Northern Soul

Wikipedia - "Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged, initially in Northern England in the late 1960s, from the British mod scene. Northern soul mainly consists of a particular style of black American soul music based on the heavy beat and fast tempo of the mid-1960s Tamla Motown sound. The northern soul movement, however, generally eschews Motown or Motown-influenced music that has met with significant mainstream success."
Wikipedia
Northern Soul
YouTube: Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do), Nothing but a heartache by The Flirtations, Kim Weston - Take me in your arms, Baby You Got It - The Radiants, Jackie Wilson - Higher And Higher, Chuck Wood - Seven days too long, Dena Barnes - If you ever walk out of my Life, The High Numbers - Gotta dance to keep from cryin', Brenda Holloway - Just Look What You've Done, KIM WESTON - You Can Do It, Barbara Mills - Queen Of Fools, Nolan Porter - If I Could Only Be Sure, Linda Carr - Everytime

The Complete Posthumous Poetry - César Vallejo

"This is the first translation into English of the complete poetry of the Peruvian writer César Vallejo (1892-1938), one of the greatest voices in 20th-century poetry. Published in bilingual format, the book includes notes on the translation itself, as well as an introduction and chronology of the Vallejo's life and work. Vallejo's poetry takes the Spanish language to an unprecedented level of emotional rawness and stretches its grammatical possibilities. Striking against theology with the very rhetoric of the Christian faith, Vallejo's is a tragic vision perhaps the only one in the canon of Spanish-language literature in which salvation and sin are one and the same."
Instituto Cervantes
amazon: The Complete Posthumous Poetry
Wikipedia
Poets: César Vallejo
Poetry Foundation

South Street Seaport

Wikipedia - "The South Street Seaport is a historic area in the New York City borough of Manhattan, located where Fulton Street meets the East River, and adjacent to the Financial District. The Seaport is a designated historic district, distinct from the neighboring Financial District. It features some of the oldest architecture in downtown Manhattan, and includes the largest concentration of restored early 19th-century commercial buildings in the city. This includes renovated original mercantile buildings, renovated sailing ships, the former Fulton Fish Market, and modern tourist malls featuring food, shopping and nightlife, with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge."
Wikipedia
South Street Seaport Museum
YouTube: South Street Seaport

Faust

Wikipedia - "Faust (German: fist) are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner 'Zappi' Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner. Faust formed in 1971 in the rural setting of Wümme. ... The Faust Tapes was a cut-and-paste album which spliced together a large number of bits and pieces from their extensive collection of private recordings, not originally intended for release."
Wikipedia
W - The Faust Tapes
Faust Blog
The Quietus - Faust And Last And Always: Germany's Most Radical Rock Group Talk (Video)
YouTube: FAUST!!! from BBC SPECIAL PRoGRAM Krautrock The Rebirth of Germany, The Faust Tapes (1973), THE FAUST TAPES: 1.Stretch out time 2.Flashback caruso, It's a Rainy Day (Sunshine Girl) 1972, Krautrock, It's a bit of a pain, The Lurcher, J'ai Mal Aux Dents (1973), Meadow Meal, Baby, Caruso

Chris Johanson

Needs the Light, 2002
Wikipedia - "Chris Johanson is an American painter and street artist. He is a member of San Francisco's Mission School art movement. Johanson was born in suburban San Jose, California in 1968. He grew up skateboarding, attending punk rock shows, drawing, and with a dry yet sharp sense of humor. He has no formal training in art, learning some technique by painting skateboards and houses."
Wikipedia
Chris Johanson
ARTFORUM
Back Talk: A Conversation with Chris Johanson
YouTube: Chris Johanson on "The Sunlight of the Spirit is the Warmth of Love", YouTube Curated By Chris Johanson - MOCAtv

Blue Train - John Coltrane (1957)

Wikipedia - "Blue Train is a hard bop jazz album by John Coltrane, released in 1957 on Blue Note Records, catalogue BLP 1577. Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, it is Coltrane's second solo album, the only one he recorded for Blue Note as a leader, and the only one he conceived personally for the label."
Wikipedia
John Coltrane x Lee Morgan on Blue Train
Coltrane, John: The Ultimate Blue Train
NPR (Video)
Blue Note - Far From Old Fashioned: Blue Train At 55
amazon: Blue Train
YouTube: Blue Train (Full Album)

Patti Smith: Poem about Arthur Rimbaud (Subtitulado)

