Make Art Not War: Political Protest Posters from the Twentieth Century

"Two of the most recognizable images of twentieth-century art are Pablo Picasso’s 'Guernica' and the rather modest mass-produced poster by an unassuming illustrator, Lorraine Schneider 'War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.' From Picasso’s masterpiece to a humble piece of poster art, artists have used their talents to express dissent and to protest against injustice and immorality. As the face of many political movements, posters are essential for fueling recruitment, spreading propaganda, and sustaining morale. Disseminated by governments, political parties, labor unions and other organizations, political posters transcend time and span the entire spectrum of political affiliations and philosophies. ..."
NYU Press
Truthdig
amazon

Of a Feather

"The grass is still wet from the rain as the morning light pushes through the fog on a brisk spring morning in Prospect Park. The paths are dappled with joggers, cyclists, strollers, and dogs, yet no one notices our group of twelve, necks conspicuously craned and binoculars pressed up to our faces. It’s only 7:30 a.m., but this walk with the Brooklyn Bird Club began 30 minutes ago. ... Birders, like the creatures they seek, often go unnoticed until someone points them out. Once you know how to find them, they seem to be everywhere. In Brooklyn, they are particularly overlooked despite being a robust constituency of the borough’s incredible natural habitats, such as Prospect Park, Green-Wood Cemetery, Floyd Bennett Field, Dead Horse Bay, and Brooklyn Botanic Garden. ..."
BKLYNR
Macaulay Library: The Warbler Guide Song and Call Companion
amazon: The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2nd Edition

Jah Wobble, The Edge, Holger Czukay - Snake Charmer (1983)

"Yes, it was the Eighties as you can hear from the first stuttering synths on this overwrought supersession. Bassist Jah Wobble was post-Public Image Limited, The Edge from U2 clearly at a loose end (although a decade away from letting go on Achtung Baby) and multi-instrumentlist Czukay from Can probably quite liked the idea of getting into a studio for a series of free-flowing sessions. Others who dropped in during the recording of the Snake Chartmer mini-album were Can's Jaki Liebezeit, jazz-funk singer Marcella Allen and guitarist Animal. Wobble had already explored 'Islamic funk' with his Invaders of the Heart band but here got down with some weird amalgam of Eurobeat hooked to Afro-funk of the Talking Heads kind. ..."
Elsewhere
W - Snake Charmer
Discogs
YouTube: Snake Charmer 31:01

2011 February: Plight & Premonition, 2011 June: Persian Love, 2013 October: Flux + Mutability - David Sylvian and Holger Czukay (1989) , 2014 June: Holger Czukay - Der Osten Ist Rot, Rome Remains Rome (1984/7), 2016 March: Invaders Of The Heart - Jah Wobble (1982).

René Char (14 June 1907 – 19 February 1988)

Wikipedia - "René Char (14 June 1907 – 19 February 1988) was a 20th-century French poet and member of the French Resistance. ... Char's first book, Cloches sur le cœur was published in 1928 as a compilation of poems written between 1922 and 1926. In early 1929, he founded the journal Méridiens with André Cayatte and published three issues. In August, he sent twenty-six copies of his book Arsenal, published in Nîmes, to Paul Éluard, who in the autumn came to visit him at L'Isle sur la Sorgue. In late November, Char moved to Paris, where he met Louis Aragon, André Breton, and René Crevel, and joined the surrealists. ... Char joined the French Resistance in 1940, serving under the name of Captain Alexandre, where he commanded the Durance parachute drop zone. He refused to publish anything during the Occupation, but wrote the 'Feuillets d'Hypnos' during it (1943–4), prose poems dealing with resistance. ..."
Wikipedia
Char’s Refreshing Poetry
Brooklyn Rail: René Char - Resistance in Every Way
Poetry Foundation: Poetry, March 1957
amazon

Sound Advice - Pat Patrick & The Baritone Saxophone Retinue (1977)

"'Of all the saxophones, it is our opinion that the one with the most distinctive sound, warmth and range that can reach into that of other saxophones, is the baritone sax.' As composer, bandleader, and full-time member of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Pat Patrick was a visionary musician whose singular contribution to the jazz tradition has not yet been fully recognized. As well as holding down the baritone spot in the Arkestra for 35 years, Patrick played flute and alto, composed in both jazz and popular idioms, and was a widely respected musician, playing with Duke Ellington, Eric Dolphy, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrane, with whom he appeared on Africa/Brass (1961). But he is best known for his crucial contributions to key Sun Ra recordings including Angels and Demons at Play (1967), Jazz in Silhouette (1959), and The Nubians of Plutonia (1967), among dozens of others. But as a bandleader, Patrick only released one LP -- the almost-mythical Sound Advice, recorded with his Baritone Saxophone Retinue, a unique gathering of baritone saxophone masters including Charles Davis and René McLean. ... Liner notes by scholar and musician Bill Banfield."
Forced Exposure
W - Laurdine Patrick
The Life and Career of Lourdine ‘Pat’ Patrick, Jazz Great and Father of Deval Patrick (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Sound Advice 8 videos

