From Lagos to the Bronx, Photographer Osaretin Ugiagbe Documents the In-Between

South Bronx, New York, 2017
"Fifteen years ago, Osaretin Ugiagbe left the sprawling metropolis of Lagos, Nigeria, for the South Bronx in New York City. Unbeknownst to the immigrant teenager, his new home was infamous for high levels of poverty and unemployment. But the neighborhood intrigued young Ugiagbe—particularly the working elevator that led to his father’s studio apartment where he, his four siblings and his mum lived for a year. In a bid to fit in at school and claim his new home, he asked friends and classmates to call him by his middle name, Charles, but that didn’t stop him from having to constantly explain himself. His accent often betrayed his otherness. 'A lot of people would ask me where are you from?’ Ugiagbe found solace from this displacement through art, painting and photography. ..."
okayafrica
NY Times: Of the Bronx and of Nigeria
Osaretin Ugiagbe
lensculture
YouTube: Reflection, Studio

Four Seasons in Havana

"... The detective hero of this noir thriller is a guy named Mario Conde. His boss laments 'I don’t want an officer with an existential problem who would rather write books.' But when Conde leaves, his boss smiles fondly. The man is the sort depicted by Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, and Branagh as Wallander. He’s a walking wreck, but his intelligence makes us love him. Jorge Perugorria, the actor, is unknown to us; we don’t know what he will do and neither does the character. The real protagonist of this series is Havana itself, which also has an existential problem but almost constitutes a bedrock novel by its very nature. One could happily watch this show with the sound off, to better appreciate the fabulous views, the top down overhead shots of the buildings that reveal courtyards, atria, and even rooftop swimming pools. Buildings range from Soviet brutalist insectoid concrete housing to disintegrating Baroque splendour festooned with parasitic tropical vegetation. All is pale except for rectangles of sienna and turquoise. ..."
prairiemary
Foreign Affairs
Havana go at colourful noir
Netflix: Four Seasons in Havana (Video)

Sam Shepard (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017)

Wikipedia - "Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017), known professionally as Sam Shepard, was an American playwright, actor, author, screenwriter, and director. His body of work spanned over half a century. He was the author of 44 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983). Shepard received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described him as 'the greatest American playwright of his generation.' Shepard's plays are chiefly known for their bleak, poetic, often surrealist elements, black humor, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. His style evolved over the years, from the absurdism of his early Off-Off-Broadway work to the realism of Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class (both 1978). ..."
Wikipedia
W - Sam Shepard filmography
Sam Shepard
Guardian - Sam Shepard: 'America is on its way out as a culture' (Sep. 2014 - Video)
New Yorker: The Pathfinder (Feb. 8, 2010)
Interview

Liana Finck

"Ask Liana Finck how she got started as an artist and she’ll offer you a hilariously frank answer: 'I started drawing when I was a baby and I’ve been drawing since then.' The response embodies what’s so compelling about Finck’s cartoons. Both acid and innocent, Finck’s words and drawings are unflinchingly honest. 'Whenever something really bothers me, I’ll try to really think about it and get at its essence and turn it into a cartoon,' Finck told the Daily Dot. Finck, who is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, has been posting her sketches and cartoons to Instagram for over a year. More than 40,000 followers are drawn to her unique brand of introspective wit. Finck said she started sharing her drawings on Instagram when she was seeking something we all crave: the attention of someone who wasn’t giving her enough attention. ..."
Welcome to the gently savage cartoon world of Liana Finck
New Yorker: All Work
When We Were Whole: A Comic About Us
Interview with Liana Finck
twitter

2014 April: Liana Finck - 1

The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble - Jeannie's Get Down / A Message From The Meters (2016)

"... Colemine Records is increasingly becoming one of the leading Funk & Soul music labels because of their multiple, exciting new releases, like Out On The Coast by Sure Fire Soul Ensemble. More & more often, whenever I hear about a new Funk or Soul band I get excited about — they’re on Colemine. In addition, they license music from more well known bands on the Funk & Soul music scene to put out vinyl 45s and other special editions like Orgone’s gorgeous Beyond The Sun vinyl package. I sat down with Terry Cole on a sublime, warm day in October at Plaid Room Records in Loveland. It’s a lovely little town outside Cincinnati, along the scenic, Little Miami River. A beautiful bike path runs through it along the river & through the woods. Several restaurants & bars were packed with people on a sunny Saturday afternoon. ..."
Givin’ Up Food For Funk — Colemine Records Spreading Love Of Funk & Soul Music
West Coast Cool — Out On The Coast With Sure Fire Soul Ensemble (Audio)
iTunes
YouTube: Jeannie's Get Down / A Message From The Meters

