Sicily: Art and Invention Between Greece and Rome

"Sicily: Art and Invention Between Greece and Rome presents masterpieces of art from ancient Sicily, an island crossroads that forged a distinctive Hellenic identity. Occupying a pivotal position in Mediterranean history, former Greek colonies such as Syracuse, Gela, Akragas, and Selinos emerged as wealthy city-states, where innovation and experimentation flourished. This exhibition celebrates Sicilian culture of the fifth to third centuries BC, when its art, architecture, theater, poetry, philosophy, and science left an original and enduring stamp on both mainland Greece and Rome. Over 150 objects bear witness to the military and athletic victories, religious and civic rituals, opulent lifestyles, and intellectual attainments that shaped the western Greek world."
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Getty (Video)

James Gandolfini

Wikipedia - "James Joseph Gandolfini, Jr. (September 18, 1961 – June 19, 2013) was an American actor best known for his role in The Sopranos as Tony Soprano, a troubled crime boss struggling to balance his family life and career in the Mafia. Gandolfini garnered enormous praise for this role, winning both the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series three times."
Wikipedia
James Gandolfini Movies: 'True Romance,' 'Zero Dark Thirty,' 'Not Fade Away,' 'Where The Wild Things Are' & More
W - Tony Soprano, W - Carmela Soprano, W - Meadow Soprano, W - "A.J." Soprano, Jr., W - Junior Soprano, W - Dr. Jennifer Melfi, W - Soprano crime family

2011 June: The Sopranos

Gentleman - Fela Kuti (1973)

"Gentleman is both an Africa 70 and Afro-beat masterpiece. High marks go to the scathing commentary that Fela Anikulapo Kuti lets loose but also to the instrumentation and the overall arrangements, as they prove to be some of the most interesting and innovative of Fela's '70s material. When the great tenor saxophone player Igo Chico left the Africa 70 organization in 1973, Fela Kuti declared he would be the replacement. So in addition to bandleader, soothsayer, and organ player, Fela picked up the horn and learned to play it quite quickly -- even developing a certain personal voice with it."
allmusic
Time Has Told Me: Fela Kuti – Gentleman (1973)
NYPL: Great Albums You May Have Missed: Fela Kuti's 'Gentleman'
YouTube: Gentleman, Igbe, Fe fe Naa Efe

The New Yorkers - Robert Herman

"The New Yorkers is a collection of my 30 years of color street photography. It is a document of the ever changing New York that I love and want to share with a wider audience. Many of the images were made in Soho, Little Italy, Tribeca, Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side in the 1970’s and 80’s. It documents a New York that has now almost disappeared. At that time, these neighborhoods were a mixture of three distinct groups: the people who had lived and worked there for many years and had their ethnic background in common, the artists who came in search of affordable living and studio space, and finally the more well to-do who instigated the process of gentrification with the seemingly inevitable exile of the original inhabitants. It was a time when graffiti was an integral part of the landscape, and the clash of cultures created a cacophony of voices."
Kickstarter (Video)
Robert Herman
L E N S C R A T C H
NPR - 100 Words: On Photographing 'The New Yorkers'
amazon

The Secret Life Of The Love Song/The Flesh Made Word - Nick Cave (1999)

"This is a stunning recording -- stunning in the sense of its quality and its combination of philosophical soliloquy and heartbreaking music. It's also stunning in its effect upon the listener, rendering him or her mute -- stunned, as it were -- with reflection and awe. Combining two spoken-word pieces, one from the Vienna Poetry Festival and one from a BBC religion program, Cave manages to flesh out the spare poetry that is his songwriting by explaining the font from which it issues."
allmusic
Nick Cave
YouTube: Sad Waters, Sad Waters (Live)
YouTube: Secret Life of the Lovesong - Part 1 ( West Country Girl ), Part 2, Part 3 ( People Ain't No Good ), Part 4, Part 5 ( Sad Water ), Part 6, Part 7 ( Love Letter ), Part 8, Part 9 ( Far From Me )
YouTube: The Flesh Made Word
Soundcloud: The Secret Life Of The Love Song

