. Here the singer is backed by Roots Radics, who lay down a tough rhythm of big, booming beats and phat bass, but brightened by the sublime brass, whose smokey solos and muted blasts of accents are so integral to the Radics' rich sound. Meanwhile, Minott portrays the archetypal Jamaican -- searching for work, applying for jobs that he's never going to get, his shabby clothes and natty hair two more strikes against him. The pickneys are hungry, but all the stores sport signs reading 'No Vacancy.'"
allmusic
YouTube: No vacancy + dub Version

2010 June: Sugar Minott

Riders of the Purple Sage - Zane Grey

Wikipedia - "Riders of the Purple Sage is Zane Grey's best-known novel, originally published in 1912. Most critics agree that it played a significant role in shaping the formula of the popular Western genre. ... One of the main aspects of the west highlighted by Riders of the Purple Sage was the distance between towns and the mostly uncharted areas between them. The west was often characterized by little towns approximately 50 miles apart from each other. In these sections, locations like Deception Pass and Surprise Valley are found often. Several thematic elements play a role in Riders of the Purple Sage including the significance of morality, honor, redemption, isolation and religious confrontation."
W - Riders of the Purple Sage
W - Zane Grey
amazon: Zane Grey
W - Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater

Fulcrum Press - Ed Dorn

Idaho Out (Fulcrum Press, 1965). Cover drawing by Fielding Dawson.
"... Clark never claimed to be the author of the authoritative womb to tomb Dorn biography, and A World of Difference certainly leaves plenty of space for others to step forward with their own research on Dorn while providing a lot of helpful primary information, particularly about Dorn in the 50s. As one reviewer notes in the in Edward Dorn: American Heretic, the book on Gunslinger has yet to be written, and of course, it’s the 70s where I see Dorn’s real innovation and brilliance in full form, where he breaks away from the Black Mountain College years and turns toward, what an art historian might call, the ‘mature work,’ while Dorn in the 80s tells me more about that dark decade than Dorn ‘himself.’ But I’m getting ahead of myself."
MIMEO MIMEO: Fulcrum
MIMEO MIMEO: Fulcrum Press
MIMEO MIMEO: Recollections Of Gran Apacheria
MIMEO MIMEO: Hands Up!
MIMEO MIMEO: Wild Dog
MIMEO MIMEO: Manchester Square
MIMEO MIMEO: Some Late Dorn
MIMEO MIMEO: Dorns Views, Interviews, and Other Prose

2007 December: Edward Dorn, 1929-1999
2011 February: Slinger
2011 April: The North Atlantic Turbine

Walden - Henry David Thoreau

Wikipedia - "Walden (first published as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is an American book written by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self reliance. Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts."
Wikipedia
Walden - an annotated edition by Henry David Thoreau - 1854
Walden Study Text
YouTube: Part 1 - Walden Audiobook by Henry David Thoreau (Ch 01), (Chs 02-04), (Chs 05-08), (Chs 09-11), (Chs 12-15), (Chs 16-18), (Ch 17)

2009 April: Henry David Thoreau

Peekskill Project V: The New Hudson River School

"In the 19th century a group of painters who became known as 'The Hudson River School' shared a strong love for the landscape of this region. For them, as for their patrons, it was a love affair with the marvelous landscape of this young country. The period of the Hudson River School was short lived, spanning some thirty years, with Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Cole and Frederic Church among the most important artists of the 'School.' Several of the artists did not reside in the area, yet continued to be impacted upon and draw artistic inspiration from the beauty of the Hudson River and its surrounds."
Peekskill Project V: The New Hudson River School
Peekskill Project V: Beyond the Museum Walls
Peekskill Project V - Kick Off (Video)

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - A short film

"...Cave’s baritone is rich here, a tone more befitting the smooth, heartbroken tone of the song than the strangle he’d been applying to the rest of the Eternity material. The Bad Seeds show early signs of the tender noise they’d perfect over time, with Blixa Bargeld’s guitar feeding back in a sort-of moan while Mick Harvey snaps out a martial dirge. It’s a moving performance, one completely devoid of irony, and Cave’s first naked moment as a solo artist."
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds :: Firstborn Is Dead
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - A short film (PART 1), (PART 2)

The Turin Horse - Béla Tarr

Wikipedia - "The Turin Horse ... is a 2011 Hungarian drama film directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, starring János Derzsi, Erika Bók and Mihály Kormos. It was co-written by Tarr and his frequent collaborator László Krasznahorkai. It recalls the whipping of a horse in the Italian city Turin which is rumoured to have caused the mental breakdown of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The film is in black-and-white, shot in only 30 long takes by Tarr's regular cameraman Fred Kelemen, and depicts the repetitive daily lives of the horse and its owner."
Wikipedia
Guardian: The Turin Horse
Slant: The Turin Horse
YouTube: The Turin Horse - opening scene
YouTube: Béla Tarr Regis Dialogue with Howard Feinstein 1:21:24