Radical Municipalism: The Future We Deserve

"I am the daughter of two longtime municipalists. My mother, Beatrice Bookchin, ran for city council of Burlington, Vermont thirty years ago, in 1987, on an explicitly municipalist platform of building an ecological city, a moral economy and, above all, citizen assemblies that would contest the power of the nation state. My father is the social theorist and libertarian municipalist, Murray Bookchin. For many years the left has struggled with the question of how to bring our ideas, of equality, economic justice and human rights, to fruition. And my father’s political trajectory is instructive for the argument that I want to make: that municipalism isn’t just one of many ways to bring about social change — it is really the only way that we will successfully transform society. As someone who had grown up as a young communist and been deeply educated in Marxist theory, my father became troubled by the economistic, reductionist modes of thinking that had historically permeated the Marxist left. ..."
ROAR

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, 2017 March: As repression deepens, Turkish artists and intellectuals fear the worst

2014 September: Anarchism in America (1983), 2015 August: The Prophet Farmed: Murray Bookchin on Bernie Sanders, 2016 October: Why Bernie Was Right, 2015 October: The Ecology of Freedom (1982), 2016 July: Murray Bookchin’s New Life, 2017 January: Reason, creativity and freedom: the communalist model - Eleanor Finley, 2017 February: Socialism’s Return, 2017 April: The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years 1868-1936 (1977).

The Dashiki: The History of a Radical Garment

Stokley Carmichael
"DIASPORA—The dashiki is clothing as politics. It might not exactly seem that way in its present state—a revived, streetwear trend largely associated with the intricate and highly recognizable ‘Angelina print,’ but its story is one of African innovation and Black resistance. The word 'dashiki' comes from the Yoruba word danshiki, used to refer to the loose-fitting pullover which originated in West Africa as a functional work tunic for men, comfortable enough to wear in the heat. The Yoruba loaned the word danshiki from the Hausa term dan ciki, which means 'underneath'. The danchiki garment was commonly worn by males under large robes. Similar garments were found in sacred Dogon burial caves in Southern Mali, which date back to the 12th and 13th centuries. ..."
okayafrica
W - Dashiki

Snowden - Oliver Stone (2016)

Wikipedia - "Snowden is a 2016 biographical political thriller film directed by Oliver Stone and written by Stone and Kieran Fitzgerald, based on the books The Snowden Files by Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena. ... In 2013, Edward Snowden arranges a clandestine meet in Hong Kong with documentarian Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald. They discuss releasing the classified information in the former’s possession regarding illegal mass surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA). ... Snowden applies for a position at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and subsequently undergoes the screening process. Initially his answers to the screening questions are insufficient, but Deputy Director Corbin O'Brian decides to take a chance on him, given the demands of such extraordinary times. Snowden is then brought to 'The Hill' where he is educated and tested on cyberwarfare. ..."
Wikipedia
Slate: The Leaky Myths of Snowden
NY Times: ‘Snowden,’ Oliver Stone’s Restrained Portrait of a Whistle-Blower (Video)
5 Myths About Edward Snowden The Movie Reinforces
YouTube: SNOWDEN - Official Trailer

Lyric on a Battlefield

“Irm Herman” (2016), one in a series of portraits by Dawn Mellor
"Gladstone Gallery is pleased to present Lyric on a Battlefield, a group exhibition organized by Miciah Hussey. The artists featured are: Kelly Akashi, Ellen Berkenblit, Louisa Clement, Anne Collier, Bracha L. Ettinger, Anish Kapoor, Liz Magor, f.marquespenteado, Suzanne McClelland, Dawn Mellor, Monique Mouton, Senga Nengudi, and Kandis Williams. Bringing together artists working in various media, from multiple regions, and of different generations, this exhibition focuses on the lyric—the poetic first-person account of lived experience—to explore the complexities of being in the world. Mirroring the experimental and subjective nature of that form, the works included propose idiosyncratic methods of making visible critical, though complexly personal, interactions between the self and other. Through their translations of poetic reflection into the visual forms of painting, sculpture, drawing, and photography, these artists' different practices expand intimate explorations of desire, social relations, and the environment. ..."
Gladstone Gallery
Gladstone Gallery - 1
NY Times: What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week
ART CITIES:N.York-Lyric on a Battlefield

