Cool and the Counterculture: 1960–79

James Dean
"In the 1960s and 1970s, to be cool was to be antiauthoritarian and open to new ideas from young cultural leaders in rock and roll, journalism, film, and African American culture. Cool was a badge of opposition to 'the System,' by turns a reference to the police, the government, the military-industrial complex, or traditional morality. Using drugs such as marijuana or even LSD was an indicator of risk taking and expanding one’s consciousness; not experimenting with drugs suggested a fear of opening one’s mind or perspective, of being 'uptight' or 'square.' The same was true of sexual exploration, social protest, and ethnic politics. The aesthetic of stylized understatement still held power, yet cool itself morphed under the era’s social upheavals."
Cool and the Counterculture: 1960–79
Defining cool, from Walt Whitman and James Dean to Steve Jobs and Tony Hawk

Danzig Baldaev

"Danzig Baldaev grew up in a Russian children's home, his father having been denounced as an enemy of the people. He was later ordered to take a job as a warden in Kresty, an infamous Leningrad prison, where he worked from 1948 to 1981. It was a job that allowed Baldaev to continue his father's work as an ethnographer – by documenting the tattoos of criminals. Heavy with symbolism and hidden meanings, the tattoos depicted a complex world of hierarchies, disgraces and achievements. Mostly anti-Soviet and frequently obscene, they are a portal into a violent world that ran alongside the worst excesses of the Communist era."
Guardian
FUEL Design
FUEL Design (Video)
amazon: Soviets: Drawings by Danzig Baldaev. Photographs by Sergei Vasiliev.
W - FUEL Design
Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia and Books by Danzig Baldaev

Emilie Brzezinski

"The Kreeger Museum presents an exhibition of monumental wood sculptures by Emilie Brzezinski September 2 through December 27, 2014. The Lure of the Forest expresses Brzezinski’s fascination with trees and her love and respect for the environment. The Museum pays homage to this masterful sculptor, who for over thirty years has chain sawed and hand-chiseled tree trunks into majestic forms. Each work exhibits beauty, grace, sensuousness, and strength. Her imposing installations are awe-inspiring and express the passion and respect Brzezinski has for her trees. This exhibition will be curated by Milena Kalinovska."
Kreeger Museum
Re-Forestation: Emilie Brzezinski at Grounds for Sculpture (PHOTOS)
Emilie Brzezinski
YouTube: Emilie Brzezinski on CBS Sunday Morning, "Family Trees" Sculpture by Emilie Brzezinski on display in Gdańsk, Poland

Lisa Anne Auerbach

"The artist Lisa Anne Auerbach likes to make statements, which are most often knitted. She is best known for her sweater-and-skirt works that feature clever, assertive slogans offering commentary and critique on issues that are important to her, whether political or personal. After receiving an M.F.A. in photography from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., she no longer had access to the school’s darkroom and taught herself to knit instead."
NYT: Seeing Things | Studio Visit: Lisa Anne Auerbach
Lisa Anne Auerbach
vimeo: Lisa Anne Auerbach, artist
Lisa Anne Auerbach's Politically Charged Knitted Sweaters Rock Our World (PHOTOS)
YouTube: 2014 Biennial: Lisa Anne Auerbach

The Roots of Drone (2012)

"Gathering together an incredible cross section of recordings both obscure and not, the Roots of Drone compilation aims to highlight the early history of experiments with repetition and single-note musicality that have gone on to influence generations of sound from techno to metal. The collection omits obvious examples of drone in the rock arena (Velvet Underground, Can, Spacemen 3, etc.) and leans more toward an extremely wide variety of sounds from raw blues primitivism to field recorded bagpipe soliloquies. Minimalist composers like John Cage show up, as does Miles Davis' Kind of Blue classic 'So What,' taking on a different view when couched in the context of drone fundamentalism. Apart from being an engaging and colorful playlist, Roots of Drone's strongest attribute is its curation and arrangement of these 37 tracks. Finding a commonality at all between the fiery gospel of Sam Cooke & the Soul Stirrers and Ravi Shankar's sun-drenched ragas is no small feat, but being able to coherently gather such eclectic recordings together under the shared umbrella of early drone prototypes really takes considered research and dedication."
allmusic
W - Drone music
W - Drone_metal
Theatres of Eternal Music
Drone in American Minimalist Music
boingboing - Music Appreciation: Drone (Video)
amazon: The Roots of Drone (2012) (Video)
Avant-Avant 3.0 to be uncovered early 2014 (Video)
YouTube: The Velvet Underground - Heroin, Dream House by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, The Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage: "Blues Dhkir Al-Salam (Blues Al Maqam)", Ali Akbar Khan - Goojjari Todi, Earth - Like Gold and Faceted, Phill Niblock - The Movement of People Working

