Brymo - Tabula Rasa (2014)

Wikipedia - "Tabula Rasa (Latin for 'blank slate') is the fourth studio album by Nigerian singer Brymo, released independently on October 30, 2014. It is the first album released by the singer since the Federal High Court of Lagos lifted Chocolate City's injunction against him. The album was preceded by the single 'Fe Mi' which was released in the month leading to the album's release. The LP's material includes the recurring theme of freedom. Critical reception to Tabula Rasa was overwhelmingly positive, with many critics deeming it a 'classic'. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: 1 Pound (The Documentary - Live)
YouTube: Tabula Rasa Full Album 2014

Montreal-style bagel

Wikipedia - "The Montreal bagel, (sometimes beigel; Yiddish בײגל beygl, in French Bagel de Montréal), is a distinctive variety of handmade and wood-fired baked bagel. In contrast to the New York-style bagel, the Montreal bagel is smaller, thinner, sweeter and denser, with a larger hole, and is always baked in a wood-fired oven. It contains malt, egg, and no salt and is boiled in honey-sweetened water before being baked. In many Montreal establishments, bagels are still produced by hand and baked in full view of the patrons. Montreal bagels, like the similarly shaped New York bagel, were brought to North America by Jewish immigrants from Poland and other Eastern European countries; the differences in texture and taste reflect the style of the particular area in Poland in which the immigrant bakers learned their trade. ..."
Wikipedia
Montreal Bagels: St-Viateur vs. Fairmount
The Hole Truth
YouTube: How We Make Montreal-Style Bagels, Montreal Bagels: The Lowdown, Myer's Bagel Bakery--Burlington, Vermont

2014 November: Bagel, 2016 February: Bialy

“The Spoiler” Speaks

"Jill Stein escaped 2012 without drawing quite the same ire from liberals as Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004. If nothing else, that was a sign of the Green Party’s sagging fortunes and how comfortable Democrats felt about their monopoly over left-of-center voters in the Obama era. This year things are different. With Bernie Sanders’s social-democratic platform exciting a young base of Democratic primary voters, there appears to be real force in US politics emerging to the left of liberalism. ..."
Jacobin
Jacobin: Vermont’s Cautionary Tale

2016 August: Jill Stein

Shaking Up Italy’s Most Popular Museum

"FLORENCE, Italy — Eike Schmidt, the new director of the Uffizi Gallery here and the first non-Italian to hold the job, took what seemed a logical step. In the spring, he set up loudspeakers warning visitors about scalpers and pickpockets who target tourists waiting in the perennially long lines outside Italy’s most-visited museum, famous for its magnificent treasures by Botticelli and Raphael. But not everyone was grateful. A few days later, three Florence police officers with local media in tow arrived at his desk and handed him a fine of about $329, for broadcasting without proper city authorization. 'Initially I was a little bit angry,' Mr. Schmidt, a German art historian, said recently over a glass of wine. But he quickly spotted an opportunity, telling them he would pay the fine out of his own pocket. The next day, when he did, journalists were there snapping photos, making him an instant local celebrity. ..."
NY Times
Accademia Gallery

Pogo

Wikipedia - "Pogo is the title and central character of a long-running daily American comic strip, created by cartoonist Walt Kelly (1913–1973) and distributed by the Post-Hall Syndicate. Set in the Okefenokee Swamp of the southeastern United States, the strip often engaged in social and political satire through the adventures of its anthropomorphic funny animal characters. Pogo combined both sophisticated wit and slapstick physical comedy in a heady mix of allegory, Irish poetry, literary whimsy, puns and wordplay, lushly detailed artwork and broad burlesque humor. The same series of strips can be enjoyed on different levels by both young children and savvy adults. The strip earned Kelly a Reuben Award in 1951. ..."
Wikipedia
Going Pogo
W - Walt Kelly
Comic Strip / Pogo
Pogo Art
Whirled of Kelly
allmusic (Video)
amazon - Walt Kelly
YouTube: Pogo, The Pogo Special Birthday Special, Walt Kelly "Songs Of The Pogo" 1956 FULL ALBUM

Hugh Masekela - The Chisa Years: 1965-1975 (Rare and Unreleased)