"Oh arthur arthur. we are in Abyssinia Aden. making love smoking cigarettes. we kiss. but it's much more. azure. blue pool. oil slick lake. sensations telescope, animate. crystalline gulf. balls of colored glass exploding. seam of berber tent splitting. openings, open as a cave, open wider, total surrender." —Patti Smith, from "dream of rimbaud"
oceanstar
YouTube: Patti Smith: Poem about Arthur Rimbaud (Subtitulado)

2008 May: Arthur Rimbaud
2010 November: Arthur Rimbaud - 1

Daniel R. Celentano

“Festival,” 1934
"Daniel R. Celentano was a New York, WPA artist and Thomas Hart Benton student. ... Born in 1902 and died in 1980. Daniel Celentano at the age of twelve was Thomas Hart Benton's first and youngest student. Celentano often focused on the Italian neighborhood of NYC where he was born and raised as the subject matter of his drawings, paintings and murals He enjoyed an active career, exhibiting at all the major museums as an accomplished American Scene painter during the WPA and WWII era."
Art News
Ephemeral New York
Art of the Thirties: Rediscovered Masters of the American Scene
Google

Crossroads of the (Art) World

"At what date on the calendar, at what precise location, did counterculture become pop culture? And who do we mark down in the history books as the hero, or the villain, who masterminded the switch? There is an answer: 'The Times Square Show.' In June of 1980, more than a hundred artists, under the auspice and directed by the vision of Colab (Collaborative Projects), took over a four-story building on Forty-first Street and Seventh Avenue and mounted a two-month exhibition. There were big names: Tom Otterness, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kiki Smith, Jenny Holzer, Kenny Scharf, Nan Goldin."
The Paris Review
Times Square Show Revisited
Times Square Show Revisited: Accounts
Times Square: The Underbelly of New York Culture
YouTube: Times Square Show Revisited at Hunter

DJ Jamaican

King Tubby Sound System
Wikipedia - "A deejay (alternatively spelled DJ) is a Jamaican musical term for a reggae or dancehall musician who sings and 'toasts' to an instrumental riddim (rhythm). Deejays are not to be confused with disc jockeys from other music genres like hip-hop, where they select and play music. Dancehall/reggae DJs who select riddims to play are called selectors. Deejays who are more likely to sing are sometimes called singjays."
Wikipedia
amazon: JAMAICAN DEEJAYS FROM THE ROOTS ERA
YouTube: Dennis Alcapone - DJ'ing in Jamaica
YouTube: U-Roy - Stop that train, U Roy feat. Geregory Isaacs and Dennis Brown - Night Nurse, COUNT MACHUKI & SOUND DIMENSION - Doctor Sappa Too, Count Machuki & The Sound Dimension - More Scorcha, KING STITT & CLANCY - DANCE BEAT, King Stitt - Fire Corner, King Tubby - Human Rights Dub, King Tubby - Moving Out (Osbourne Ruddock), Dennis Alcapone - Shades of Hudson, Wake Up Jamaica - Dennis Alcapone, Dillinger - War is Over, Dillinger - Natty Dread A The Ruler

Pina Bausch: 30th Next Wave Festival

"With her passing in 2009, legendary dance-theater pioneer Pina Bausch (the subject of Wim Wenders' Academy Award-nominated film tribute earlier this year) left behind an indelible legacy. This fall, Bausch's company returns to BAM—its exclusive New York home—to present a very special engagement of the choreographer's final work, a singular artistic achievement that resonates with its maker's keen observation and profound grace."
BAM: “… como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si …”. Oct 18—Oct 27, 2012, (Video)
YouTube: The Here and After (Jun Miyake)

2008 May: Pina Bausch
2009 June: Pina Bausch, 1940-2009
2011 November: "Coffee with Pina" (Video)
2012 August: Pina Bausch Costumes (Video)

Jonas Leclasse

"The concept for Jonas Leclasse's clever street photography series titled 'Les Portes' is very simple, draw doors in chalk on street walls, and then ask strangers to pose with them. Speaking about the project Jonas says 'My work often takes public space as a theater and my approach is based on a playful spirit. I am developing a world where reality and fiction mingle, where space, viewer and image interact.'"
Junk Culture
Jonas Leclasse

Goodbye, alt-weeklies

"Two weeks ago, the 46-year-old alternative weekly the Boston Phoenix vanished in a puff of newsprint, leaving in its place a new publication called simply The Phoenix, a news-culture-lifestyle magazine as glossy as the new condominium buildings sprouting in once working-class Southie. The city’s name — the sense of place — simply disappeared. The loss was a long time for coming."
SALON: Goodbye, alt-weeklies
W - The Phoenix
The sad, inevitable decline of The Boston Phoenix
Axed Cartoonist Blasts Village Voice Ownership, ‘Bain Capital of the Altweeklies’