Trading Card Set of the Week – Twin Peaks (Star Pics, 1991)

"Twin Peaks was one hell of a phenomenon. Though it only lasted two seasons, David Lynch and Mark Frost’s brainchild burned as brightly for its short life as any television series ever has, and anyone alive and pop culturally aware at the dawn of the 1990s knew the question of the day: Who killed Laura Palmer? The mystery surrounding the death of the eponymous town’s All-American Girl — the homecoming queen, the A student, the deliverer of Meals on Wheels — gripped a vast swath of the viewing public, and that was even before the mystery deepened. ... Boutique card publisher Star Pics capitalized on the raging maelstrom of popularity by putting out a 76-strong set of cards in 1991, just as the second season started to come off the rails, dooming the show to an end of season cancellation. ..."
blog into mystery
Twin Peaks Star Pics Cards**
YouTube: Twin Peaks Star Pics Trading Cards

2008 September: Twin Peaks, 2010 March: Twin Peaks: How Laura Palmer's death marked the rebirth of TV drama, 2011 October: Twin Peaks: The Last Days, 2014 October: Welcome to Twin Peaks, 2015 June: David Lynch: ‘I’ve always loved Laura Palmer’, 2015 July: Twin Peaks Maps, 2016 May: Hear the Music of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Played..., September: Twin Peaks Tarot Cards For The Magician Who Longs To See Through The Darkness Of Future Past, 2014 September: David Lynch: The Unified Field, 2014 December: David Lynch’s Bad Thoughts - J. Hoberman, 2015 March: Lumière and Company (1995), 2015 April: David Lynch Creates a Very Surreal Plug for Transcendental Meditation, 2015 December: What Is “Lynchian”?, 2017 March: Anatomy of a Fascinating Disaster: Fire Walk With Me.

Make the Most of the British Museum

"When the British Museum opened in 1753, it was the world’s first national public museum, free (as it still is) to all 'studious and curious persons.' It contains a breathtaking collection of over 8 million objects that paint an interconnected portrait of the world’s cultures. But it also epitomizes the long British traditions of exploration, quirkiness and obsessive collecting. You could spend weeks here. But don’t worry; we’ll guide you through. ..."
NY Times
[PDF] Make the Most of The British Museum
British Museum (SOUNDCLOUD)
YouTube: The British Museum

Various Artists - The Fruit of the Original Sin (1981)

"The second compilation released by the Belgian label Crepescule in the early '80s, and easily the most ambitious of its earliest such efforts, The Fruit of the Original Sin at the time acted as a sprawling catchall that drew together many different strands of what could be called post-punk and art rock from all over Europe and North America. From a distance, it's even more of an astonishing effort, thanks not only to the many bands and performers who appeared and later established strong reputations worldwide, but the sheer, surprising range of who appeared. ... Thorough liner notes and a reproduction of the original inside sleeves complete another solid LTM reissue."
allmusic
Les Disques du Crépuscule: The Fruit Of The Original Sin
DO LOOK BACK: LES DISQUES DU CREPUSCULE
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: The Fruit of the Original Sin · Peter Gordon, The Durutti Column - Party, Marine - Animal in My Head, Soft Verdict - Multiple 12, Paul Haig - Mad Horses, 323 - Affectionate Silence, Thick Pigeon - Sudan (Acoustic), Marguerite Duras - Interview

The Royals - Pick Up the Pieces (2002)

"The story of Roy Cousins and the Royals is, sadly, a fairly common one in Jamaican music. The body of work the group released between the years 1973 and 1979 rightly places them amongst the finest vocal acts of the roots era. Yet the failure of various producers and distributors to support the group, and constant changes in membership, led to their eventual obscurity outside of a relatively small group of reggae collectors. Thankfully, Pressure Sounds has sought to remedy this situation with this enhanced restoration of the group's classic 1977 debut, Pick up the Pieces. ..."
allmusic
Wikipedia
Reggae Vibes
iTunes
YouTube: Pick Up The Pieces 1:04:28

The Anarchism of Blackness

"Present incarnations of an unfazed and empowered far right increasingly demand the presence of a real, radical left. In the coming months and years, the left and left-leaning constituencies of the United States will need to make clear distinctions between potentially counterproductive symbolic progress, and actual material progress. Liberalism and party politics have failed a public attempting to bring about real change — but there are solutions. The Black liberation struggle, in particular, has long provided a blueprint for transformative social change within the boundaries of this empire, and it has done so due to its positioning as an inherently radical social formation — a product of the virulent and foundational nature of anti-Blackness in American society. ..."
ROAR Magazine

