The Mysterious Metamorphosis of Chuck Close

"A couple of weeks ago, I went to visit Chuck Close at his beach house on Long Island. The drive there always reminds me of an escape to the Hamptons in reverse. From the aristocratic brownstones of Park Slope, you work your way steadily down the socioeconomic ladder, past the towering Soviet-­style apartment complexes of Coney Island, through strips of pawn shops and gimcrack hotels that give way to rowhouses fronted with plaster statuary, until at last the journey comes to an end at the sun-­beaten waterfront of Long Beach, a haven for cops and firefighters looking to blow off summer steam, where you pay for access to the sand amid a throng of rented umbrellas and creatine-­engorged pectorals, all of which vanish at sundown into a surfeit of bwomp-­bwomping nightclubs along the strip. ..."
NY Times

2008 August: Chuck Close, 2015 September: Chuck Close: Red Yellow Blue

BET Awards 2016: Watch Beyoncé Perform “Freedom” with Kendrick Lamar

"Beyoncé gave a surprise performance at tonight's BET Awards, performing 'Freedom' from her latest album Lemonade to kick off the night's ceremonies. Kendrick Lamar rose up from beneath the floor to perform his verse. See the full performance here and below. ..."
Pitchfork (Video)
YouTube: Beyoncé & Kendrick Lamar - Freedom

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, 2016 March: untitled unmastered (EP - 2016).

Fela Kuti - Roforofo Fight (1972)

"It's true that Fela Kuti's early-'70s records tend to blur together with their similar groupings of four lengthy Afro-funk-jazz cuts. In their defense, it must be said that while few artists can pull off similar approaches time after time and continue to make it sound fresh, Kuti is one of them. Each of the four songs on the 1972 album Roforofo Fight clocks in at 12 to 17 minutes, and there's a slight slide toward more '70s-sounding rhythms in the happy-feet beats of the title track and the varied yet rock-solid drums in 'Go Slow.' ... The James Brown influence is strongly heard in the lean, nervous guitar strums of 'Question Jam Answer,' and the horns cook in a way that they might have had Brown been more inclined to let his bands go into improvisational jams."
allmusic
A Way with Words: roforofo fight
W - Roforofo Fight
Discogs
YouTube: Roforofo Fight 58:52

Murray Bookchin’s New Life

"Murray Bookchin spent fifty years articulating a new emancipatory project, one that would place ecology and the creative human subject at the center of a new vision of socialism. Here is a thinker, who in the early sixties, declared climate change as one of the defining problems of the age. Bookchin saw the environmental crisis as capitalism’s gravedigger. ... In the seventies and eighties, Bookchin suggested an environmentalism obsessed with scarcity, austerity, and the defense of 'pure nature' would get nowhere. The future lay with an urban social ecology that addressed people’s concerns for a better life and could articulate this in the form of a new republican vision of politics and a new ecological vision of the city. ..."
Jacobin

2014 September: Anarchism in America (1983), 2015 August: The Prophet Farmed: Murray Bookchin on Bernie Sanders, 2015 October: Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), 2015 October: The Ecology of Freedom (1982).

The Journey from Syria, Part Three

"In the second episode of 'The Journey,' Aboud Shalhoub and his brother Amer set off from Athens for the Macedonian border. Amer had not come to meet Aboud in Greece alone, as expected, but in the company of a young Syrian mother named Fadwa and her two daughters. Fadwa sought to build a life in Sweden, while Amer and Aboud were determined to reach the Netherlands. But in the Balkans, it was best to travel as a group. About a hundred Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis, and Afghans decided to walk together. With little assurance about the journey ahead, at least there was safety in numbers. ..."
New Yorker (Video)

2016 June: The Journey from Syria, Part One, 2016 June: Part Two

Yes, The Infield Shift Works. Probably.

