R.L. Burnside

Wikipedia - "Robert Lee 'R. L.' Burnside (November 23, 1926 – September 1, 2005), was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist who lived much of his life in and around Holly Springs, Mississippi. He played music for much of his life, but did not receive much attention until the early 1990s. In the latter half of the 1990s, Burnside repeatedly recorded with Jon Spencer, garnering crossover appeal and introducing his music to a new fanbase within the underground garage rock scene. ... Burnside had a powerful, expressive voice and played both electric and acoustic guitar, with and without a slide. His drone-heavy style was more characteristic of North Mississippi hill country blues than Delta blues. Like other country blues musicians, he did not always adhere to strict 12- or 16-bar blues patterns, often adding extra beats to a measure as he saw fit. He referred to this rhythmic eccentricity as 'Burnside style' and recommended that backing musicians familiarize themselves with his style before playing along."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: See My Jumper Hanging On the Line (1978), Poor Boy A Long Way From Home (1978), When My First Wife Left Me (1978), Going Down South, Poor Black Mattie (1984), Let My Baby Ride, Rollin and Tumblin, R.L. Burnside & Johnny Woods - Telephone Blues, 44 Pistol, R.L.Burnside & Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Shake'em On Down, Hard Time Killing Floor, Someday Baby
YouTube: Sound Machine Groove (Full Album), A Bothered Mind (full album), A Pocket Ass of Whiskey (Full Album)

2013 March: “Dust My Broom”: The Story of a Song, 2013 September: Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads (1990).

Loot No Longer

"When France’s culture minister, Aurélie Filippetti, handed over six looted 18th-century paintings to a Boston man in March, she declared a new 'proactive approach' to tracking the original owners of recovered artworks that were stolen by the Nazis. The announcement was welcomed here and abroad as an overdue step after decades of bureaucratic resistance to returning the art in a nation scarred by the most systematic plunder of any country during World War II. But since that pledge, there has been scant evidence of change. Filippetti created two groups to study the subject and submit progress reports to her, one due at the end of the year to describe objects that can be tracked and a second due next summer. No additional funds have been earmarked for research, and no additional staff members have been hired or dedicated to this project, Thierry Bajou, the ministry official in charge of the recovery effort, acknowledged."
NYT: Loot No Longer

Thelonious Monk - Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1, Vol. 2

"Volume 1 of the two-volume Genius of Modern Music set comprises the first sessions Thelonious Monk recorded as a leader, on October 15 and 24 and November 21 of 1947. It's impossible to overstate the importance of these sessions. They include some of the earliest recordings of Monk compositions that would become standards, despite their angularity and technical difficulty: the strange, sideways chord progression of 'Thelonious'; the bouncy and cheerful but melodically cockeyed 'Well, You Needn't'; the post-bop Bud Powell tribute 'In Walked Bud'; and, of course, 'Round Midnight,' which is now one of the most frequently recorded jazz compositions ever. There are kinks to be worked out: Art Blakey's drumming is fine, but he obviously hasn't quite taken the measure of Monk's compositional genius, and on the November session, alto saxophonist Sahib Shihab employs a fat, warbly tone that sounds out of place. But the excitement of discovery permeates every measure, and Monk himself is in top form, his solos jagged and strange, yet utterly beautiful."
allmusic - Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1
allmusic - Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 2
W - Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1
W - Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 2
NPR: Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (Video)
ArtistDirect: I Mean You (Live From Salle Pleyel, Paris, France/1969) (Video), Straight No Chaser (1965), 'Round Midnight (1966)
YouTube: Genius Of Modern Music Vol. 1/'Round About Midnight~Off Minor, Genius Of Modern Music Vol.2/Humph~Straight No Chaser