"Hugh Masekela and Stewart Levine met in 1961 at the Manhattan School of Music. They became friends, roommates, and collaborators. They began experimenting with putting together groups of African singers, studio musicians, and a fusion of South African township jive and urban gospel. The two started the CHISA label together in 1966 just before the pair scored big with Masekela's smash, 'Grazin' in the Grass.' After the success of that track, they put more money into their label, and scored a distribution deal with Motown. The 14 sides here, on Chisa Years: 1965-1975 (Rare and Unreleased) are little known or forgotten tracks from the CHISA years. It's true that the Crusaders recorded for CHISA in this period, but there are no tracks by them on this set -- though most of the band appear here in one form or another. None of Masekela's hits are here either. And it's just as well. What is collected on this disc is a vibrant slew of cuts recorded by the pair. ..."
allmusic (Video)
Discogs
amazon
Spotify
YouTube: Afro Beat Blues, Macongo - Hugh Masekela & Letta Mbulu, Baranta with Miatta Fahinbulleh - Witch doctor, Baranta feat. Miatta Fahinbulleh -- Amo Sakesa, Cantaloupe - Best cover ever, Baranta with Miatta Fahinbulleh - Ahvuomo

The Pocket Louvre: A Visitor's Guide to 500 Works by Claude Mignot

"... Encyclopedic in its scope and exhausting in its magnitude, the Louvre has vast collections ranging from the 6th century B.C. to the mid-19th century. Its impressive architecture goes back 800 years, to its origins as a fortress guarding medieval Paris. In its contemporary incarnation, recently reconfigured and rebaptized 'The Grand Louvre,' it spreads over four levels and boasts more than 30,000 works of art; its galleries, shops, and offices occupy some 1.6 million square feet, of which some 645,000 are dedicated to exhibitions. Such daunting dimensions can make the museum feel like an endless labyrinth to uninitiated visitors. ..."
Abbeville Press
amazon

2014 August: Louvre

Saudis and Extremism: ‘Both the Arsonists and the Firefighters’

Muslim pilgrims surrounding the Kaaba, the black cube at the center of Islam’s holiest mosque in Mecca, in 2003. The Saudis’ export of Wahhabism has special cachet because the country is the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad.
"... The first American diplomat to serve as envoy to Muslim communities around the world visited 80 countries and concluded that the Saudi influence was destroying tolerant Islamic traditions. 'If the Saudis do not cease what they are doing,' the official, Farah Pandith, wrote last year, 'there must be diplomatic, cultural and economic consequences.'  And hardly a week passes without a television pundit or a newspaper columnist blaming Saudi Arabia for jihadist violence. On HBO, Bill Maher calls Saudi teachings 'medieval,' adding an epithet. In The Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria writes that the Saudis have 'created a monster in the world of Islam.' The idea has become a commonplace: that Saudi Arabia’s export of the rigid, bigoted, patriarchal, fundamentalist strain of Islam known as Wahhabism has fueled global extremism and contributed to terrorism. ..."
NY Times

Sun Ra - The Cry of Jazz (1958)

Wikipedia - "Cry of Jazz is a film by Ed Bland documenting Chicago's black neighborhoods. It includes interviews with artists and intellectuals and performances by Sun Ra and John Gilmore. ... The Library of Congress had this to say of the film and its significance: Cry of Jazz...is now recognized as an early and influential example of African-American independent filmmaking. Director Ed Bland, with the help of more than 60 volunteer crew members, intercuts scenes of life in Chicago’s black neighborhoods with interviews of interracial artists and intellectuals. Cry of Jazz argues that black life in America shares a structural identity with jazz music. With performance clips by the jazz composer, bandleader and pianist Sun Ra and his Arkestra, the film demonstrates the unifying tension between rehearsed and improvised jazz. ..."
Wikipedia
Open Culture - The Cry of Jazz: 1958’s Highly Controversial Film on Jazz & Race in America (With Music by Sun Ra)(Video)
NYT: Edward Bland, ‘Cry of Jazz’ Filmmaker and Composer, Dies at 86
The Cry of Jazz: Q & A with director Edward Bland
The Cry of Jazz and the expressive politics of music and race: interview with Ed Bland
ED BLAND.....Urban Classical Funk
Ed Bland’s remarkable short film ‘The Cry of Jazz’: Real talk on race & music in 1959
YouTube: Sun Ra - Cry Of Jazz 34:15