Tarheel Slim & Little Ann

"Talk about a versatile musician: Alden Bunn (aka Tarheel Slim) recorded in virtually every postwar musical genre imaginable. Lowdown blues, gospel, vocal group R&B, poppish duets, even rockabilly weren't outside the sphere of his musicianship. However, spirituals were Bunn's first love. While still in North Carolina during the early '40s, the guitarist worked with the Gospel Four and then the Selah Jubilee Singers, who recorded for Continental and Decca. ... Tarheel Slim made his official entrance in 1958 with his wife, now dubbed Little Ann, in a duet format for Robinson's Fire imprint ('It's Too Late,' 'Much Too Late'). ..."
allmusic
Discogs
amazon: Robin Fire Years
YouTube: It's Too Late, Two Time Loser, Much Too Late, Can't Stay Away, Security, Don't Ever Leave Me

Walden, a Game

"... Henry David Thoreau’s classic 'Walden' is the inspiration for what Smithsonian Magazine is calling 'the world’s most improbable video game': Walden, a Game. Instead of offering the thrills of stealing, violence and copious cursing, the new video game, based on Thoreau’s 19th-century retreat in Massachusetts, will urge players to collect arrowheads, cast their fishing poles into a tranquil pond, buy penny candies and perhaps even jot notes in a journal — all while listening to music, nature sounds and excerpts from the author’s meditations. ..."
NY Times: In ‘Walden’ Video Game, the Challenge Is Stillness (Video)
Walden has been adapted into a video game, and you can play it right now (Video)
Walden, a Game
Walden: A downloadable game for Windows and macOS - $ (Video)

2009 April: Henry David Thoreau, 2012 September: Walden, 2015 March: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), 2017 March: Civil Disobedience (1849), 2017 April: The Maine Woods (1864), 2017 June: This Ever New Self: Thoreau and His Journal, 2017 July: Pond Scum - Henry David Thoreau’s moral myopia. By Kathryn Schulz

Surrealist cartomancy

Le Jeu de Marseille - André Breton and a group of his Surrealist friends
"Reworking the illustrations of the standard fifty-two card playing deck has become quite a common thing in recent years with numerous themed decks being produced in costly limited editions. The same goes for decks of Tarot cards which have now been mapped across a number of different magical systems and produced in sets that often add little to the philosophy of the Tarot but merely vary the artwork. This wasn’t always the case, and certainly not in the 1940s when André Breton and a group of fellow Surrealists produced designs for a fascinating deck of cards that hybridises the Tarot and the more mundane pack of playing cards in an attempt to create something new. The Jeu de Marseilles was named after the city of its creation, and it’s no coincidence that one of the most well-known medieval Tarot designs is the Marseilles deck. ..."
feuilleton

Lester Young ‎– In Washington (1956)

"While many critics have written off Lester Young's recordings from his last years leading up to his death in 1959, this previously unissued collection of material recorded at Olivia's Patio Lounge in Washington, D.C. in December, 1956 proves that he was still very much in command. Joined by a local rhythm section consisting of pianist Bill Potts, bassist Norman Williams and drummer Jim Lucht, the tenor saxophonist is still swinging mightily and in full control of his chops. There aren't really any surprises among the selections, which draw from Young's favorite standards and a few of his most requested compositions. Trombonist Earl Swope, a sideman with Woody Herman, is an added guest on the last four selections, providing an excellent foil for Young. ..."
allmusic
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: In Washington ( Full Album )

Fences - August Wilson (2016)

