Lost in TRUMPLANDIA

"'THE FED OWNS COWS!' a protester bellowed at me as I moved blindly toward the doors of a Donald Trump rally. It was February 8, the eve of the New Hampshire Republican primary, and I was surrounded by whirling white. 'Thank you,' I said, shaking the protester’s hand. 'Good luck getting those cows away from them.' Nice, I thought as I walked away. My interviewing skills were as sharp as swords from the mall. Discerning the true nature of the Trump phenomenon, one so baffling it’s in the process of ruining some of the more rational minds of our generation, was probably going to be easy. I had touched down in Manchester a few hours before, just as darkness began to fall together with snow. I entered the Verizon Wireless Arena, a 10,000-seat venue, to see a jumbotron projecting a photograph of Melania Trump in a bikini embracing a blow-up doll of Shamu. A hallucination? It was no longer possible to tell. ..."
New Republic: Lost in TRUMPLANDIA (Mar. 27, 2016)
Washington Post: In a revealing interview, Trump predicts a ‘massive recession’ but intends to eliminate the national debt in 8 years (Video)
New Republic: Bernie's Complaint (Feb. 25, 2016)
Five ways Republican bloodbath could end - BBC
W - United States third party and independent presidential candidates, 2016
Washington Post: How Republicans are gaming the voting system to tip the 2016 election in their favor (Video)
NY Times: Electoral Map Is a Reality Check to Donald Trump’s Bid

2016 January: Donald Trump and the Joys of Toy Fascism, 2016 January: Sanders Is Not Trump, 2016 January: Donald Trump’s Twitter Insults: The Complete List (So Far), 2016 February: Bernie and the Millennials.

By the Sound - Edward Dorn (1965)

"... By the Sound was originally called Rites of Passage when it was published in 1965, and now it is re-issued with minor revisions and the new, less pretentious title. It is a novel surprisingly conventional in form for Edward Dorn who has since he wrote this book come to be known for his wildly imaginative and original, comic and philosophical, open-ended poem Gunslinger. ... One could look to The Country of the Pointed Firs and Winesburg, Ohio for its literary models. The title refers to Puget Sound in Washington state, and the main characters of the novel, the people who are given sympathy, are the marginal workers who live in that generally grey, misty and smudged land. ..."
Ploughshares
David R. Godine
amazon
Google

Omniverse Sun Ra by Hartmut Geerken and Chris Trent

"... Omniverse Sun Ra features many previously unpublished photographs of Sun Ra and His Arkestra in New York in 1966 and Germany in 1979 by Val Wilmer, and Hartmut Geerken's previously unpublished photographs from Heliopolis in Cairo, Egypt, in 1971, in addition to an updated comprehensive pictorial and annotated discography by Chris Trent, including chronological discography and alphabetical record title, composition, personnel, and record label indexes, as well as indexes of shellac 78RPM records, 45 RPM singles, jackets, and labels. Also includes essays and photo documents by Hartmut Geerken, Chris Trent, Amiri Baraka, Robert L. Campbell, Chris Cutler, Gabi Geist, Sigrid Hauff, Karl Heinz Kessler, Robert Lax, and Salah Ragab. ..."
Squid
Art Yard (Photo)
100 Years of Sun Ra: digging deep with Peter Dennett, the space-jazz supremo’s chief archaeologist
Include Me Out
facebook

Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France

Marie Louise Élisabeth, Vigée-Le Brun's self-portrait
"Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755–1842) is one of the finest 18th-century French painters and among the most important of all women artists. An autodidact with exceptional skills as a portraitist, she achieved success in France and Europe during one of the most eventful, turbulent periods in European history. In 1776, she married the leading art dealer in Paris; his profession at first kept her from being accepted into the prestigious Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Nevertheless, through the intervention of Marie Antoinette, she was admitted at the age of 28 in 1783, becoming one of only four women members. ... Independently, she worked in Florence, Naples, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Berlin before returning to France, taking sittings from, among others, members of the royal families of Naples, Russia, and Prussia. While in exile, she exhibited at the Paris Salons. ..."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Video)
W - Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
NY Times - Vigée Le Brun: A Delayed Tribute to a French Trailblazer
Khan Academy
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Eighteenth-Century Women Painters in France

Ghazal - The Rain (2003)

