The B-52 - "Rock Lobster"

"... Written by vocalist Fred Schneider and guitarist Ricky Wilson, 'Rock Lobster' uses surf-rock as its genre base, with ‘60s-friendly elements like a Farfisa organ brought in to provide the deliberately nostalgic vibe that was the band’s trademark at the time. The tone of track isn’t all bright and chipper: it’s actually a bit down-trodden despite its tempo, but that only serves to give a 'serious' contrast to lines like 'His ear lobe fell in the deep!'”
popmatters
YouTube: Rock Lobster, 52 Girls

2008 October: The B-52's, 2012 October: The B-52's -1, 2013 May: "Private Idaho", "Give Me Back My Man".

Lou Reed - New York (1989)

"The Lou Reed on 1989's New York is a different animal than the one we'd previously come to know. He's kicked drugs. He's explicitly political. 'The archetypal Lou Reed song makes you feel compassion for somebody you never understood and never expected to feel compassion for,' Voice scribe Tom Carson wrote of the album in his review. But this time around, a curve ball: Reed's trying to make you feel compassion for people, Carson theorizes, he's not even met. It's a beautiful, complex album full of Reed relenting to the power of the riff, trying, perhaps, to be as big as the album's title implies."
The Voice's 1989 Review of Lou Reed's New York
NY Times: Lou Reed’s New York Was Hell or Heaven
Remembering Lou Reed's New York album
W - New York
allmusic
YouTube: New York (Live) 1:17:07
YouTube: Romeo Had Juliette, Halloween Parade, Dirty Blvd, Endless Cycle, There is No Time, Last Great American Whale, Beginning of a Great Adventure, Busload of Faith, Sick of You, Hold On, Good Evening Mr. Waldheim, Xmas in February, Strawman, Dime Store Mystery

2010 August: Heroin, 2011 June: All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground, 2011 June: The Velvet Underground, 2012 November: Songs for Drella - Lou Reed and John Cale, 2013 October: Lou Reed (1942 - 2013), 2014 June: The Bells (1979).

Gatsby to Garp: Modern Masterpieces from the Carter Burden Collection

"Between 1973 and 1996 Carter Burden, a cultural benefactor and former New York City councilman, assembled the greatest collection of modern American literature in private hands. This exhibition brings together nearly one hundred outstanding works from the collection, including first editions, manuscripts, letters, and revised galley proofs. Authors featured in this unparalleled exhibition are some of the twentieth century's most celebrated—William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Allen Ginsberg, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, John Irving, Henry James, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, J. D. Salinger, Gertrude Stein, John Steinbeck, John Updike, Tennessee Williams, and Richard Wright, among others."
Morgan Library & Museum
NY Times: The Joys of Judging a Book by Its Cover

The MFA Handbook: A Guide to the Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"This is a new, fully updated and redesigned edition of the definitive guide to the most enduring masterpieces in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Featuring more than 500 objects from all times and places (nearly 100 of them new to this edition)—Native American ceramics to European shoes, Egyptian funerary arts to Warhol silkscreens, not to mention the Museum’s world-renowned collections of paintings and sculpture—The MFA Handbook provides a window on works that have surprised, delighted, and inspired visitors since the MFA first opened its doors in 1876."
The MFA Handbook
MFA Guide
amazon

Revisiting the Nightmares of World War I

"A moonscape of craters, mud and shattered stumps fills a wall-sized video screen; you can hear shrieking shells and shattering blasts; an enormous British howitzer, meant to pulverize the enemy’s defenses, points toward the fields. The only thing missing in this gallery, devoted to the Battle of the Somme at the Imperial War Museum here, is the ability to conceive of 20,000 British dead and 37,000 wounded or missing in the first day of fighting, and more than a million casualties over all during five months. It is one of the most powerful presentations at the new First World War Galleries here, suggesting that this seemingly futile battle was actually a turning point."
NY Times
IWM London
1914.org
Casson Mann
The World at War, 1914–1918 (Video)
NY Times: Visceral Reality vs. the Big Picture
History: Outbreak of World War I (Video)
Slate: Everything You Need to Know About How World War I Began in Four Minutes (Video)

Jimmy Reed - Ain't That Lovin' You Baby? (1956)

Know I love ya, babe?
Know I love ya, babe?
Know I love ya, babe?
But you don't even know my name

Let me tell ya, baby
I'll tell ya what I would do
I would rob, steal, kill somebody
Just ta get back home ta you
YouTube: Ain't That Lovin' You Baby?

