Ex Libris: The New York Public Library

The main branch (now formally called the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building) of the New York Public Library.
"The main branch of the New York Public Library — the Beaux-Arts landmark at Fifth Avenue and 42 Street with the stone lions — opened its doors to a ravenous population on May 24, 1911. More than 50,000 souls are said to have flowed through its marble grandeur, inaugurating what has been an intimate, mutually sustaining union between the public and its library. In his magnificent new documentary 'Ex Libris: The New York Public Library,' Frederick Wiseman takes his camera into those same halls as well as into more humble city branches. He sweeps into atriums and down corridors, pauses in reading and meeting rooms, and lays bare this complex, glorious organism that is the democratic ideal incarnate. ..."
NY Times: We the (Library-Card Carrying) People of ‘Ex Libris’
Vanity Fair: Frederick Wiseman on his Latest Film, Ex Libris, and His 50-Plus-Year Career
Roger Ebert
New Yorker: Frederick Wiseman’s Utopian Vision of Libraries in “Ex Libris” (Richard Brody)
W - Ex Libris: The New York Public Library
MUBI: EX LIBRIS - Trailer

2015 August: The New York Public Library, 2015 August: Underground New York Public Library, 2016 January: Lifting the Veil on the New York Public Library’s Erotica Collection, 2016 March: 11 Essential Feminist Books: A New Reading List by The New York Public Library, 2017 September: Get NYPL Digital Collections Tab for Your Browser

Meet the New Interactive Sky Chart!

"At long last, I’m proud to announce the release of Sky & Telescope’s much-loved Interactive Sky Chart! We worked with Chris Peat (heavens-above.com) to make a number of changes — the vast majority of them under the hood — so that you’ll have a reliable sky chart that you can take with you into the night. The biggest development is that we’ve moved the code base that runs the Interactive Sky Chart from a Java-based platform to an HTML5 platform. We made the move because Java was never supported on iPhones or iPads, and some browsers, such as Chrome and Firefox, have also stopped supporting the software plugin. The new version of the Interactive Sky Chart runs natively in the browser, no plugin required. What that means for you, the user, is that there won’t be any more hoops to jump through just to get the sky chart to work. And when you call up the Interactive Sky Chart on your mobile device, it’ll work there too. ..."
Sky & Telescope

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide

"This completely reconceived and rewritten guide to the Metropolitan Museum's encyclopedic holdings—the first new edition of the guidebook in nearly thirty years—provides the ideal introduction to almost 600 essential masterpieces from one of the world's most popular and beloved museums. It features a compelling and accessible design, beautiful color reproductions, and up-to-date descriptions written by the Museum's own experts. More than a simple souvenir book, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide provides a comprehensive view of art history spanning five millennia and the entire globe, beginning with the Ancient World and ending in contemporary times. It includes media as varied as painting, photography, costume, sculpture, decorative arts, musical instruments, arms and armor, works on paper, and many more. Presenting works ranging from the ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur to Canova's Perseus with the Head of Medusa to Sargent's Madame X, this is an indispensable volume for lovers of art and art history, and for anyone who has ever dreamed of lingering over the most iconic works in the Metropolitan's unparalleled collection."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide
NY Times: Make the Most of the Met
amazon

Period: Roman Period. Reign: reign of Augustus Caesar. Date: completed by 10 B.C.. Geography: From Egypt, Nubia, Dendur, West bank of the Nile River

Lee Konitz in Harvard Square (1954)

"You don’t have to be a hard core fan to recognize that Konitz at his best is a wonderfully inspired improviser, and these ’54-’55 recordings capture him in peak form. His phrasing, attack, and the beautiful flow of ideas will make believers out of any but those who just can’t hear what he’s after with that tone at all. The only problem I have with early Konitz is that his pianists-including demigod Lennie-often employed very predictable phrasing. Incongruously, these same pianists specialized as composers in pieces of spectacular rhythmic complexity. Much of Ronnie Ball’s playing here, and his excellent 'Ronnie’s Tune' and 'Froggy Day,' are offered in evidence. Lee’s 'No Splices' and 'Ablution' are also musical tongue twisters a la Tristano. Seven tracks feature Peter Ind and Jeff Morton, with Percy Heath and Al Levitt doing duty on three live tracks. Both bassists sound great, both drummers subsidiary. The live tracks show how hot this supposed iceberg could be, and may surprise listeners who do not know his spectacular Motion date with Elvin Jones."
Jazz Times
W - Lee Konitz in Harvard Square
allmusic
amazon
YouTube: In Harvard Square 1954 (full album)