"On its fourth outing and its first for ECM, the Indian/Persian duo Ghazal chose to record a live album. Issued from a concert in Switzerland, the recording blends the musical styles of both countries. Shujaat Husain Khan, a direct descendant (grandson) of the venerable musician and spiritual master Ustad Vilayat Khan, plays sitar in the Imad Khan Gharana style that concentrates its method to emulate the sonorities of the human voice. Kayhan Kalhor, from Tehran, plays the kamancheh (a type of East Indian violin), and is a renowned composer as well as a soloist (he can be heard on Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road project -- which was born out of Ghazal's own trilogy on the Silk Road). ..."
allmusic
ECM
iTunes, Spotify
tune: Kayhan Kalhor & Shujaat Husain Kahn (live)
YouTube: Ghazal - The Rain 53:18

The New Mosaics

Frank Leslie Hampton, ”Uptown New York” at the Tremont Avenue station (B, D).
"YOU’VE felt the heat already. New York City’s 722 miles of subways are among the dirtiest, hottest and most woebegone in the country. Other, newer systems are cleaner, cooler and run better. I notice decor a great deal, though, and… ... What makes New York City’s stations stand apart is the overwhelming use of tile and mosaics, initiated by subway art director/engineer Squire Vickers in the 1910s, at the end of the Arts and Crafts era, and continued by him into the 1930s, with the IND’s precise Machine Age graphics. After Vickers was gone, the subways seemed rootless, with a wide variety of different schemes, some effective, some not. In recent years, the MTA has restored much of Vickers’ work, especially along the BMT Broadway line, and new mosaic installations have appeared that seem to extrapolate Vickers’ ethos, adapting it to a more playful, innovative age, with additional colors and images. ..."
Forgotten New York

Patti Smith - Land (1975-2000)

"Patti Smith completed her contract with Arista Records after 27 years by assembling this compilation, which serves as both a best-of and rarities collection, one disc devoted to each. Disc one is drawn from Smith's eight studio albums (with the exception of a newly recorded cover of Prince's 'When Doves Cry'). Having scored only one hit single, 'Because the Night,' Smith was not constrained by chart performance, and she seems to have chosen the songs that still mean something to her (though in an interview she claimed to have taken fan preferences into consideration). ... Land (1975-2000) is a typically idiosyncratic compilation from a quirky but imaginative artist, and that's what her fans have come to expect, so they won't be disappointed."
allmusic
W - Land (1975-2000)
popmatters
iTunes
YouTube: Land (1975-2000)

Radiooooo: The Hit Tune Time Machine

Instead of browsing songs listed alphabetically or by genre, listeners on the Web site Radiooooo explore playlists organized by decade and by geography.
"In 2012, Benjamin Moreau, an artist and d.j., was test-driving his car-collector father’s most recent acquisition, a white 1966 Renault Caravelle, in the French Riviera. 'As we drove along this road, lost in time, my fingers came across the splendid old radio on the exquisite wooden dashboard,' he recalled. When Moreau switched it on, the speakers belched 'a wave of awful commercial music,' he said, 'instantly bursting the time bubble we were so happily swimming in.' The moment led to an idea: what if you could organize music, not based on genre or complex algorithms but instead as a part of time and space? What if, instead of scrolling through artists and songs arranged alphabetically, you could explore them historically and geographically? ..."
New Yorker
Radioooooo (Video)

Ethiopian Kings 1975-80 - Rod Taylor

"It took some time, but with the release of 'Ethiopian Kings 1975-80' we are finally treated to an excellent revive compilation set from tough roots singer Rod Taylor. In the second half of the seventies Rod Taylor made a series of heavyweight roots records that established the culturally conscious youthman as a name to watch. In 1975 he recorded the noteable 'Bad Man Comes And Goes' for producer Oswald 'Ossie' Hibbert, but it lasted until 1978 before Taylor came to prominence through his association with Bertram Brown's highly regarded 'Freedom Sounds' label. Rod Taylor recorded two of his most important hits for this producer, 'Ethiopian Kings' and 'In The Right Way', which led to sessions with Michael Campbell aka Mikey Dread. ... 'Ethiopian Kings 1975-80' contains excellent roots music from way back, still sounding great today."
Reggae-Vibes
W - Rod Taylor
Interview: Ten Big Tunes with Rod Taylor
YouTube: Rod Taylor - Ethiopian Kings 1975-80 48:01

Carol (2015)