2010 June: The Real Paper

Eleni Karaindrou - Ulysses' Gaze

"Eleni Karaindrou's long, fruitful partnership with Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos has given birth to several scores for his award-winning films. However, perhaps no previous Karaindrou score contains the evocative power of her compositions for Ulysses' Gaze, the film about memory, artistic quests, and war that won the Grand Prix du Jury at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. An extended suite for viola, oboe, accordion, trumpet, horn, cello, voice, and string orchestra, Ulysses' Gaze embodies the themes of longing, nostalgia, loss, memory, and obsession that are the film's subjects."
AllMusic
amazon: Ulysses' Gaze
amazon: Ulysses' Gaze DVD
YouTube: Ulysses' Gaze Trailer
YouTube: A tribute, Eternity and a day, Eleni Karaindrou at Concert Hall of Athens, Woman's Theme, Lenin Statue, à côté de la silhouette

2008 June: Eleni Karaindrou

"Double Dutch Bus" - Frankie Smith

Wikipedia - "'Double Dutch Bus' is a hit 1981 funk song by Frankie Smith, made famous for its extensive use of the 'izz' infix form of slang. The song title represents a combination of two institutions in Smith's Philadelphia, Pennsylvania neighborhood: the double Dutch jump rope game played by neighborhood kids; and the SEPTA bus system that was a backbone of the local transportation network (and for which Smith had unsuccessfully applied for a bus driving position; the Transpass referred to in the song is an actual SEPTA pass)."
Wikipedia
W - -izzle
W - Frankie Smith
YouTube: Frankie Smith - Double Dutch Bus

John Keats - Nicholas Roe

"This landmark biography of celebrated Romantic poet John Keats explodes entrenched conceptions of him as a delicate, overly sensitive, tragic figure. Instead, Nicholas Roe reveals the real flesh-and-blood poet: a passionate man driven by ambition but prey to doubt, suspicion, and jealousy; sure of his vocation while bitterly resentful of the obstacles that blighted his career; devoured by sexual desire and frustration; and in thrall to alcohol and opium."
Yale Books
amazon: John Keats: A New Life
Guardian: John Keats was an opium addict, claims a new biography of the poet
NYT: Can Opium or Illness Explain a Keats Poem?
Seamus Perry - Truth, Beauty and Enfield
Beauty that must die
W - John Keats
Poets: John Keats

Paolo Angeli

"A former member of the Laboratorio di Musica & Imagina avantgarde ensemble, that released A Propos de (Erosha, 1993), Rosemberg's Revised Timetable (Erosha, 1995), with Jon Rose, and Colpi Secchi Giro di Basso (Erosha, 1996), Italian guitarist Paolo Angeli developed a personal technique at a modified folk guitar through Dove Dormono gli Autobus (Erosha, 1995), Linee di Fuga (Erosha, 1998), the suite Tessuti (2004), MA.Ri. (Auand, 2003), a collaboration with Antonello Salis."
Scaruffi
amazon: Paolo Angeli
YouTube: BUCATO (Etterbeek), Desired Constellation, Ahead in the sand (Frith, Cover), Ritagli di Tempo, Nanni Angeli - Ferri, UN PAESE A SEI CORDE, La Corsicana, Antonello Salis/Paolo Angeli/Gavino Murgia/Hamid Drake - Giornale di Bordo

Dance - edited by André Lepecki

"Dance is one of a series documenting major themes and ideas in contemporary art. This collection surveys the choreographic turn in the artistic imagination from the 1950s onwards, and in doing so outlines the philosophies of movement instrumental to the development of experimental dance. By introducing and discussing the concepts of embodiment and corporeality, choreopolitics, and the notion of dance in an expanded field, Dance establishes the aesthetics and politics of dance as a major impetus in contemporary culture."
The MIT Press
Download PDF (112 KB)

Banned Books Week

"Banned Books Week is the national book community's annual celebration of the freedom to read. Hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. The 2012 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 30 through October 6. Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982."
Banned Books Week