Wikipedia - "Fences is a 2016 American period drama film directed by and starring Denzel Washington and written by August Wilson, based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name (Wilson died in 2005, but completed a screenplay before his death). In addition to Washington, the film also stars Viola Davis, Stephen Henderson, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson and Saniyya Sidney. ... In 1950s Pittsburgh, Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) lives with his wife Rose (Viola Davis) and their son Cory (Jovan Adepo), and works as a waste collector alongside his best friend, Jim Bono (Stephen Henderson). Troy's younger brother, Gabriel Maxson (Mykelti Williamson), sustained a head injury in World War II that left him mentally impaired, for which he received a $3,000 government payout that Troy used to purchase a home for his family. ..."
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert
New Yorker: What “Fences” Misses About Adapting Plays for the Screen
Slate
YouTube: Fences Official Trailer #1, Fences Official Trailer #2

Warm Up 2017 - MoMA PS1

"MoMA PS1’s pioneering outdoor music series Warm Up celebrates its 20th season in 2017, with ten Saturdays presenting the best in live and electronic music—both local and global—across a range of genres. Warm Up takes place every weekend from July 1 to September 2, featuring a lineup of emerging and established artists. ... This season, Warm Up is partnering with New York City's Know Wave on a series of weekly radio programs and a line of limited-edition merchandise. Each Saturday, Warm Up Radio will broadcast live from MoMA PS1, featuring special coverage of Warm Up artists, curators, and members of New York’s creative community—giving listeners unique, behind-the-scenes access to one of New York City’s longest-running museum music programs. In addition, Know Wave has created an exclusive Warm Up-inspired capsule collection that will be available on-site at Warm Up and online at know-wave.com. ..."
MoMA
Announcing The 2017 MoMA PS1 Warm Up Lineup
facebook

Proensa: An Anthology of Troubadour Poetry - Paul Blackburn

"It was out of medieval Provence—Proensa—that the ethos of courtly love emerged, and it was in the poetry of the Provençal troubadours that it found its perfect expression. Their poetry was also a central inspiration for Dante and his Italian contemporaries, propagators of the modern vernacular lyric, and seven centuries later it was no less important to the modernist Ezra Pound. These poems, a source to which poetry has returned again and again in search of renewal, are subtle, startling, earthy, erotic, and supremely musical. The poet Paul Blackburn studied and translated the troubadours for twenty years, and the result of that long commitment is Proensa, an anthology of thirty poets of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, which has since established itself not only as a powerful and faithful work of translation but as a work of poetry in its own right. ..."
NYRB
rain taxi

2008 August: Paul Blackburn, 2012 November: Yankee go home (PoemTalk #59), 2013 January: Cronopios and Famas - Julio Cortazar (Paul Blackburn), 2013 August: Paul Blackburn and Das Rhinegold, 2015 May: The Grinding Down, 2015 August: The Cities (1967). , 2016 March: Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit: A Bouquet for Flatbush (1960)

Angels and Demons at Play: Jim Knipfel on Reclaiming Sun Ra’s Legacy

"'I'm a spirit master,' avant-garde jazz composer and bandleader Sun Ra once said in his own inimitable fashion. 'I've been to a zone where there is no air, no light, no sound, no life, no death, nothing. There's five billion people on this planet, all out of tune. I've got to raise their consciousness, tell them about the wonderful potential to bypass death.' For four decades, from the early fifties until his death in 1993, Sun Ra and his Arkestra baffled, dazzled and aggravated jazz fans with an uncompromising and unpredictable musical style that wandered the spectrum from finger-popping bebop to the harshest of atonal free jazz (sometimes in the same piece), and a mythology that often kept audiences off-balance and guessing. Sun Ra didn’t sell many records in his lifetime, but along with the Arkestra, he nevertheless became the stuff of legend. ..."
The Believer (Audio - Video)

Diary - Elaine Mokhtefi: Eldridge Cleaver

"In 1951 I left the US for Europe. I was working as a translator and interpreter in the new postwar world of international organisations: UN agencies, trade-union bodies, student and youth associations. My plan was to visit France briefly, but I stayed nearly ten years. For anyone living in Paris, the Algerian war was inescapable. Where did your sympathies lie? Which side were you on? ... I stayed on after the coup that brought Houari Boumediene to power in 1965. I had made a home in Algeria; I was happy with my life and my work in the national press. In 1969, events took an extraordinary turn. Late one night I received a call from Charles Chikerema, the representative of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union, one of many African liberation movements with an office in the city. He told me that the Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver was in town and needed help. It was June. I remember it very clearly. I can see myself walking down a side street between the Casbah and the European sector of Algiers towards the Victoria, a small, third-rate hotel. ..."
LRB
LRB - Podcast: Panthers in Algiers, Elaine Mokhtefi talks to Jeremy Harding (Video)
W - Eldridge Cleaver