"Carol is gorgeous, gently groundbreaking, and might be the saddest thing you’ll ever see. More than hugely accomplished cinema, it’s an exquisite work of American art, rippling with a very specific mid-century melancholy, understanding love as the riskiest but most necessary gamble in anyone’s experience. It’s hard to imagine a director handling this project more surely than Todd Haynes, a supreme chronicler of feminine emotional pain - from Safe through Far From Heaven and Mildred Pierce - who reasserts his status here as one of the greats. Everything in this long-gestating adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel feels weighted to perfection. The film’s a smorgasbord of edible Fifties design which finds meaning in the smallest details. ..."
Telegraph - Carol review: 'Cate Blanchett will slay you' (Video)
New Yorker: Forbidden Love
W - Carol
NY Times: ‘Carol’ Explores the Sweet Science of Magnetism (Video)
W - Patricia Highsmith
Guardian: Cate Blanchett superb in a five-star tale of forbidden love (Video)

2014 March: Blue Jasmine (2013)

Reality of My Surroundings: The Contemporary Collection

Blood Soaked South, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
"This winter, Duke’s Nasher Museum contributed its two cents to the roiling national conversation on race by celebrating its tenth anniversary with a show of artists of African descent, organized by chief curator Trevor Schoonmaker. The show explores identity and its construction, challenging traditional representations of black subjects in art history and recasting them in a more central role, while honoring the black struggle worldwide. The result is as sightly as is it compelling. The Nasher broke ground ten years ago, at a time when Durham was regionally infamous for its crime and gangs. In the mid-aughts, though, a slew of downtown investment kicked off a municipal rebirth, and the Nasher has grown up in concert with the city’s revitalized art scene. ..."
The Brooklyn Rail
Nasher
'Reality of My Surroundings' exhibit highlights artists of African descent

The Church of Saint John Coltrane

"‘The worship of God is what we encourage, and we’re using the music of John Coltrane.’ So says Bishop Franzo King, who with his wife, the Reverend Mother Marina King, founded the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco. Since its creation in 1971, it has evolved into the Saint John Will-I-Am Coltrane Church. The vibe is a rapturous out-of-your-head-ness, where instead of the choir and the hymn book there is the sinuous, transcendent music of the jazz-saint, John Coltrane."
The Church of Saint John Coltrane (Video)
Open Culture: Discover the Church of St. John Coltrane, Founded on the Divine Music of A Love Supreme (Video)
YouTube: Saint John Coltrane - BBC 42:08

2011 November: John Coltrane Quartet, Live at Jazz Casual, 1963, 2012 March: John Coltrane 1960 - 1965, 2012 September: "Naima" (1959), 2012 October: Blue Train (1957), 2013 April: The World According to John Coltrane, 2013 November: A Love Supreme (1965), 2014 July: New Photos of John Coltrane Rediscovered 50 Years After They Were Shot, 2014 November: Coltrane’s Free Jazz Wasn’t Just “A Lot of Noise”, 2015 February: Lush Life (1958), 2015 May: An Animated John Coltrane Explains His True Reason for Being: “I Want to Be a Force for Real Good”, 2015 July: Afro Blue Impressions (2013), 2015 September: Impressions of Coltrane, 2015 December: Giant Steps (1960), 2016 January: Crescent (1964).

A Southpaw in Havana

W: 1999 Baltimore Orioles – Cuban national baseball team exhibition series
"In 1947, the soon-to-be dynastic Brooklyn Dodgers moved their spring training camp to Havana, Cuba. As a venue, it made good sense—Havana offered warm winter weather and stellar baseball facilities. But what made Havana most attractive was its isolation; Jackie Robinson, recently promoted from the minors, was just weeks away from breaking American professional baseball’s color barrier, and Branch Rickey, the team’s president and general manager, sought to shield the outfielder from untoward attention as he trained with the team. ... Last Sunday, nearly 70 springs and an embargo later, when Barack Obama, the No. 42 of American presidential politics, boarded Air Force One for his historic sojourn to Cuba, he did so with two guests of honor—Rachel and Sharon Robinson, the widow and daughter of Jackie. The symbolism wasn’t subtle: The Robinsons and the Obamas embody the cause and effect of the effacing of generations-old biases. Or, failing all of that, the United States and Cuba share a historic love of baseball. ..."
The Atlantic: A Southpaw in Havana
NY Times: This Cuban Defector Changed Baseball. Nobody Remembers.
CNN: Obama engages in baseball diplomacy in Cuba (Video)
W - Baseball in Cuba
PBS: Stealing Home
ESPN: "Cuba has to budge"
Vanity Fair: Commie Ball: A Journey to the End of a Revolution (2008)
The Economist: Cuban baseball crisis
The Atlantic: Cuban Baseball (1984)
Inside MLB's Cuban Pipeline: It's High-Risk, High-Reward (2014)
The New Golden Age of Cuban Baseball in MLB
W - Cuban League
amazon: The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball, A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006, Havana Hardball, Pitching Around Fidel, The Quality of Home Runs: The Passion, Politics, and Language of Cuban Baseball