Mountolive - Lawrence Durrell (1958)

"Mountolive (published 1958) is, first of all, a masterful play on expectations. The Alexandria Quartet relies upon the crossed recollections of unreliable narrators for its form and in this the third volume Durrell deceptively switched to the traditional storytelling mode of a third-person narration – transforming it into an odd continuation of the experimental form. ... What begins as an affair between Mountolive and Leila soon expands to become a primarily political story, or rather the story of how political ideology put insurmountable strain upon relationships of all sorts, driving apart friends, lovers and brothers as the book progresses. Mountolive is also the most cinematic and spacious of the three 'sibling' novels. It breaks away from Darley’s constrictive voice and is a deeply refreshing and revitalizing example of changing horses in midstream. ..."
Pseudo-Intellectual Reviews
W - Mountolive
NY Times: Intrigue Is the Way of Life
Revisiting Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet — Paul M. Curtis

2011 December: The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell, 2013 September: Villa that inspired Lawrence Durrell faces demolition, as Egypt allows heritage to crumble, 2014 August: Prospero’s Cell (1945), 2015 April: Bitter Lemons (1953–1956), 2015 May: Caesar's Vast Ghost: Aspects of Provence, 2016 July: Reflections on a Marine Venus (1953), 2016 September: The Greek Islands, 2016 October: Justine (1957), 2017 February: Balthazar (1958)

Baseball color line

1949: Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, Don Newcombe, Jackie Robinson
Wikipedia - "The color line in American baseball, until the late 1940s, excluded, with some big exceptions in the 19th century until the line was firmly drawn, players of Black African descent from Major League Baseball and its affiliated Minor Leagues. Racial segregation in professional baseball was sometimes called a gentlemen's agreement, meaning a tacit understanding, as there was no written policy at the highest level of organized baseball, the major leagues. ... The color line was broken for good when Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization for the 1946 season. ..."

"... Reluctance of Boston Red Sox. The Boston Red Sox were the last major league team to integrate, holding out until 1959. This was allegedly due to the steadfast resistance provided by team owner Tom Yawkey. ... Even with the stands limited to management, Robinson was subjected to racial epithets. Robinson left the tryout humiliated. Robinson would later call Yawkey 'one of the most bigoted guys in baseball'. ... The NAACP issued charges of 'following an anti-Negro policy', and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination announced a public hearing on racial bias against the Red Sox. ... When the African-American Tommy Harper, a popular former player and coach for Boston, then working as a minor league instructor, protested the policy and a story appeared in the Boston Globe, he was promptly fired. Harper sued the Red Sox for racial discrimination and his complaint was upheld on July 1, 1986. ..."
W - Baseball color line
Racism and America’s National Pastime: The Sad History of the Boston Red Sox
W - Tom Yawkey
Tom Yawkey | Ethics Alarms
'An undeniable legacy'
It’s time to banish the racist legacy of Tom Yawkey
Tommy Harper still haunted by time with Red Sox (Video)
NPR: Historian Illustrates Racial Intolerance In The Northeast In Post-War U.S. (Video)
Yawkey Way and the Red Sox’ racist history
CBS: David Price says he heard racist taunts from Red Sox fans at Fenway Park in 2016
The Red Sox: Racist
The David Ortiz bobblehead was too racist for Red Sox
Boston Red Sox Cancel 'Racist' David Ortiz Bobblehead Giveaway (Video)
David Price probably did hear racist taunts at Fenway Park

Listening Booth: A Divine Gospel-Disco Track

"Gospel disco was a bastard child of the eighties, and this house rework of a children’s choir from Bedford-Stuyvesant may be its most convoluted product. I won’t bog you down with the knotty history of 'Stand on the Word'; the song is too forward to be rendered understandable by continuity and logic. A fellow named Larry Levan may or may not have crafted this remix. The credits are disputed and the origins cloudy, but the record took off in clubs like the Paradise Garage and became a theme song for marathon dances that lasted until sunrise. The song has been infamous among dance-record hoarders since: Justice decided to get children’s vocals for 'D.A.N.C.E.' after obsessing over 'Stand on the Word,' and the track has played before recent gigs for LCD Soundsystem’s reunion tour. (Getting tickets to the Brooklyn shows required nothing short of divine intervention). ..."
New Yorker (Video)
Guardian - Divine disco: the beatific sub-genre that delivered sermons on the dancefloor (Video)
Thump: It's Time For Us to Praise the Godfathers of Gospel Disco (Video)
amazon: Greg Belson's Divine Disco, American Gospel Disco (1974-1984)