Fred Frith / Henry Kaiser - Friends & Enemies (1999)

"In 1979, guitarists Fred Frith and Henry Kaiser made an album titled With Friends Like These... on the Metalanguage label. It was one of the defining documents of the downtown avant-garde scene, a collection of improvised duets on which both players essentially redefined the sound of the guitar, Frith with his physically altered (and sometimes beaten) instruments, and Kaiser with his virtuosic and harmonically adventurous technique. Four years later they reunited to make Who Needs Enemies?, again on Metalanguage, and on this second album they expanded their arsenal to include the Linn drum and sequencer. Metalanguage went belly up not too long after, and until now the only in-print remnant from those two albums was a condensed single-disc package on SST. ... In short, this set offers everything Frith and Kaiser have recorded together, and at mid-price. Absolutely a must for noise fans, skronk hounds, and adventurous guitarheads."
allmusic (Audio)
amazon, iTunes
pandora (Audio)
YouTube: One of Nature's Mistakes, The Kirghiz Light

Southern Gothic

Wikipedia - "Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction in American literature that takes place in the American South. Common themes in Southern Gothic literature include deeply flawed, disturbing or eccentric characters who may or may not dabble in hoodoo, ambivalent gender roles, decayed or derelict settings, grotesque situations, and other sinister events relating to or stemming from poverty, alienation, crime, or violence. ... The Southern Gothic style is one that employs the use of macabre, ironic events to examine the values of the American South. Thus unlike its parent genre, it uses the Gothic tools not solely for the sake of suspense, but to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South – Gothic elements often taking place in a magic realist context rather than a strictly fantastical one. ..."
Wikipedia
Guardian: Why southern gothic rules the world
The Evolution Of Southern Gothic
Best Southern Gothic Literature
YouTube: Southern Gothic Project

Ofra Haza ‎– Fifty Gates Of Wisdom (Yemenite Songs) (1987)

"Ofra Haza's death on February 23, 2000, at the age of 41 deprived the world of a lovely woman, a great vocalist, and a fearless cultural advocate. Fifty Gates of Wisdom, her 1985 album of boldly reimagined traditional Yemenite songs, brought her international fame, and decades later, it retains its ability to delight and inspire. The set list consists of secular tunes plus examples of a festive devotional style called diwan, which is common to all Oriental Jewish communities and can be sung in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Arabic. Each group has specific traditions, but the Yemeni variant is especially remarkable for its poetry, much of which was written by rabbis as far back as the 17th century. Most diwan consist of three separate sections: the a cappella nashid (prelude), the shira (singing), during which celebrants bang on copper trays, empty gasoline cans, or whatever else is handy, and a postlude called the hallel, or song of praise. The unusual percussion accompaniment came into use following the destruction of the Temple, when Jews were forbidden to play conventional musical instruments, and also as a result of periodic oppression by Muslim fundamentalists. ..."
allmusic
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: Im Nin'Alu at Montreux Jazz Festival, Montreux, Switzerland, Friday, July 13, 1990
YouTube: Im Nin' Alu, Lefelach harimon, Ayelet Chen, Tzur Menti Se'i Yona Sapri Tama, Galbi, Ode le'eli , Yachilvi Veyachali, A'salk

Watch Aura Satz’s short film about Laurie Spiegel

"In 2016 the Spanish sound installation artist and film maker Aura Satz premiered Little Doorways To Paths Not Yet Taken at Oliver Coates’s Deep Minimalism festival. Since then her film has been screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Fridman Gallery in New York, The Wire's Off The Page in Bergen, and elsewhere. The film offers the viewer a brief yet intimate venture inside the home studio of Spiegel, composer of The Expanding Universe (1980) and Unseen Worlds (1991), and it’s soundtracked by Spiegel’s music and musings. ..."
The Wire (Video)
Inside the Dial Tone-Inspired Sound Art Exhibits of Aura Satz
Aura Satz
The Wire - Aura Satz (Video)