2012 January: The Man from London

Heiner Goebbels

Wikipedia - "Heiner Goebbels (born 17 August 1952) is a German composer, music director and professor at Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Goebbels, who studied sociology and music in Frankfurt/Main, is a composer notable for his mixture of styles, drawing from sources as varied as classical music, jazz, and rock music. He started playing Eislerian music in the Duo Goebbels/Harth (1975-1988) with saxophonist Alfred Harth and has composed music for theatre, film, and ballet, although he has since then broadened his repertoire to concerts. His oeuvre includes the opera Landschaft mit entfernten Verwandten (Landscape with Distant Relatives, 2002). Goebbels co-founded the avant-rock group Cassiber (1982–1992) with Alfred Harth, Chris Cutler and Christoph Anders."
Wikipedia
Heiner Goebbels
Heiner Goebbels - Biography
Telegraph: Interview with composer Heiner Goebbels
amazon: Heiner Goebbels
vimeo: Heiner Goebbels winner of 2012 International Ibsen Award
A Room for London (Video)
YouTube:Walden - Ensemble Klang, The experience of things, BERLIN Q DAMM(1981), Heiner Goebbels & Alfred Harth - Der Stürzende Mensch, Heiner Goebbels, Alfred Harth: Le rappel des oiseaux

2012 May: Cassiber

Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde

Astarte Syriaca (1877), Dante Gabriel Rossetti
"Combining rebellion, beauty, scientific precision and imaginative grandeur, the Pre-Raphaelites constitute Britain’s first modern art movement. This exhibition brings together over 150 works in different media, including painting, sculpture, photography and the applied arts, revealing the Pre-Raphaelites to be advanced in their approach to every genre. Led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) rebelled against the art establishment of the mid-nineteenth century, taking inspiration from early Renaissance painting."
Tate
Guardian - Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde at Tate Britain – in pictures
Guardian: Review

John Wilcock: New York Years, 1954-1971 (Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall)

Wikipedia - "John Wilcock (b. Aug 4, 1927, in Sheffield, England) is a British journalist known for his work in the underground press, as well as his travel guide books. One of the five co-founders of the New York Village Voice, Wilcock shook up staid publishing in the USA. His influences extended to several continents, including Australia and the United Kingdom, where — in his mild-mannered way — he pushed the boundaries of image and speech. The counterculture was nothing but a dull puddle until Wilcock kicked out the jams and ignited the underground press, which attracted absurd prosecutions that of course boosted circulations. An unsung hero of the sixties, Wilcock also served three years as a travel editor at The New York Times.
Wikipedia
The Atlantic - John Wilcock: The Puppet Master of '60s Underground Newspapers
John Wilcock: New York Years, 1954-1971 (Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall)

Renata Adler

Wikipedia - "Renata Adler (born October 19, 1938 in Milan, Italy) is an American author, journalist and film critic. Adler was born in Milan, Italy, and grew up in Danbury, Connecticut. (Her parents had fled Nazi Germany in 1933.) After gaining a B.A. in Philosophy and German from Bryn Mawr, where she studied under José Ferrater Mora, Adler studied for an M.A. in Comparative Literature at Harvard under I. A. Richards and Roman Jakobson, before pursuing her interest in Philosophy, Linguistics and Structuralism at the Sorbonne, where she gained a D. d'E.S. under the tutelage of Jean Wahl and Claude Lévi-Strauss. ... Her novel Speedboat won the Ernest Hemingway Award for Best First Novel of 1976. In 2010 members of the National Book Critics Circle called for the novel to be returned to print."
Wikipedia
Quotes from Renata Adler's "Speedboat"
NYT: Breaking Up With Jake
amazon: Renata Adler

Power, Corruption & Lies - New Order

Wikipedia - "Power, Corruption & Lies is the second studio album by New Order, released in May 1983 on Factory Recordings. It is more electronic-based than their previous album Movement, with heavier use of synthesizers. The album was included by Rolling Stone magazine on its list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s."
Wikipedia
amazon
YouTube: Age Of Consent, The Village, Leave Me Alone, We All Stand
YouTube: Power, Corruption & Lies 57:29

2009 February: New Order
2011 May: Movement
2011 October: Low-Life
2011 December: Brotherhood
2012 May: Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division

Venture Inside of Quebec’s Garden of Decaying Books

"Berlin landscape architect Thilo Folkerts and Canadian artist Rodney LaTourelle designed the Jardin de la Connaissance back in 2010 as an installation for the International Festival des Jardins de Metis in Quebec. As time passed, the some 40,000 books and wood plates making up the walls of their garden have decayed and dissolved, while new life has also found its way in to the space."
Flavorwire