Good Bye, Lenin! Top 10 Berlin Wall Movies

Wikipedia - "Good Bye, Lenin! is a 2003 German tragicomedy film, released internationally in 2003. Directed by Wolfgang Becker, the cast includes Daniel Brühl, Katrin Saß, Chulpan Khamatova, and Maria Simon. Most scenes were shot at the Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin and around Plattenbauten near Alexanderplatz. In a prologue, Alex Kerner (Daniel Brühl) recalls as a child in 1978 how proud he was along with his countrymen when the first German to enter space, Sigmund Jähn, came from East Germany (the GDR). The remainder of the film is set in East Berlin, spanning from October 1989 to just after German reunification a year later."
Wikipedia
amazon
Roger Ebert
YouTube: Good Bye, Lenin! Cinematic Trailer
YouTube: Good Bye, Lenin! 1:51:49

#3 MOJO’s Brit Folk Treasures

"IN TRIBUTE TO THE returning Bright Phoebus, Nic Jones – due to feature in a documentary screened on the Beeb – and Roy Harper – whose first album in 13 years, Man & Myth, is forthcoming on Bella Union, MOJO’s in-office aficionados stuck a finger in one ear and reeled off their personal favourite cuts from 60 years of British folk recordings. Note – folk grumpers – that’s British, so Ireland can wait for another weekend."
MOJO (Video)

Cihad Caner

"War photographers don’t usually carry colored pencils in their bags. But Cihad Caner didn’t want to photograph war. Using a polaroid camera and colored pencils, Caner creates diptychs of Syria that pair bleak, black and white images with written appeals for normality penned in bright hues. Anwar (slide 4) wants safety for his unborn child, and Adbullah (slide 7) wants to drink coffee in Damascus."
Guernica
Cihad Caner
Photographic Museum Of Humanity Blog
vimeo: 7.2

"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"

Wikipedia - "'Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground' is a gospel-blues song written and performed by American musician Blind Willie Johnson and recorded in 1927. The song is primarily an instrumental featuring Johnson's self-taught bottleneck slide guitar and picking style accompanied by his vocalizations of humming and moaning. It has the distinction of being one of 27 samples of music included on the Voyager Golden Record, launched into space in 1977 to represent the diversity of life on Earth. 'Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground' was chosen as the human expression of loneliness. The song has been highly praised and covered by numerous musicians and is featured on the soundtracks of several films."
Wikipedia
Soundcloud: "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" - Blind Willie Johnson (Video)
allmusic
amazon: Blind Willie Johnson
YouTube: Marc Ribot - Dark Was The Night (Cold Was The Ground), Catfish Keith, Ry Cooder

9th Street Art Exhibition

Wikipedia - "The 9th Street Art Exhibition, otherwise known as the 9th St. Show, Ninth Street Show May 21-June 10, 1951 was a historical, ground-breaking exhibition. The show was hung by Leo Castelli, as he was liked by most of the artists and thought of as someone who would hang the exhibition without favoritism. It represented the New Art in the 20th Century. It was a gathering of a number of notable artists, and it was the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively known as the New York School. The opening of the show was a great success."
Wikipedia
Abstract Expressionism by Gary Comenas
YouTube: 9th St. Show-abstract expressionism 1950s artists reminisce, Albert Kotin - Abstract Expressionism - New York School 1950s action, New York School: Pt 1

Soundings: A Contemporary Score

Hong-Kai Wang. Still from Music While We Work. 2011
"MoMA's first major exhibition of sound art presents work by 16 of the most innovative contemporary artists working with sound. While these artists approach sound from a variety of disciplinary angles—the visual arts, architecture, performance, computer programming, and music—they share an interest in working with, rather than against or independent of, material realities and environments. These artistic responses range from architectural interventions, to visualizations of otherwise inaudible sound, to an exploration of how sound ricochets within a gallery, to a range of field recordings—including echolocating bats, abandoned buildings in Chernobyl, 59 bells in New York City, and a sugar factory in Taiwan."
MoMA
MoMA: Soundings (Video)
Soundings: A Contemporary Score
[PDF] Soundings: A Contemporary Score
NYT: Going to MoMA to See the Sounds
WSJ: The Art of Noise, Explored