"The infield shift is this decade’s defining baseball tactic, the most salient on-field signal that we aren’t in the aughts anymore. But, strange as it sounds, we still don’t know how well — or even whether — the shift actually works. Our best evidence that the shift is worth doing is, well, that it’s so frequently done. Presumably, front offices wouldn’t advocate shifting — often over the objections of coaches and players — unless they thought it was wise. That’s not nothing; teams are stocked with smart people who have access to better data than we do. But it would be nice not to have to appeal to authority to make a case for the shift. ..."
FiveThirtyEight

From Iran to Harlem: Fighting Discrimination With Street Art

Franco "The Great" of Harlem poses next to his masterpiece on Frederick Douglass and 123rd Street.
"On a recent summer day in East Harlem, Alexander Keto stood on a ladder above a group of sixth graders playing basketball, aerosol can in hand. Keto is spray-painting turquoise blue paint on P.S. 7’s brick exterior. The wall turns into an image of a West African woman up to her waist in water, her three children playing beside her. It’s a striking visual that stands over two stories tall next to the busy intersection of Lexington Avenue and 120th Street. ..."
Voice

Dyke & the Blazers

"Dyke & the Blazers were one of the first acts -- possibly the first notable act -- to play funk other than James Brown. Indeed, they often sounded like a sort of junior version of Brown and the JB's, playing songs in which the rhythms and riffs mattered more than the tune. Similarly, vocalist Dyke Christian sang/grunted words that mattered more for the feeling and rhythm than the content. Their best-known track, 'Funky Broadway,' was covered for a bigger hit by Wilson Pickett, though Dyke & the Blazers got a few more R&B hits before Dyke was shot to death in 1971. ..."
allmusic
W - Dyke & the Blazers
Ace Records (Video)
amazon: Dyke & the Blazers
YouTube: You Are My Sunshine, Funky Broadway, We Got More Soul, Let A Woman Be A Woman, Shotgun Slim, Uhh, The Wrong House, Runaway People (long version), Let's Do It Together, Black Boy, It's Your Thing, Runaway People, So Sharp

Aurora at Your Fingertips

"Seeing a great aurora ranks right up there with witnessing a total eclipse of the Sun. Auroraphiles travel thousands of miles and spend thousand dollars to join tours in frozen locales ringing the Arctic Circle in hopes of shivering under one of nature's grandest spectacles. The rest of us wait it out, hoping the next big aurora will find us neither asleep nor staring up at clouds. To anticipate the next great display, you'll need a forecast and three data points: the Kp index, a measure of the degree of disturbance in Earth's magnetic field; the Bz, or direction of the solar magnetic field in the vicinity of Earth, and a visual forecast model that shows the extent of the auroral oval. ..."
Sky and Telescope
W - Aurora (Video)

Tony Allen - Secret Agent (2008)

"It's no surprise that Tony Allen's new album does nothing to dim his reputation as one of the world's greatest drummers. He's the personification of subtlety, leading from the back and carefully pushing and prodding the music, but doing this so cleverly that half the time people don't even notice he's there. He's certainly a man whose four limbs operate independently, setting up cross- and counter-rhythms that add extra levels of texture and complexity to the music. ... It's largely Afrocentric, and definitely political, in the best tradition of Allen's late employer, Fela Kuti. Allen himself contributes vocals to the opening and closing tracks, showing he's more than a drummer, even if his voice is low-key. That he plays so well is remarkable. That he does it like this when he's almost 70 is amazing."
allmusic
Nonesuch
YouTube: Secret Agent [Full Album]

ISIS: The Cornened Beast

"Just when Muslims around the world thought that ISIS was in retreat and that it was safe to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the group has struck back with a devastating series of bombings in four Muslim countries. Claiming more than three hundred lives, most of them Muslim, during the final days of the month-long fast, the attacks in Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia have created pandemonium. But they also raise new questions about the ability of the jihadist group to execute lethal terrorist attacks, even as its power appears to be waning in Iraq and Syria. ..."
NYBooks

2014 August: The Islamic State, 2014 September: How ISIS Works, 2015 February: The Political Scene: The Evolution of Islamic Extremism, 2015 May: Zakaria: How ISIS shook the world, 2015 August: ISIS Blows Up Ancient Temple at Syria’s Palmyra Ruins, 2015 November: Times Insider: Reporting Europe's Refugee Crisis, 2015 November: Three Teams of Coordinated Attackers Carried Out Assault on Paris, Officials Say; Hollande Blames ISIS, 2015 November: The French Emergency, 2015 December: A Brief History of ISIS, 2015 December: U.S. Seeks to Avoid Ground War Welcomed by Islamic State, 2016 January: Ramadi, Reclaimed by Iraq, Is in Ruins After ISIS Fight, 2016 February: Syrian Officer Gave a View of War. ISIS Came, and Silence Followed., 2016 March: Brussels Survivors Say Blasts Instantly Evoked Paris Attacks, 2016 April: America Can’t Do Much About ISIS, 2016 June: What the Islamic State Has Won and Lost.