The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles (1949)

Wikipedia - "The Sheltering Sky is a 1949 novel of post-colonial alienation and existential despair by American writer and composer Paul Bowles. The story centers on Port Moresby and his wife Kit, a married couple originally from New York who travel to the North African desert accompanied by their friend Tunner. The journey, initially an attempt by Port and Kit to resolve their marital difficulties, is quickly fraught by the travelers' ignorance of the dangers that surround them."
Wikipedia
NYT: December 4, 1949 - An Allegory of Man and His Sahara By TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
The Sheltering Sky Quotes
amazon: The Sheltering Sky
W - The Sheltering Sky (film)
Roger Ebert
YouTube: The Sheltering Sky Trailer, Final scene of The Sheltering Sky, featuring Paul Bowles' monologue

2007 November: The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site, 2010 February: Paul Bowles (1910-1999), 2011: January: Halfmoon (1996), 2013 July: Tellus #23 - The Voices of Paul Bowles, 2014 January: Let It Come Down: the Life of Paul Bowles (1998).

Semiotext(e)

Wikipedia - "Semiotext(e) is an independent publisher of critical theory, fiction, philosophy, art criticism, activist texts and non-fiction. Founded in 1974, Semiotext(e) began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Sylvère Lotringer at Columbia University. Initially, the magazine was devoted to readings of seminal thinkers like Nietzsche and Saussure. In 1978, Lotringer and his collaborators published a special issue, Schizo-Culture, in the wake of a conference of the same name he’d organized two years before at Columbia University. The magazine brought together artists and thinkers as diverse as Gilles Deleuze, Kathy Acker, John Cage, Michel Foucault, Jack Smith, Martine Barrat and Lee Breuer. Schizo-Culture brilliantly brought out connections between high theory and underground culture that had not yet been made, and forged the 'high/low' aesthetic that remains central to the Semiotext(e) project."
Wikipedia
Semiotext(e)
Semiotext(e) | The MIT Press
Semiotext(e) - Whitney Publications
Semiotext(e) - Sylvère Lotringer
YouTube: CHRIS KRAUS #7: Semiotext(e)

2012 April: The German Issue (1982)

Bohemia in Midtown

Apt. 845. Josef Astor, photographer.
"The high-ceilinged, light-filled studios on top of Carnegie Hall have housed artists, musicians, and writers for more than a century; now, the remaining tenants are fighting to stay. 'I peeled away the plasterboard until I got down to the original walls,' says the portrait photographer Josef Astor as he walks up the smooth wooden stairs of the triplex he rents in the Carnegie Hall Studio Towers. Astor, who’s been in his skylighted space since 1985, was once surrounded by hundreds of creative neighbors—painters and dancers, photographers and composers—who lived and worked in 170 studios built directly above the grand midtown concert hall."
NYMag
Josef Birdman Astor
Joseph Astor's Lost Bohemia (Video)
Lost Bohemia: Trailer (Video)

Kronos Quartet Plays Terry Riley: Salome Dances for Peace (1989)