Marble

Wikipedia - "A marble is a small spherical toy usually made from glass, clay, steel, plastic or agate. These balls vary in size. Most commonly, they are about 1/2 inch to 1 inch (1.3 to 2.54 cm) in diameter, but they may range from less than 1/30 inch (0.111 cm) to over 3 inches (7.75 cm), while some art glass marbles for display purposes are over 12 inches (30 cm) wide. Marbles can be used for a variety of games called marbles. They are often collected, both for nostalgia and for their aesthetic colors."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Vintage Machine Made Toy Marbles A Macro View & Marble Types

Jane and Louise Wilson

Atomgrad 1 (Nature Abhors A Vacumn), 2010
Wikipedia - "Jane Wilson and Louise Wilson (born 1967, Newcastle upon Tyne)are British artists who work together as a sibling duo. Jane and Louise Wilson's art work is based in video, film and photography. ... When they left art school, they lived in King's Cross and made films of small living spaces, such as bed and breakfast rooms. Another early film showed them taking LSD for the first time. Jane and Louise Wilson's work together includes multiscreen video installations and photo-pieces; their artworks often feature institutional spaces, for example an oil rig, the archives of the Stasi in East Berlin (the building had previously been used by the Nazis and Stalin's Russia), The Houses of Parliament, and the Apollo Pavilion in Peterlee designed by Victor Pasmore."
Wikipedia
303 Gallery
YouTube: Jane and Louise Wilson, Trust New Art: 'Blind Landing', by Jane & Louise Wilson, Orford Ness

Deconstructing Harry

"The trouble with Harry Nilsson was worsening. It was his voice. One of pop music's most precious gifts, his three-and-a-half-octave range, was escaping the singer-songwriter. Where once there were angelic rays of falsetto, now came rasps and gasps. Nilsson simply could not sound like Nilsson. He awoke on the morning of April 2, 1974, in a rented Santa Monica villa that had been built for Louis B. Mayer and was later owned by the Rat Pack actor Peter Lawford. It was the same home that Lawford had rented to his brothers-in-law Robert and John F. Kennedy more than a decade earlier, the getaway bungalow to which they had allegedly smuggled Marilyn Monroe for secret trysts. But for Nilsson, it was a frat pad and an artist's sanctuary."
Grantland (Video)
W - Harry Nilsson
allmusic
amazon: Harry Nilsson
Harry Nilsson | A Little Touch of Schmilsson on the Net
YouTube: Nilsson on the BBC Part 1, Part 2

Ellen Harvey: The Alien's Guide to the Ruins of Washington, DC

"Ellen Harvey’s new project is a glimpse into the world of the distant future. Human civilization having long-since come to an end, the earth is populated now only by ruins, ripe for archeological interpretation by visitors from another planet. Most immediately striking to these alien historians are the remains of the classical and neo-classical buildings that seem to have taken root in every corner of the globe."
Corcoran
Art Review: “Ellen Harvey: The Alien’s Guide to the Ruins of Washington DC” at the Corcoran Gallery of Art
WSJ: An Alien's Guide to Washington
[PDF] Ellen Harvey: The Alien's Guide to the Ruins of Washington, DC

Searching for Sugar Man

Wikipedia - "Searching for Sugar Man is a documentary film directed by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts of two Cape Town fans in the late 1990s, Stephen 'Sugar' Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true, and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez's music, which never took off in the United States, had become wildly popular in South Africa, but little was known about him there."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Searching For Sugar Man Official HD trailer

Les Disques Africains

"Les disques africains collects, rips, and uploads out-of-print records (and their sleeves!) from the golden age of vinyl in francophone Africa. Don't miss la belle chanteuse Sali Sidibé, psychedelic grooves from Benin, or this incredible 35-minute oral-musical history of Bobo-Dioulasso. New posts appear, as if by some rare magic, every three to four days. - theodolite"
Les Disques Africains (Video)