Peter Sacks

Mixed media. Aftermath 11, 6 x 6, 2013-2014.
"Peter Sacks was born in 1950 in South Africa. He lived there for the first half of his life, mostly in the city of Durban, on the Indian Ocean. Sacks studied at Oxford, as well as in the United States, at Princeton and Yale (where he wrote, partly as his thesis, The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats). All through this time, which included the study of art and the history of painting – from the rock-art of Southern Africa to the frescoes of the early Renaissance, from the funerary portraiture of Egypt to the entangled figurative and abstract heritages of Modernism – Sacks also spent years of travel, often times on foot. Walks across various parts of South and North America, Africa, Europe and Asia, comprised much of his development on a formal as well as cultural level.
Peter Sacks: Biography
Peter Sacks
Robert Miller Gallery
Peter Sacks interview: ‘Every painting has its own secret story’
NY Times: Where a Thousand Words Paint a Picture
vimeo: PAINTINGS :: Gallery Tour

Agnès Varda’s Art of Being There

"... But, for a short while this spring, such viewing is back in public at the Blum & Poe art gallery, in New York, with a whimsical yet impassioned exhibit of work by the filmmaker Agnès Varda. Varda, of course, is one of the crucial modern directors; she made her first film, 'La Pointe Courte,' in 1954, as a twenty-five-year-old independent filmmaker, and her most recently released film is 'The Beaches of Agnès,' from 2008. (She has a new film forthcoming, 'Visages, Visages,' which she co-directed with the photographer JR.) The gallery exhibit is the work of a filmmaker who has been, so to speak, between films—but Varda’s career has always been enlivened by an essential and constant sense of between-ness, an occasionalism in the best sense of the term. ..."
New Yorker
Capturing the Artist in Time: The Joyful Energy of Agnes Varda: Agnes Varda: From Here to There.
THE VOICE OF A WOMAN
Agnès Varda: Life as Art (Video)

August 2010: Agnès Varda, May 2011: The Beaches of Agnès, 2011 December: Interview - Agnès Varda, 2013 February: The Gleaners and I (2000), 2013 September: Cinévardaphoto (2004), 2014 July: Black Panthers (1968 doc.), 2014 October: Art on Screen: A Conversation with Agnès Varda, 2015 September: Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Plaisir d’amour en Iran (1976).

Pierre Reverdy - NYRB Poets

"... This is a well organized book of translations of French cubist poet, Pierre Reverdy. Just out from the NYRB Poets series, this collection has some of the usual suspects of Reverdy translation such as Kenneth Rexroth (now back in print here mind you) and Ron Padgett, but also some exciting translations by John Ashbery and Frank O’Hara, which is worth the price alone. Reverdy’s poems are stripped down, with lines often simply containing objects of a still-life with touches of far-reaching magical energy. […] The great Pierre Reverdy, comrade to Picasso and Braque, peer and contemporary of Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams, is among the most mysteriously satisfying of twentieth-century poets, his poems an uncanny mixture of the simple and the sublime. ..."
Poetry Foundation: Super-fantastique! City Lights Recommends Pierre Reverdy Edited by Mary Ann Caws
Poetry Society: Mary Ann Caws on Pierre Reverdy
amazon

2008 January: Pierre Reverdy 1889-1960, 2010 May: Eight Poems by Pierre Reverdy, 2014 October: Pierre Reverdy, 2016 November: Haunted House by Pierre Reverdy, Translated by John Ashbery (2007)

Marat/Sade - Peter Brook (1963)

Wikipedia - "The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, usually shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1967 British film adaptation of Peter Weiss' play Marat/Sade. The screen adaptation is directed by Peter Brook, and originated in his theatre production for the Royal Shakespeare Company. ... In the Charenton Asylum in 1808, the Marquis de Sade stages a play about the murder of Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday, using his fellow inmates as actors. The director of the hospital, Monsieur Coulmier, supervises the performance, accompanied by his wife and daughter. Coulmier, who supports Napoleon's government, believes that the play will support his own bourgeois ideas, and denounce those of the French Revolution that Marat helped lead. His patients, however, have other ideas, and they make a habit of speaking lines he had attempted to suppress, or deviating entirely into personal opinion. The Marquis himself, meanwhile, subtly manipulates both the players and the audience to create an atmosphere of chaos and nihilism that ultimately brings on an orgy of destruction. ..."
Wikipedia - Film
W - Marat/Sade
Independent - Marat/Sade: The play that began a stage revolution
amazon
YouTube: Marat Sade Trailer
YouTube: Marat/Sade (1967) 1:58:01

Winter Songs - Art Bears (1979)