Kronos Quartet: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

"Sunny Yang joined Kronos Quartet in June 2013. Now, just five months later, the cellist she says she's learned quite a few new works — not just a handful, but about 70 pieces. That degree of dedication to contemporary composers, coupled with an insane concert schedule, has propelled Kronos Quartet forward over the past four decades. If they wanted, the musicians — who also include founder David Harrington and longtime members John Sherba and Hank Dutt — could reminisce over more than 800 new works and arrangements they've commissioned in 40 years. But instead, the new-music train pushes ever onward to new territories. They remain a living, breathing world-heritage site for music. ..."
YouTube: Kronos Quartet: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert "Aheym", "Lullaby", "Last Kind Words"

2011 September: 30 years - Kronos Quartet, 2014 March: Kronos Quartet Plays Terry Riley: Salome Dances for Peace (1989), 2014 September: Inside the Quartet

Edward Hopper - Sunday (1926)

"Sunday is characteristic of Hopper's vision of twentieth-century America. At first commonplace, his art has unexpected resonance, showing the significant rather than the beautiful. The interplay between particular and generalized components, an ongoing aspect of Hopper's work, contributes to the work's vitality, making it at once familiar and unfamiliar. Hopper’s art conveys the realities of the human condition genuinely and truthfully. ... During 1926, the same time in which Sunday was executed, America was experiencing the early effects of the Great Depression. This work illustrates the national anxiety and disillusionment of the later part of the decade. Hopper’s characteristic style reveals the essential isolation of the individual, the troubled relationships and tensions within the environment. Sunday depicts a spare street scene. ..."
Phillips Collection
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper’s Three Paintings – “Sunday” (1926), “Pennsylvania Coal Town” (1947) and “Cape Cod Morning” (1950): Servants and Ghosts of Material Civilization

2008 July: Edward Hopper, 2010 October: Finding Nighthawks, 2010 December: Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time, 2012 Wednesday: Through Edward Hopper's eyes: in search of an artist's seaside inspiration, 2013 July: Hopper Drawing, 2014 May: INTERVIEW: “An Interview with Edward Hopper, June 17, 1959″., 2014 September: How Edward Hopper “Storyboarded” His Iconic Painting Nighthawks, 2015 February: Edward Hopper's New York: A Walking Tour, 2015 September: Edward Hopper life and works, 2016 May: "Night Windows," 1928.

Elodie Lauten - Orchestre Modern (EP - 1981)

"Elodie Lauten was born in 1950 in Paris, France, the daughter of jazz musician Errol Parker. In her early twenties, she moved to New York City and soon befriended Allan Ginsberg. She later composed a setting of his poems entitled Walking in New York. Through Ginsberg, Lauten also became close friends with Arthur Russell. They played on each others records and sometimes performed together as The Singing Tractors. Check out the song In the Light of the Miracle for amazing record of their collaboration. A couple of her early piano-based records from the 1980’s have been recently reissued, but Orchestre Modern is from 1981, right before she shifted her focus from songwriting to composition. Co-produced by Alan Vega, this self-released EP finds Lauten in experimental rock band mode on side 1, ending with my favorite track, a french/english hybrid mystery titled Chase/Détective Privé. The disc concludes on side two with an extended reggae jam called Mister Pip, which is mindblowingly great."
ghostcapital
YouTube: Jesus, Puerto-Rican Boxing Champion, Chase/Détective Privé, Mister Pip

2010 July: Elodie Lauten, 2013 February: Piano Works Revisited

Edwin Starr - "War" (1969)

Wikipedia - "'War' is a counterculture-era soul song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for the Motown label in 1969. Whitfield first produced the song – a blatant anti-Vietnam War protest – with The Temptations as the original vocalists. After Motown began receiving repeated requests to release 'War' as a single, Whitfield re-recorded the song with Edwin Starr as the vocalist, with the label deciding to withhold the Temptations' version from single release so as not to alienate their more conservative fans. ..."
Wikipedia
Genius
YouTube: War, Live TV Performance, War (acapella)