Lucy Knisley

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE
Wikipedia - "Lucy Knisley (born January 11, 1985) is an American comic artist and musician. Her work is often autobiographical, and food is a common theme. Knisley's drawn travel journal French Milk was published through Simon & Schuster in October 2008. It received positive reviews in several publications, such as USA Today and Salon.com. Comics critic Douglas Wolk described it as 'a keenly observed letter back home... the pleasure Knisley takes in food and company is infectious.' Knisley holds a BFA ('07) from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While there, she contributed to and edited the comics section of the school newspaper, FNews. Knisley holds an MFA ('09) from the Center for Cartoon Studies. ..."
Wikipedia
Lucy Knisley
Travel and art blog for comic artist Lucy Knisley (Video)
Mice
amazon: Lucy Knisley

Passoa's Trunk - 13+ ways of looking at a poem

"When Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa (1888 - 1935) passed away, he left a trunk containing some 25,426 items — a vast collection of poems, fragments, letters, journals. These pieces were ascribed to a variety of writers — Bernardo Soares, Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Álvaro de Campos among them — for Pessoa had created a number of assumed identities over the course of his literary career. To adapt a comment by American critic and poet John Hollander, if Pessoa had never existed the World Wide Web would have invented him — for this fluid, hypertextual medium is so suitable to one who expressed himself through such a variety of personalities. This web site, 'Pessoa's Trunk,' is an attempt to apply the tools of the web to the appreciation of Pessoa's writing and life. —Marc Weidenbaum"
disquiet
disquiet - "Autopsicografia" By Fernando Pessoa
disquiet - "Autopsicografia" ii By Fernando Pessoa
disquiet - "Tudo quanto"

2008 March: Fernando Pessoa, 2012 October: The Book of Disquiet, 2012 November: Fernando Pessoa and Co.: Selected Poems, 2014 May: Aspects by Fernando Pessoa.

Asphalt Archaeology

"Every so often, a loose object kicked or dropped or tossed behind a boundary of construction barrels becomes trapped in soft asphalt and, like an insect in amber, preserved in time. These objects, made and lost by humans, flattened and twisted by their urban environment, exist as fossilized remains of everyday life. An observant pedestrian darting across a road can sometimes notice such a fossil just breaching the surface. Here are a collection of objects discovered around the city — no excavation required."
BKLYNR
Street-level archaeology
W - Asphalt

One Street Portrait a Day: Artist Mel Waters Celebrates Black History in San Francisco

Dr. James E. West by Mel Waters. Black History Month 2016.
"'There are some beautiful people out there that have left the world better off. I’m glad I could share some of them over Black History Month, one portrait at a time,' says Mel Waters when talking about his piece-a-day project in San Francisco’s Mission District in February. Funded from his own pocket, the 34 year old artist devised the project for himself and executed it on city walls (and one delivery truck) to pay tribute to famous African Americans during Black History Month. ..."
Brooklyn Street Art

Film Works 1986-1990 - John Zorn

"Film Works 1986-1990 opens with John Zorn's first film score, White and Lazy. In just under ten minutes comes small capsules of instrumental punk, rockabilly, dark ambient, nightclub jazz, until 'End Title,' with vocals by Arto Lindsay, and soloing by Robert Quine (of Lou Reed's band), who Zorn regards as 'a punk guitar genius.' The other musicians on these first six tracks are bassist Melvin Gibbs, reeds player Ned Rothenberg, harpist Carol Emanuel, keyboardist David Weinstein, and drummer Anton Fier. Next on the CD comes the music for The Golden Boat, a 1990 Raul Ruiz film. ..."
allmusic
W - Film Works 1986-1990
amazon
YouTube: End Titles, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Seduction, Going To Dinner, Mexico

2009 March: John Zorn, 2010 August: Spillane,  2011 October: Filmworks Anthology : 20 Years of Soundtrack Music, 2012 September: Marc Ribot, 2013 January: Bar Kokhba and Masada, 2013 September: Masada String Trio Sala, 2014 January: Full Concert Jazz in Marciac (2010), 2014 March: "Extraits de Book Of Angels" @ Jazz in Marciac 2008, 2015 June: The Big Gundown - John Zorn plays Ennio Morricone (1985), News for Lulu (1988).