Phil Ochs in Concert (1966)

"During much of the career of this great performer, this so-called live album was the only recording that supposedly represented Phil Ochs as he was heard in concert -- in other words, solo. While his major studio albums concentrated on orchestral productions, sometimes bordering on unlistenable pretension or slightly uncomfortable band tracks, his live performances inevitably consisted of just one man with his voice and guitar, at least until his ill-fated rock & roll venture near the end of his popularity. ..."
allmusic
W - Phil Ochs in Concert
Phil Ochs remembered - Perfect Sound Forever
Shadows That Shine
YouTube: Phil Ochs in Concert

2010 July: Draft dodger, Conscientious objector, War resister, 2008 September: Phil Ochs, 2011 December: All the News That's Fit to Sing, 2012 February: There but for Fortune, 2013 February: Pleasures of the Harbor, 2014 March: "Draft Dodger Rag" (1965).

Matt Weingarden - Dust & Grooves

"Matt Fine Wine, 44, lives in Brooklyn NY. He’s a magazine editor and a Funk & Soul DJ. collects mostly 45s. Q: What prompted you to start collecting? A: I grew up in Detroit and was listening to CKLW radio, a renowned, influential station just across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario, from about the time I was 5. The first record I bought was something I heard on CKLW and fell in love with: 'Ben' by Michael Jackson, from the rat movie of the same name. I was obsessed with it at age 8. Soon after that, I moved on from CKLW to the local great AM oldies station, WHND, 'Honey Radio.' I listened to that for years. The 45-buying floodgates were open."
MATT WIENGARDEN (MR. FINEWINE) - BROOKLYN, NY (Video)
NY Mag: Matt Weingarden
WFMU: Downtown Soulville with Mr. Fine Wine: Playlists and Archives (Video)
MixCloud: Jazzman Radio Feat. Matt ‘Mr Fine Wine’ Weingarden (Video)

Cement Eclipses from Isaac Cordal

"Isaac Cordal's cement sculptures play hide and seek among cracked walls and drain pipes in his project titled 'Cement Eclipses.' In this project, Cordal calls attention to everyday people whose lives and dramas play out hidden all around the world. See if you can spot them all!"
Wooster Collective

2011 May: Isaac Cordal

The Islamic State

"The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced its intention to reestablish the caliphate and has declared its leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph. The lightning advances the Islamic State made across Syria and Iraq in June shocked the world. But it's not just the group's military victories that have garnered attention — it's also the pace with which its members have begun to carve out a viable state. Flush with cash and US weapons seized during its advances in Iraq, the Islamic State's expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged."
VICE (Video)
PBS: Losing Iraq | FRONTLINE (Video)
NY Times: Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) (Video)
W - Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
W - Anarchist symbolism

Jacques Dupin

"Jacques Dupin, a poet, art critic and cultural eminence in France whose influence straddled the avant-garde literary world and the commercial market in paintings and sculptures by major 20th-century artists, died on Oct. 27 at his home in Paris. He was 85. Family members who confirmed his death said he had been ill for several years. Mr. Dupin was for a long time one of the directors of the renowned Galerie Maeght in Paris, which represented Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Wassily Kandinsky and other modern artists. As both a poet and an art dealer, he had a wide circle of friends. Bacon and Giacometti painted his portrait. The American poet John Ashbery, another friend, translated a seminal monograph written by Dupin in 1961 about Giacometti, which was published in English in 2003."
NY Times
W - Jacques Dupin
amazon: Jacques Dupin
Of Flies and Monkeys By Jacques Dupin Translated by John Taylor
Poetry International
The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry by Mary Ann Caws (Editor)

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction

"'How would you like to be remembered?' the director David Lynch asks the actor Harry Dean Stanton during the documentary 'Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction.' 'Doesn’t matter,' is the laconic reply, and you know he means it. It does matter, however, to the Swiss filmmaker Sophie Huber, who seems to have chosen a particularly tough subject for her first feature. Guarded in the extreme and bereft of vanity, Mr. Stanton, now 87, may have plumbed the inner workings of close to 200 characters, but he’s cagey about revealing his own."
NY Times
W - Harry Dean Stanton
amazon
YouTube: Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction | Official Trailer, Harry Dean Stanton says it all