Alligator Records 40th Anniversary Collection

"Starting with its 20th anniversary in 1991, every five years brings another double Alligator collection, and 2011 was no exception. While the 35th edition --released in 2006 -- logically featured 35 songs, the compilers couldn't quite squeeze 40 onto this 40th anniversary disc, even though owner Bruce Iglauer does admit to fading a few endings off prematurely in order to maximize the list, which hits 38 selections. The trick with these albums is to both pay tribute to the label's storied past while including enough recent acts to connect the dots between the house-rocking music Iglauer built his company on, and the more modern yet still roots-based sounds he's released during the last five years."
allmusic
amazon
YouTube: Koko Taylor - I'm A Woman, Albert Collins: I Ain't Drunk, Shemekia Copeland And Blues Band - My own tears, Marcia Ball - Party's Still Goin' On, New Orleans 5/1/11, Feed My Soul - The Holmes Brothers and Joan Osborne, Hound Dog Taylor - Sitting Here Alone, Buddy Guy And Junior Wells - Give Me My Coat & Shoes, Janiva Magness - Slipped, Tripped and Fell In Love

Victory - Joseph Conrad (1915)

Wikipedia - "Victory (also published as Victory: An Island Tale) is a psychological novel by Joseph Conrad first published in 1915, through which Conrad achieved 'popular success.' ... The novel's 'most striking formal characteristic is its shifting narrative and temporal perspective' with the first section from the viewpoint of a sailor, the second from omniscient perspective of Axel Heyst, the third from an interior perspective from Heyst, and the final section. It has been adapted into film a number of times."
Wikipedia
Washington Post: Joseph Conrad's Dark 'Victory'
Victory - Modernism Lab Essays
amazon

2011 November: Heart of Darkness

Classic Penthouse Riddims

Love I Can Feel Riddim Compilation Pt.1
"Penthouse’s founder Donovan Germain was born on March 7, 1952 in Kingston, Jamaica. In the 70′s he relocated to New York and was running Keith’s Records, a reggae record shop here in Brooklyn. In 1975, Germain began distributing records for several jamaican producers and started producing. Germain spent much of the 80s travelling between Jamaica, USA and England for his productions. He progressively gave up roots productions and turned to digital riddims. Eventually he moved back to Kingston to open his own Penthouse studio on the top floor of a building on Slipe Road in 1988 (hence the name Penthouse)."
Brooklyn Radio (Video)

Paul Blackburn and Das Rhinegold

"I had my first Rheingold at the Mars Bar in New York City a few years ago when I was doing a tour of some Old School bars. In the area around Houston, I walked into Milano’s, the 7B, and the Parkside Lounge. Then I walked up past Cooper Square, where Floating Bear was mimeographed for time, and spent the good part of an afternoon at McSorley’s. Like Ballantine Ale, Rheingold makes me think of 1950s/1960s New York City, particularly of landmarks like the Parkside Lounge. And the poet I most associate with that time and those places is not Frank O’Hara or Ted Berrigan, but Paul Blackburn."
MimeoMimeo

2008 August: Paul Blackburn, 2012 November: Yankee go home (PoemTalk #59), 2013 January: Cronopios and Famas - Julio Cortazar (Paul Blackburn).

Captain Beefheart - This Is The Day (1974-Old Grey Whistle Test)

"Don Van Vliet (born as Don Glen Vliet, January 15, 1941 – died December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12 studio albums. Noted for his powerful singing voice with its wide range, Van Vliet also played the harmonica, saxophone and numerous other wind instruments. His music blended rock, blues and psychedelia with free jazz, avant-garde and contemporary experimental composition. Beefheart was also known for exercising an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians, and for often constructing myths about his life."
vimeo: This Is The Day

2009 October: Captain Beefheart, 2009 December: Anton Corbijn, 2010 December: Captain Beefheart, Art-Rock Visionary, Dead At 69, 2011 October: Interview with Captain Beefheart.

Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

"CNN's highly-rated new original series, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown garners four Primetime Emmy Award nominations in it's inaugural season, and marks the first time CNN has been honored with a Primetime Emmy nod. The one-hour weekend lifestyle series follows host Anthony Bourdain—world-renowned chef, bestselling author and Emmy winning television personality—as he travels across the globe to uncover little-known areas of the world and celebrate diverse cultures by exploring food and dining rituals."
Zap2it
Wikipedia
CNN: Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown (Video)

Protosapien Street Art Animation

"We're loving this clever street art animation sent to us from Adam Brock Ciresi in Portland, Oregon. This video took Adam about 8 months to create as he wheat pasted each frame all over the city."
Wooster Collective (Video)

Donna Dennis: Coney Night Maze

Coney Night Maze, 1997-2009 (detail), Mixed Media.
"One of the most popular New York City icons is the Coney Island Cyclone, a 1927 landmark wooden roller coaster, whose jack-knife turns and precipitous drops have thrilled hundreds of thousands of visitors since it opened in 1927. It also is the inspiration for Coney Night Maze, a monumental sculptural installation by artist Donna Dennis that will be presented to the public for the first time at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, from June 7 through October 13, 2013."
Neuberger Museum of Art
NY Times: Under a Coaster, a Dream, or Maybe a Nightmare

William Kentridge: Stereoscope (1999)

"The filmed drawings, or drawn films, of William Kentridge inhabit a curious state of suspension between static to time-based, from stillness to movement. These 'drawings in motion' undergo constant change and constant redefinition, while the projection of their luscious charcoal surfaces somehow retains an almost tangible tactility. Smoky grounds and rough-hewn marks morph into an incessant, though not seamless, flow of free association that evokes the fleeting hypnagogic images that precede sleep. Bodies melt into landscape; a cat turns into a typewriter, into a reel-to-reel recorder, into a bomb; full becomes void with the sweep of a sleeve. The allure of Kentridge's animations lies in their unequivocal reliance on the continuing present, in the uncanny sense of artistic creation and audience reception happening at once."
Lilian Tone
UbuWeb (Video)

2009 November: William Kentridge, 2011 April: The Insolent Eye: Jarry in Art.

Fela Kuti & Africa 70 - V.I.P. / Authority Stealing (Berlin 1978)

"Another duo of albums on MCA's recollection of Fela Kuti's various landmarks. This double album really consists of two songs -- lengthy ones, as they tend to be anyway. The first half of the CD consists of a live performance from Berlin in 1979, V.I.P.. The rest of the concert that it was taken from was never released. This concert was important in its own right, as Fela was finally able to perform after being banned (officially or unofficially) from performing in a number of African nations due to his inflammatory lyrics."
allmusic
YouTube: V.I.P (Part 1), (Part 2), Authority Stealing (Part 1), (Part 2)

Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History

Perils of the Sea, 1881
"Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History, an innovative exhibition of work by the nineteenth-century American artist, is the largest display from the Clark's extensive holdings in decades. While the objects on view encourage wonder at Homer's aesthetic achievement, the breadth of the collection also allows questions to be asked about relations among the works themselves, their place in the art world of the nineteenth century, and the role they play in helping us understand their era. The exhibition offers insights into the artist's achievement, raises questions about the variable nature of history, and documents the collection's own institutional past."
The Clark
NYT: When Reality Triumphed Over Transcendence
YouTube: West Point, Prout's Neck, 1900. Eastern Point, 1900; Undertow, 1886; Saco Bay; Sleigh Ride, 1890-95; The Bridle Path, White Mountains, 1868: Summer Squall, 1904; Playing a Fish, 1875-95; Two Guides, 1877; Farmyard Scene, c. 1874; An October Day, 1889; Perils of the Sea, 1888; Lemon, 1876; The Eagle's Nest, 1902; Schooner at Anchor, 1884; "Snap-the-Whip", 1873.