Steinski - What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective

"One of the most unlikely heroes of hip-hop has to be former ad man Steinski, who catapulted himself to street-level fame by entering a Tommy Boy remix contest in 1983 and delivering (with recording studio vet Double Dee) one of the best mastermixes of all time. No matter that this was hardly an 'on the fly' turntablist piece worthy of Grandmaster Flash; basically, it came about from boxes of records, turntables, tape machines, and a dozen hours of studio time. The original 'Lesson' (aka 'The Payoff Mix') was a dizzying trip that took in dozens of track snippets interspersed with all manner of movie dialogue and cartoon samples. ... From there, Double Dee & Steinski or Steinski solo took on everything from the history of hip-hop, jazz, and Sugar Hill to two of the most deadly serious moments in American history, JFK's assassination ('The Motorcade Sped On') and the events of 9/11 ('Number Three on Flight Eleven'). ... Rap music has rarely gotten more virtuosic and creative than it does here."
allmusic
W - Double Dee and Steinski
Pitchfork
Discogs
NPR: Steinski Gives A Sampling History Lesson (Video)
YouTube: What Does It All Mean? - 1983-2006 Retrospective

Ireland’s Unfinished Revolution

"There is no consensus among Ireland’s historians about whether the events of 1916-23 constitute a revolution, or how the revolution should be regarded. Fianna Fáil, for a long time the most successful political party in the republic, pushed a narrative that used the 1916 Rising to legitimize the contemporary state. Its telling is narrow and nationalist, tying leader Pádraig Pearse and his contemporaries to the conservative Catholicism of the twentieth century. Their rivals among the Irish bourgeoisie, Fine Gael, contain many partisans of the Home Rule movement’s constitutional nationalism. Less critical of British rule in Ireland, they tend to downplay or even discredit the 1916 Rising as a tragic misadventure. ..."
Jacobin
W - Irish revolutionary period
W - Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence – A Brief Overview
amazon: Ireland's Unfinished Revolution: An Oral History, Curious Journey: Oral History of Ireland's Unfinished Revolution
YouTube: Daily life continues: Exploring Ireland's History 1912-1923, Irish Lives in War and Revolution: Exploring Ireland's History 1912-1923, Motivations to fight in WWI: Exploring Ireland's History 1912-1923

Confusion - Fela Kuti (1975)

Wikipedia - "Confusion is a studio album by Nigerian Afrobeat musician Fela Kuti and his band the Africa 70. It was arranged, composed, and produced by Kuti, and released in 1975 by EMI. He recorded the album after choosing to emphasize his African heritage and nationalism in his music. Confusion is a commentary on the confused state of post-colonial Lagos and its lack of infrastructure and proper leadership at the time. Kuti's pidgin English lyrics depict difficult conditions in the city, including a frenetic, multilingual trading market and inextricable traffic jams in Lagos' major intersections. Confusion is a one-song Afrobeat album that begins with an entirely instrumental first half, which features free form interplay between Kuti's electric piano and drummer Tony Allen. It leads to an extended mid-tempo section with Allen's polyrhythms and tenor saxophone by Kuti, who subsequently delivers call-and-response vocal passages. ..."
Wikipedia
Discogs
Spotify
Confusion (1974) by Fela Kuti (Video)

Spring comes to brownstone Brooklyn in 1949

"This is Brooklyn just four years after the end of World War II.  In 1949, when Brooklyn on the north side of Prospect Park was still a collection of working-class and middle-income neighborhoods and urban decay had yet to take hold, a Life photographer went out and took some photos. In a Life spread titled 'Spring Comes to Brooklyn,' Ralph Morse captured street life in the neighborhoods located in the shadow of the Williamsburgh Bank Tower.  ... This part of Brooklyn would change dramatically in the next few decades. And of course, the brownstones of Brooklyn would then become some of the most sought-after housing in the entire city. But here is Brooklyn before all that, depicted by a very talented photographer in one moment in time. Many more photos are available to scroll through at the Life archives."
Ephemeral New York

Images Take Flight: Feather Art in Mexico and Europe 1400–1700

"In a 16th-century triptych of the crucifixion at the Musée National de la Renaissance, north of Paris, Christ has wings. In fact the whole piece is made of feathers. The veil over the Virgin Mary is a brilliant blue, possibly from the lovely cotinga; the clothing on Saint John is bright green, either from a parrot or the quetzal; and the blood dripping from Christ’s wounds has hues of a red macaw or hummingbird. How feathers of Central American birds found their way into this biblical scene goes back to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, and the transformation of indigenous feather art into a colonial export from New Spain. Images Take Flight: Feather Art in Mexico and Europe 1400–1700, published by Hirmer Verlag and distributed by University of Chicago Press, is the first thorough study of Mesoamerican feather mosaics from this era of change. ..."
Plumage of the Saints: Aztec Feather Art in the Age of Colonialism
University of Chicago Press

Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered (EP - 2016)

"'I made To Pimp a Butterfly for you,' raps Kendrick Lamar on the opening cut from untitled unmastered. It's tempting to read a lot into those words; in fact, it's tempting to delve deeply into everything about his latest release. Because when the promotionally frugal, preeminent thinking-person's rapper of a generation lets forth a largely unexpected collection of demos into a click economy of hot takes and broadcasted enthusiasm, the friction of opposites is enough to spark the kind of hopes that see meaning in everything. No other rapper has taken up so much real estate in the past 12 months while releasing so little music and sharing as little about themselves as Kendrick. TPAB—a Grammy-winning ride of densely knotted rhymes, tangled ideas, and deep sounds—positioned Kendrick Lamar as a reluctant messiah figure, and its dialogues with self and manifestations of God resisted quick-and-easy unpacking. ..."
Pitchfork
genius
W - untitled unmastered
Here’s Everything We Know About Kendrick Lamar’s 'untitled unmastered.' (Video)
Titling the Untitled: Deciphering Kendrick Lamar’s Latest Project
Spotify

2015 December: To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), 2016 March: When the Lights Shut Off: Kendrick Lamar and the Decline of the Black Blues Narrative by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah (2013), 2016 March: Who gets to say how black people see themselves? - Marlon James

Various Artists - Swamp Blues

"An instant classic when it was released as a double LP in the U.K. in 1970 by Mike Vernon's legendary Blue Horizon Records, Swamp Blues isn't technically an Excello Records product, but all of the veteran blues artists included in the set have strong ties to the Louisiana label. Vernon recorded everything included here in Baton Rouge over the course of four hot summer August days in 1970, and ended up breaking the two resulting LPs into a 12-song band set and followed it with a 12-song set that featured these blues artists working solo (in this CD reissue, obviously, the solo sides simply follow the band sides with no break in between). Not as loose and bayou atmospheric as Jay Miller's famous Excello productions, these tracks still have that swamp something going for them, and the whole collection is a wonderful testament to Excello's stable of blues artists. ..."
allmusic (Video)
Ace Records (Video)
YouTube: Arthur (Guitar) Kelley - "How can I stay (when all I have is gone)", Cold Black Mare · Clarence Edwards, Showers of Rain - Henry Gray

Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit: A Bouquet for Flatbush - Paul Blackburn (1960)

"... Perhaps the first volume to present [Paul] Blackburn consistently in his most characteristic mode is his third one, Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit, published by LeRoi Jones’s Totem Press in 1960. Written in 1958 and 1959 after Blackburn’s return to New York and his separation from his wife, this small group of poems offers the poet’s gently ironic and sometimes mildly elegiac notations of city life. Blackburn alludes to the works of such poets as Yeats, Pound, Whitman, and Ferlinghetti, by direct quotation, by reference to their works, and by the poetic stances taken. ..."
Poetry Foundation
Horseman, Pass By
Slow Dreams of Pleasure
amazon

2008 August: Paul Blackburn, 2012 November: Yankee go home (PoemTalk #59), 2013 January: Cronopios and Famas - Julio Cortazar (Paul Blackburn), 2013 August: Paul Blackburn and Das Rhinegold, 2015 May: The Grinding Down, 2015 August: The Cities (1967).

Accordion Store’s Departure Signals End of Manhattan’s Music Row

"For decades, musicians from around the world flocked to a segment of West 48th Street in Manhattan that was known as Music Row. Both sides of the block, just off Times Square, were lined with shops that sold and repaired guitars, drums, keyboards and other instruments. But the music finally died there in December when the last holdout, Alex Carozza, packed up his accordion store and 50 years of memories and moved off the block. Now, all that is left of Music Row are the signs and awnings that beckoned to virtuosos and neophytes alike. The block is haunted by empty buildings and the occasional tourist straining for some echo of its harmonious past. Where once there were Manny’s and Rudy’s and New York Woodwind and Brass, Frank Wolf Drummers Supplies and We Buy Guitars, now there are demolition crews, 'for rent' notices and a construction office for the glass tower going up around the corner. ..."
NY Times
NY Post: NYC’s famous Music Row is about to be a ghost town
The last master of 'Music Row' readies to close shop (Video)
5 Independent Music Shops in NYC That Have Beaten the Odds (January 07, 2015)
YouTube: New York City's Last Accordion Repairman

Stromboli - Roberto Rossellini (1950)