2008 August: Nick Cave, 2010 November: Henry Lee - Nick Cave & PJ Harvey, 2011 March: The Boatman's Call, 2011 December: B-Sides & Rarities, 2012 January: Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - White Lunar, 2013 January: "We No Who U R", 2013 April: No More Shall We Part

Form and Landscape: Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940–1990

"In the aftermath of Pacific Standard Time (PST), a uniquely successful collaborative project of exhibitions, public programs, and publications which together took intellectual and aesthetic stock of southern California’s artists, art scenes, and artistic production across nearly the entirety of the post-World War II era, the Getty launched an initiative with a tighter focus on architecture during the same era. 'Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.' has as one of its ambitious goals a collective explication of 'how the city was made Modern.' For PST, the Getty partnered with dozens of cultural and educational institutions to offer a diverse and eclectic array of exhibits and programs."
Form and Landscape: Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940–1990
LA Times: Illuminating the power of change in the L.A. Basin

David Bowie - Hallo Spaceboy (Pet Shop Boys Remix)

"The version of the single featured Pet Shop Boys remix as the lead track, not the original album version. In contrast to the original, the single remix was far more disco-oriented and featured additional lyrics sung by Neil Tennant. The introduction was sampled from the opener to Outside, 'Leon Take Us Outside'. Bowie initially expressed reservation about the additions, which referenced and 'cut-up' the lyrics to Space Oddity, but later agreed that they worked well so long as Tennant sung them."
Wikipedia
YouTube: David Bowie - Hallo Spaceboy (Pet Shop Boys Remix)

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics

Wikipedia - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) is the second studio album by British New Wave duo Eurythmics, released on 4 January 1983. After almost two years of initial commercial failure for Eurythmics, this album became a commercial breakthrough for the duo on both sides of the Atlantic. The title track became particularly popular and it remains one of Eurythmics' most recognisable songs, and its music video, popular on MTV in the United States, is memorable for Annie Lennox's gender-bending imagery."
Wikipedia
W - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
YouTube: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), Love Is A Stranger, The Walk, This Is the House

2009 August: Eurythmics, 2012 March: 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother), 2012 December: In the Garden, 2013 April: "Missionary Man"

New critical edition of John Ashbery’s “The Skaters”

"Charles Bernstein just made an announcement about an exciting new project that just went live on the web: a 'genetic' critical edition of John Ashbery’s long poem 'The Skaters' created by Robin Seguy. It offers digital versions of earlier drafts of the poem along with the final published edition, so you can follow along and see how the poem as we know it emerged, along with all sorts of other data about it (including an index, word frequency charts, and so on)."
Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets
John Ashbery: “The Skaters” [from Rivers and Mountains, 1966]

Field Notes Colors: "Night Sky" Edition

"Countless lines of prose, poetry, and music have been written in hopes of capturing the magic of a summer night, but leave it to FIELD NOTES to take an inexplicably transcendent feeling and distill it down to basic science: it’s the stars. If you live in the city, you may often forget that there are more than a handful of ‘em up there. But if you’re lucky enough to live somewhere without light pollution, seeing the Milky Way stretched across the sky on a moonless summer night never gets old."
Field Notes Colors: "Night Sky" Edition (Video)
Field Notes

The Basement Tapes

Wikipedia - "The Basement Tapes is a 1975 studio album by Bob Dylan and The Band. The songs featuring Dylan's vocals were recorded in 1967, eight years before the album's release, at houses in and around Woodstock, New York, where Dylan and the Band lived. Although most of the Dylan songs had appeared on bootleg records, The Basement Tapes marked their first official release. ... While some of the basement songs are humorous, others dwell on nothingness, betrayal and a quest for salvation. In general, they possess a rootsy quality anticipating the Americana genre. For some critics, the songs on The Basement Tapes, which circulated widely in unofficial form, mounted a major stylistic challenge to rock music in the late sixties."
Wikipedia
allmusic
W - List of Basement Tapes songs
Robert Christgau - The Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan Goes Public
amazon: The Basement Tapes
W - Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes
The Genuine Basement Tapes Volumes 1 - 5
allmusic - Bob Dylan & the Band's Basement Tapes Influences: Original Versions of the Big Pink Recordings
YouTube: Bob Dylan and the Band: Please, Mrs Henry, Odds and ends, Don't Ya Tell Henry, Million Dollar Bash, Long Distance Operator
YouTube: Robbie Robertson Talks About Bob Dylan and the Basement Tapes