Amazingly, The Indians Are Even Better Than They Seem

"The Cleveland Indians are officially on baseball’s greatest hot streak in more than eight decades. With 21 consecutive victories, they’re now tied for the longest winning streak in MLB history with the 1935 Chicago Cubs, moving one game ahead of the 2002 'Moneyball' Oakland A’s for the American League’s all-time record. If the Indians tack on another win, they’ll break a record older than the franchise’s World Series drought — perhaps a portent of more history to be shattered next month. And yet, even after all that winning, the Indians’ record still (still!) masks a much better ballclub underneath it. That’s right, the team that has won 21 straight is better than you think. ..."
FiveThirtyEight (Video)
YouTube: Amazingly, the indians are even better than they seem

The Complex Geometry of Islamic Art & Design: A Short Introduction

Islamic Art Patterns | Islamic motifs, whether floral, calligraphic orgeometric
"When you think of the accomplishments of the Islamic world, what comes to mind? For most of this century so far, at least in the West, the very notion has had associations in many minds with not creation but destruction. In 2002, mathematician Keith Devlin lamented how 'the word Islam conjures up images of fanatical terrorists flying jet airplanes full of people into buildings full of even more people' and 'the word Baghdad brings to mind the unscrupulous and decidedly evil dictator Saddam Hussein.' ..."
Open Culture (Video)

"(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" - The Clash (1977)

Wikipedia - "'(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' is a song by the English punk rock band The Clash. It was originally released as a 7-inch single, with the b-side 'The Prisoner', on 16 June 1978 through CBS Records. ... The song showed considerable musical and lyrical maturity for the band at the time and is stylistically more in line with their version of Junior Murvin's 'Police and Thieves' as the powerful guitar intro of "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" descends into a slower ska rhythm, and was disorienting to a lot of the fans who had grown used to their earlier work. ... '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' starts by recounting an all-night reggae 'showcase' night at the Hammersmith Palais in Shepherd's Bush Road, London, that was attended by Joe Strummer, Don Letts and roadie Rodent and was headlined by Dillinger, Leroy Smart and Delroy Wilson. ..."
Wikipedia
Genius (Audio)
YouTube: (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais (Live), (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais

The Peculiar Poetry of Paris’s Lost and Found

It was under Napoleon, in 1804, that lost objects began to be centralized at the headquarters of the Police Prefecture, and not long after that the Bureau of Found Objects was officially formed.
"On the southern edge of Paris, a five-thousand-square-foot basement houses the city’s lost possessions. The Bureau of Found Objects, as it is officially called, is more than two hundred years old, and one of the largest centralized lost and founds in Europe. Any item left behind on the Métro, in a museum, in an airport, or found on the street and dropped, unaddressed, into a mailbox makes its way here, around six or seven hundred items each day. Umbrellas, wallets, purses, and mittens line the shelves, along with less quotidian possessions: a wedding dress with matching shoes, a prosthetic leg, an urn filled with human remains. The bureau is an administrative department, run by the Police Prefecture and staffed by very French functionaries—and yet it’s also an improbable, poetic space where the entrenched French bureaucracy and the societal ideals of the country collide. ... It is with a similar hint of romance that many French people d’un certain âge embrace this mythical public service, though those in the younger generation, armed with smartphones and having never heard the song, often do not know of its existence. ..."
New Yorker

John Zorn - Naked City (1990)

"Like a car radio stuck on scan mode, John Zorn's 'Naked City' skips unstoppably from style to style. Country twang, noise, arena rock, New Orleans R & B, reggae, polka, hard-core rock, bossa nova and Mr. Zorn's sentimental favorite, greasy organ-combo themes of detective shows and films noirs with throbbing saxophone solos - they all turn up in segments that might last 30 seconds (if they're lucky) before the next jolting genre hop. Mr. Zorn doesn't bother with transitions. While he and his musicians create every sudden textural shift themselves, without technological assistance, his guides are the splice, the jump cut, the video edit - not to mention the jack-in-the-box and its more sinister relatives in funhouses and horror movies. In his music, coherence is barely more than propinquity; one sound or style simply doesn't predict the next. ..."
NY Times: THERE ARE 8 MILLION STORIES IN JOHN ZORN'S NAKED CITY By JON PARELES (April 8, 1990)
W - Naked City
amazon, Spotify
YouTube: Naked City (Live), You Will Be Shot (Live), A Shot In The Dark (Amsterdam 1989), James Bond Theme (Amsterdam 1989) John Zorn - sax, composer, Joey Baron - drums, Fred Frith - bass, Wayne Horvitz - kbds, Bill Frisell - gtr.
YouTube: Naked City [Full Album]