Wikipedia - "Stromboli, also known as Stromboli, Land of God (Italian: Stromboli, terra di Dio), is a 1950 Italian-American film directed by Roberto Rossellini and featuring Ingrid Bergman. The drama is considered a classic example of Italian neorealism. Bergman plays Karin, a displaced Lithuanian in Italy, who escapes the internment camp by marrying an Italian POW fisherman (Mario Vitale), whom she met in the camp on the other side of the barbed wire. He promises her a great life in his home island of Stromboli, a volcanic island located between the mainland of Italy and Sicily. She soon discovers that his home island is very harsh and barren, not at all what she expected, and the people, very traditional and conservative, show hostility and disdain towards this strange, foreign woman. Adding to her difficulties, Karin speaks little Italian. She becomes increasingly despondent and eventually wants to escape the volcano island. ..."
Wikipedia
Criterion: Ingrid Bergman’s Stromboli Home Movies (Video)
Criterion - “Ti amo”: An Exchange of Letters
Criterion: Modern Marriage on Stromboli
NY Times
Volcano Girl By Fred Camper
YouTube: Stromboli | 1950 | Scene, Stromboli | 1950

2009 May: Roberto Rossellini, 2010 March: Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy, 2016 March: Journey to Italy (1954)

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco (2002)

"When former photographer Sam Jones signed on to document the creation of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, he had no way of knowing the band was about to lose two of its members and be dropped by its label. Looking back a decade later, neither event turned out to be such a Bravo Foxtrot Delta—Wilco has persevered, releasing a new album every two to three years like clockwork, and few lament the loss of guitarist Jay Bennett or drummer Ken Coomer from the lineup of what’s really always been Jeff Tweedy And Friends. At the time, however, it seemed as if the very future of indie rock was at stake, and I Am Trying To Break Your Heart now functions beautifully as a time capsule from the period right before record labels’ dominance began to crumble in the face of digital self-distribution. ..."
AV Club: A documentary about Wilco found the band—and the music world—on the brink
W - I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco
YouTube: Official Trailer
veoh: I Am Trying to Break Your Heart 1:32:22

2011 July: A.M. - Wilco, 2011 September: Being There - Wilco, 2011 July: Uncle Tupelo, 2012 December: No Depression, 2013 August: March 16–20, 1992, 2014 January: Still Feel Gone - Uncle Tupelo (1991).

Travelers of Al-Andalus, Part VI: The Double Lives of Ibn al-Khatib

"Some travelers look forward to packing their cases and hitting the road, but for those forced out of their hometowns and away from their mother countries against their will, travel has an entirely different meaning—one of separation, loss, and an often desperate act of survival. For Muhammad ibn Abdallah al-Salmani, born in the town of Loja near Granada in the year 1313, travel abroad meant more than mere exile. An accomplished poet and minister in the Nasrid court of Granada during its heyday, when the Alhambra palace was getting its most brilliant finishing touches, he and his sovereign, King Muhammad v, were obligated to flee for their lives to Morocco, to the safety of the court of the Merinid Sultan, when the king’s half-brother launched a palace coup in the year 1359. ..."
Aramco World

2016 March: Gnawa music, 2015 March: Habibi funk: Listen to this rare vinyl mix of incredible Arab songs from the 60s/70s, 2014 September: Claude McKay and Gnawa Music, 2014 August: The Aesthetes: Expats of Tangier, Morocco, 2013 September: Kassidat: Raw 45s from Morocco, 2013 March: Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of North African Literature, 2012 November: An Intro To Rebel Hip-Hop Of The Arab Revolutions, 2010 May: The Master Musicians of Jajouka.

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), 2014 March: The Sheltering Sky (1949), 2015 January: Things Gone & Things Still Here, 2015 October: The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles – a cautionary tale for tourists, 2015 November: The Rolling Stone Interview (May 23, 1974).

American Hustle - Alexandra Starr

"Most nights during the early summer of 2011, Chukwuemeka Ene would slip out the back door of a bungalow in Jackson, Mississippi, and make his way to a nearby convenience store. He didn’t mind the Deep South’s steamy heat; it reminded him of the climate in his hometown of Enugu, Nigeria. Ene was seventeen years old, but at six feet three inches tall, he might easily have been mistaken for a man in his twenties. This was particularly true when his broad features took on a brooding expression — and in Jackson, he wasn’t smiling much. Back at the house, two younger Nigerian boys were waiting for him to return with the three loaves of white bread he ritually procured during these expeditions. The boys slept together on the floor of the living room, with one pillow shared among them. Formal meals were limited mostly to sporadic drive-throughs at fast-food restaurants. ..."
Harpers