2012 September: Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, 2013 August: Five Spot Café.

Comics

Fran Krause
Wikipedia - "Comics is a visual medium used to express ideas via images, often combined with text or visual information. Comics frequently takes the form of juxtaposed sequences of panels of images. Often textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and sound effects ('onomatopoeia') indicate dialogue, narration, or other information. Elements such as size and arrangement of panels control narrative pacing. Cartooning and similar forms of illustration are the most common image-making means in comics; fumetti is a form which uses photographic images. Common forms of comics include comic strips, editorial and gag cartoons, and comic books. Since the late 20th century, bound volumes such as graphic novels, comics albums, and tankōbon have become increasingly common, and online webcomics have proliferated. The history of comics has followed divergent paths in different cultures."
Wikipedia

William Burroughs at 100

‘William S. Burroughs: A Man Within’
"William S. Burroughs, at his centenary, remains an indelible presence. His writings, ideas, and influence are everywhere still, and it is as though the man himself were hovering right alongside them. So original a public persona, as vivid as ever some two decades after his death, is hard to shake. Few mugs are as iconic. The long poker face, imposing, rarely smiling (if not quite unfriendly), comes across as self-possessed as a cat’s. When there is a smile, it’s a little surprising: a delicate and playful thing, twitchy (never toothy), suggesting the giddy ambivalence of the solitary boy before a welcoming audience. And there’s the voice, prophetic and profane, a high nasal twang issuing from the top of the throat, determined yet reedy, before resolving itself into a contented grumble of half-chewed words."
Fandor
William S Burroughs 100
Telegraph: William S Burroughs: a Life by Barry Miles, review
NPR: 100 Years Ago, Writer William S. Burroughs Was Born
William S. Burroughs at 100: Exploding Five Major Myths
100 years of William S. Burroughs: The nakedness of words
YouTube: Kathy Acker interviews William S. Burroughs - part 1/3, part 2/3, part 3/3

French Revolution Digital Archive

"The Images are composed of high-resolution digital images of approximately 12,000 individual visual items, primarily prints, but also illustrations, medals, coins, and other objects, which display aspects of the Revolution. These materials were selected from across the BnF’s departments, and include thousands of images for the important collections entitled Hennin and De Vinck. Detailed metadata exists for the images, so that researchers can search by artist, subject, genre, and place."
French Revolution Digital Archive - Stanford University Libraries
About the collections - Stanford University Libraries
Hyperallergic: 14,000 Images of the French Revolution Released Online

2009 November: The French Revolution (1789–1799)

Sochi 2014

"Comprehensive coverage of the XXII Olympic Winter Games from Sochi, Russia, will be presented across NBCUniversal’s broadcast and digital platforms. Beginning on Thursday, Feb. 6, with preliminary rounds of Snowboarding, Freestyle Skiing and Figure Skating, every phase of competition from all 15 sports on the Sochi program, including each medal-winning performance in all 98 events, will be streamed LIVE on NBCOlympics.com and via the NBC Sports Live Extra mobile app."
2014 Sochi Olympics: Viewers Guide
Sochi 2014 - NY Times
Sochi 2014 - NBC
Sochi 2014 - BBC
NYT: An Olympics in the Shadow of a War Zone
NYT: Terrorism and Tension for Sochi, Not Sports and Joy
W - Concerns and controversies at the 2014 Winter Olympics
W - 2014 Winter Olympics

Delaney & Bonnie & Friends: Copenhagen December 10, 1969

"This is a Danish TV recording of Delaney & Bonnie & Friends performing. This is the rare complete recording in good quality. Note: The 'Friends' is really the future Derek and the Dominos in the making. Line-up: Bonnie Bramlett : voc, Delaney Bramlett : voc, g, Eric Clapton : g, voc, George Harrison : g, Carl Radle : b, Jim Gordon : dr, Bobby Whitlock : kbd, voc, Billy Preston : org, Jim Price : tr, Bobby Keys : ts, Rita Coolidge : voc, Tex Johnson : perc."
YouTube: Delaney & Bonnie & Friends: Copenhagen December 10, 1969 45:02