"There is no string quartet that has ever been written that can compare length and diversity with Terry Riley's Salome Dances for Peace. Morton Feldman has written a longer one, but it is confined to his brilliant field of notational relationships and open tonal spaces. Riley's magnum opus, which dwarfs Beethoven's longest quartet by three, is a collection of so many different kinds of music, many of which had never been in string quartet form before and even more of which would -- or should -- never be rubbing up against one another in the same construct. Riley is a musical polymath, interested in music from all periods and cultures: there are trace elements of jazz and blues up against Indian classical music, North African Berber folk melodies, Native American ceremonial music, South American shamanistic power melodies -- and many more. ..."
allmusic
W - Kronos Quartet Plays Terry Riley: Salome Dances for Peace
LA Times: Kronos Makes Riley's 'Salome' Dance, Dance
YouTube: Salome Dances for Peace (1989)

December 2007: Terry Riley, March 2010: In C, December 2010: Terry Riley & Gyan Riley, April 2011: Terry Riley - Shri Camel: Morning Corona, Terry Riley rare footage, live in the 70s.

ATOMIC BOMB! The Music of William Onyeabor

Wikipedia - "William Onyeabor is a funk musician from Nigeria. His songs are often heavily rhythmic and synthesized, occasionally epic in scope, with lyrics decrying war sung by both Onyeabor himself and female backing vocalists. In recent years a number of his songs have appeared on various compilations, most often his biggest hit 'Better Change Your Mind' which appeared on Africa 100, World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's a Real Thing - The Funky Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa, and Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story of 1970's Funky Lagos, through labels such as Luaka Bop. Some biographies claim that he studied cinematography in Russia, returning to Nigeria in the 1970s to start his own Wilfilms music label and to set up a recording and production studio."
Wikipedia
Who is William Onyeabor?
BAM: ATOMIC BOMB! The Music of William Onyeabor
YouTube: Atomic Bomb, Body and Soul, Good Name, Something You'll Never Forget, Why Go To War, Heaven and Hell

Jannis Kounellis

tappeto natura 1966
Wikipedia - "Jannis Kounellis (... born March 23, 1936, Piraeus, Greece) is a contemporary artist based in Rome. He studied in art college in Athens until 1956 and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. ... From the years of 1960-1966, Kounellis went through a period of only exhibiting paintings. In some of his first exhibitions, Kounellis began stenciling numbers, letters, and words onto his canvases often reflecting advertisements and signs seen on the street. In 1960 he began to introduce found sculptural objects such as actual street signs into his work, exhibiting at Galleria La Tartaruga. This same year he donned one of his stencil paintings as a garment and created a performance in his studio to demonstrate himself literally becoming one with his painting. This newfound convergence of painting, sculpture, and performance was Kounellis' way out of traditional art. By 1961 he began to paint on newspaper to reflect his feelings towards modern society and politics."
Wikipedia
designboom
Cheim & Read
MoMA
YouTube: Jannis Kounellis | Film & Interview | Blain Southern Berlin, CHEIM & READ, Jannis Kounellis

Tess (1979)

Wikipedia - "Tess is a 1979 romance film directed by Roman Polanski, an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It tells the story of a strong-willed, young peasant girl (played by Nastassja Kinski) who finds out she has title connections by way of her old aristocratic surname and who is raped by her wealthy cousin (Leigh Lawson), whose right to the family title may not be as strong as he claims. ... The story takes place in Thomas Hardy's Wessex during the Victorian period."
Wikipedia
W - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Polanski's Tess 30 Years Later
ARTFORUM: Roman à Clef
Roger Ebert
amazon
YouTube: Tess/Roman Polanski/1979, Tess - Roman Polanski (Trailer)

Too Many Zooz

"Friday was a BIG day for New York 'Brass House' trio Too Many Zooz. Also known as Matt Doe, Leo P and Dave 'King of Sludge' Parks. At one end, their January video of a rip-roaring Union Square subway station performance hit the front page of Reddit. At the other, they were thanking Jimmy Fallon‘s band leader Questlove for having followed them on Twitter. The Questlove follow has fueled a campaign by some fans to get the trio noticed and booked by Fallon. Along with today’s warmer weather, nothing will get you into the jiggy spirit of early spring quite like the above nine-minute number that is one part Stomp, two parts New Orleans parade band and seven parts fan-ZOOZ-tastic."
FishbowlNY (Video)
YouTube: Live at Union Square 19Jan2014, Union Square February 2014