The Short Century

Le Gardien de la Vie - Hamed Ewais, 1967-1968
"Historical periods are not defined by calendar dates, but by significant events that mark the end of one era and the beginning of the next. The 20th Century is 'The Short Century,' a term popularised by the historian Eric Hobsbawm for an era that saw many of the most dramatic and extreme shifts in human history. This era was witness to the most violent wars, the largest human migrations, the rapid expansion of cities (now the largest centres of human life), the dominance of mechanised industry, and the rapid rise, conflict, and collapse of expansive ideologies that underpinned them. ... Each end demarcates stark shifts in politics, society, and cultural production. ..."
Barjeel Art Foundation
Arab art chronicles of the 20th century

Cryptography - Neal Stephenson (1999)

Wikipedia - "Cryptonomicon is a 1999 novel by American author Neal Stephenson, set in two different time periods. ... Cryptonomicon is closer to the genres of historical fiction and contemporary techno-thriller than to the science fiction of Stephenson's two previous novels, Snow Crash and Diamond Age. It features fictionalized characterizations of such historical figures as Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, Douglas MacArthur, Winston Churchill, Isoroku Yamamoto, Karl Dönitz, Hermann Göring, and Ronald Reagan, as well as some highly technical and detailed descriptions of modern cryptography and information security, with discussions of prime numbers, modular arithmetic, and Van Eck phreaking. ..."
Wikipedia
Guardian: Neal Stephenson's message in code
NY Times
amazon

Isabel Bishop

"Shop girls, down and out men, lone pedestrians on the way to the elevated train—from the 1930s to the 1980s, Isabel Bishop observed these men and women from her Union Square artist’s studio, painting them in soft tones that reveal their humanity and fragility. Born in 1902 in Cincinnati, Bishop moved to Manhattan at age 16 to attend the New York School of Applied Design for Women. She then took classes at the Art Students League, developing her talents as a printmaker and painter. Influenced by early Modernists like Robert Henri and old masters such as Rubens, she became associated with the 14th Street School, a group of realist artists that included Reginald Marsh and Raphael Soyer. ..."
Ephemeral New York
W - Isabel Bishop

Carl Stone - Electronic Music from the Seventies and Eighties (2016)

"... The composer Carl Stone is often associated with multi-channel work that immerses the listener in a spatial sonic zone, and with aggressive sample manipulation that explores its source audio from the inside. The two early Stone pieces, LIM and Chao Praya, are neither. Conceptualized and recorded between 1972 and 1974, they are elegant, built from limited resources. They may play with the stereo spectrum, but their intended breadth is reserved. ..."
disquet
LA Record - CARL STONE: ONLY FOR MY EARS (Video)
Unseen Worlds
Facebook

2010 August: Carl Stone, 2011 April: Ear Meal with Carl Stone, 2012 September: Carl Stone' DARDA performance Super Deluxe Tokyo, 2013 December: Tetsu Inoue and Carl Stone - pict.soul (2001)

Joni Mitchell - On For the Roses (1972)

"On For the Roses, Joni Mitchell began to explore jazz and other influences in earnest. As one might expect from a transitional album, there is a lot of stylistic ground explored, including straight folk selections using guitar ('For the Roses') and piano ('Banquet,' 'See You Sometime,' 'Lesson in Survival') overtly jazzy numbers ('Barangrill,' 'Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire,' and hybrids that cross the two 'Let the Wind Carry Me,' 'Electricity,' 'Woman of Heart and Mind,' 'Judgment of the Moon and Stars'). 'Blonde in the Bleachers' grafts a rock & roll band coda onto a piano-based singer/songwriter main body. ..."
allmusic
W - On For the Roses
Discogs
Rolling Stone
YouTube: For The Roses (Live London 1974), Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire (Live 1974)
YouTube: For the Roses [Album]