2010 August: Derek and the Dominos, 2010 September: Delaney & Bonnie & Friends.

Enrique Martínez Celaya - A Wasted Journey, A Half-Finished Blaze

"Artist Enrique Martínez Celaya incorporates multiple media to express his vision of art and life: painting, sculpture, photography or writing. These disciplines are intertwined in particular contexts or environments, in which the line that separates art, philosophy, literature and religion almost seems to disappear. From February 2 to March 7, the complexity of his oeuvre will be displayed at Andersson/Sandström Gallery in Umeå, Sweden, in the exhibition titled A Wasted Journey, A Half-Finished Blaze."
Enrique Martínez Celaya: A Prolific Journey with a Bright Future
Umeå2014
Enrique Martinez Celaya
YouTube: Enrique Martínez Celaya 2012, Making Art

2009 February: Enrique Martínez Celaya, 2009 December: Enrique Martínez Celaya - 1.

Women And Their Machines: A Think-piece About Female Pioneerism in Electronic Music

Eliane Radique
"An article with such a mighty subtitle is obviously quite a hefty affair. Not only when it comes to the substantial research involved, with the need to dig relatively deep into the history of women electronic music, those involved in analogue technological development and pioneering moments of musical creation, but also in terms of the questions any such project raises. First hand observations and comments made by some of the interviewees - among them veteran punk electronic musician Gudrun Gut, early member of Einstuerzende Neubauten and part of the cult girl band Malaria, and Madeleine Bloom, musician and ex-technical support of the music software Ableton - lead to questions about the impact of feminism and gender equality in the field of electronic music, in which females are still direly underrepresented and, moreover, frequently mis-represented."
Meoko
NYT: Rediscovering the Electronic Music Godmothers
BOMBLOG: Holly Herndon by Sean Higgins (Video)
Guardian: Manchester honours the woman behind the pioneering music of Doctor Who (Video)
Resident Visitor: Laurie Spiegel's Machine Music (Video)
Cynthia Webster: Designing Modular Analog Synthesizers
W - List of female electronic musicians
YouTube: Laurie Spiegel plays Alles synth - temporary replacement, Laurie Spiegel - Old Wave, Delia Derbyshire/Nightwalker, Delia Derbyshire - "Falling", from The Dreams (1964), Daphne Oram - Snow, Daphne Oram - Four Aspects, Daphne Oram documentary - Wee Have Also Sound-Houses, Wendy Carlos Shining soundtrack, Doris Norton - Erosraptus, Doris Norton - Norton Apple Software, Suzanne Ciani - "The Fifth Wave: Water Lullaby" (1982), Clara Rockmore - Vocalise, Pril Smiley - Geminiacal Acidestiny, Louis & Bebe Barron - Forbidden Planet, Louis and Bebe Barron - Graveyard , a Night with two Moons, ALICE SHIELDS -"STUDY FOR VOICE AND TAPE" (1968), Maryanne Amacher -- Living Sound, Patent Pending Music, Head Rhythm 1 and Plaything 2 - Maryanne Amacher, Ikue Mori - Bhima Swarga

2012 February: Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound, 2011 May: Laurie Spiegel, 2012 November: Laurie Spiegel - The Expanding Universe, 2011 January: Maryanne Amacher, 2012 October: Ikue Mori, 2009 October: Sound collage

Precision And Splendor: Clocks And Watches At The Frick Collection

"The Frick Collection has one of the most important public collections of European timepieces in the United States, much of it acquired through the 1999 bequest of the New York collector Winthrop Kellogg Edey. This extraordinary gift of thirty-eight watches and clocks dating from the Renaissance to the early nineteenth century covers the art of horology in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. For reasons of space, only part of the collection can be on permanent view in the museum's galleries. - See more at: http://www.frick.org/exhibitions/clocks#sthash.1aFoPaV4.dpuf"
Precision And Splendor: Clocks And Watches At The Frick Collection
REVOLUTION Press
Precision And Splendor: Clocks And Watches At The Frick Collection (Video)

"Walking on Thin Ice" - Yoko Ono (1981)