Bill Cunningham | No Coupons at Chanel

"At Chanel, the real fun began after more than 2,000 guests got up from their carton seats and thought they had the right to shop."
NY Times - No Coupons at Chanel
Bill Cunningham New York - DVD
The Atlantic: Bill Cunningham's Playful Photographs of 1970s New York
hulu: Bill Cunningham New York (2011)

2011 November: Bill Cunningham

Maison Martin Margiela with H&M - Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's dance performances (2012)

"Maison Martin Margiela invited Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Rosas to perform at the launch of its collection for H&M, on October 23, 2012, in New York City. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and 10 dancers of Rosas revealed Maison Martin Margiela’s collection through a number of site specific performances. Over the 9 floors of Beekman palace, an impressive New York landmark, abandoned since almost 40 years, 31 squares of white sand were spread. The collection was presented through solos and duets danced on the squares of sand, each performance leaving behind a pattern in the sand, traces of the movements, subtle prints of the body and the clothes’ texture."
Rosas
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s Dance Performances for Maison Martin Margiela’s Collaboration with H&M (Video)
Maison Martin Margiela for H&M Avant-Garde Party in New York
YouTube: Maison Martin Margiela with H&M - Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's dance performances, Behind the scenes footage from the collaboration lookbook shoot

2009 July: Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, 2012 December: Rosas Danst Rosas (1983), 2013 September: Re : Rosas!.

Push the Sky Away - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (2013)

"It's been nearly five years since Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds issued the manic, intense rock cabaret that was Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! Since then, the formation and breakup of Grinderman yielded two studio offerings, and Cave and Warren Ellis have composed a few film scores. Push the Sky Away, produced by Nick Launay, is painted with a deliberately limited sonic palette by Ellis. The album's sequencing makes it feel like a long, moody suite. While most of these songs contain simple melodies and arrangements that offer the appearance of vulnerability and tenderness, it is inside this framework that they eventually reveal their sharp fangs and malcontent. ..."
allmusic
W - Push the Sky Away
Pitchfork
YouTube: Higgs Boson Blues, Push The Sky Away, Mermaids, Water's Edge, We No Who U R, We Real Cool

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, 2013 June: The Secret Life Of The Love Song/The Flesh Made Word (1999), 2013 October: The Abattoir Blues Tour (2007).

Richard Thompson - Videowest 81

Guitar Player Session, December 9th, 1981
YouTube: Jenny Lind Polka, Time To Ring Some Changes, Honky Tonk Blues, Banish Misfortune, Bright Lights Tonight, The Choice Wife, Just The Motion, Going To Need Somebody, Interview part 1/2, Interview part 2/2

2011 July: Shoot Out the Lights - Richard and Linda Thompson, 2012 February: I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight.

RIP Bill Knott, 1940-2014

The Naomi Poems by Saint Geraud (aka bill knott)
"Several of Bill Knott’s former colleagues at Emerson College have confirmed that Bill passed away yesterday from complications with surgery. The inventive, subversive, and immensely influential poet was 74. Knott was the author of more than an a dozen poetry books and had more recently taken to publishing all of his work, for free, online. His first book, The Naomi Poems: Corpse and Beans, was published in 1968 under the pseudonym 'Saint Geraud' and came on the heels of the poet’s own fake suicide, detailed by Paul Carroll in his introduction to Knott’s slim–and by nearly every critical estimation, classic–volume..."
Coldfront
W - Bill Knott
The Poetry Foundation
Three Poems by Bill Knott
Bookslut | An Interview with Bill Knott
"Knotty, Knotty Boy:" Richard Hell on poet Bill Knott
a few hundred of the thousands of rejection slips i've got over the years—
YouTube: Bill Knott READING "Corpse and Beans or What is Poetry", Bill Knott reading his poem "ANT DODGER", "A LESSON FROM THE ORPHANAGE"