2015 July: Blue (1970), 2015 Novemer: 40 Years On: Joni Mitchell's The Hissing Of Summer Lawns Revisited

Mapping the Mercantilist World Economy

"This semester I get to teach Economic Geography, a Sophomore-level course in our International Studies program. I use World Systems and World History perspectives, both of which favor a global scale of analysis (the course textbook is Knox, Agnew & McCarthy’s The Geography of the World Economy). This week I presented on Mercantilism, which designates both the dominant political-economic doctrine of the 17th and 18th centuries (as hegemonic a doctrine in its day as Neoliberalism is today) and a set of trade practices institutionalized by European maritime powers. Our current globalized capitalist world economy was built on Mercantilist foundations, put in place in the first phase of global European expansion, the second phase being that of the formal European empires of the industrial age. In the case of the 'New World' in the Americas, Europe’s Mercantilists were creating entirely new trade networks and hinterlands. ..."
Eric Ross, academic

Fear Of Music: Amazing Early Talking Heads Doc From 1979

"A loft in Manhattan, New York, 1979: Talking Heads are working on their latest album Fear of Music. A TV crew from England are present making a documentary for the UK arts series The South Bank Show. They interview and film the band at work—writing, rehearsing and recording songs. At times, listening to Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison and David Byrne talk they all make it seem what they’re doing is really quite ordinary, almost mundane. Frantz says he considers his life quite normal when not on tour. He gets up early rather than sleeping all day and going to the clubs at night. Byrne, who sounds at times like Andy Warhol—nervous, shy—discusses his thoughts about dressing like ordinary working people in ordinary everyday work clothes, though he soon discovered keeping up with ordinary fashions was expensive. ..."
Dangerous Minds
YouTube: South Bank Show (1979), The South Bank Show, Season 3 Episode 4

2008 September: Talking Heads, 2011 June: Talking Heads: 77, 2011 August: More Songs About Buildings and Food, 2011 October: Fear of Music, 2012 January: Remain in Light, 2012 April: Speaking in Tongues, 2012 June: Live in Rome 1980, 2014 December: "Road To Nowhere" (1985), 2015 May: And She Was (1985), 2011 August: David Byrne: How Architecture Helped Music Evolve, 2012 January: The Knee Plays, 2015 October: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - Brian Eno / David Byrne (1981).

The First Book of Fashion

"University of Cambridge historian Dr. Ulinka Rublack, author of the excellent Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe, and Maria Hayward have published a unique 16th century manuscript documenting one German accountant’s daring and elegant forays into personal style. The Klaidungsbüchlein, or 'book of clothes,' is the ancestor of every fashion blog, Instagram and Tumblr and it slays them all. Matthäus Schwarz was born in Augsburg on February 20th, 1497, the son of a wine merchant and innkeeper. Even as a teenager Schwarz showed an interest in fashion, realizing how quickly trends came and went. That understanding would inspire him to meticulously record what he wearing, when and why, noting his age down to fractions of years. ..."
The History Blog
NYBooks: Dressing for the King
Renaissance Fashion: The Birth of Power Dressing
University of Cambridge (Video)
The First Book of Fashion makes headlines
amazon - The First Book of Fashion: The Book of Clothes of Matthaeus and Veit Konrad Schwarz of Augsburg
Commons Wikimedia
YouTube: A Young Man's Progress - The First Book of Fashion

2012 December: Impressionism and Fashion, 2013 March: Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, 2013 May: The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde 1860–1900, 2013 July: Undressed: The Fashion of Privacy, 2014 October: Italian Style: Fashion Since 1945, 2015 May: Fashion to Die For: Did an Addiction to Fads Lead Marie Antoinette to the Guillotine?, 2015 November: When Women Ruled Fashion.

Thievery Corporation - Saudade (2013)

"Coming off the paranoid and dark Culture of Fear, where Orwellian ideas and dub beats filled the speakers, Thievery Corporation do a severe about-face with Saudade, an album that embraces the bossa nova and Brazilian rhythms, and ups the organic material content of the group's output. Horns, strings, and nylon-string guitars are hired, rather than sampled, on an album where Thievery members Rob Garza and Eric Hilton play mostly guitar and bass. They also curate and produce, coming up with a fine set of wistful tunes and suitable, alluring singers when it comes to the former, but they come up a bit short when it comes to the latter. ..."
allmusic
W - Saudade (Thievery Corporation album)
NPR - First Listen: Thievery Corporation, 'Saudade'
Thievery Corporation announce Saudade, a full-length flirtation with bossa nova (don’t be jealous) (Video)
YouTube: Thievery Corporation - Saudade (full album)