William Didier-Pouget

ca.1907-1908, Le Matin, Bruyères en Fleurs (Auvergne)
Wikipedia - "William Didier-Pouget (Toulouse 14 November 1864 - Digulleville 12 September 1959) was a French artist, born in 1864, Toulouse, France, known for his landscape paintings. He focused primarily on the countryside of southern France, infusing his landscapes, always painted outdoors (en plein air), with light and color. Didier-Pouget is associated with the later phase of Impressionism, although not actually identified with the group of artists typically known as the Impressionists."
Wikipedia

Cronuts

"It’s just before 7 o’clock on a sunny Thursday morning in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood, and dozens of people—a few of them still in pajamas—have lined up outside a sun-drenched bakery. A reporter from a local radio news program roams up and down the line asking why, exactly, they are there. Cronuts, they explain."
The Daily Beast (Video)
Jezebel
Cronut 101

Junior Wells - Hoodoo Man Blues (1965)

"Hoodoo Man Blues is one of the truly classic blues albums of the 1960s, and one of the first to fully document, in the superior acoustics of a recording studio, the smoky ambience of a night at a West Side nightspot. Junior Wells just set up with his usual cohorts -- guitarist Buddy Guy, bassist Jack Myers, and drummer Billy Warren -- and proceeded to blow up a storm, bringing an immediacy to 'Snatch It Back and Hold It,' 'You Don't Love Me, Baby,' 'Chitlins con Carne,' and the rest of the tracks that is absolutely mesmerizing."
allmusic
W - Hoodoo Man Blues
W - You Don't Love Me (Willie Cobbs song)
Can I Do it Like I Want To? Bob Koester remembers Junior Wells
YouTube: Snatch It Back and Hold It, You Don't Love Me, Baby, Chitlin Con Carne
YouTube: Hoodoo Man Blues (1965) Full Album Plus Bonus Tracks

2011 November: Junior Wells

Fred Frith - Speechless (1980)

"This is one of the most important experimental guitar-based titles from avant guitarist and founding Henry Cow member Fred Frith. Frith's second solo album, Speechless, includes appearances by Etron Fou Leloublan, Massacre, and Bill Laswell. This is a studio Frankenstein of live clips and found sounds. While Frith attests to the occurrence of many 'happy accidents,' the album comes across confidently and more often more coherent than merely challenging. This is often cited as Frith's best solo record, and its inspired manipulations hold up under repeated scrutiny. There is a bit of European folk influence here, too, but not as obvious as on Gravity."
allmusic
amazon
YouTube: Ahead in the Sand (Fred Frith, Cover by Paolo Angeli), Domain de Planousset, Speechless, Navajo, Balance, Women Speak to Men; Men Speak to Women

Classical sculptures dressed as hipsters look contemporary and totally badass

"I have just discovered a whole new dimension to classical sculpture. If you dress the sculptures as hipsters it gives them an awesome new look. They become contemporary and totally badass. Needless to say, they look a lot more human. They look like people who we can picture in our lives. This beats Madame Tussauds. I am sold."
Today I Learned
Léo Caillard

Carl Andre

"While best known for his sculptures made from metals, positioned flat on the floor and placed in symmetrical configurations, a rich and significant element of Carl Andre’s practice remains largely unseen and unpublished. Throughout his life, language and poetry have been fundamental to the work of Carl Andre. From the beginning of his career, his poems have functioned as entries into catalogues about his work, appeared alongside his sculpture in exhibitions, formed exhibitions in their own right, been published in strictly limited editions, made appearances in scholarly writings about the artist, been repeatedly cited in relation to the development of avant-garde poetry."
Tate - Carl Andre: The Complete Poems
W - Carl Andre
Delia Solomons on Carl Andre
Carl Andre: Mass & Matter
Phaidon
Google