Bloc Party: 65 Artists From Former Eastern Bloc Countries Form Compact Show at New Museum

Jindřich Polák, Ikarie XB-1 [Voyage to the End of the Universe], 1963
"Both time capsule and time machine, this compact exhibition gathers work by 65 artists from former Eastern Bloc countries. As you step off the elevator into a faux spaceship based on designs from Eastern European sci-fi films of the Cold War era, you might be reminded of how such plaster facsimiles can appear thrillingly dynamic onscreen. Perhaps this will put you in the proper head space for what a newspaper handout accompanying the exhibit describes as 'an asychronic narrative,' one in which 'the present is understood as an overlap of multiple temporal and spatial frames.' A slide show of Soviet modernist buildings from 1955-91 documents zigzagging stone buttresses, labial concrete roofs, and other edifices as loopy as any background seen in futuristic drive-in flicks."
Village Voice
Futures of Eastern Europe Conference – Part 1, Part 2
The New Museum’s Fifth Floor Will Be Turned Into a Spaceship

Transatlantic Sessions - Programme Three (2007)

"Music co-directors, Shetland fiddle virtuoso Aly Bain, dobro ace Jerry Douglas and their all-star house band, host a gathering of the cream of Nashville, Irish and Scottish talent in a spectacular new location overlooking the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. In this episode look out for the deftly delicate guitar of Russ Barenberg, one of the Sessions' 'founding fathers', and John McCusker's rollicking fiddle."
BBC
W - Transatlantic Sessions 3
amazon
YouTube: Swan, Julie Fowlis with Jenna Reid & Donal Lunny - Biodh An Deoch Seo 'N Làimh Mo Rùin, The Drummers of England - Russ Barenberg, Frank McConnell's 3 Step, Elanor of Usen, Whole lot of Heaven (Iris DeMent), Bruce Molsky with Julie Fowlis - The Blackest Crow, Sir Aly B with Gerry Douglas, The Open Door - Darrell Scott, Eddi Reader with Tim O'Brien - Back To Earth, Hector The Hero - Jenna Reid with Aly Bain, Cara Dillon with Sam Lakeman - Garden Valley, Joan Osborne with Iris DeMent & Bruce Molsky - Holy Waters, Crucán Na bPáiste - Karen Matheson, The Crossing - Tim O'Brien, Julie Fowlis with Donal Lunny and Bruce Molsky, He Reached Down - Iris DeMent, Fred Morrison, Michael McGoldrick and Donal Lunny, The Streets of Derry - Cara Dillon with Paul Brady

2013 December: Programme One, Programme Two (1995)

John Ruskin

Wikipedia - "John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation."
Wikipedia
Spartacus Educational
VictorianWeb
Guardian: What was John Ruskin thinking on his unhappy wedding night?
YouTube: John Ruskin, John Ruskin: Photographer and Draughtsman

In Which Berthe Morisot Is Spared Nothing

Berthe Morisot, Young Girl in a Greenhouse
"It's all vantage points. From the perspective of the sky, men dominated the Impressionist movement. On the ground things weren't as clear. The singular female impressionist Berthe Morisot was alternately challenged and defused by the indelible artistic talent that surrounded her. Ironically, her personal correspondence to a variety of men and women shows all who knew her in a more stark, realistic light. Modernity came on the shoulders of these individuals, for whom gender was the least of their concerns. After her marriage to Manet's brother Eugene, she gave birth to a daughter Julie, and seemed to be rid of the anxieties of her years as a struggling young painter. The writing in the correspondence that follows is sharp, incisive, and almost entirely devoid of a familiar cynicism."
This Recording
W - Berthe Morisot
At the Royal Academy - Julian Bell

Christian Marclay's "Chalkboard" (2010)