Eau de Cologne

"The group show Eau de Cologne at Sprüth Magers in Los Angeles features work from the late-1970s to 2016 by Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman and Rosemarie Trockel. The exhibition at Sprüth Magers’ recently-opened Los Angeles gallery is a follow-up to its predecessor in Berlin last year. It sheds light on key topics in these artists’ works, but also the specific history of the gallery and its connection to these important female figures of an art that subtly addresses women’s roles in very different ways. All five artists in the exhibition showed with Monika Sprüth during the earliest years in Cologne and have maintained close ties to the gallery since the early 1980s. ..."
Sprueth Magers
AUTRE
LA Times - Women, art and inequality in the gallery world: Sprüth Magers exhibition fuels an old debate
ART CITIES:Los Angeles -Eau de Cologne

Tony Allen With Africa 70 - No Accommodation For Lagos (1978), No Discrimination (1980)

"1978 was without a doubt one of the most disturbing years in the history of Fela and the Afrika 70. Just a year before the army had raided Fela’s compound destroying his house, his club, his brothers free medical clinic and fatally injuring his mother. With their houses destroyed they had to squat the former Decca offices. Somewhere in between the madness they managed to record Fela’s Suffering and Schmiling album and Tony Allen’s third solo-project: ‘No Accomodation For Lagos’. Without a doubt his most political orientated record of all. After the record came out Tony Allen dropped from the Afrika ’70 band as he felt that too many people were sapping Fela of his creative mind. Part of the Tony Allen reissue series on Kindred Spirits, featuring remastered versions and original restored artwork. A must for afro-beat fans around the globe."
Light in the Attic
YouTube: No Accommodation For Lagos, No Discrimination 1:03:37

2016 July: Secret Agent (2008)

Company Wang Ramirez

Monchichi 2015
"In the US premiere of the duet Monchichi (2011), a Frenchman with Spanish parents (Sébastien Ramirez) and a German woman with a Korean mother (Honji Wang) present a dance of alienation and the search for identity and love. A couple both on stage and in real life, their dance backgrounds could hardly be more contrasting: while Ramirez was a B-boy, Wang was classically trained, but they share a love of other dance styles and a great interest in experimentation. Through the exploration of cultural influences, they create a new language: a virtuosic, poetic, and humorous delight. ..."
American Dance Festival
Wang Ramirez
W - Wang Ramirez
YouTube: MONCHICHI x WANG RAMIREZ | dance production, WANG RAMIREZ, AP15 at Breakin' Convention 2012

Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time — Patrick Alexander

"In his introduction to his reader’s guide to Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, Patrick Alexander observes that 'Except for those fortunate enough to spend several years confined to a hospital bed, a federal prison, or to be stranded on a desert island with their preselected library, few modern readers have the time to tackle a novel with more than three thousand pages, a million and a half words, and more than four hundred individual characters.' Alexander goes on to point out that 'Proust’s novel is increasingly read only by professional academics,' a trend he describes as a 'great pity.' Alexander wants you to be able to access all the philosophical insight and rich humor of Proust, and his book Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time makes a great starting point for doing so. ..."
Biblioklept
amazon
A Reader’s Guide to The Remembrance of Things Past

2008 June: Marcel Proust, 2011 October: How Proust Can Change Your Life, 2012 April: Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu, 2013 February: Marcel Proust and Swann's Way: 100th Anniversary, 2013 May: A Century of Proust, 2013 August: Paintings in Proust - Eric Karpeles, 2013 October: On Reading Proust, 2015 September: "Paintings in Proust" - View of the Piazza del Popolo, Giovanni Battista Piranes, 2015 September: In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel, 2016 January: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (1919), 2016 February: Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy and Translator, 2016 May: The Guermantes Way (1920-21).

What’s it like living in Turkey one month after the failed coup?