Go West

Wikipedia - "'Go West' is a song by the 1970s disco group Village People. The song eventually found greater success when it was covered in 1993 by the synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys. ... The song's title is attributed to the nineteenth century quote 'Go West, young man' commonly attributed to Horace Greeley, a rallying cry for the colonization of the American West; though Victor Willis denies writing the song with a gay theme in mind, 'Go West' is generally understood as an expression of the 1970s sentiment of San Francisco as a utopia for the Gay Liberation movement."
Wikipedia
shmoop
YouTube: Village People - Go West, Pet Shop Boys - Go West, Pet Shop Boys - Go West++

2010 August: Village People, 2008 September: Pet Shop Boys, 2010 November: Pet Shop Boys - 1985-1989, 2011 January: Behaviour, 2011 May: Very, 2011 December: Bilingual, 2012 March: "Always on My Mind", 2012 August: Nightlife, 2012 September: "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)", 2012 December: Release, 2013 March: Pandemonium Tour, 2013 November: Leaving, 2014 April: Introspective (1988).

The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters - MoMA

'La Troupe de Mademoiselle Églantine', 1896.
"A preeminent artist of Belle Époque Paris, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) brought the language of the late-19th-century avant-garde to a broad public through his famous posters, prints, and illustrations for journals and magazines. A cultural nexus, he connected artists, performers, authors, intellectuals, and society figures of his day, creating a bridge between the brothels and society salons of the moment. His work allows entry into many facets of Parisian life, from politics to visual culture and the rise of popular entertainment in the form of cabarets and café-concerts."
MoMA
NY Times: Imbibing a World of Delight and Degradation
WSJ - The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters
W - Moulin Rouge
BBC: Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit brings classic Paris to NY (Video)

Photoville Exhibition Returning to Brooklyn Bridge Park

"United Photo Industries, the Brooklyn photography cooperative probably best known for 'The Fence' – the 1,000-foot-long photo installation that began in Brooklyn in 2012 and has since had versions in Boston and Atlanta – will set up its third annual Photoville, a pop-up, modular exhibition space, in Brooklyn Bridge Park from Sept. 18 to 28. The project, at Pier 5 in the park, will include 60 exhibitions, most presented in 20-by-40-foot shipping containers repurposed as mini-galleries, with several outdoor installations as well. Also planned are more than 25 talks, panels and hands-on workshops, and a series of multimedia presentations and author readings."
NY Times
About THE FENCE - Photoville
Photoville Photoville
Photoville - Brooklyn Bridge Park
kickstarter :Photoville - Brooklyn Bridge Park (Video)

Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute To Cole Porter (1990)

"Cole Porter did not die of AIDS, but he is generally acknowledged to have been at least bisexual, which seems to be the justification for assembling an AIDS charity album in which contemporary artists perform songs he wrote in the 1920s, '30s, '40s, and '50s. Producer/creators Leigh Blake and John Carlin (along with Steve Lillywhite, credited as supervising musical producer, who produced several of the individual tracks) appear to have suggested to the artists that they simply take Porter's lead sheets and come up with arrangements and recordings in their own individual styles. Leading off the album, Neneh Cherry demonstrates how far that can be from traditional approaches to Porter's music. ..."
allmusic
W - Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute To Cole Porter
W - Cole Porter
YouTube: Tom Waits - It's Alright With Me, Annie Lennox - Every Time We Say Goodbye, David Byrne - Don't Fence Me In, So in love - k.d. lang, Neneh Cherry - I've Got You Under My Skin, Iggy Pop & Debbie Harry Sing "Did You Evah", Les Negresses Vertes - I Love Paris

Au Pairs - Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology (2006)