Walter Robinson

Dallas BBQ, acrylic on canvas, 2001
"Working in a range of materials— wood, epoxy, metal, and found materials— I hand-fabricate and assemble objects, signage and tableaux that investigate the mechanics of cultural and social anthropology. Using text and the strategies of appropriation, conflation, and dislocation, I uncover the subconscious and biological human imperatives hidden beneath social, political, religious, and capitalist packaging."
Walter Robinson
STUFF: Ten Things Walter Robinson Owns and Loves
Art Net: The Life and Times of Walter Robinson
Walter Robinson Studio
YouTube: Walter Robinson "Indulgences" at DORIAN GREY GALLERY, A Walter Robinson and Elizabeth Payton Doubleheader

Mr. Okra

"There's a new toy at my desk that a certain 20-something in the office wants to play with. Press a button, and a voice familiar to many rings out in an amplified sing-song: 'I have blueberries, I have peaches. I have plums. I have the mango.'"
Nola
He's got bananas! He's got okra!
Mr. Okra In Your Pocket
vimeo: Mr. Okra

Bob Marley - "Concrete Jungle"

"No sun will shine in my day today; (no sun will shine)
The high yellow moon won't come out to play:
(that high yellow moon won't come out to play)
I said (darkness) darkness has covered my light,
(and the stage) And has changed my day into night, yeah."
YouTube:The Old Grey Whistle Test 1973, Concrete Jungle, Studio repetition in 1980

Golden Age of Piracy

Capture of the Pirate, Blackbeard, 1718
Wikipedia - "The Golden Age of Piracy is a common designation given to usually one or more outbursts of piracy in maritime history of the early modern period. In its broadest accepted definition, the Golden Age of Piracy spans the 1650s to the 1730s and covers three separate outbursts of piracy. ... Narrower definitions of the Golden Age sometimes exclude the first or second periods, but most include at least some portion of the third. The modern conception of pirates as depicted in popular culture is derived largely, though not always accurately, from the Golden Age of Piracy."
Wikipedia
W - Piracy in the Caribbean
W - Blackbeard
W - William Kidd
W - Anne Bonny
YouTube: The Pirates - Buccaneer

John Prine Live from Sessions at West 54th

"John Prine won over critics in the early '70s with a string of successful singer/songwriter albums, and won over audiences with his charismatic stage presence. Although live albums have long been available for fans, Sessions at West 54th gave Prine a chance to work his charm on a television audience.
allmusic
YouTube: Live from Sessions at West 54th 1:06:36

2010 February: John Prine, 2011 October: John Prine - 1, 2012 May: Diamonds in the Rough.

Peter Doig - No Foreign Lands

Red Boat (Imaginary Boys), 2003-04
"A major exhibition of the work of Peter Doig (b. Edinburgh 1959), one of the most internationally-renowned painters working today. No Foreign Lands surveys the paintings and works on paper that Doig has created during the past 10 years, with a particular emphasis on the artist's approach to serial motifs and recurring imagery. These works are exotic in their subject matter, formally spare and monumental at the same time, and show Doig working at the height of his extraordinary powers."
National Galleries
Guardian - Peter Doig: a free spirit captured in Scottish National Gallery's retrospective
Saatchi Gallery
YouTube: TateShots Issue 12, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2008)

2009 April: Peter Doig, 2009 June: Compass in Hand.

Alfredo Jaar - Pavilion of Chile

"Alfredo Jaar has developed a critical practice of call and response through alert and advanced invocations to sites of crisis. Whether about violence and poverty, exile and migration, or other conditions of global or ideological conflict, his work prompts observation and thinking that unsettle conventions and complacency. Representing Chile at the 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia in its temporary pavilion situated in the Arsenale, Jaar’s evocative installation Venezia, Venezia guides visitors along an arching passage—like one of Venice’s iconic bridges—of striking visual and somatic encounters of aridity and liquidity."
MOUSSE
Alfredo Jaar
YouTube: Biennale Arte 2013 - Chile