2011 May: Laurie Spiegel, 2012 November: Laurie Spiegel - The Expanding Universe, 2014 February: The Interstellar Contract, 2015 September: Resident Visitor: Laurie Spiegel's Machine Music, 2015 October: Laurie Spiegel: Grassroots Technologist, 2016 June: Meet Four Women Who Pioneered Electronic Music: Daphne Oram, Laurie Spiegel, Éliane Radigue & Pauline Oliveros, 2017 January: Resident Visitor: Laurie Spiegel's Machine Music, 2017 July: Space, Energy & Light: Experimental Electronic And Acoustic Soundscapes 1961-88

Ariel - Sylvia Plath (1965)

Wikipedia - ""Ariel was the second book of Sylvia Plath's poetry to be published, and was originally published in 1965, two years after her death by suicide. The poems in the 1965 edition of Ariel, with their free flowing images and characteristically menacing psychic landscapes, marked a dramatic turn from Plath's earlier Colossus poems. In the 1965 edition of Ariel, Ted Hughes changed Plath's chosen selection and arrangement by dropping twelve poems, adding twelve composed a few months later, and shifting the poems' ordering, in addition to including an introduction by the poet Robert Lowell. ...  In the same interview, Plath also cited the poet Anne Sexton as an important influence on her writing during this time since Sexton was also exploring some of the same dark, taboo, personal subject matter that Plath was exploring in her writing. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Ariel
W - Daddy
Modern American Poetry: Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
New Yorker: Sylvia Plath’s Joy
amazon: Ariel: The Restored Edition

2008 February: Sylvia Plath, 2011 May: "Daddy" (Video)

Don’t March, Organize for Power

"With the sudden and unexpected expansion of socialist organizations like Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in the wake of the 2016 elections, socialists finally have the opportunity to debate basic strategy. A nationwide socialist movement with tens of thousands of members and supporters has emerged. Considering what we should do now is a vitally important question. It’s also a difficult one. Despite its recent growth, organized socialists remain marginal, with no real mass base. To change the direction of American politics and challenge capitalist hegemony, we will need to reach out not only to self-identified progressives but also to a broader layer of politically disillusioned workers. We will need to choose battles where we can genuinely affect outcomes despite limited resources. We will need to find ways to engage in coalition politics while carving out space to the left of the Democratic Party’s newly invigorated progressive wing. ..."
Jacobin

The 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women

150. The Roches, The Roches (1979)
"This list, of the greatest albums made by women between 1964 and the present, is an intervention, a remedy, a correction of the historical record and hopefully the start of a new conversation. Compiled by nearly 50 women from across NPR and the public radio system and produced in partnership with Lincoln Center, it rethinks popular music to put women at the center. ..."
NPR
NPR - A New Canon: In Pop Music, Women Belong At The Center Of The Story

The Gramercy mansion in a John Sloan painting

"He often came across subjects for his work near Washington Square, or Union or Madison Squares. But in 1912, after moving from Sixth Avenue to 155 East 22nd Street, John Sloan trained his outsider’s eye on Gramercy Park (fellow social realist painter George Bellows’ territory), where he painted two women tending to a baby in a carriage on a warm, lush day. Sloan 'found his subjects in his immediate surroundings; the streets he traveled and the people he encountered were immediately translated to canvas,' wrote Margarita Karasoulas on Questroyal.com. ..."
Ephemeral New York

A Buyer’s (And Seller’s) Guide To The MLB Trade Deadline

The Milwaukee Brewers are exceeding expectations. But should they become buyers at the trade deadline?
"For most Major League Baseball teams, the trade deadline is a chance to step back and take stock of the franchise’s trajectory. Although only a small fraction of rumored deals actually end up happening, a team’s willingness to swap assets — as either a buyer or a seller — says a lot about where it is in the cycle between contending for a World Series and playing for the future. For a few teams, the choice has already been made. These are the clubs on the ends of the baseball spectrum: the bottom dwellers already committed to punting the present in order to stockpile young talent and the clear front-runners who can begin fine-tuning their playoff rosters in July. But the bulk of the league faces a fork in the road and doesn’t have the luxury of soul-searching with the trade deadline less than two weeks away. ..."
FiveThirtyEight