2011 June: American Basketball Association, 2012 July: Doin’ It In The Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC, 2012 November: Your Guide to the Brooklyn Nets, 2013 March: March Madness 2013, 2013 October: Rucker Park, 2014 January: History of the high five, 2015 February: Dean Smith (February 28, 1931 – February 7, 2015), 2015 June: Basketball’s Obtuse Triangle, 2015 September: Joint Ventures: How sneakers became high fashion and big business, 2015 October: Loose Balls - Terry Pluto (2007), 2015 November: The Sounds of Memphis, 2015 December: Welcome to Smarter Basketball, 2015 December: New York, New York: Julius Erving, the Nets-Knicks Feud, and America’s Bicentennial, 2016 January: The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams (1994), 2016 January: A Long Hardwood Journey.

Garry Shandling

Wikipedia - "Garry Emmanuel Shandling (November 29, 1949  – March 24, 2016) was an American comedian, actor, writer, producer and director. He was best known for his work in It's Garry Shandling's Show and The Larry Sanders Show. Shandling began his career writing for sitcoms such as Sanford and Son and Welcome Back, Kotter. He made a successful stand-up performance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and became a frequent guest-host on the show. Shandling was for a time considered the leading contender to replace Carson (other hopefuls were Joan Rivers, David Letterman and David Brenner). In 1986 he created It's Garry Shandling's Show, for the pay cable channel Showtime. It was nominated for four Emmy Awards (including one for Shandling) and lasted until 1990. His second show, The Larry Sanders Show, which began airing on HBO in 1992, was even more successful. ..."
W - Garry Shandling
W - The Larry Sanders Show
Hey Now! 15 Things You Should Know About 'The Larry Sanders Show' (Video)
amazon

The Battle for Picasso’s Multi-Billion-Dollar Empire

"'I had a papa who painted,' Maya Widmaier-Picasso once said when she exhibited some of her father’s paintings, drawings, and watercolors that she inherited after he died, in 1973. Her papa was Pablo Picasso. Her mother was Marie-Thérèse Walter, whom Picasso met one evening in 1927, when she was 17 and he was 45. Nine years before, Picasso had married Olga Khokhlova, one of Diaghilev’s dancers, with whom he had a son, Paulo, but the marriage was collapsing. Maya’s mother later confided that Picasso had seen her leaving the Paris Métro and said, 'You have an interesting face. I would like to do a portrait of you.' She had no idea who Picasso was, so he took her to a bookstore to show her a book about himself. Maya’s parents had split up when she was about eight, but she spent a great deal of time with her father. ..."
Vanity Fair
W - Pablo Picasso
Picasso
YouTube: The Secret life Of Pablo Picasso---SCULPTURE PAINTING & LOVE Full Documentary

The New Old Masters

A self-portrait of the artist (JACOB COLLINS, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST)
"The Lake Shore Limited comes up fast in Freedom Tunnel, racing up Manhattan from Pennsylvania Station along the old trackways of the Hudson River Railroad toward the Empire Connection, then on to Spuyten Duyvil and points north and west—Albany and Chicago. At 72nd Street, the passenger train appears momentarily through a chain-link fence, under the ruins of the elevated West Side Highway, before returning underground, entering a tunnel that runs more than two miles beneath Riverside Park to 123rd Street. Robert Moses covered over the Hudson River tracks in the 1930s with a public works project twice as expensive as the Hoover Dam, but he never imagined the massive graffiti gallery that would go up inside it, an epic blight to those who glimpse it through train windows. ..."
City Journal
W - Jacob Collins

In a Free State - V.S. Naipaul (1971)

Wikipedia - "In a Free State is a novel by V.S. Naipaul published in 1971. It won that year's Booker Prize. The plot consists of a framing narrative and three short stories, the last one also titled In a Free State. The work is symphonic, with different movements working towards an overriding theme. It is not too clearly spelled out what that theme is. However, there is an important aspect relating to the price of freedom, with analogies between the three situations. ... The story is set in an African Great Lakes state that has recently acquired independence. The King, although liked by the Colonials, is weak, and is on the run while the President is poised to take absolute power. The level of violence in urban centres of the country is rising and there are rumours of violence in the countryside. ..."
Wikipedia
NY TImes: Where Is the Enemy?
Guardian: Looking back at the Booker: VS Naipaul
amazon

2012 February: V. S. Naipaul, 2013 February: A Bend in the River (1979), 2015 July: Guerrillas (1975).