Jamel Shabazz

"Jamel Shabazz has been documenting the ‘Urban Life’ for over 30 years. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY he picked up his first camera at the age of 15 and proceeded to record the world around him. Jamel has drawn inspiration from the great James Van Der Zee, Gordon Parks, Robert Capa, Chester Higgins and Eli Reed."
Jamel Shabazz
Wikipedia
NYT: Through the Lens of Jamel Shabazz
amazon

Brooklyn a Bogotá

"Limited Edition Tour Release that was pressed up for Greenwood Rhythm Coalition’s appearance in Colombia December 2012. Hand-numbered and silk screened in Brooklyn. Only 145 made. Features the unreleased and alternate horn version of GRC’s Traicion (a different mix from the Digital Download) and the previously unreleased Jaley Jaley by Frente Cumbiero."
Discogs
YouTube: Greenwood Rhythm Coalition - Traición, Frente Cumbiero - Jaley-Jaley, Frente Cumbiero - Explosión de Vinilos en la RompeCadera Vol 2

One Mile Film by Jennifer West

"... Jennifer West is known for using unusual materials to alter her films, drawings, and collages. She has used coal-tar dye, eyeliner, whiskey, hot sauce, deodorant, and even skateboard wheels. For the High Line, West will stage a public performance by taping a one-mile-long 35mm filmstrip to the High Line pathway for one day during park hours. The thousands of visitors to the High Line that day will be invited to leave their mark on the filmstrip with their shoes, heels, and hand prints to etch the film with the walkway’s many surfaces. Visitors are encouraged to wear stilettos, tennis shoes, combat boots, bare feet, or other shoes that to significantly alter the film. After the performance, the filmstrip will be treated with related materials and actions, a signature of West's work."
Highline
W - Jennifer West
Jennifer West
vimeo: One Mile Film by Jennifer West, 2012

The Making of a Counter Culture - Theodore Roszak

Wikipedia - "The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition is a work of non-fiction by Theodore Roszak originally published in 1969. ... The Making of a Counter Culture 'captured a huge audience of Vietnam War protesters, dropouts, and rebels - and their baffled elders. Theodore Roszak found common ground between 1960s student radicals and hippie dropouts in their mutual rejection of what he calls the technocracy - the regime of corporate and technological expertise that dominates industrial society. He traces the intellectual underpinnings of the two groups in the writings of Herbert Marcuse and Norman O. Brown, Allen Ginsberg and Paul Goodman.'"
Wikipedia
W - Theodore Roszak
International Socialism, November/December 1970
amazon: Theodore Roszak

Grrrl, Collected

"A few years ago, I started a collection at NYU’s Fales Library & Special Collections to document the feminist Riot Grrrl movement in its formative and most active years, from 1989 to 1997. Originally a reaction against the failures of punk to extend its DIY model of empowerment to women, Riot Grrrl encouraged young women to form their own bands, self-publish personal stories and revolutionary agendas in zines, and carve out safe spaces in a violent, misogynist culture. Riot Grrrl was not a centralized movement, and many of the donors to the collection never called themselves 'riot grrrls.' I never did, even though I went to the shows, read the zines, and identified as a punk and a feminist."
The Paris Review
The Fales Library & Special Collections
amazon: The Riot Grrrl Collection
LA Times: 'The Riot Grrrl Collection' spreads girl germs of the '90s movement

2009 November: Riot Grrrl

Lou Harrison: A World of Music

"An exquisitely crafted, in-depth and deeply moving look at the life and work of a great composer ~ created with footage collected for over two decades by documentary filmmaker/music producer Eva Soltes, who was closely associated with Lou Harrison during his lifetime."
vimeo: Lou Harrison: A World of Music
REDCAT
Documentary film gives Lou Harrison his due
Lou Harrison : Documentary Project

2008 September: Lou Harrison, 2012 January: Music from Canticle No. 3.

Art Bears - Coda To "Man & Boy"

"This track arguably features Fred Frith's most stunning attempt at reinventing the guitar. If more people would look at the instrument in a similar way- 'Why not try and play the guitar like it's a tuba and see what happens?'- the ol' fascist-killing machine might still have some life in it yet! Still...I do kind of miss Dagmar Krause's always devastating vocal histrionics. From discogs: 'Recorded live at Cantu, N. Italy on cassettedeck, 2 mikes. One-sided 7" on clear vinyl, other side is printed in silver."
YouTube: Coda To "Man & Boy"