Chalkboard, 2010
"Christian Marclay is a darling of museum curators. Wherever there is a show about sound or music he is sure to be in it. However, the question remains: Is Christian Marclay a good musician? And does it matter? For two months this summer, the Whitney Museum got all trigger-happy and gave its keys to our multidisciplinary artist so he could throw a party. Oh, what a setting! Marclay invaded the entire fourth floor, made it dark and grungy, and invited a bunch of his friends, as well as a group of respected avant-garde musicians, to play, or at least pretend they can play, his extravagant musical scores."
artnet
Christian Marclay: Festival at The Whitney (Video)
LiveStream: Chalkboard: Peter Evans (2010)
YouTube: Christian Marclay's Chalkboard, 2010 with Anthony Coleman performing Shuffle, 2007

Central Park in the Dark - Charles Ives (1906)

Wikipedia - "Central Park in the Dark is a music composition by Charles Ives for chamber orchestra. ... Central Park in the Dark displays several characteristics that are typical of Ives’s work. Ives layers of orchestral textures on top of each other to create a polytonal atmosphere. Within this polytonal atmosphere, Ives juxtaposes the different sections of the orchestras in contrasting and clashing pairings (i.e. the ambient, static strings against the syncopated ragtime pianos against a brass street band). These juxtapositions are a prevalent theme in the works of Ives, and can be seen most notably in The Unanswered Question, Three Places in New England, and the Symphony No. 4."
Wikipedia
allmusic
Central Park in The Dark - Notes
The Atlantic: The Many Faces of Ives
YouTube: Central Park in the Dark

2008 September: Charles Ives, 2010 December: Holidays Symphony, 2011 November: Three Places in New England, 2012 August: Symphony No. 2, 2012 December: Decoration Day.

Johnny Shines - Takin' The Blues Back South (1973)

Wikipedia - "John Ned 'Johnny' Shines (April 26, 1915 – April 20, 1992) was an American blues singer and guitarist. Shines was born in Frayser, Memphis, United States. He spent most of his childhood in Memphis, Tennessee playing slide guitar at an early age in local 'jukes' and on the street. He was taught to play the guitar by his mother. Shines moved to Hughes, Arkansas in 1932 and worked on farms for three years putting his musical career on hold. It was a chance meeting with Robert Johnson, his greatest influence, that gave him the inspiration to return to music. In 1935, Shines began traveling with Johnson, touring in the United States and Canada. The two went their separate ways in 1937, one year before Johnson's death. Shines played throughout the southern United States until 1941 when he settled in Chicago. There Shines found work in the construction industry but continued to play in local bars."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Takin' The Blues Back South (Full Album)

Jiří Hanke Kladno – the 80's

Kolmistr Street, Kladno, 1982
"... His present exposition at the Leica Gallery Prague includes both several photos from the collections mentioned and many so far unpublished snapshots. In spite of all the motif and style differences, they are linked by the place unity of an industrial town in the vicinity of Prague, time of origin during one decade that was beginning with a profound totalitarianism and ended with the return of freedom, and even by a subjective author´s view that discovers, with a subtle irony and dry humour, in seemingly trivial situations and environment expressive visual symbols. Hanke belongs, next to Gustav Aulehla, Viktor Kolář, Bohdan Holomíček, Jaroslav Kučera and Dana Kyndrová, to an expressive group of authors without formal education, who enriched the Czech documentary photography of the 1980s in a decisive way."
Jiří Hanke Kladno – the 80's
VIEWS FROM THE WINDOW OF MY FLAT (Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic, 1981-2003)
W - Jiří Hanke
YouTube: Kladno (with music by YoYo Band) / slideshow for Fotojatka 2013

Alain Resnais - Toute la mémoire du monde (1956)

"Before he radically transformed narrative cinema with such nonlinear masterpieces as Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year at Marienbad, the French New Wave icon Alain Resnais, who turns ninety-one today, began his career experimenting with cinematic form in short documentaries. The best known of these is probably the epochal 1955 Holocaust film Night and Fog, but the director also made a number of other gorgeous poetic ruminations on the ineffable. To honor M. Resnais on his birthday, we’re posting his evocative 1956 short Toute la mémoire du monde, which is both a look at the inner workings of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and a meditative piece about the fragility of human memory and the ways in which we try to shore it up—which would remain favorite themes of Resnais’."
Criterion (Video)
W - Alain Resnais
ALL TOMORROW'S YESTERDAYS
Strictly Film School