"Finding distribution on the Residents' Ralph Records label, the Art Bears' second album consists of 12 songs of various tensions: rest vs. speed, improv vs. pulse, space vs. density, Dagmar Kraus's vocals vs. everyone else. As usual, Chris Cutler's lyrics tell political allegories through medieval-tinged stories: slaves, castles, and wheels of fortune (and industry) dominate. Fred Frith explores discordance through his guitar, and European folk figures through his always enjoyable violin. Though not as confrontational as their other work, the centerpiece has to be the frantic 'Rats and Monkeys' with three minutes of teeth-gritting, out-of-control insanity as all three players are plugged into a wall outlet and let rip. A guaranteed lease breaker if played often enough. [Winter Songs was included in the Art Box box set along with Hopes & Fears and The World as It Is Today -- with all three in remastered form -- released by ReR in 2004.]"
allmusic
W - Winter Songs
Discogs, amazon
YouTube: Winter Songs (Full Album) 45:51

2010 February: Art Bears, 2012 July: The Art Box., 2013 July: Coda To "Man & Boy", 2013 October: Art Bears Songbook - 2010-09-19 - Rock In Opposition Festival, , 2016 November: Hopes and Fears (1978)

Soul Food Taqueria - Tommy Guerrero (2003)

Wikipedia - "Soul Food Taqueria is the third studio album by former professional skateboarder and Quannum Projects-member Tommy Guerrero, released April 8, 2003, on Mo' Wax Records. ... The album consists mostly of downtempo, instrumental and sample-based chill-out music with musical influences such as Latin soul, R&B, trip hop and lo-fi music. It also features only a few vocal contributions from guest artists, which include rapper Lyrics Born and singer Gresham Taylor. Its cover artwork, depicting a taquería that also serves soul food, was designed by artist Stephen Powers. The album was not promoted well, no radio singles were issued, and it did not chart. ..."
Wikipedia
Discogs
Tommy Guerrero: Soul Food Taqueria
amazon
YouTube: Soul Food Taqueria 53:31

Fred Tomaselli - Paper

Tomaselli Guilty, 2005
"There’s a saying that today’s news is tomorrow's fish and chip paper, one that’s largely redundant now that we consume so much news (real and 'fake') online. But it seems the tactility of print will never die: a relief to Harry Ramsden’s et al, and also to artist Fred Tomaselli. Since 2005, the artist has been working on a series called The Times, for which he uses front pages from The New York Times as the basis of photograms and collages. The project started under the Bush administration, and was used as a platform on which Tomaselli can creatively explore the global calamities and political nightmares of his lifetime.  ..."
Fred Tomaselli's beguiling artworks on New York Times covers highlight the world's global calamities and political nightmares
Fred Tomaselli
White Cube
vimeo: Fred Tomaselli: Drawing on New York Times Feb 9, 2016

As repression deepens, Turkish artists and intellectuals fear the worst

"After last year's failed coup, Turkey's massive crackdown on civil society is entering its eighth month. Here's why artists and intellectuals feel the latest wave of sackings in the country go one step further. The numbers keep growing - to a point that they're almost too large to grasp. According to data compiled by Turkey Purge, PEN International, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF), 128,398 people have been sacked, while 91,658 are being detained. Nearly seven months after the failed coup of July 2016, a new wave of purges led to the dismissal of 4,464 public servants on February 8. Among them were 330 academics. Many of these newly dismissed scholars - 184 of them - were signatories of a petition released in January 2016 calling for violence to end in south-eastern Turkey, where a majority of the Kurdish population is located. The signatories called themselves Academics for Peace. ..."
As repression deepens, Turkish artists and intellectuals fear the worst
Turkey widens post-coup purge
Turkey targets Dutch with diplomatic sanctions as 'Nazi' row escalates (Video)
Turkish Artist Zehra Doğan Sentenced to Prison for Painting of Kurdish Town Attack

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

Black Tickets - Jayne Anne Phillips (1979)

"Of the almost 30 short fictions collected here, there are about 10 beauties and 10 that are perfectly satisfying and then there are 10 ditties- some of them, single paragraphs- that are so small, isolated and mere exercises in 'good writing' that they detract from the way the best of this book glows. Jayne Anne Phillips is a wonderful young writer, concerned with every sentence and seemingly always operating out of instincts that are visceral and true- perceived and observed originally, not imitated or fashionably learned. ... Someone in a writing class would have liked the brilliant 'tone'; someone certainly would have loved the strangeness; and the careful prose would have been picked over, lovingly. As an occasional teacher of creative writing, I no doubt would have joined in the praise. But too many of these miniatures, these show-off pieces, mar the rougher and more wholly rendered stories in this book. ..."
NY Times: Stories With Voiceprints By JOHN IRVING
W - Black Tickets
amazon