"This is it -- every studio recording made by Au Pairs, one of the smartest, sharpest bands of the post-punk era. Stepping Out of Line contains the two albums, 1981's Playing with a Different Sex and the following year's Sense and Sensuality, as well as all the non-album material, three tracks from a BBC session, a live version of 'Piece of My Heart,' one previously unreleased track, and a handful of demos for a third album that never materialized. Most of the non-album material surfaced on RPM's reissues of the two albums, but those discs vanished shortly after release, and an attempt on the part of Cherry Red to condense the best of it all onto one disc in 1999 came up short. No one could possibly give this band's output too much attention."
allmusic
W - Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology
stylusmagazine
Only the Lonely
YouTube: Set Up (Live), Come Again (Live), Intact (Live)
YouTube: Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology +++

2008 May: Au Pairs, 2012 October: Au Pairs @ Pinkpop 1982.

Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson (2009)

Wikiedia - "Fantastic Mr. Fox is a 2009 American stop-motion animated comedy film based on the Roald Dahl children's novel of the same name. This story is about a fox who steals food each night from three mean and wealthy farmers. The farmers are fed up with Mr. Fox's theft and try to kill him, so they dig their way into the foxes' home. However, the animals are able to outwit the farmers and live underground. Produced by Indian Paintbrush and Regency Enterprises, and released in the autumn of 2009, the film features the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson. For director Wes Anderson, it was his first animated film and first film adaptation."
Wikipedia
New Yorker: Wild, Wild Wes
Slate: Outfoxed
NY Times: Don’t Count Your Chickens
amazon
YouTube: Fantastic Mr. Fox - Official Theatrical Trailer

2013 November: Wes Anderson Honors Fellini in a Delightful New Short Film, 2013 November: Rushmore (1998), 2013 Decemher: Hotel Chevalier (2007), 2014 March: Wes Anderson Collection, 2014 April: The Perfect Symmetry of Wes Anderson’s Movies, 2014 July: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).

Children's Games - Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1560)

Children's Games, 1560
Wikipedia - "Children's Games is an oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1560. It is currently held and exhibited at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. ... The children, who range in age from toddlers to adolescents, roll hoops, walk on stilts, spin hoops, ride hobby-horses, stage mock tournaments, play leap-frog and blind man's bluff, perform handstands, inflate pigs' bladders and play with dolls and other toys. They have also taken over the large building that dominates the square: it may be a town hall or some other important civic building, in this way emphasizing the moral that the adults who direct civic affairs are as children in the sight of God. This crowded scene is to some extent relieved by the landscape in the top left-hand corner; but even here children are bathing in the river and playing on its banks."
Wikipedia
Center for History and New Media
amazon: Inside Bruegel: The Play of Images in Children's Games

2010 May: Peasant, 2011 March: "The Harvesters", Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 2012 February: The Mill and the Cross - Lech Majewski, 2012 December: The Lord of Misrule and the Feast of Fools., 2013 July: Netherlandish Proverbs.

Bukka White - Parchman Farm (1970)

Wikipedia - "'Parchman Farm' or 'Parchman Farm Blues' is blues song first recorded by American Delta blues musician Bukka White in 1940. It is an autobiographical piece, in which White sings of his experience at the infamous Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman Farm. ... One was 'Parchman Farm Blues', which he recorded that day (all twelve were recorded over two days, May 7 and 8, 1940). The song has the elements of Delta blues, including a one-chord modal arrangement and a slide guitar break. However, the melody line is distinctive and relies less on blue notes. White delivers the vocal in his characteristic grainy, guttural style accompanied by his acoustic guitar, with Washboard Sam on washboard percussion."
Wikipedia
W - Bukka White
Discogs: Parchman Farm (1970)
allmusic
YouTube: Parchman Farm Blues, Aberdeen Mississippi Blues (Live), Fixin' To Die, Pine Bluff Arkansas, Shake 'Em On Down, Black Train Blues, Strange Place Blues, Where Can I Change My Clothes, Sleepy Man Blues, Good Gin Blues, High fever Blues, District Attorney Blues, Bukka's Jitterbug Swing, Special Steamline

Derrida (2002)

Wikipedia - "Derrida is a 2002 American documentary film directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman about the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. It premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival before being released theatrically on October 23, 2002. The film uses interviews shot by the filmmakers, footage of Derrida's lectures and speaking engagements, and personal footage of Derrida at home with his friends and family. In several scenes, Ziering Kofman also reads excerpts from Derrida's work or otherwise describes aspects of his life.Derrida also focuses on Derrida's thesis that scholars tend to ignore important biographical information when discussing philosophers' lives. In one scene, Derrida comments that he would be most interested in hearing about famous philosophers' sex lives because this topic is seldom addressed in their writings."
Wikipedia
Derrida: A 2002 Documentary on the Abstract Philosopher and the Everyday Man
YouTube: Derrida (2002)