Mildred Pierce - Kate Winslet (Miniseries - Todd Haynes, 2011)

"Fidelity may be a buttress of marriage, but it is sometimes a burden on film adaptations. And 'Mildred Pierce,' a beautifully made mini-series that begins Sunday on HBO and stars Kate Winslet, proves the point. It’s a five-part drama that is loyally, unwaveringly true to James M. Cain’s 1941 novel and somehow not nearly as satisfying as the 1945 film noir that took shameless liberties with plot, characters and settings. The Hollywood version compressed the Depression-era drama into a soapy 1940s murder mystery. ..."
NY Times: A Mother’s Love, Unrequited
New Yorker: This Woman’s Work
Is HBO's 'Mildred Pierce' a masterpiece?
Salon: “Mildred Pierce” is a quiet, heartbreaking masterpiece
W - Mildred Pierce (Miniseries - Todd Haynes, 2011)
W - Mildred Pierce, James M. Caine
YouTube: Mildred Pierce Trailer #1 (HBO), Trailer #2 (HBO)

2016 April: Carol (2015), 2016 April: Far from Heaven - Todd Haynes (2002)

Gnir Rednow (1960) - Joseph Cornell / Stan Brakhage

"After Joseph Cornell asked Stan Brakhage to film Manhattan's Third Avenue Elevated Train, Brakhage photographed and edited his film 'The Wonder Ring.' Not satisfied with the results, Cornell then took the outtakes from 'The Wonder Ring' (Brakhage keeping his original intact), and edited his own version, with those outtakes, calling it 'Gnir Rednow.' There has been a long-standing misconception that the film 'Gnir Rednow' is simply 'The Wonder Ring' projected in reverse. However, Mark Toscano, of the Academy Film Archive, has definitively established that the original roll of each one of these two films is 'unmistakably, completely comprised of camera original Kodachrome,' and that no two shots are precisely the same from one film to the other. ..."
UbuWeb (Video)

2007 November: Joseph Cornell, 2011 April: Rose Hobart (1936), 2012 June: "Bookstalls" - Joseph Cornell, 2012 December: Joseph Cornell's Manual of Marvels, 2015 May: Joseph Cornell: Navigating The Imagination, 2016 January: Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box (1991).      2009 April:Stan Brakhage, 2011 December: Burial Path/The Process/The Machine of Eden, 2012 August: The Dante Quartet (1987) - Stan Brakhage.

César Vallejo - Selected Writings (2015)

"For the first time in English, readers can now evaluate the extraordinary breadth of César Vallejo’s diverse oeuvre that, in addition to poetry, includes magazine and newspaper articles, chronicles, political reports, fictions, plays, letters, and notebooks. Edited by the translator Joseph Mulligan, Selected Writings follows Vallejo down his many winding roads, from Santiago de Chuco in highland Peru, to the coastal cities of Trujillo and Lima, on to Paris, Madrid, Moscow, and Leningrad. This repeated border-crossing also plays out on the textual level, as Vallejo wrote prolifically across genres and, in many cases, created poetic space in extra-literary modes. ..."
UPNE
Jacket2: 'Between appearance and character'

2012 October: The Complete Posthumous Poetry, 2015 April: César Vallejo.

FirstLook: Learning from the Pattern-Masters

"Walls, windows, doors and satellite dishes tessellate at twilight into a patchwork pattern in the madinah, or walled old city, of Fez, Morocco, as a pedestrian passes into view along one of the city’s typically narrow stone streets. Nestled in a valley crowned by gentle hills, Fez is one of the Islamic world’s great historic centers of the art of geometrically based patterns executed in tile, plaster, stone, wood and metal. Like all such patterns, those that adorn the mosques, madrassahs (schools) and sabeels (fountains) of Fez have their origins in simple, universal geometry that— through practice and elaboration—artists and craft workers developed into celestially intricate masterpieces. ..."
AramcoWorld (Video)

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, 2016 March: Travelers of Al-Andalus, Part VI: The Double Lives of Ibn al-Khatib, 2016 May: The Hypnotic Clamor of Morocco.