Jeremiah Moss Was Here

Cup & Saucer has been a mainstay of Lower Manhattan for more than 70 years, but its owners say a rent increase of $7,600 per month is forcing them to close it.
"On a gray, drizzly Friday in July, I joined Jeremiah Moss for a walk. We met at the Astor Place cube, as the artist Tony Rosenthal’s 1967 black Cor-Ten steel sculpture Alamo is known, in the shadow of two buildings that exemplify everything Moss hates about contemporary New York. To the south stood the awkwardly amoebic Astor Place Tower; looming behind us, the gleaming black glass of 51 Astor Place, a/k/a the Death Star. If real estate money had its way, this neighborhood — gateway to the once irresistibly gritty East Village — would be rebranded 'Midtown South.' In his new book, Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul (Dey Street), Moss offers a wrenching, exhaustive chronicle of the 'hyper-gentrification' of New York — and the relentless monotony of chain stores and luxury high-rises that continues to suffocate small businesses and displace the poor, working-class, immigrant, and ethnic communities and artists, eccentrics, and bohemians who have made the city what it is. ..."
VOICE
NY Times: Another New York Diner Turns Off the Grill, a Victim of Rising Rents
New Yorker: An Activist for New York’s Mom-and-Pop Shops
Goodbye Notes to Cup & Saucer
amazon: Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul

Err Guitar by Elliott Sharp with Mary Halvorson and Marc Ribot (2017)

"Last summer in Elliott Sharp’s recording studio in Manhattan, New York guitarist Sharp spent a day with guitar colleague Mary Halvorson and another with Marc Ribot, legendary guitarist of Tom Waits, The Lounge Lizards and Marianne Faithful. The result was a series of recordings that could only be created by friends. They represent the great art of guitar playing by three exceptional musicians looking for new sonic adventures in search of the sound of our time. 'I hear in their playing both a step into an unknown future and wild growth from a deep past,' says Elliott Sharp. 'The contradiction is resolved in improvisation – the transcendent sonic path of the now.' ...”
Intakt Records (Audio)
iTunes, amazon
YouTube: Blindspot

2011 February: Selling Water By the Side of the River - Evan Lurie, 2012 September: Marc Ribot, 2013 February: Silent Movies, 2013 November: The Nearness Of You, 2014 January: Full Concert Jazz in Marciac (2010), 2014 May: Gig Alert: Marc Ribot Trio, 2014 September: Marc Ribot Trio with Mary Halvorson at The Stone, 2015 September: Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos - The Prosthetic Cubans (1998), 2015 November: Marc Ribot Ceramic Dog (2014), 2016 February: Musical Improvisation in the Marlene Dumas Exhibition (2015), 2017 May: Marc Ribot Trio - Fat Man Blues (2015)

The Battle for Venezuela, Through a Lens, Helmet and Gas Mask

Antigovernment protesters celebrating in May after seizing control of the Francisco Fajardo Highway through Caracas.
"CARACAS, Venezuela — Motley throngs of masked antigovernment protesters hurl rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails. The police and soldiers retaliate with tear gas, water cannon blasts, rubber bullets and buckshot. An uprising is brewing in Venezuela. Nearly every day for more than three months, thousands have taken to the streets to vent fury at President Nicolás Maduro and his increasingly repressive leadership. These confrontations often turn into lopsided and sometimes lethal street brawls — more than 90 people have been killed and more than 3,000 arrested. I have worked as a photojournalist for The New York Times in Venezuela for nine years, and for the past two have focused on the plight of Venezuelans struggling with the worst economic crisis in the country’s history. I have witnessed their growing anger as food and medicine disappear and Mr. Maduro’s authoritarianism intensifies. ..."
NY Times

Obscure Records - Brian Eno (1975 and 1978)