Wikipedia - "'Walking on Thin Ice' is a song by Yoko Ono, released in 1981. She and John Lennon concluded the recording of the song on December 8, 1980. It was upon their return from the recording studio to The Dakota (their home in New York City) that Lennon was murdered by Mark David Chapman. Lennon was clutching a tape of a final mix when he was shot. The song was both a critical and commercial success. Lennon's lead guitar work on the track, which he recorded on 8 December 1980, was his final creative act. At the end of January 1981, 'Walking on Thin Ice' was released as a single and became Ono's first chart success, peaking at number 58 in the US and gaining major club/underground airplay. The single was released in February 1981 in the UK and reached number 35 on the chart. The critical reception was favorable: NME rated it in the best tracks of year 1981 at number 10."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Walking On Thin Ice (1981 Re-Edit), Walking On Thin Ice (best version), "Walking On Thin Ice" (Danny Tenaglia's Give Ice a Chance Mix), "Walking On Thin Ice" (R3HAB Remix), Walking On Thin Ice (Pet Shop Boys Electro Mix)

2009 January: Yoko Ono, 2009 September: Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, 2011 April: Grapefruit.

BBC FOUR Sessions: Gillian Welch

"BBC FOUR Sessions features a special concert by acclaimed country-folk singer songwriter Gillian Welch. Songs include Look at Miss Ohio, Revelator and from the soundtrack of O Brother, Where Art Thou? - I'll Fly Away. The session was recorded with Gillian and her partner-producer David Rawlings at LSO St Luke's in London on Monday 2 August and includes a special encore cover of The Band's classic The Weight, with bluegrass outfit Old Crow Medicine Show. Gillian grew up in West Los Angeles where she first got into bluegrass and early country music such as Delmore Brothers, the Carter Family, and the Stanley Brothers."
BBC
YouTube: BBC4 St. Luke's Full Concert August 4, 2004 London

2009 February: Gillian Welch, 2011 March: Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings NPRP, 2012 July: Harrow Harvest, 2012 September: By The Mark (2004).

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs

"Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs is a groundbreaking reassessment of the colourful and innovative final works of modern art master, Henri Matisse. Bringing together around 120 works, many seen together for the first time, the exhibition celebrates the period in which Matisse began ‘cutting into colour’ and his series of spectacular cut-outs was born. Henri Matisse is a leading figure of modern art and one of the most significant colourists of all time. In a career spanning over half a century, Matisse made a large body of work of which the cut-outs are a brilliant final chapter. The drama, scale and innovation of these works, made between 1936 and 1954, remain without precedent or parallel. Matisse’s first cut-outs were collected together in Jazz 1947, a book of 20 plates. Copies of the book, featuring a text hand-written by Matisse, are shown alongside the original cut-outs."
Tate
ARTBOOK
Rooms Magazine

2012 March: The Steins Collect, 2013 March: Matisse: In Search of True Painting

Le Skate Moderne - Raymond Depardon

"Clichés are hard to uprooot, particularly in sports and movements stemming from the urban universe which often have difficulty in emancipating themselves of their own esthetic standards. Tiring and deceiving for years of the fisheye (among others), skateboard videos do not make an exception to this rule and are all alike. All? Not now anymore. The French collective Kloudbox has finally just opened the shutters of this small world divided up to let in a big fresh draft with its documentary 'Le Skate Moderne' (The Modern Skateboard). Claiming the major influence of Raymond Depardon and his movie 'La Vie Moderne', this documentary is interested in a group of skaters who live in the most rural places in Dordogne (France), at one thousand miles of the Californian swimming pools and the original skateboard lifestyle."
Documentary | “Le Skate Moderne” (Video)
W - Raymond Depardon
Photographer Raymond Depardon Captures the ‘Sweet Moments'
MUBI: Raymond Depardon (Video)

An Anthology of Concrete Poetry

"First published by the legendary Something Else Press in 1967, An Anthology of Concrete Poetry was the first American anthology on the international movement of Concrete poetry. The movement itself began in the early 1950s, in Germany–through Eugen Gomringer, who borrowed the term 'concrete' from the art of his mentor, Max Bill–and in Brazil, through the Noigandres group, which included the de Campos brothers and Decio Pignatari. Over the course of the 1960s it exploded across Europe, America and Japan, as other protagonists of the movement emerged, such as Dieter Roth, Öyvind Fahlström, Ernst Jandl, bpNichol, Mary Ellen Solt, Jackson Mac Low, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Bob Cobbing, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Pierre Garnier, Henri Chopin, Brion Gysin and Kitasono Katue."
Primary Information
amazon
INTERVIEW WITH EMMETT WILLIAMS: FLUXUS ARTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE
W - Concrete poetry