The Clash - Rudie Can't Fail / Bankrobber / Rockers Galore (1980)

"One thing that always set the Clash apart from the rest of the British punk rock pack was their ability to perform reggae-styled material in an authentic and stylish matter. They used this skill to great effect on their highly varied London Calling album, often crossbreeding it with other musical styles to give it a twist. A good example is 'Rudie Can't Fail,' an exuberant horn-driven number that mixes pop and soul elements in to spice up its predominantly reggae sound. 'Rudie Can't Fail' stays in the social commentary tradition of reggae as it pays tribute to the 'rude boys' who challenged the status quo of their elders during the 1960s. ..."
allmusic
W - "Rudie Can't Fail", W - "Bankrobber"
Genius - "Rudie Can't Fail", "Bankrobber" (Video)
YouTube: "Rudie Can't Fail", "Bankrobber", "Robber Dub / Rockers Galore"

Los Angeles Is a Very Different City After Dark

A woman sleeps at Casa Shalom, New Hampshire Street.
"The sunny Los Angeles of popular imagination becomes a very different place after nightfall. After 2 am, the city’s poorer neighborhoods become especially desolate and unfamiliar. The number of stray cats easily matches that of people on the streets. I have visited these neighborhoods and their residents during the daytime for decades, witnessing their evolving forms in detail. But this time, I wanted to allow my imagination to play freely with the city at night, to experience these neighborhoods in the darkness, at a time when dreams and reality may merge. ..."
The Nation

The Strange World Of… David Toop

"David Toop offers ten points of entry into his extensive body of work and along the way talks to Karen Shook about Australian bird song, Scott Walker, neoliberalism, Snape Maltings’ bats, Brian Eno and much more besides"
The Quietus (Video)

2009 October: David Toop, 2014 May: Mondo Black Chamber (2014), 2015 May: Ocean of Sound (1995)

Soultrane - John Coltrane (1958)

"In addition to being bandmates within Miles Davis' mid-'50s quintet, John Coltrane (tenor sax) and Red Garland (piano) head up a session featuring members from a concurrent version of the Red Garland Trio: Paul Chambers (bass) and Art Taylor (drums). This was the second date to feature the core of this band. A month earlier, several sides were cut that would end up on Coltrane's Lush Life album. Soultrane offers a sampling of performance styles and settings from Coltrane and crew. ..."
allmusic
W - Soultrane
W - Sheets of sound
Crate-Digging: John Coltrane – Soultrane (Video)
YouTube: Soultrane (1958) [Full album]

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), 2016 April: The Church of Saint John Coltrane.

Nine Stories - J. D. Salinger (1953)

Wikipedia - "Nine Stories (1953) is a collection of short stories by American fiction writer J. D. Salinger published in April 1953. It includes two of his most famous short stories, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "For Esmé – with Love and Squalor". (Nine Stories is the U.S. title; the book is published in many other countries as For Esmé - with Love and Squalor, and Other Stories.) The stories are: "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"; "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut"; "Just Before the War with the Eskimos"; "The Laughing Man"; "Down at the Dinghy"; "For Esmé – with Love and Squalor"; "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes"; "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period"; "Teddy"."
Wikipedia
[PDF] Nine Stories (1953)
NY Times: Threads of Innocence By EUDORA WELTY (April 5, 1953)
Slate - The Mimic: How Salinger Helped Reinvent the Short Story by Imitating It

2010 January: J. D. Salinger, 2012 July: The Catcher in the Rye, 2014 September: Franny and Zooey

2016 Tour de France

"The Tour de France hub page is packed with news, 21 stage previews, analysis, photos, and rider interviews ahead of the 2016 edition of the race. With expert opinions from the Cyclingnews team and pundits includling Robert Millar, you're complete coverage for the 2016 Tour de France starts here. ... The 2016 Tour de France will be the 103rd edition of the oldest Grand Tour on the calendar.  ..."
Cycling News (Video)
Le Tour (Video)
steephill (Video)
Guardian (Video)
Telegraph (Video)
W - 2016 Tour de France

2008 July: Tour de France 2008, 2009 July: Tour de France 2009, 2010 July: Tour de France 2010,  2011 July: Tour de France 2011, 2012 July: 2012 Tour de France, 2015 July: 2015 Tour de France, 2015 July: Tour de France 2015: Team Time Trial Win Bolsters American’s Shot at Podium, 2015 July: Tour de France: Chris Froome completes historic British win.