Symphony #8 & #10 (The Mysteries) - Glenn Branca

"Some classic Branca, now back in print. Originally recorded and released in 1994. Minimal and massive, for fans of Sonic Youth, Black Lips, etc. Subtitled The Mystery and The Mystery Pt. 2, these two symphonies concern themselves with the two big questions: Life and Death. They are both scored for eight guitars, two basses, keyboard, drums, vocal and two conductors. Symphony No. 8 has two movements: The Passion and Spiritual Anarchy that both build upon sustained tones that create a counterpoint by means of delays in scale and other patterns and micro tunings. There are also two movements in Symphony No. 10: The Final Problem and The Horror. These are built in a similar manner to the techniques in No. 8 but the tuning and scales employed are different, creating another sensation yet still as intense and continuous in rhythm as No. 8." - "Blue" Gene Tyranny
amazon
YouTube: Symphony Nos.8 & 10: Live At The Kitchen

Rivers and Mountains - John Ashbery

"... Certain pervasive features in John Ashbery's work make their first appearance, full-blown, in Rivers and Mountains, which was published in 1966, four years after The Tennis Court Oath and the same number of years before The Double Dream of Spring. ('The Meandering Yangtze' is a line from 'Into the Dusk-Charged Air.') In the poems of this collection, and especially 'The Skaters,' Ashbery introduces a nonlinear associative logic that averts both exposition and disjunction. Ashbery's aversion (after The Tennis Court Oath) to abrupt disjunction gives his collage-like work the feeling of continuously flowing voices, even though few of the features of traditional voice-centered lyrics are present in his work."
The Meandering Yangtze, Rivers and Mountains (1966) - Charles Bernstein
Poetry Foundation: Rivers and Mountains - John Ashbery
amazon

2007 November: John Ashbery
2009 October: PennSound
2012 February: Reported Sightings: Art Chronicles, 1957-1987

Copyright Criminals (2009)

"Packed with a diverse cast, the PBS doc Copyright Criminals explores the hot button issue of sampling, taking a close look at the costly history, the high-profile legal cases (from 3 Feet High and Rising to Biz vs. Gilbert O’ Sullivan to the Danger Mouse The Grey Album stand off), and the impact the practice has had on music, particularly hip-hop."
ego trip land
W - Copyright Criminals
amazon
YouTube: Copyright Criminals Trailer
vimeo: Copyright Criminals (2009)

Renoir: Between Bohemia and Bourgeoisie

"Alongside Monet, Bazille and Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir laid the foundations of Impressionism in 1860s Paris. But acclaim for his painting was slow in coming, primarily because of the tribulations of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, which put a hiatus on so much artistic activity during the 1860s–70s. As a result, the first two decades of Renoir’s career are sometimes ignored, an oversight this superb volume decisively remedies."
@ ARTBOOK
amazon
YouTube: A Renoir Revival Is Long Overdue

Beautiful Losers (2009)

Wikipedia - "Beautiful Losers is a 2008 documentary film by director Aaron Rose and co-directed by Joshua Leonard. ... A series of interviews with these artists explains their reasoning behind their 'do-it-yourself' style of street art. As some of these artists discuss their growth in popular artistic culture they explain how becoming renowned and admired in the art world was something that never occurred to them from their various roots in street culture, or simply creating art for themselves."
Wikipedia
vimeo: Beautiful Losers film trailer
YouTube: Beautiful Losers (2008) 1:30:51

Travel: My Father’s Color Images of Southern California in the 1940′s

"... Those colored slide images fascinate me still. They show a life long gone, and a place just barely recognizable. In the early forties, California had no freeways, and only eight million inhabitants. An yet, it was not a time of innocence. World War II loomed, and then transformed California forever. Spanish architecture, movie studios, cars, oranges and beaches figure prominently in the California of our imagination and in these photos. These images were shot by my father, Ed Alinder, on 35 mm Kodachrome film in Southern California in 1940-44, and on a visit in 1947. Many more photos, after the jump."
MacroChef

The B-52's

Wikipedia - "The B-52's is the eponymous debut album by the Athens, Georgia-based New Wave rock band The B-52's. The kitschy lyrics and mood, and the hook-laden harmonies helped establish a fanbase for the band, who went on to release several chart-topping singles. The album cover was designed by Tony Wright (credited as Sue Ab Surd)."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Rock lobster, Planet claire, 52 Girls, Dance This Mess Around, Lave, There's a Moon in the Sky, Hero Worship, Downtown

2008 October: The B-52's

David Corio

Vesuvio Bakery
"David Corio was born in London, England, in 1960. He began his professional career in 1978 taking photographs for New Musical Express, followed by The Face, Time Out, and Black Echoes, covering a wide range of music and portraiture. After a stint as a music writer at City Limits, he worked as a freelance photographer for the Daily Telegraph, The Times, Q, Theatre Royal Stratford, and Greensleeves Records, among others."
David Corio