2010 January: Jacques Derrida

Ice Cream

"Conehead - Over the past few years, ice cream—that wonderful, bliss-inducing treat of our boyhoods—has been reinvigorated by the food world's small-batch, artisanal tinkerers. (Have you tried bourbon-infused ice cream?) The result has been a wonderful (but sometimes dizzying) reinvention of a classic. Thankfully, Alan Richman, a lifelong lover of the Cold Arts, is here to share the 31 things he knows to be true about getting the most out of this perfect food. ... 3. Steve Herrell is the godfather of American ice cream. He opened Steve's, outside the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1973 and produced the first ultrapremium scoop-shop ice cream by slowing down an old White Mountain ice cream freezer operating in the front of his shop. Herrell is to ice cream what Julia Child was to French cooking and what Alice Waters is to farm-to-table."
GQ
"I Scream" - Anne Fadiman (The Paris Review)
W - Ice Cream
W - Steve's Ice Cream, W - Ben & Jerry's, W - Häagen-Dazs, W - Good Humor, W - Bungalow Bar
W - Category:Ice cream brands

Papa's Got a Brand New Bag - James Brown (1965)

"Who could know back in 1965 that James Brown's two-minute King single 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag' would be the start of a musical revolution. The track had a dubious beginning. Brown hadn't recorded for King Records for over a year, partly due to the legal skirmish that surrounded the singer. ... On the session were drummer Melvin Parker, his brother, Maceo Parker, on baritone sax, guitarist Jimmy Nolan, organist/sax player Nat Jones, and the bass line was played by Sam Thomas or Bernard Odum. The horn section included St. Clair Pickney, Joe Dupars, Eldee Williams, Al Clark, Wilmer Milton, Ron Tooley, and Levi Rasbury. Nolan, Maceo Parker, and Pickney would become key players in helping to shape Brown's funky musical version in the coming years. When submitted to Syd Nathan of King Records, the track was over seven minutes long."
allmusic
W - Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
YouTube: Papa's Got A Brand New Bag 1967 14:51

SCOPE Basel

Page by Eva Kaczor
"In proximity to SCOPE Basel's 4,000m² pavilion, will be a large-scale presentation of Jean Tinguely's brilliant musical performance 'Cyclope' along with several restaurants, bars, and clubs orchestrating 'pop-ups' along the once-industrial riverfront. SCOPE is delighted to be at the center of this focused cultural moment in Basel. SCOPE Basel will welcome 75 International Exhibitors alongside 20 Breeder Program Galleries, offering a view of the contemporary art market available nowhere else. Exhibitors hail from four continents and over twenty countries including China, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Italy, Iran, Russia, Turkey, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, UK, Spain, and Canada."
SCOPE Basel 2014

The Best Beer in Baseball

"Several years ago, craft beer started taking off at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark. From 2011-2012, sales went up by 20 percent. From 2012-2013, they were up 47 percent. So when it came time to create a new hangout in a highly trafficked spot on the third-base concourse, the ballpark went all-in on craft-style beers. The new Reds Brewery District – an 84-foot-long bar with more than 50 taps – included more than 20 craft offerings when it opened this spring. There were local beers from Cincinnati brewers like Christian Moerlein, MadTree, Blank Slate, Fifty West, Rhinegeist, Mt. Carmel, and Rivertown. There were national options from well-regarded breweries like Founders, Bell’s, West Sixth and Great Lakes."
Washington Post

Keuschheitslegende - Pina Bausch (1979)

The Legend of Virginity, A Scene from Pina Bausch's Ballet - Helmut Newton
"Inspired by Pina Bausch’s Ballet Keuschheitslegende,in which life-sized crocodiles creep around onstage amongst dancers, Helmut Newton would capture a ballerina–quite literally–in the belly of the beast, taking the transgressive ballet just a step further. For Vogue China’s 10th Anniversary issue, Mario Testino would photograph model Liu Wen also interacting with a crocidile, however, in the contemporary version, the woman seemingly dominates the animal rather than serving as its prey."
Part Nouveau
Tanztheater Wuppertal
Bettina Stöß | Datenschutzhinweis
flickr: RasMarley