Steve Reich’s Celebration of the Lineage of Minimalism

"The musical style so loosely called minimalism — or, in Philip Glass’s preferred term, 'music with repetitive structures' — is not an exclusively American product. There have long been foreign fellow-travellers (Louis Andriessen, Arvo Pärt) and deep influences from abroad (the musical cultures of India and West Africa). But during the past half century minimalism has spread across the world like a sonic Pax Americana, replacing twelve-tone composition as classical music’s ruling common tongue. Glass and Steve Reich have both turned eighty in the past year, so it seems like a good time for Carnegie Hall to celebrate the phenomenon. It does so in 'Three Generations,' a series of four concerts at Zankel Hall (March 30, April 6, April 19, and April 26) curated by Reich, Carnegie’s current composer chair. ..."
New Yorker
The Influence Engine: Steve Reich and Pop Music (Spotify)

2008 February: Steve Reich, 2010 October: Double Sextet, 2010 December: South Bank Show, 2011 February: Different Trains, 2011 June: Music for pieces of wood, 2011 October: Maximum Reich 2.0, 2011 November: A New Musical Language (documentary, 1987), 2012 May: Influences: Steve Reich

The Quad Cinema's Facelift Caps Off a New Golden Age of NYC Cinema

The Quad Cinema on West 13th Street in late 2013, almost two years before it closed for renovations that will soon be complete.
"... Things have, to understate it considerably, changed since those days. The Quad, which originally opened in 1972 as New York City's first multi-screen movie theater and survived in the heart of Greenwich Village for more than forty years, will reopen this April under new management, nearly two years after it closed its doors. The theater has undergone a total redesign — new programmers, new seats, new screens, new lobby, even a new wine bar next door. Listening to the new owner, Charles S. Cohen, a real estate developer and film buff who also owns the arthouse distributor Cohen Media Group, enthuse about the changes he's made, it's clear he's conceived of the project as a high-tech reinvention, with a video screen in the lobby, color-coordinated seats, and a fancy new logo designed by Pentagram; he likens the new theater, half-jokingly, to a '22nd-century experience.' ..."
VOICE
VOICE - Spring at the Movies: From the Quad Cinema to "The Lost City of Z"

Maps - John Taggart, Nos. 1–6 (1966–74)

Maps 6 (1974)
"'One draws a map to show where one is' reads the motto of Maps, edited by poet, translator, and critic John Taggart. Number 1 was issued from Chicago in 1966 and includes an editor’s note that defines the purpose of the magazine: 'In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant writes of the need for making new maps of man’s consciousness now, and of the past as seen from that now. ...' The work of Paul Blackburn, Ken Irby, and Clayton Eshleman was featured in the first small issue. Issue 2 (1967), from New York City, was a homage to the sculptor David Smith with contributions from Jerome Rothenberg, Joanne Kyger, Hannah Weiner, Douglas Blazek, Larry Eigner, and others. Issue 3 (1970), from Newberg, Pennsylvania, printed poems for John Coltrane. Issues 4–6 were devoted to Charles Olson, Louis Zukofsky, and Robert Duncan, respectively, with works by and about the poets. ..."
From a secret location

Maps 3 [1970]. Poems for John Coltrane. Cover by Roger Shimomura.

Bob Dylan Turns Up For Woody Guthrie Memorial

"Bob Dylan finally emerged from 18 months of self-imposed seclusion at the Woody Guthrie Memorial Concert in Carnegie Hall on January 20. His appearance had been announced and the two performances were sold out weeks in advance. Scalpers were reportedly getting $25.00 per ticket, and at the concert itself people were standing on the sidewalk and in the lobby begging, 'Extra tickets? Any tickets for sale?' ... But Bob Dylan, in a gun-metal grey silk mohair suit, blue shirt with green jewels for cuff links and black suede boots as well as his new beard and moustache, was the center of attention. Most of the artists accompanied themselves on guitar while they sang, and the others played behind them. Dylan, however, sprawled in his chair with his eyes closed, seeming to be somewhere else entirely until it was his turn to play. ..."
Rolling Stone
The Band: Various Artists: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie, Part 1
Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan Hit Manhattan
Oxford Dictionaries: The language and influences of the early Bob Dylan
YouTube: The Grand Coulee Dam, Dear Mrs. Roosevelt, I Ain't Got No Home

John Sloan, "Flowers of Spring" (1924)