16 Millimeter Earrings - Meredith Monk

"Here's a fine piece of downtown NYC avant-garde history. Performance artist Meredith Monk's '16 Millimeter Earrings' for voice, guitar, and tapes, first performed in 1966 and recreated for the 1979 video above. Monk's musical/theatrical/multimedia/film art has influenced everyone from Bruce Nauman to David Byrne to Bjork."
boingboing (Video)

2008 March: Meredith Monk
2009 September: Songs of Ascension - Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton
2011 February: Meredith Monk: A Voice For All Time
2011 August: Ellis Island

Le Havre - Aki Kaurismäki

"In this warmhearted portrait of the French harbor city that gives the film its name, fate throws young African refugee Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) into the path of Marcel Marx (André Wilms), a well-spoken bohemian who works as a shoeshiner. With innate optimism and the unwavering support of his community, Marcel stands up to officials doggedly pursuing the boy for deportation. A political fairy tale that exists somewhere between the reality of contemporary France and the classic cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville and Marcel Carné, Le Havre is a charming, deadpan delight."
Janus Films
Criterion (Video)
YouTube: Little Bob Konzert

Clarence Carter

Wikipedia - "Clarence Carter (born January 14, 1936) is an American soul singer and musician. ... Atlantic Records took notice and released 'Step by Step' on its Atco Records subsidiary, but it flopped. Carter continued as a solo act, signing to the Fame Records label for 1967's Tell Daddy. Several more solid singles followed, until Carter released 'Slip Away,' which hit number 6 on the Pop Charts. 'Too Weak to Fight' hit number 13. Several more soul singles followed, like 'Snatching It Back,' 'Making Love (At the Dark End of the Street)', 'The Feeling Is Right,' 'Doing Our Thing' and 'Patches.'"
Wikipedia
YouTube: Slip Away, Too Weak To Fight, I Can't Leave Your Love Alone, Tell Daddy, Devil Woman, Duane Allman (With Clarence Carter) - The Road Of Love, The Feeling Is Right, Patches

Four Loops from Looper

"Nathan Johnson is a composer best known for his work with director Rian Johnson, his cousin, on such films as Brick, The Brothers Bloom, and, most recently, Looper. The Looper soundtrack album is up for download in the regular spots (iTunes, Amazon), and there’s a special physical edition (limited to 3,000 units) at lalalandrecords.com."
disquiet (Video)
Wikipedia

Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser

"In 1981, film producer Bruce Ricker had a chance encounter with director and cinematographer Christian Blackwood on the streets of New York. Ricker had just released a documentary on Kansas City jazz, called The Last of the Blue Devils, and Blackwood told him that he too had done a little work on jazz. When Ricker went to see the footage, he was stunned. The reels, he would later say, were 'just sitting there like the Dead Sea Scrolls of jazz.' The 'scrolls' were an intimate look into the life and music of Thelonious Monk, the legendary bebop pianist and composer."
Open Culture - Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, 1:29:22 (Video)
amazon: DVD
amazon: CD

Rarely Seen Contemporary Works on Paper

Romare Bearden. The Return of Odysseus (Homage to Pintoricchio and Benin), 1977.
"Whether centuries old or the latest contemporary creations, works on paper are extremely light sensitive and can only be displayed in the galleries for short and infrequent periods of time before they must be returned to the safety of the dark, climate-controlled vault. Some of these works, however, also make brief appearances in the Prints and Drawings Study Room, frequently requested by professors for their classes to view as exemplars of specific techniques."
Rarely Seen Contemporary Works on Paper
Rounder Studio Art and Stuff

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Weeping Song

"This is a weeping song
A song in which to weep
While all the men and women sleep
This is a weeping song
But I won't be weeping long"
YouTube: The Weeping Song, The Weeping Song (Live)

Under the Roofs of Paris - René Clair

Wikipedia - "Under the Roofs of Paris (French: Sous les toits de Paris) is a 1930 French film directed by René Clair. It was probably the earliest French example of a filmed musical-comedy, although its often dark tone differentiates it from other instances of the genre. It was the first French production of the sound film era to achieve great international success. In a working-class district of Paris, Albert, an impecunious street singer, lives in an attic room. He meets a beautiful Romanian girl, Pola, and falls in love with her; but he is not the only one, since his best friend Louis and the gangster Fred are also under her spell."
Wikipedia
Criterion: Under the Roofs of Paris (Video)
MoMA: Under the Roofs of Paris
amazon