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

A Skin Too Few - The Days of Nick Drake (2002)

"How do you film a biography of an enigma who died at such a young age (26) that he barely had a life? One way is to keep it short. During part of this tender tribute, the camera gazes at the pastoral landscape around Tanworth-in-Arden, the village where the English singer-songwriter grew up in upper-middle-class comfort. With his haunting music playing in the background, these scenes define the film, whose principal voice belongs to Drake's sorrowful older sister, Gabrielle, as a cinematic tone poem as much as a biography."
NY Times
Review by Andy Smith
YouTube: A Skin Too Few - The Days of Nick Drake 1, 2, 3, 4

2012 July: Nick Drake, 2013 May: Five Leaves Left, 2014 February: Bryter Layter (1970).

Prospero’s Cell - Lawrence Durrell (1945)

"... It was October, the perfect time to arrive clasping a much-read copy of his Prospero’s Cell, a glimpse of Corfu as it once was, overlaid with all the poetic imagination of the writer-traveller as a young man. With his expansive, all-encompassing opening line, Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue really begins, Durrell takes us out of ourselves and along with him as he crosses into Greek waters from the heel of Italy and into a new life of light and heat. Reading it on a gloomy winter afternoon in the northern hemisphere is like injecting the grey sky with vivid blues and emeralds. The book purports to be an evocative diary in which he is a serious young writer living blissfully in the sun, deeply in love both with his new wife and the freedom that Greece represents in the 1930s. The idea of escape – from political and economic uncertainty; there are plenty of parallels with our times -  is a strong undertow."
Songs of Blue and Gold: Lawrence Durrell’s Island of Corfu
Prospero's Cell - Lawrence Durrell: A Review
white house, green water
Days of heaven: The story of a marriage on the island of Corfu
amazon: Prospero's Cell
YouTube: Visit Kalami in Corfu, Greece, Journey on the way to Corfu Greece Storm at Sea

2011 December: The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell, 2013 September: Villa that inspired Lawrence Durrell faces demolition, as Egypt allows heritage to crumble.

Popol Vuh - Letzte Tage-Letzte Nächte (1976)

"As Florian Fricke moved away from an early synthesizer-centered sound and embraced organic instrumentation in his quest to fuse Eastern and Western musical and spiritual traditions, Popol Vuh's rock orientation became more pronounced. That aspect derived largely from the contributions of electric guitarists Conny Veit (on Hosianna Mantra and Seligpreisung) and Daniel Fichelscher (on Seligpreisung, Einsjäger & Siebenjäger, and Das Hohelied Salomos). Letzte Tage - Letzte Nächte is the band's boldest foray into rock territory. On Das Hohelied Salomos, Fichelscher's guitar often eclipsed Fricke's piano; here, his presence is even more emphatic. That's not to say that the band has lost its equilibrium -- this is another classic Popol Vuh exercise in balancing and reconciling apparent opposites. An opening pair of instrumentals sets the tone. ..."
allmusic
W - Letzte Tage-Letzte Nächte
YouTube: Kyrie (Live), Dort ist der Weg, Letzte Tage, Letzte Nachte, Der grosse Krieger, Oh wie weit ist der weg hinauf

2008 August: Popol Vuh, 2010 December: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 2011 May: Abschied (1972), 2013 May: Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog, 2913 September: Hosianna Mantra (1972), 2014 April: Revisited & Remixed 1970-1999 (2011).