A Period of Juvenile Prosperity - Mike Brodie

"Mike Brodie's compelling body of work sprang from his journeys walking, hitchhiking and train-hopping across the United States. In 2003, Brodie was a bored 18-year-old living in Pensacola, Florida and working part time in a grocery store when he hopped the wrong train to visit a friend in Mobile - and landed several hundred miles away in Jacksonville. The journey sparked something in Brodie and, with a Polaroid SX-70 camera given to him by a friend (or found behind the seat of an abandoned car, depending which story you prefer), he began an anarchic photographic adventure, documenting the hobos, vagabonds and fellow travellers he met along the way."
Telegraph
amazon
Guardian
photo-eye
YouTube: Mike Brodie: Documenting America's homeless train-jumpers

Etron Fou Leloublan

Wikipedia - "Etron Fou Leloublan ..., also known as EFL, were a French avant-rock band founded in 1973 by actor and saxophonist Chris Chanet. They recorded five studio albums between 1976 and 1985, and released a live album, En Public Aux Etats-Unis d'Amérique recorded during a tour of the United States in 1979. Etron Fou Leloublan were best known as one of the five original Rock in Opposition (RIO) bands that performed at the first RIO festival in London in March 1978. Etron Fou Leloublan's music has been described as a blend of punk rock, jazz, French music hall, comedy satire and 'avant-garde mayhem'."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: nicolas, Batelages [Full Album] 1976, L' enfance de guigou, Le Fleuve Et Le Manteau, Monsieur Blanc

Rebels: A Journey Underground

"Rebels: A Journey Underground is an excellent Canadian documentary history of “the counterculture” produced for television in the late 1990s and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. It’s the work of writer/director Kevin Alexander, who did a great job with it. More people should see it. I’m happy to see that the series has been posted in full on YouTube. The six-part series covers a wide swath of historical countercultures moving from William Blake and 1830s Parisian bohemians to mostly 20th century movements like hippie, Jazz, Beatniks, punk, and what was at the time the series was produced, the brave new world of cyberspace."
DangerousMinds (Video)

Procol Harum (1967)

Wikipedia - "Procol Harum is the self-titled debut studio album by English rock band Procol Harum. It was released in September 1967. The original Deram Records release of the LP included a large poster of the album cover artwork by Dickinson. Though the album was recorded on multitrack, it was issued as mono-only in the UK, and in mono and rechannelled stereo in the US. Despite extensive searching, the original multitrack tapes have not been located and thus a stereo mix of the original ten tracks may never be possible. Several alternate takes, however, have been mixed into stereo and are available on CD."
Wikipedia
Art Dudley, Stereophile, September 2003
allmusic
YouTube: A Whiter Shade of Pale, Conquistador, Repent Walpurgis, Procol Harum (Full album)

2009 July: Procol Harum, 2011 July: A Salty Dog, 2011 December: Broken Barricades, 2013 April: "Homburg".

Reggae / Hip-Hop Remixes of the 1990s

Johnny Osbourne
"Let’s start off with one of our favourite producers! Kenny Dope is know for his excellent production skills over a wide variety of genres, and he’s definitely secured his place in history based on his Reggae / Hip-Hop remixes alone. Listen to Johnny Osbourne‘s classic Buddy Bye and Kenny’s Dondadda Original Rama Jama Mix from 1993."
BrooklynRadio (Video)
W - Johnny_Osbourne
W - Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez

United States Live - Laurie Anderson

Wikipedia - "United States Live was the third album release by avant-garde singer-songwriter Laurie Anderson. Released as a 5-record boxed set (later reissued, slightly truncated, on four CDs), the album was recorded at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City in February 1983. United States was Anderson's magnum opus performance-art piece featuring musical numbers, spoken word pieces, and animated vignettes about life in the United States. Segments ranged from humorous, such as 'Yankee See,' which gently chided Anderson's record label, Warner Bros."
Wikipedia
amazon
TheAwl - Difficult Listening Hour: An Introduction to Laurie Anderson (Video)
Hardformat (Video)
Media Art Net
This Week in BAM History: Laurie Anderson’s United States (Video)
YouTube: "United States - Live" Part IV 1/5, Part IV 2/5