Triage for Treasures After a Bomb Blast

"A man in a white lab coat sat alone among piles of blown-off ceiling, mangled metal and splintered wood here on Thursday inside the Museum of Islamic Art — home to a world-renowned collection that covers centuries of art from countries across the Islamic world. He carefully separated ochre-tinted pieces of old glass from the clear shards of modern showcases. The precious glass came from exquisite medieval lamps — or meshkawat — from some of Cairo’s most important mosques. They were among the biggest material losses from a truck bomb blast on Jan. 24 that tore through this 111-year-old museum, blowing out windows and sending metal and glass flying through its halls."
NYT: Triage for Treasures After a Bomb Blast
W - Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo

Day of the Fight - Stanley Kubrick (1951)

Wikipedia - "Day of the Fight is a 1951 American short subject documentary film shot in black-and-white and also the first picture directed by Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick financed the film himself, and it is based on an earlier photo feature he had done as a photographer for Look magazine in 1949. Day Of The Fight shows Irish-American middleweight boxer Walter Cartier during the height of his career, on the day of a fight with black middleweight Bobby James, which took place on April 17, 1950. The film opens with a short section on boxing's history, and then follows Cartier through his day, as he prepares for the 10 P.M. bout that night. He eats breakfast in his West 12th Street apartment in Greenwich Village, then goes to early mass and eats lunch at his favorite restaurant. At 4 P.M., he starts preparations for the fight. By 8 P.M., he is waiting in his dressing room at Laurel Gardens in Newark, New Jersey for the fight to begin. We then see the fight itself, where he comes out victorious in a short match."
Wikipedia
TCM
TIME: From Photography to Film: Stanley Kubrick Enters the Ring (Video)
YouTube: Day of the Fight (1951)

2008 August: Stanley Kubrick, 2010 September: 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2011 February: A Stanley Kubrick Odyssey - A Tribute, 2011 April: Killer's Kiss (1955), 2011 December: Chicago (1949), 2012 October: Dr. Strangelove (1965), 2013 April: LACMA.

Michael Nyman - Drowning by Numbers (1988)

"Having already scored a few successful soundtracks for director Peter Greenaway, composer Michael Nyman applies his minimalist and romantic art to the director's 1988 release Drowning By Numbers. While not as provocative as future Greenaway collaborations like The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover and Prospero's Books, this disc contains enough solid material to keep the Nyman faithful satisfied. ..."
allmusic
W - Drowning by Numbers
amazon: Drowning By Numbers (1987 Film)
Soundcloud: Trysting Fields from Drowning by Numbers (Video)
YouTube: Drowning by Number 3, Knowing The Ropes, Wheelbarrow Walk, Endgame
YouTube: "Drowning by Numbers Knowing the Ropes" Baltic Philharmonic Hall, Poland - Gdańsk, SOLIDARITY OF ARTS FESTIVAL 2009, Trysting Fields, Sheep 'n' Tides

2008 April: Michael Nyman, 2010 August: Decay Music, 2010 December: After Extra Time, 2011 March: Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond, 2011 August: Michael Nyman Band, 2011 December: The Draughtsman's Contract - Peter Greenaway, 2012 March: Time Lapse, 2013 July: Composer in Progress, In Concert (2010).