Rules of Travel - Rosanne Cash (2003)

"At every level, Rules of Travel distinguishes itself. A latecomer to songwriting, Rosanne Cash delivers plenty of compelling material, fully comparable in quality to the album's two non-original cuts. She comes up with fresh and intriguing chord changes to end verses and choruses on the title track, and images whose rugged eloquence perfectly fits the early-morning mumble of Steve Earle on 'I'll Change for You.' On 'September When It Comes,' she switches to a more homespun, folkloric imagery that suits her father's weathered, timeless rumble. ... Though her voice is hardly the most impressive instrument in country music, Cash knows how to compensate by using an understated approach to more quietly highlight the essence of a song. Given the quality of what she gives herself to work with on Rules of Travel, it's a method that can't miss."
allmusic
W - Rules of Travel
YouTube: I'll Change For You, Rules Of Travel, September When It Comes, Beautiful pain, Western Wall, Last Stop Before Home

2010 March: Rosanne Cash, 2012 January: Black Cadillac, 2012 April: "I Was Watching You"  , 2012 July: The Wheel, 2012 February: Live From Zone C, 2014 February: The River & the Thread (2014).

Conceptual Art by Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler

"Constitution On Tour," 1991, Model train cars and tracks, sandblasted and metal brackets.
"The artists Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler, who worked together from the late 1970s until Ms. Ericson’s death in 1995, fused Conceptual art, community action and Americana in ways few others have, before or since. For a 1991 project in Charleston, S.C., they painted the exterior of a house just outside the city’s historic district in a riotous camouflage of colors (each one drawn from a list approved by the city’s Board of Architectural Review, which probably had not anticipated anyone wanting to use them all at once)."
NY Times
Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler
America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler
amazon: America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler

Mercy Dee Walton

"Mose Allison certainly recognized the uncommon brilliance of pianist Mercy Dee Walton. The young, jazz-based Allison faithfully covered Walton's downtrodden 'One Room Country Shack' in 1957, four years after Walton had waxed the original for Los Angeles-based Specialty Records (his original was a huge R&B smash). Walton was a Texas émigré, like so many other postwar California R&B pioneers, who had played piano around Waco from the age of 13 before hitting the coast in 1938."
allmusic
W - Mercy Dee Walton
Illustrated Mercy Dee Walton discography
YouTube: Lonesome cabin blues, Romp and stomp blues, Red Light, One Room Country Shack, Baba-Du-Lay Fever, Mercy Dee Walton & Lady Fox - Big Minded Daddy, Come Back Maybellene, Bird Brain Baby, Stubborn Woman, Oh Oh Please, MERCY DEE WALTON & THELMA "LADY FOX" WALTON - RENT MAN BLUES, My Woman Knows the Score

Louvre

"Paris-based writer Andrew Hussey travels through the glorious art and surprising history of an extraordinary French institution to show that the story of the Louvre is the story of France. As well as exploring the masterpieces of painters such as Veronese, Rubens, David, Chardin, Gericault and Delacroix, he examines the changing face of the Louvre itself through its architecture and design. Medieval fortress, Renaissance palace, luxurious home to kings, emperors and more recently civil servants, today it attracts eight million visitors a year. The documentary also reflects the very latest transformation of the Louvre – the museum’s recently-opened Islamic Gallery."
BBC
Louvre (Video)
W - Louvre
NY Times: At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus
amazon: Louvre: 400 Masterpieces, The Louvre: All the Paintings, The Pocket Louvre
YouTube: BBC Treasures of the Louvre
YouTube: Visit the Louvre Museum, Twenty Minutes at the Louvre Museum,

Michael de Kok

"Landscape paintings by Dutch artist Michael de Kok are currently featured at the Bertrand Delacroix Gallery in Chelsea. In various paintings of roadside, and field, and farmland, De Kok’s goal is to provide the impact of a subject at any given moment. Whether it be of a mountain, road, or building, he emphasizes vastness by incorporating concepts such as line, shape, and form evenly. In addition, De Kok illustrates wide open spaces rising above blurred horizon lines and smoothly alternating between light and dark effects by using earthly colors and smooth brush strokes."
Examiner: Earthly landscape paintings in Chelsea
Michael de Kok

'Every hour a glass of wine' – the female writers who drank

Marguerite Duras in France, c1955.
13 June 2014. "If you write a book about alcohol and male writers, as I did, the one question you'll be asked more than any other is: what about the women? Are there any alcoholic female writers? And are their stories the same, or different? The answer to the first question is easy. Yes, of course there are, among them such brilliant, restless figures as Jean Rhys, Jean Stafford, Marguerite Duras, Patricia Highsmith, Elizabeth Bishop, Jane Bowles, Anne Sexton, Carson McCullers, Dorothy Parker and Shirley Jackson."
Guardian