2008 June: Laurie Anderson, 2009 December: Personal Service Announcements, 2011 February: Home studio (late 80's), 2011 March: I Don't Need It, I Don't Want It, And You Cheated Me Out of It, 2011 October: Big Science, 2011 October: Delusion

“And Now a Word from Our Sponsors”

"Getting started can be difficult. When your name draws a blank, it’s unlikely that anyone will buy what you’re selling. Luckily, the attention that worthy unknowns need in order to get noticed has a price. And for fifty years, publishers with books to sell and authors with a name to make have announced their arrival with an appearance in The New York Review: though not, at least initially, under a byline. In the Review’s twenty-ninth issue, dated October 22, 1964, the third of more than thirty books written by the historian Howard Zinn was advertised on page 13."
NY Review of Books

Martha's Vineyard

Edgartown. Annie C., 1976-1977
Wikipedia - "Martha's Vineyard (Wampanoag: Noepe) is an island (including the smaller Chappaquiddick Island) located south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, known for being an affluent summer colony. Often called just 'The Vineyard,' the island has a land area of 100 square miles (260 km2). ... The island received international notoriety after the July 18, 1969, Chappaquiddick incident, in which Mary Jo Kopechne was killed in a car driven off the Dike Bridge by U.S. Senator Edward 'Ted' Kennedy. The bridge crossed Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island (a smaller island connected to the Vineyard and part of Edgartown). As a foot bridge, it was intended for people on foot and bicycles, as well as the occasional emergency vehicle when conditions warranted."
Wikipedia
W - Chappaquiddick Island
W - Vineyard Haven
W - Oak Bluffs
W - Edgartown
YouTube: Martha's Vineyard, Driving North Water Street Edgartown, Edgartown

Button Up

"Button Up is the brainchild of Garry John Kane. Garry is currently the bass player with Scottish legends The Proclaimers and has also played with Marianne Faithfull, The McCluskey Brothers and Justin Currie to name but a few. Button Up first came to life in 1998 when Garry, joined by drummer Ross McFarlane and keyboardist Paul Gallagher, started gigging around Glasgow with a unique hammond driven mod/soul sound that quickly gathered them a loyal following."
Buttonup Records
iTunes: Button Up
YouTube: If I Could Only Be Sure, Listen To Your Heart Beat, Inhaler, Same Time, Same Place, Keeps On Burning

Cotton Tenants: Three Families

"... The origins of Agee and Evan's famous collaboration date back to an assignment for Fortune magazine, which sent them to Alabama in the summer of 1936 to report a story that was never published. Some have assumed that Fortune's editors shelved the story because of the unconventional style that marked Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and for years the original report was lost. ... Published here for the first time, and accompanied by thirty of Walker Evans’s historic photos, Cotton Tenants is an eloquent report of three families struggling through desperate times. Indeed, Agee’s dispatch remains relevant as one of the most honest explorations of poverty in America ever attempted and as a foundational document of long-form reporting."
amazon: Cotton Tenants: Three Families
NYT: A Paean to Forbearance (the Rough Draft)
BookForum / artforum
Knoxville: Summer of 1915 by James Agee (1938)

2011 June: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Wildflower

Blue-flowered penstemons. Mt. Harrison.
Wikipedia - "A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, meaning it was not intentionally seeded or planted. Yet 'wildflower' meadows of a few mixed species are sold in seed packets. The term 'wildflower' has been made vague by commercial seedsmen who are interested in selling more flowers or seeds more expensively than when labeled with only its name and/or origin. The term implies that the plant probably is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is in any way different from the way it appears in the wild as a native plant, even if it is growing where it would not naturally."
Wikipedia
Wildflower Identification
MyWildflowers
Wildflowers of the United States