On the Mountain A Cry Was Heard - Pina Bausch (1993)

"... Bausch’s stiletto says other things, too. It approximates ballet’s pointe shoe in the way it cocks the ankle and ups the arch, yet stiffens the women’s (and sometimes the men’s) connection to the floor. It grounds the stage in a social milieu—the offstage, adult world—yet flirts with fetish, that hairy underworld intimated in the unshaven legs that rise out of those high heels. When Bausch dancers kick off their pumps, which they wear with the confidence of Nazi commandants, they bump down with a harummph, stripped of some erotic power, culturally undressed. Their ballgowns crumple at the hem like musty old mansions. A Bausch evening, you realize, takes place in those three to four inches between nature and nurture, good and evil, and just about any other dichotomy one cares to name. It’s a tight crawlspace."
The New Criterion
Tanztheater Wuppertal: On the Mountain A Cry Was Heard
Telegraph: The mighty Pina Bausch
facebook: Das StÜck mit dem Schiff 1994 (Video)
YouTube: Das Stück mit dem Schiff

2008 May: Pina Bausch, 2009 June: Pina Bausch 1940-2009, 2012 August: Pina Bausch Costumes.

Sun Ra - The Eternal Myth Revealed Vol. 1 (2011)

"It is not an exaggeration to say that this lavishly illustrated and annotated 14-CD box is an essential addition to the shelf of every single hardcore Sun Ra fan as well as musicologists and critics. The Eternal Myth Revealed, Vol. 1 was carefully curated, assembled, annotated, and sequenced by official Sun Ra Music Archive head Michael D. Anderson and issued on his Transparency Records imprint. It traces the musical roots of Sun Ra from his earliest years up to the end of the 1950s. This is accomplished via interviews and narration by Ra, his sidemen, musicologists, historians, and other Sun Ra aficionados, as well as presenting musical selections by Ra's many influences, his contemporaries, and his own early recordings as both an artist and producer, not only in jazz, but in rhythm & blues, doo wop, poetry, blues, and more."
allmusic
Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed Vol. 1
Sun Ra Arkive
amazon
YouTube: The Eternal Myth Revealed - CD Box Set - Promo Video Part 1, Part 2

Painters & Poets: Tibor de Nagy Gallery

"The Tibor de Nagy Gallery marks its 60th anniversary with 'Tibor de Nagy Gallery Painters and Poets,' an exhibition celebrating the gallery’s pivotal role in launching the New York School of Poets and fostering a new collaborative ethos among poets and painters in post-War New York. The exhibit focuses on the gallery’s first two decades, the 1950s and ‘60s, when its vibrant, salon-like atmosphere and director John Bernard Myers’ passion for both art and poetry gave birth to these unique partnerships."
Tibor de Nagy Gallery
Tibor de Nagy Gallery: Exhibitions
New Yorker: Artists And Writers
Jill Krementz visits Tibor de Nagy Gallery
NYT: Tibor de Nagy Painters & Poets
amazon: Painters & Poets: Tibor de Nagy Gallery

Spool's Out: A Cassette Reviews Column For January

"This dirty dated realm of microscopic labels, home recordings and music-by-post is something of an idyllic simulacrum of the mainstream. Drawing lines on a map between the labels, sellers, artists and distributors in question, it's possible to begin formulating something of an apolitical revision of the music industry's map, a Gall-Peters projection of a culture that – despite all this 'democratising' technology we hold in our hands – chiefly remains little more than a clone of the 20th century music industry model, albeit with a slightly longer digital tail. In the thriving analogue parallel world, all roads can lead anywhere, with London, Berlin and New York no more important than Nottinghamshire or Glasgow. A noise duo from Maine send music to get pressed in Dublin, a Viennese label release sprawling epic drones from Ireland, and it's still blessedly rare in the cassette-sphere to read those dreaded stale words: 'since moving to Brooklyn'. Without an ostensible centre stage, and diminishing barriers, we're all part of it - there are no outsiders."
The Quietus (Video)

Pete Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014)

Wikipedia - "Peter 'Pete' Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly's 'Goodnight, Irene', which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture and environmental causes. ... Seeger was one of the folksingers most responsible for popularizing the spiritual 'We Shall Overcome' (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists) that became the acknowledged anthem of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement, soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. ..."
Wikipedia
NYT: Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94 (Video)
AllMusic: Artist Biography by William Ruhlmann
YouTube: Pete Seeger on "The Johnny Cash Show" complete and uncut, Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee - Down by the Riverside, Pete Seeger Music From Oil Drums, Waist Deep In The Big Muddy

2009 May: To Hear Your Banjo Play (1947), 2009 Sepember: Rainbow Quest, 2011 February: Talking Union and Other Union Songs - The Almanac Singer.