2010 February: Art Bears, 2012 July: The Art Box.

The Legend of Rita - Volker Schlondorff (2001), Top 10 Berlin Wall Movies

Wikipedia - "Die Stille nach dem Schuß or The Silence after the Shot is a 2000 German film that was released in English as The Legend of Rita (the website IMDB calls this choice of title translation 'unfortunate'). It is an account of fictionalised exiled West German radical left Red Army Faction members, though the fictional characters all have close parallels to several real-life RAF members. After a brief overview of the initial bank robberies of the 2nd of June Movement with the distribution of chocolate kisses as well as a disastrous prison break at the Westberliner Prison, the group flees, via the Friedrichstraße train station, into the German Democratic Republic."
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert
Top 10 Berlin Wall Movies
YouTube: The Legend of Rita (Trailer)
YouTube: The Legend of Rita 1:37:47

Alexander Trocchi

Wikipedia - "Alexander Whitelaw Robertson Trocchi (30 July 1925 – 15 April 1984) was a Scottish novelist. Trocchi was born in Glasgow to a Scottish mother and Italian father. After working as a seaman on the Murmansk convoys, he attended University of Glasgow. On graduation he obtained a traveling grant that enabled him to relocate to continental Europe. In the early 1950s, he lived in Paris and edited the literary magazine Merlin, which published Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Christopher Logue, and Pablo Neruda, amongst others."
Wikipedia
Guardian: Mean streets
Walk On Gilded Splinters: In Memorandun To Memory 13 April 1969.
A Revolutionary Proposal: Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds - Alexander Trocchi
sigma: A Tactical Blueprint - Alexander Trocchi
Alex Trocchi In Conversation With Allen Ginsberg, November 8 l979, London - Part 1, Part 2
YouTube: A Life in Pieces - Part 1/2, Part 2/2

Flash Light - Tom Verlaine (1987)

"With this release, Tom Verlaine comes full circle to the style of his initial solo album. This great platter has an energized, mostly no-nonsense feel to it that is extremely appealing. Production is meticulous, if not normally showy as on his previous album, Cover. Flash Light is chock-full of rocking numbers of all kinds, ranging from straight-ahead, meat-and-potatoes types ('Cry Mercy, Judge' and 'Say a Prayer'), to the quirkier 'Bomb' and 'Annie's Tellin' Me,' to the walloping big beat of 'A Town Called Walker,' 'The Funniest Thing' and 'One Time at Sundown' are earnest mid-tempo selections that in places suggest Dire Straits."
allmusic
W - Flash Light
The Wonder
Part One of The Interview with S.R.P.
YouTube: Bomb, A Town Called Walker, At 4 a.m., Song, Annie's Tellin' Me, The Scientist Writes A Letter, The Funniest Thing

2007 November: Tom Verlaine, 2010 March: Tom Verlaine - 1, 2011 October: Warm and Cool, 2012 Nov: Little Johnny Jewel, 2012 December: Words from the Front

Tellus #23 - The Voices of Paul Bowles

"Till the age of 40, Paul Bowles (1910-1999) was a composer and music critic, composing for Broadway musicals, Hollywood movie scores, incidental music for ballet. He once aknowledged to be a composer of ‘hotel music’, though his serious music calls to mind that of Copland, Virgil Thomson, Francis Poulenc or Satie. It is actually when he get tired of writing easy music that he turned to writing literature."
UbuWeb (Sound)

2007 November: The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site, 2010 February: Paul Bowles (1910-1999), 2011: January: Halfmoon (1996).

LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital

"LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital uses social documentary and portraiture to create a personal visual history of an industrial town’s decline. Through approximately 40 photographic works of her family and their hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier offers an intimate exploration of the effects of deindustrialization on the lives of individuals and communities. Home to one of America’s first steel mills, Braddock now has a population below 2,500 and has been declared a 'distressed municipality'."
Brooklyn Museum
Art In America - Haunted: Q&A with LaToya Ruby Frazier
NY Times: The Flesh and the Asphalt, Both Weak
Guernica - Kirsten O’Regan: These Dark Histories