"Few artists painted the moods, rhythms, and rituals of the seasons like John Sloan, who moved to New York from Philadelphia in 1904 and spent the early 20th century in Greenwich Village—living and working for almost a decade at 88 Washington Place. His windows facing Lower Sixth Avenue 'gave Sloan a view of street life from an elevated vantage point, which he frequently incorporated into his paintings,' states the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston. A real-life wagon loaded with vibrant flowers was the inspiration for his 1924 painting 'Flowers of Spring,' which belongs to the MFA. As Sloan (at left in a self-portrait from 1890) himself recalled in his book Gist of Art: 'This picture has, in a very direct, simple way, handed on the thrill that comes to everyone on a wet spring morning from the first sight of the flower huckster’s wagon. ..."
Ephemeral New York: Spring flowers arrive on a rainy Village sidewalk
MFA

Engulfed in Battle, Mosul Civilians Run for Their Lives

The aftermath of fierce fighting between Iraqi special forces and the Islamic State in western Mosul.
"The war to drive the Islamic State from its last strongholds in western Mosul has come to this: With every advance by Iraqi forces, every missile rained down by coalition aircraft, a flood of Iraqi civilians hits the streets. It is no longer a question of waiting between salvos — there are few, if any, breaks that make it obvious when to run, so the people of Mosul are simply running whenever they can. As we traveled with Iraqi special forces deep in western Mosul last week, in the mostly residential Mosul Jidideh neighborhood, we saw desperate families start out right at daybreak. Families carried their young children and propped up their aging relatives, and they all moved as quickly as they could along streets where the sounds of battle were all too close: a cacophony of gunfire, the dull thud of mortar rounds, the deafening roar of Islamic State car bombs and American airstrikes. ..."
NY Times (Video)

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, 2016 July: ISIS: The Cornened Beast, 2016 October: Archaeological Victims of ISIS Rise Again, as Replicas in Rome, 2016 December: Battle Over Aleppo Is Over, Russia Says, as Evacuation Deal Reached, 2017 January: Eternal Sites: From Bamiyan to Palmyra, 2017 February: Tour a City Torn in Half by ISIS.

‘Music is the Weapon’: The must-see Fela Kuti documentary from 1982

"Musical visionary, street preacher, incendiary political activist, and Afro-beat progenitor, Fela Anikulapo Kuti is chronicled in Fela Kuti – Music is the Weapon, a compelling 1982 documentary directed by Stéphane Tchal-Gadjieff and Jean Jacques Flori. The film documents all-night politically charged performances at Fela’s Shrine nightclub, intimate takes from inside his Kalakuta Republic compound, and scenes of street culture in Lagos, Nigeria. It’s not a complete picture by any means, but it’s a singular and important historical record capturing Kuti in stage and home milieus that were vital to his life and work. If you had any doubt that Fela Kuti was anything short of an otherworldly human being, this film and these performances will dispel that belief quickly. As he did often in his music, Fela speaks out repeatedly against the Nigerian government throughout the film while discussing his political and musical ambitions. ..."
Dangerous Minds
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DailyMotion: Music is the Weapon
YouTube: Music is the Weapon ($ - $2.99)

Stars Born in Galactic Wind

"This artist’s illustration depicts stars forming in gas streaming out of the center of a galaxy. Outflows are a natural part of galaxy development, powered by bursts of starbirth or maniacally accreting black holes (or both) in galactic cores. Astronomers expect such outflows to ignite star formation. Although they’ve seen outflow-triggered star formation before, for example in cold gas condensing around bubbles inflated by black hole outbursts, it’s been difficult to conclusively spot stars forming in the winds themselves. ..."
Sky & Telescope

March of time: 20th Century icons from an old art museum in Buffalo are at the Museum of Art

Paul Gauguin’s sullen, haunted Spirit of the Dead Watching
"In the Paris of the 1910s and 1920s, of the many artists working there — Picasso, Chagall, Derain, Matisse, and others — it was the painter Chaim Soutine who had the most colorfully odorous studio. Born in a small town near Minsk, in what is today Belarus, Soutine liked to paint butchered animal flesh: he kept his rotting models, the carcasses of cows, rabbits, fish, and other creatures, in the studio. He made portraits, landscapes, and other sorts of pictures, but it’s those images of over-ripe decay that he’s most remembered for. The best known are his paintings of a beef carcass hung on a dressing rack. The gristly, beaded blood and tissue smear and clot down the cow’s inners. Soutine’s treatment of the motif was a conversation with predecessors, with Rembrandt’s stately Carcass of Beef and Titian’s late, demonic Flaying of Marsyas. His pictures answered those with stylistic extremity and lush corporeal energy. ..."
San Diego Reader - W.S. Di Piero

2016 March: W.S. Di Piero, 2016 December: Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008, Josef Koudelka: Nationality Doubtful.