Strawberry

Wikipedia - "The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; Fragaria × ananassa) is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus Fragaria (collectively known as the strawberries). It is cultivated worldwide for its fruit. The fruit (which is not a botanical berry, but an aggregate accessory fruit) is widely appreciated for its characteristic aroma, bright red color, juicy texture, and sweetness. It is consumed in large quantities, either fresh or in such prepared foods as preserves, fruit juice, pies, ice creams, milkshakes, and chocolates. Artificial strawberry flavorings and aromas are also widely used in many products like lip gloss, candy, hand sanitizers, perfume, and many others. The garden strawberry was first bred in Brittany, France, in the 1750s via a cross of Fragaria virginiana from eastern North America and Fragaria chiloensis, which was brought from Chile by Amédée-François Frézier in 1714. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: How to grow & harvest strawberry plants

Little Walter Jacobs, Muddy Waters and Baby Face Leroy Foster - Parkway Records

"... Parkway Records was established in February of 1950 by noted Midwestern record distributor Monroe Passis. The label immediately signs two local Chicago blues artists, Little Walter and Baby Face Leroy and his Trio. In April the label also signs vocal - instrumental combo The Rhythm Rockers. The first record released is #501 by Baby Face Leroy : 'Rollin' and Tumblin' (parts one and two). In May this is followed by #502 - 'I Just Keep Loving Her' / 'Moonshine Blues'. The original Parkway record has the tunes credited to Little Walter & His Trio, but the recording is actually by Baby Face Leroy. The next Parkway record is surprisingly numbered #104, and again it is by Baby Face Leroy : 'Boll Weevil' / 'Red Headed Woman'. ... The masters were bought by Regal before they were ever released by Parkway, and were on Regal #3296. Evidently at this time Passis decided to concentrate on his record distribution business and ceased operation of the Parkway Record Company."
Forgotten Sessions
YouTube: Just Keep Lovin' Her, Rollin' And Tumblin', Boll Weevil, Red Headed Woman, Moonshine Blues, Bad Acting Woman

Lebanon: Various artists - Jakarta Radio 010 Mix

With a collection of over 10,000 records and no space for them all, Ernesto took over his grandfather’s shoemakers’ shop to have somewhere to keep them.
"... Oh my, this is good. I don’t know much about the compiler of this great mix, apart from the fact that he’s called Ernesto Chahoud aka DJ Spindle, he’s Lebanese, he’s the founder of the Beirut Groove Collective and a big collector of Middle Eastern belly dance music. This particular mix, Middle Eastern Heavens II, was made for Jakarta Radio, and there are apparently more mixes to follow. Follow him on mixcloud here. And … strong look, Ernesto!"
Guardian - John Doran
Lebanon’s guerrilla vinyl guru
Soundcloud: Jakarta Radio 010: Ernesto Chahoud - "Middle Eastern Heavens II"

Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad (1899-1900)

Wikipedia - "Lord Jim is a novel by Joseph Conrad originally published as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine from October 1899 to November 1900. An early and primary event is the abandonment of a ship in distress by its crew including the young British seaman Jim. He is publicly censured for this action and the novel follows his later attempts at coming to terms with his past. ... Jim (his surname is never disclosed), a young British seaman, becomes first mate on the Patna, a ship full of pilgrims travelling to Mecca for the hajj. When the ship starts rapidly taking on water and disaster seems imminent, Jim joins his captain and other crew members in abandoning the ship and its passengers. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: At Sea With Joseph Conrad
NY Times: Joseph Conrad Never Jumped (April 11, 1971)

2011 November: Heart of Darkness, 2013 August: Victory (1915), 2014 May: Nostromo (1904), 2015 December: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – a trip into inner space.

Gusmano Cesaretti: Fragments of Los Angeles 1969-1989

David, Sonia and Blaky; Highland Park, 1972.
"Self-taught Italian photographer Gusmano Cesaretti (born 1944) was one of the very first photographers to document the street culture of East Los Angeles, and The Thrill Is Gone is a retrospective history of his celebrated photographic work of the 1970s. Chapters include 'Bikers,' 'East L.A. Diary,' 'Folsom Prison,' 'Maria Sabina,' 'Muscle Beach' and 'Street Writers,' along with selected other iconic images from this important time in the photographer’s creative history. As a boy growing up in Italy, Cesaretti listened to jazz and rock ’n’ roll on the radio, and was drawn to the worlds of Marlon Brando and James Dean in Hollywood movies. ..."
ArtBook
Gusmano Cesaretti
NY Times: An Italian Photographer Takes on East L.A.