Cai Guo-Qiang: A Clan of Boats

"... Since childhood, Cai has held a special fascination with boats, a familiar symbol he grew up with in the harbour city of Quanzhou, China, which appear constantly throughout his repertoire. 'A Clan of Boats' allows Cai to recount a number of them, which he refers to as his 'children'. Among them is the Faurschou Foundation's own 'Reflection - A Gift from Iwaki'. A wreck filled with broken white porcelain from Dehuain Cai's hometown, the work has been shown at many important museums around the world. Each time the team of Iwaki volunteers, who excavated the boat as a gift to commemorate their friendship with Cai since 1994, would arrive on site to install the hull, just as they did for 'A Clan of Boats', and they are very much part of the work."
Faurschou Foundation
amazon: Cai Guo-Qiang: A Clan of Boats
vimeo: Creation of 'A Clan of Boats'

2008 March: Cai Guo-Qiang, 2009 October: Cai Guo-Qiang - An Introduction, 2012 March: Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe, 2012 April: Sky Ladder.

Save Rizzoli

"Since 1985, Manhattan’s Rizzoli Bookstore has occupied a spectacular six-story limestone townhouse on Fifty-Seventh Street—their Web site aptly goes in for a bit of self-congratulation, touting the 'cast iron chandeliers, ornately decorated vaulting, and a luminous Diocletian window.' You can learn more about the history of the building here. It’s the sort of place that inspires breathless exaltation in book lovers, or even merely book likers; if you were to publish a magazine of bookseller porn, Rizzoli would be the centerfold. Put more baldly, it’s magical."
The Paris Review
The New Yorker: Selling Books to Madonna
Rizzoli
The 1920 Sohmer Piano Bldg. -- No. 31 West 57th Street
YouTube: Rizzoli Bookstore: The Most Beautiful Bookstore in New York

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux - Ugolino

Ugolino and His Sons (detail)
"Carpeaux found inspiration in Canto XXXIII of Dante's Divine Comedy which describes the encounter in Hell between the writer, led by Virgil, and Ugolino della Gherardesca. The count recounts the punishment he has suffered. In 13th-century Pisa, having betrayed the party of the Gibelins who favoured the Emperor in his struggle against the Pope, who was supported by the Guelfes, Ugolino was imprisoned in a tower. His rival, the archbishop Ubaldini, condemned him to starve to death in gaol. According to legend, Ugolino died after eating his own sons and grandsons who shared his cell."
Musée d'Orsay
Yale Press: The Passions of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
W - Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux

From Shore to Shore

"From Shore to Shore examines both the continuity and the changes that have affected Irish traditional music since the turn of the 20th century. It mixes historic photographs and film footage with contemporary interviews and musical performances. The film has been broadcast on local PBS television stations in the New York City area, and Reno, Nevada and broadcast nationally in both Ireland and Australia."
folkstreams (Video)

The Jazz Age - Bryan Ferry

"Over the last 40 years, singer Bryan Ferry has established himself not only as the frontman of one of rock's most iconic bands, but also as a unique interpreter covering the songs of others. The songwriters he's covered have been transformed into something wholly other by him. Ferry's ability to find and reveal what is hidden in a lyric, a musical phrase, or even a key signature is uncanny. The Jazz Age finds Ferry covering himself in radical fashion: he doesn't sing. He is credited as co-producer (with Rhett Davies) and 'director.' The Jazz Age celebrates Ferry's 40th anniversary in music by re-recording some of his classic tunes -- from the 1972 Roxy Music album to 2010's Olympia -- inspired by the sounds of '20s jazz. Ferry's looked deeply into the past before -- 1999's As Time Goes By paid tribute to the music of the '30s, an album of sung standards from the era -- but not his own. ..."
allmusic
NYT: Roxy Music’s Roaring Twenties
Bryan Ferry: The Jazz Age - exclusive album stream (Video)
YouTube: The Only Face, This Island Earth, I Thought, Don't Stop The Dance