Drive-in theater

Westbury Theater
Wikipedia - "A drive-in theater or drive-in cinema is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor movie screen, a projection booth, a concession stand and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, customers can view movies from the privacy and comfort of their cars. Some drive-ins have small playgrounds for children and a few picnic tables or benches. The screen can be as simple as a wall that is painted white, or it can be a steel truss structure with a complex finish. Originally, a movie's sound was provided by speakers on the screen and later by an individual speaker hung from the window of each car, which would be attached by a wire. ... Decline. The shift in content of drive-ins was less of a problem than competition from home entertainment, from color television to VCRs and video rentals. This, along with the 1970s oil crisis led to a sharp decline of attendance as well to the widespread adoption of daylight saving time (which made the shows start an hour later), making it harder for drive-ins to operate successfully. ..."
Wikipedia
W - List of drive-in theaters
Welcome To The Drive-In Theater!

"Stefanie Klavens has a love for 20th century pop culture and Americana. In her articulate photographic series, titled 'Vanishing Drive-Ins,' Klavens documents the disintegration of the American drive-in. Once a popular social and entertainment aspect, it has been slowly disappearing from the United States. As Klavens explains, 'The drive-in has suffered the same fate as the single screen theater. Before World War II the drive-in was a modest trend, but after the war the craze began in earnest, peaking in popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960’s. Drive-ins were ideal for the modern family, everyone jumped into the car, no babysitter needed. ‘Car culture’ had officially arrived as a dominant force on the American scene.' Despite the rapid popularity of the drive-in, they simply could not stand the test of time. ..."
The Art Of Disappearing: Stefanie Klavens Documents Vanishing Drive-Ins
Stefanie Klavens
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YouTube: Vintage Ads - Drive In Intermission 22 (Drive-In Movie Ads)

Chi - The Original Recordings (2016)

"This is essentially the comprehensive version of The Original Recordings, compiling all tracks from their s/t tape and the later CD reissue - including both Kuhl II and Hopi- to frame their meditative, electro-acoustic wanderlust in all its dreamy effect. Using a Juno 60 and JX3P synths, coupled with a few guitars, handmade percussion, flutes, organs and tape-loops, the six-piece ensemble recorded from summer,' all the doors and windows were open; birds flew in and out' thru the winter months, where 'we sat close together, no hearing, only blankets, candles and brandy', playing from late morning until sunrise to realise a drifting, gentle sound that hearkened back to classic kosmische from neighbouring Germany, but trimming away some of that sound’s cliche’s to leave a more minimalist, spectral sort of music for relaxation and meditation. ..."
Boomkat (MP3)
Discogs
Soundcloud: AI-03: CHI - The Original Recordings
YouTube: Chi Factory Live @ OTO, London
YouTube: Kuhl, Hopi, Twisted Camels, Before The Mountain

Sodom and Gomorrah - Marcel Proust (1921-1922)

"An eye for the ladies, and the men, and the scenery ... Marcello Mazzarella as Marcel Proust in Raoul Ruiz's film, Time Regained. Well, I most surely tempted fate when I signed off my last Proust post by writing that I couldn't wait to begin volume four. Four months later and I've finally had time to return to Brittany, the salons of the Fauborg Saint-Germain and Marcel's labyrinthine mind. If volume one of In Search of Lost Time represents the novel's overture, and volumes two and three are concerned chiefly with Marcel's jejune preconceptions about society and their subsequent explosion, then Sodom and Gomorrah is, as its title suggests, unabashedly about forbidden passions. From Marcel's chance witnessing of a spur of the moment coupling between an aristocrat and a tailor to the male bordellos of Paris, the book bulges with accounts of love at its most urgent, jealous, lubricious and clandestine. ..."
Guardian: Going to Sodom and Gomorrah with Proust
W - Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah: The two-minute 'Sodom'
amazon

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), 2016 August: Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time — Patrick Alexander, 2016 October: My Strange Friend Marcel Proust.

The House of Twenty Thousand Books - Sasha Abramsky

"The House of Twenty Thousand Books is the story of Chimen Abramsky, an extraordinary polymath and bibliophile who amassed a vast collection of socialist literature and Jewish history. For more than fifty years Chimen and his wife, Miriam, hosted epic gatherings in their house of books that brought together many of the age’s greatest thinkers. The atheist son of one of the century’s most important rabbis, Chimen was born in 1916 near Minsk, spent his early teenage years in Moscow while his father served time in a Siberian labor camp for religious proselytizing, and then immigrated to London, where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx and became involved in left-wing politics. He briefly attended the newly established Hebrew University in Jerusalem, until World War II interrupted his studies. Back in England, he married, and for many years he and Miriam ran a respected Jewish bookshop in London’s East End. ..."
NYRB (Video)
Washington Post: ‘The House of Twenty Thousand Books’ re-creates an intellectual milieu
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