King New Breed Rhythm & Blues (2002)

"The second of our New Breed R&B series comes exclusively from King Records. We tested the water with the first Kent / Modern sourced CD and found it inviting - so here we are again, spinning those Rhythm and Soul records aimed at the recently converted, but bearing the long term enthusiast in mind. ... Out and out fans of the record will be pleased to hear it sounding so fresh on CD and will jerk away merrily to it in the confines of their own bedrooms. That record had the influence of producer / writer Sonny Thompson stamped all over it and his pop sensibility permeated the company in the late 50s / early 60s period when he was head of A&R. ..."
Ace Records (Video)
Discogs
YouTube: King New Breed Rhythm 'n' Blues 1:03:00

The Triplets of Belleville - Sylvain Chomet (2003)

Wikipedia - "The Triplets of Belleville (French: Les Triplettes de Belleville) is a 2003 animated comedy film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. It was released as Belleville Rendez-vous in the United Kingdom. ... The film features the voices of Michèle Caucheteux, Jean-Claude Donda, Michel Robin, and Monica Viegas; there is little dialogue, the majority of the film story being told through song and pantomime. It tells the story of Madame Souza, an elderly woman who goes on a quest to rescue her grandson Champion, a Tour de France cyclist, who has been kidnapped by the French mafia for gambling purposes and taken to the city of Belleville (an amalgam of New York, Montreal and Quebec City). ..."
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert
The Triplets of Belleville analysis
YouTube: The Triplets of Belleville (2003) - Trailer

The Philosophy of Bill Murray: The Intellectual Foundations of His Comedic Persona

"'Bill Murray is a national, no, an international, no an intergalactic treasure,' said Jim Jarmusch, who directed him in Coffee and Cigarettes and Broken Flowers, when the actor won this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. But what, exactly, do we find so compelling about the guy? I launched into my own quest to find out after seeing his performance in Rushmore (regarded by most Murray scholars as a revelation of depth at which he’d only hinted between wisecracks before), watching every movie he ever appeared in. Similarly rigorous research must have gone into this new video on the philosophy of Bill Murray. ..."
Open Culture (Video)

2013 November: Rushmore - Wes Anderson (1998), 2015 April: Bill Murray: five best moments, 2015 December: Broken Flowers - Jim Jarmusch (2005).

Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes from the Prado - The Clark Art

Titian (Italian, c.1488–1576) “Venus with an Organist and Cupid”
"The Clark Art Institute is the exclusive venue for Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes from the Prado, featuring twenty-eight Old Master paintings from the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid. The exhibition explores the role of the nude in European painting in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the collecting and display practices of the Spanish royalty. Twenty-four of the paintings have never before been shown in America. ... Included in this sensuous exhibition are major paintings by Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacopo Tintoretto, Diego Velázquez, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Guercino, Nicolas Poussin, Luca Giordano, Guido Reni, Jusepe de Ribera, and others. ..."
The Clark Art
Naked in the Berkshires: ‘Splendor, Myth and Vision’ at the Clark
Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes from the Prado - The Clark Art
YouTube: Prado Preview

Die Nacht Der Seele - Tantric Songs / Popol Vuh (1979)

"... Die Nacht Der Seele - Tantric Songs ('the night of the soul - tantric songs') contains Fricke, Fichelscher, Gromer on sitar, Susan Goetting on oboe and the return of both Djong Yun and Renate Knaup as vocalists. Fricke also returns as a vocalist, adding some very nice touches in the appropriate places. Renate Knaup would become a new core member of Popol Vuh. She met Florian Fricke through Daniel Fichelscher, both of them being former members of Amon Düül II. ... ..."
PERFECT SOUND FOREVER - Part 2
W - Die Nacht Der Seele
YouTube: Wo bist du, der du uberwunden, Im Reich der Schatten, Mantram der Herzberührung II, Auf dem Weg

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), 2014 August: Letzte Tage-Letzte Nächte (1976), 2014 May: Agape-Agape (1983)