"Obscure Records was a U.K. record label which existed from 1975 to 1978. It was created and run by Brian Eno, who also produced the albums (credited as executive producer in one instance). Ten albums were issued in the series. Most have detailed liner notes on their back covers, analyzing the compositions and providing a biography of the composer, in a format typical of classical music albums, and much of the material can be regarded as 20th century classical music. The label provided a venue for experimental music, and its association with Eno gave increased public exposure to its composers and musicians. In their original editions, all albums used variations of the same cover art of a collage by John Bonis, covered up by an overprinting of black ink. The picture beneath the ink can be seen somewhat clearly under a strong light. Each volume except the seventh has one small window in the black overprint to reveal a different portion of the picture on each album. The red and white label design is a blurred photo that appears to be spires on roofs of buildings. ..."
UbuWeb (Audio)
Open Culture: Hear Albums from Brian Eno’s 1970s Label, Obscure Records (Audio)
Artists' Books and Multiples
W - Obscure Records
YouTube: Obscure Records 10 videos

L'Argent - Robert Bresson (1983)

Wikipedia - "L'Argent (French pronunciation: ​[laʁ.ʒɑ̃], meaning 'Money') is a 1983 French drama film written and directed by Robert Bresson. The film is loosely inspired by the first part of Leo Tolstoy's novella The Forged Coupon. It was Bresson's last film, and earned its maker the Director's Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. A young man enters his father's study to claim a monthly allowance. His father obliges, but the son presses for more, citing a debt at school he must pay. The father dismisses him and an appeal to his mother fails. This leads him to try to pawn his watch to a friend, who instead gives him a forged 500-franc note. After the trade, the youth lingers to peruse an album of nude art. ..."
Wikipedia
W - The Forged Coupon two parts by Leo Tolstoy
senses of cinema
Slant
Guardian: Robert Bresson
YouTube: L'Argent

2008 December: Robert Bresson

Is Morocco Headed Toward Insurrection?

Protesters raise the flag of the Rif Republic (left) and the pan-Berber tricoleur (right) at a demonstration in the northern town of Al-Hoceima, Morocco, June 1, 2017.
"Curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints on highways leading to Al Hoceima in northeastern Morocco; neighborhoods encircled by military trucks; police attacking protesters; mass arrests; activists abducted off the streets. Since May 26, the first day of Ramadan, the city of Al Hoceima has seen continuous tumult, culminating with a day of bloody clashes on June 26, in what is now being called the Black Eid of 2017. Tensions had been running high in the Rif region, with ongoing protests since October, when a young fish vendor died at the hands of the police, crushed to death in a trash compactor as he tried to retrieve his confiscated merchandise. A truce of sorts had been negotiated in mid-May, when a ministerial delegation arrived in the city of Al Hoceima promising various development projects. ..."
The Nation

2016 July: FirstLook: Learning from the Pattern-Masters, 2016 July: Souffles-Anfas: A Critical Anthology (2015)

Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection

Erik van Leishout, Untitled, 2014, Conté crayon, synthetic polymer paint, felt-tip pen, and vinyl on paper.
"Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection brings together works by more than a dozen artists, made in the past decade and recently acquired by The Museum of Modern Art. The artists that make up this intergenerational selection address current anxiety and unrest around the world and offer critical reflections on our present moment. The exhibition considers the intertwining themes of social protest, the effect of history on the formation of identity, and how art juxtaposes fact and fiction. From Cairo to St. Petersburg, from The Hague to Recife, the artists in the exhibition observe and interpret acts of state violence and the resistance and activism they provoke. They reexamine historical moments, evoking images of the past and claiming their places within it. ..."
MoMA
With a Display of New Work from Its Collection, MoMA Takes a Political Turn
New Yorker: The Unsettling Power of MOMA’s “Unfinished Conversations”
vimeo: John Akomfrah on The Unfinished Conversation

D+Q announces Doucet and Kominsky-Crumb in 2018

"As announced today on Bustle, Drawn & Quarterly will publish two groundbreaking works of comics by the revolutionary cartoonists Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Julie Doucet. In spring 2018, D+Q will publish a new and expanded edition of the seminal collection Love That Bunch by Kominsky-Crumb with an afterword by comics scholar Hillary Chute. In fall 2018, D+Q will release the highly anticipated Dirty Plotte: The Complete Julie Doucet. Both titles were acquired by D+Q Publisher Peggy Burns and will be co-edited with Senior Editor Tracy Hurren. ..."
D+Q
Two New Feminist Graphic Novels On Their Way To A Bookstore Near You — REVEAL