"A month has passed since the failed military coup in Turkey. The nightly demonstrations against the attempted coup culminated in pro-government rally in Istanbul a week last Sunday, where hundreds of thousands of flag-waving supporters were addressed by the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Following the coup, the government launched a sweeping crackdown with Erdoğan accusing Fethullah Gülen, the US-based cleric, of masterminding it. Nearly 18,000 people have been detained or arrested across Turkey, including 42 arrest warrants for journalists, and the sacking of 15,000 education workers. ... We heard from our readers across the country on the mood in the country one month after the abortive coup. ..."
Guardian
TIME: The Coup May Have Failed but Fear Still Rules Turkey


2016 February: The Feminist, Democratic Leftists Our Military Is Obliterating -  Debbie Bookchin, 2016 May: Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn, 2016 July: How Turkey Came to This

A few of Schuyler's revisions - Charles North

"I remember once asking Jimmy, after I had gotten to know him a little in the early ’70s, how he decided whether a poem published in a magazine was worthy of reprinting in a book. His answer — accompanied, as it often was, by a slow chuckle, which I assumed meant that his response was serious but that there was something faintly inappropriate if not embarrassing in talking about it — was that anything worth publishing once was worth publishing again. In fact, since I saw a couple of his manuscripts which contained poems that didn’t make their way into the book, he wasn’t quite telling the truth. I also remember asking him whether he revised much, to which the answer was no, hardly at all. ..."
Jacket2

2008 January: James Schuyler, 2009 October: James Schuyler: Six New Recordings Added, 2011 March: Broadway: A Poets and Painters Anthology, 2011 December: An Anthology of New York Poets, 2012 July: A Schuyler of urgent concern, 2013 July: In Fairfield Porter / James Schuyler country: Penobscot Bay, Maine, 2014 November: Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler 1951-1991, 2015 October: The Morning of the Poem (1980),June 2016: New Video of James Schuyler’s Legendary Debut Reading in 1988.

Freaks, Radicals and Hippies: Counterculture in 1970s Vermont

Members of the Mount Philo commune traveled to Washington to protest the Vietnam War in 1971
"The 1970s in Vermont were a time of radical change in culture, population, politics, and social life. Many of the features that are today considered quintessentially Vermont–its politics, its local food movements, and its offbeat culture–have their origins in this period of recent history. The Vermont Historical Society embarked on a two-year research project to collect, document, and share the history of this influential decade in Vermont. ..."
Vermont Historical Society
1970s VT: Fears of a hippie invasion
Back to the Land: Communes in Vermont
17 Rare Photos From Vermont That Will Take You Straight To The Past
Vermont Historical Society examines lasting impact of 1970s counterculture
Vermont documents 1970s counterculture

2015 April: Vermont Historical Society examines lasting impact of 1970s counterculture

New Yorkers in Subway Deserts Have Advice for L Train Riders: ‘Suck It Up’

Philippe Pierre’s morning commute from his home in Queens to his job in Manhattan typically involves a commuter van and two subway lines.
"Waiting at a bus stop in a cascade of snow. Inching along in stop-and-go traffic. Cramming into a commuter van alongside other passengers. These are the experiences of living in New York City when a subway line is out of reach. While the city is heralded for operating one of the world’s most expansive networks of subway lines, there are many neighborhoods — and many New Yorkers — that do not benefit from this rapid mode of transportation. For those who live in the huge swaths of the city that the subway does not serve, getting around can be a time-consuming and stressful slog, involving long bus rides, multiple transfers and a large reserve of patience or a good playlist or book to endure an hour or more in transit. ..."
NY Times
W - L (New York City Subway service)
Gothamist
CityLab
L train shutdown explained: Facts, figures, proposals and more

The Band - Rock of Ages (1972)

"Released on the heels of the stilted, static Cahoots, the double-album Rock of Ages occupies a curious yet important place in Band history. Recorded at a spectacular New Years Eve 1971 gig, the show and album were intended to be a farewell of sorts before the Band took an extended break in 1972, but it turned out to be a last hurrah in many different ways, closing the chapter on the first stage of their career, when they were among the biggest and most important rock & roll bands. That sense of importance had started to creep into their music, turning their studio albums after The Band into self-conscious affairs, and even the wildly acclaimed first two albums seemed to float out of time, existing in a sphere of their own and never having the kick of a rock & roll band. ..."
allmusic
W - Rock of Ages (The Band album)
Rolling Stone
YouTube: Don't Do It (Live)
YouTube: Rock of Ages complete