Bidoun Magazine

"Since 2004, Bidoun has filled a gaping hole in the arts and culture coverage of the Middle East, pioneering a distinctive voice that is intelligent, critical, and original. From the beginning, Bidoun has served as a platform — for new questions, images, and ideas about the Middle East. Bidoun’s activities fall in three primary areas: publishing, educational, and curatorial. To date, our projects have included a range of pursuits: curatorial initiatives, educational programs, artist commissions, talks, tours, performances, books, an itinerant library, and an online archive of avant-garde media."
Bidoun
W - Bidoun
UbuWeb - Bidoun: Art & Culture From the Middle East (Video)

Charles Marville, Photographer of Paris

"Widely acknowledged as one of the most talented photographers of the 19th century, Charles Marville (French, 1813–1879) was commissioned by the city of Paris to document both the picturesque, medieval streets of old Paris and the broad boulevards and grand public structures that Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann built in their place for Emperor Napoleon III. Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris at The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents a selection of around 100 of his photographs."
Metropolitan Museum of Art
amazon

2011 April: Charles Marville

Ubu Roulette

"Explore the bizarre world of video art without clicking through names of artists you probably haven’t heard about anyway. This single feature website contains just one button that launches a random video. Organize your own Ubu Roulette party. Invite friends (or better even random people), connect a beamer and point your browser to ubu-roulette.com. Random art is a perfect way to trigger random conversations."
joaoflux
Ubu Roulette

Deep Dark Fears

"If you are suffering from a lack of things to be terrified of, here's just what you've been looking for. Artist and animator Fran Krause has a Tumblr blog devoted to our deepest, darkest fears, appropriately titled Deep Dark Fears. Be cautious about looking through these comics if you are the suggestible type …you might develop new nightmares! Some of these disturbing fantasies are Krause's own, others are submitted by readers. -via Laughing Squid"
Neatorama
Deep Dark Fears

Elegy of a Voyage - Aleksandr Sokurov (2001)

"Elegy of a Voyage (2001) is billed as a documentary, but the connection seems tenuous—if indeed it exists at all. The film is a series of oneiric images taken from a journey which a nameless narrator (even he questions who he is) mysteriously finds himself to be a passive participant of. We see him, but only from behind or looking down at his feet. A variety of modes of transport are used—walking, train, car, ship and even the suggestion of flight—to take the protagonist to a deserted, moonlit art gallery (in fact the Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam). Here he looks round at the paintings (some of them missing, obviously hanging there only moments ago) before finding one labelled as being by Pieter Saenredam and dated 1765 which at first he thinks he painted. As the memories come back, he realises that he did not paint it himself but was standing by the artist at the time it was made. Surveying the canvas, he comments on its details, noting which ones the artist made up and which were actually observed."
MUBI
The infinite journey
YouTube: Elegy of a Voyage

2009 March: Aleksandr Sokurov, 2012 January: Russian Ark,

Le Grand Kallé et l'African Jazz

Wikipedia - "Grand Kallé et l'African Jazz (often referred to simply as African Jazz) was one of the first full-time, professional band in what was then called Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was founded by Joseph Kabasele Tshamala, popularly known as Le Grand Kallé. The band was invited to Brussels in 1960 to play at the Congolese Round Table Conference, where they were amongst the first bands to introduce modern African music to Europe. Among their most popular songs was 'Indépendance Cha Cha' (1960) the pan-African hit which, like much of their recorded output, used Latin American rhythms like the Cuban chachachá. They were, together with among others Franco Luambo's OK Jazz band, pioneers of the African variant of Rumba, that later evolved into Soukous."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Parafifi, Ambiance Kalle Catho, Kelya, Yoka nainu miziki, Essous Spiritou, Gauche Droite, Gauche Droite, Débordement