First day of issue

1962 World Cup
Wikipedia - "A first day of issue cover or first day cover is a postage stamp on a cover, postal card or stamped envelope franked on the first day the issue is authorized for use within the country or territory of the stamp-issuing authority. Sometimes the issue is made from a temporary or permanent foreign or overseas office. There will usually be a first day of issue postmark, frequently a pictorial cancellation, indicating the city and date where the item was first issued, and "first day of issue" is often used to refer to this postmark. Depending on the policy of the nation issuing the stamp, official first day postmarks may sometimes be applied to covers weeks or months after the date indicated."
Wikipedia
A Short Course on First Day Covers

Garment District

Men pulling racks of clothing on busy sidewalk in Garment District (1955)
Wikipedia - "The Garment District, also known as the Garment Center, the Fashion District, or the Fashion Center, is a neighborhood located in the Manhattan borough of New York City. The dense concentration of fashion-related uses give the neighborhood—which is generally considered to lie between Fifth Avenue and Ninth Avenue, from 34th to 42nd Street—its name. The Garment District has been known since the early 20th century as the center for fashion manufacturing and fashion design in the United States, and even the world. Less than one square mile in area, the neighborhood is home to the majority of New York’s showrooms and to numerous major fashion labels, and caters to all aspects of the fashion process–from design and production to wholesale selling. No other city has a comparable concentration of fashion businesses and talent in a single district."
Wikipedia
The History of The New York City Garment District
The NYC Garment District
NYT: Needles, Threads and New York History
Garment Industry History Initiative
YouTube: Garment District - Manhattan - Morning 08/31/10, 8th Avenue 2002

2013 March: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire

James Brown - Live at the Apollo (1963)

"An astonishing record of James and the Flames tearing the roof off the sucker at the mecca of R&B theatres, New York's Apollo. When King Records owner Syd Nathan refused to fund the recording, thinking it commercial folly, Brown single-mindedly proceeded anyway, paying for it out of his own pocket. He had been out on the road night after night for a while, and he knew that the magic that was part and parcel of a James Brown show was something no record had ever caught. Hit follows hit without a pause -- 'I'll Go Crazy,' 'Try Me,' 'Think,' 'Please Please Please,' 'I Don't Mind,' 'Night Train,' and more. The affirmative screams and cries of the audience are something you've never experienced unless you've seen the Brown Revue in a Black theater. If you have, I need not say more; if you haven't, suffice to say that this should be one of the very first records you ever own."
allmusic
Pitchfork
W - Live at the Apollo
YouTube: Night Train lIve 1963, Lost Someone, James Brown Live At The Apollo 1962 FULL

Robert Wyatt - Cuckooland (2003)

"Robert Wyatt's first full-length of new material since 1997's Shleep is no less mischievous, witty, and poignant. As has become his custom, Wyatt offers a set of 16 new songs seemingly composed for a wide array of musicians including Annie Whitehead, Eno, David Gilmour, Tomo Hayakawa, Karen Mantler, Phil Manzanera, Paul Weller, and others he enlisted to record it. The album is divided into two halves. The first eight selections being 'neither here...' while the last eight are 'nor there...'. What divides the halves are in Wyatt's mind and aesthetics alone, as the disc feels like a seamless, unified whole. From the opener, 'Just A Bit,' a dastardly yet delightful bit of cynicism directed at organized religion and new age phoniness, the listener hears Wyatt in good humor with razor-sharp political sensibilities, and in fantastic musical form. ..."
allmusic
W - Cuckooland
BBC - Cuckooland
YouTube: Insensatez (CuckooLand), Lullaloop, Just A Bit, Old Europe

Blue Jasmine (2013)