2009 July: The Band, 2011 June: Music from Big Pink, 2011 September: The Last Waltz, 2012 December: King Harvest 2012 January: Rare Concert Footage of The Band, 1970, 2015 January: Stage Fright (1970), 2015 October: The Band (1969), 2015 December: The Band With The Hawks - The Silver Dome 1989, 2016 April: Don’t Do It (1976)

Cézanne to Richter – Masterpieces from the Kunstmuseum Basel

Max Ernst, La grande forêt, 1927.
"As the main building of the Kunstmuseum Basel is closed for a year of renovations, the museum has launched a rich program of exhibitions, primarily at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst. One particular highlight is the show Cézanne to Richter – Masterpieces from the Kunstmuseum Basel. Curated by Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, the exhibition traces the major developments in European painting through the 1970s. ... The presentation of around seventy works is generally arranged along chronological lines; instead of constructing a didactic narrative in which one school succeeds another, it vividly illustrates the simultaneity of disparate tendencies that is the period’s essential characteristic. The show features around seventy works by Cézanne, Pissarro, Monet, Degas, Renoir, van Gogh, Modersohn-Becker, Böcklin, Hodler, Braque, Picasso, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Klee, Miró, Fontana, Palermo, Tanguy, Richter, and others."
kunstmuseum basel
Artsy

Jill Stein

Wikipedia - "Jill Ellen Stein (born May 14, 1950) is an American physician, activist, and politician. She is currently the Green Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election. Stein was the presidential nominee of the Green Party in 2012, in which she received 469,501 votes (0.4%). ... On February 6, 2015, Stein announced the formation of an exploratory committee in preparation for a potential campaign for the Green Party's presidential nomination in 2016. On June 22, 2015, Stein formally announced her candidacy for the Green Party's 2016 presidential nomination in a live interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! After former Ohio state senator Nina Turner reportedly declined to be her running mate, Stein chose human rights activist Ajamu Baraka as her running mate on August 1, 2016. During the campaign, Stein has said that it is 'hard to say' whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is the 'greater evil'. She said that the 'two corporate parties', the Democratic party and the Republican party, have converged into one and the same party. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Green Party of the United States
YouTube: Jill Stein to Bernie Sanders: Run on the Green Party Ticket & Continue Your Political Revolution, Green Party Candidate Jill Stein on Bernie, Hillary & a “Green New Deal” (Interview w/ Cenk Uygur)

Kienholz: Five Car Stud

Fondazione Prada, Kienholz
"Autodidact installation artist and assemblage sculptor Edward Kienholz first began to practice carpentry, metalwork and auto-repair as a young boy on his rural family farm. In a new exhibition at Fondazione Prada, Kienholz: Five Car Stud celebrates his unequivocal imagination with a seven-month-long retrospective. 26 artworks, realized between 1959 and 1994, will be presented as part of the Prada Collection. 'Kienholz does not tend to sublimate the lowness and tragedy of life, the conditions of solitude and triviality, but rather uses them as tools that can highlight the low, popular universe, a place where the emaciated and filthy, the perverse and lurid, represent a new, surprising beauty,' explains the exhibit’s curator, Germano Celant. Five Car Stud officially opened yesterday, ready to catapult viewers into a nightmarish empiricism. ..."
Garage
Fondazione Prada (Video)
LACMA
New Museum

Wild Dub: Dread Meets Punk Rocker

"While punk rock came about ultimately as an intertwining of influences on both sides of the Atlantic, some of its deepest roots are in the multiracial inner cities of London, Brixton, and Birmingham, where disaffected British youth mingled with expatriate Jamaicans and were surrounded by reggae and its mystical, experimental corollary, dub. Bands like the Clash, Public Image Ltd., and the Slits incorporated reggae elements very explicitly into their music, while others, such as the Pop Group and Killing Joke, drew on reggae and dub influences in somewhat more subtle ways. This uneven but ultimately rewarding collection offers some of the most exciting moments of punk-reggae fusion, as well as one or two of its most silly and ill-advised. ... This is a long and generous program, so even the occasional clunker is easily forgivable. Recommended."
allmusic
Discogs
YouTube: The clash - bankrobber/dub (the Original Black Market Clash Version),
The Slits - Typical Girls (Brink Style), Public Image Limited - Death Disco (Live), Bloody Dub - Stiff Little Fingers, GRACE JONES - PRIVATE LIFE (Dub Version)