Wikipedia - "Blue Jasmine is a 2013 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. It tells the story of a rich Manhattan socialite (played by Cate Blanchett) falling into poverty and homelessness. It was released on July 26, 2013, in New York and Los Angeles. Blue Jasmine received praise from the critics, particularly for Blanchett's performance; additionally, they compared the film to Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire. ... Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) disembarks in San Francisco after a flight from New York. The lady who had been sitting next to her on the flight tells her husband that Jasmine had been talking to her constantly. Jasmine takes a taxi to her sister Ginger's (Sally Hawkins) apartment, where Ginger is shocked to learn that Jasmine travelled first class despite claiming to be broke."
Wikipedia
NYT: Pride Stays, Even After the Fall
'Blue Jasmine' review: Allen, Blanchett dazzle (Video)
New Yorker: Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine”
YouTube: Blue Jasmine - Official Trailer, Woody Allen Blue Jasmine Interview BBC Newsnight 2013

Larry Clark - Home Alone 2

"Larry Clark’s lurid portraits of teenage sex, violence and drug taking hang at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, and can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Now, Mr. Clark, as a kind of thank you to the fans who have made his bleak 1971 photography book, 'Tulsa,' and his 1995 movie, 'Kids,' cult classics, is offering thousands of his one-of-a-kind color snapshots for purchase at $100 apiece at an East Village art space. The sale is for people who 'come to my shows in thousands and could never afford 10 to 15 thousand dollars for a print,' Mr. Clark, 70, wrote in an email. 'This is a payback to all the skate rats and collectors who would like a souvenir, so I can die happy.'”
NYT: For Fans of Photographer, a Window of Opportunity
There are $100 Larry Clark Prints at Leo Fitzpatrick's Home Alone 2 Gallery (Yes, You Read That Right)
Selected Photos From Larry Clark’s Unique Photo Show at Home Alone 2
W - Larry Clark
Tulsa - An Essay by Larry Clark
vimeo: Tulsa (1971)
YouTube: Kids (1995), Another Day in Paradise (1998)

Robert Ashley, 1930-2014

"UbuWeb mourns the passing of the great American composer Robert Ashley. You can listen to his music and invterviews here, watch his films here, read about him here. If you're unfamiliar with his work, the best place to start is Peter Greenaway's documentary Four American Composers: Robert Ashley (1983). His most well-known video work is Perfect Lives (1978-83), a television opera in seven parts. He interviewed composers such as Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma in his epic video series, Music With Roots in the Aether, where interviews are followed by performances. He will be missed."
Robert Ashley in UbuWeb Sound (Video)
Robert Ashley in UbuWeb Film (Video)
NYT: Robert Ashley, Opera Composer Who Painted Outside the Lines, Dies at 83
vimeo: Celestial Excursions by Robert Ashley - Live @ La Mama, 2009, That Morning Thing by Robert Ashley - Live @ The Kitchen, 2011, Dust by Robert Ashley - Live @ La Mama, 2009
YouTube: Directed by Peter Greenaway, part of the "Four American Composers" series (1983) 1/6, 2/6, 3/6, 4/6, 5/6, 6/6. Texas, 1946: ft. Robert Ashley Spoken Word (Love is a Good Example), The Angel of Loneliness (1998), Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon

2008 March: Robert Ashley, 2011 November: Perfect Lives - Robert Ashley, 2012 April: Sonic Arts Union, 2012 July: Various - Lovely Little Records, 2013 October: The Old Man Lives in Concrete.

Gilf Covers Gentrification in NYC

"gilf! is a conceptual artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. gilf! was born out of the artist’s definitive need to protest the Bush Administration. Baffled at our culture’s lack of response to the crumbling structures of society she uses concept specific materials to present new perspectives to her viewers. Recognized as a strong voice of the current street art scene gilf! had her first solo show in New York with Arcilesi Homberg Fine Art in 2013. She has also participated in various group and two person shows in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bern, Munich, and Montreal. Through her travels murals, uncomissioned street work, gallery installations, and curatorial projects continue her dialog of mindful and constructive revolution. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BS in Fine Art."
gilf!
Wooster Collective
gilf! - Blog