Bernie Worrell: 10 Essential Tracks From the P-Funk Keyboardist

"One of the most wildly innovative and technically dazzling musicians in pop music history, Parliament-Funkadelic's Bernie Worrell was like 'Jimi Hendrix on the keyboards,' according to one-time bandmate Bootsy Collins, and that's not a hyperbolic estimation. A classical-music child prodigy who attended the New England Conservatory of Music and Juilliard, Worrell's journey to the funk began by hanging around George Clinton's Newark, New Jersey barbershop. By his early 20s, he was a full-fledged P-Funkateer, and soon became de facto musical director, organizing and orchestrating the anarchic collective's sprawling jams and riffs into iconic compositions and performances. ..."
Rolling Stone (Video)

The Bubble Gum Card War: The Great Bowman & Topps Sets from 1948 to 1955

"In 1951, Bowman's short-lived baseball card monopoly was broken by Topps and the great Baseball Gum Card War was in full swing. Consumers almost always benefit from competition in the marketplace and the card collectors were no exception during the Baseball Bubble Gum Card War. The result was the birth and rapid evolution of the modern baseball card. Each spring during the years of 1952 to 1955, American boys had their choice between two great sets of baseball cards. The boys would cast their votes for their favorite issue of the year by sliding nickels across the counter of America's dime-stores to purchase baseball cards from either Topps or Bowman. ...'
amazon: The Bubble Gum Card War
amazon: Baseball Cards of the Fifties: The Complete Topps Cards 1950-1959
amazon: Topps Baseball Cards: The Complete Picture Collection (A 35-Year History, 1951-1985)
amazon: Classic Sports Card Sets: Best Sport Cards Sets From the 1950s and 1960s
amazon: The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book

Rude Reggae: Rough Riders

"We are back with another Reggae article! 'Rude Reggae – Rough Riders' has been taken from a Black Music Magazine from 1974. It was, in fact, part of a special called Sexy Soul, Blue Blues and Rude Reggae. The author of the Reggae section was Carl Gayle, as usual, providing an entertaining and interesting read. ... At its worst, rude reggae can plumb the depths of childish smut. At its best, it has an earthy and unselfconscious directness which can make the prudest of prudes explode with laughter. ..."
The Ballroom Blitz
YouTube: Judge Dread - Big Six, Lord Kitchener - Dr. Kitch aka The Needle (1963), Prince Buster & All Stars - Rough Rider, Prince Buster - Wreck A Pum Pum, Laurel Aitken - Pussy Price, Justin Hines And The Dominoes - Rub Up Push Up, The Heptones - Fattie Fattie, Derrick Morgan - Kill Me Dead, Lloyd Terrel - Bang Bang Lulu, Max Romeo - Wet Dream, Nora Dean - Barbwire, Wailing Wailers - Bend Down Low

Broken Records: The Final Days of Bleecker Bob’s Golden Oldies

"The aromas of must and dust were what stuck with you when you exited Bleecker Bob’s Golden Oldies Record Shop, the dumpy yet iconic LP store in New York City’s mercurial post-boho Greenwich Village. The scents wafted out the door, where they lingered in that no-man’s-land between Ben’s Pizza and Village Psychic. The collected fetor of decades-old cardboard, vinyl, and plastic all comingling, the whiff of oldies begging to be rediscovered. It was unforgettable. For the past 32 years, Bleecker Bob’s shared its air at 118 West Third Street, and it amassed a downtown New York legacy that dated back to the early ’70s. ..."
SPIN
NY Times: What Did You Buy at Bleecker Bob’s?
Noir York (Video)
Bleecker Bob’s is closing: Legendary record store to be replaced by frozen yogurt chain store (Video)
The Record Store Day After: New York's Iconic Bleecker Bob's Closes
YouTube: The Last Days of Bleecker Bob's 32:54, The Final Days of Bleecker Bobs, Seinfeld - Bleecker Bob's Records