2009 March: John Zorn, 2010 August: Spillane 2011 October: Filmworks Anthology : 20 Years of Soundtrack Music, 2012 September: Marc Ribot, 2013 January: Bar Kokhba and Masada, 2013 September: Masada String Trio Sala, 2014 January: Full Concert Jazz in Marciac (2010), 2014 March: "Extraits de Book Of Angels" @ Jazz in Marciac 2008, 2015 June: The Big Gundown - John Zorn plays Ennio Morricone (1985), 2015 July: News for Lulu (1988), 2016 March: Film Works 1986-1990, 2017 March: John Zorn Is Rolling The Stone From Avenue C To The New School.

Italian neorealism

Rome, Open City (1945) - Roberto Rossellini
Wikipedia - "Italian neorealism (Italian: Neorealismo), also known as the Golden Age of Italian Cinema, is a national film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class, filmed on location, frequently using non-professional actors. Italian neorealism films mostly contend with the difficult economic and moral conditions of post-World War II Italy, representing changes in the Italian psyche and conditions of everyday life, including poverty, oppression, injustice, and desperation. ... Neorealist films were generally filmed with nonprofessional actors although, in a number of cases, well-known actors were cast in leading roles, playing strongly against their normal character types in front of a background populated by local people rather than extras brought in for the film. They are shot almost exclusively on location, mostly in rundown cities as well as rural areas due to its forming during the post-war era. ..."
Wikipedia
cineCollage :: Italian Neorealism
10 great Italian neorealist films
15 Essential Italian Neorealism Films You Need To Watch
NY Times: Neorealism in Postwar Italy
YouTube: How Italian Neorealism Brought the Grit of the Streets to the Big Screen, Italian Neorealism

Bicycle Thieves (1948) - Vittorio De Sica

Eileen Myles Remembers John Ashbery

"John Ashbery died nearly a week ago. He was born in 1927 and he died this year, our year, 2017. He was perfectly ninety. His birthday was July 28th. In honor of this big one people recorded his long poem 'Flow Chart' and sent it to him, they (we) wrote paragraphs about who he and his work was for them. He received all these encomiums, they made him happy and then he died. John was a Leo. He leaves a partner, David Kermani who he lived with for over 30 years. In his life-time John Ashbery published more than 20 books, the 8th of which, Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror in 1976 won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle making him the most celebrated poet of our time. Nobody else got all three. So he was a famous poet for the last forty years of his life and he was a generous one, blurbing books, writing recommendations, and pieces like this, so many, when important peers of his died. Of his generation he was the last man standing, and the great one. He was a sweet and a generous and a private man. ..."
OUT

2008 June: Eileen Myles, 2010 August: Inferno, 2015 February: “A Thrashing, Generous Intelligence”: Eileen Myles’s Inferno chosen for Slate/Whiting Second Novel List, 2015 August: The Women of the Avant-Garde, 2016 April: The Poet Idolized by a New Generation of Feminists

Painting prewar New York from the outside in

"Art that captures a single moment of beauty and activity on New York’s streets is always captivating. But there’s something to be said for images that reveal something about Manhattan from a far away vantage point, showing a city not in the center but on the sidelines. Leon Kroll, born in New York in 1884 and a contemporary of George Bellows, Robert Henri, and other social realists, gives us that sidelined city. Kroll, who studied at the Art Students League and exhibited at the famous 1913 Armory Show, was known for his nudes and country or seaside landscapes, and he also painted Central Park, Broadway, and other city locations. ..."

Ephemeral New York
W - Leon Kroll
The Athenaeum

The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief - V.S. Naipaul (2010)

"In 2001, when the Swedish Academy awarded Sir Vidia Naipaul the Nobel prize in literature, it described him as the heir to Joseph Conrad: 'The annalist of the destinies of empires in the moral sense: what they do to human beings… the memory of what others have forgotten, the history of the vanquished.' There are plenty who would have begged to disagree, for Naipaul has regularly attracted criticism, from Edward Said among others, for his dismissive remarks on the cultures of his native Trinidad, on Islam, Pakistan and more. The Masque of Africa is his latest – quite likely last – full-length work of non-fiction. It is a quest through the continent for the spirit of African belief, the belief systems that preceded the arrival of Christianity and Islam – which is very much in keeping with the legacy of Joseph Conrad, who is referenced several times in the book. ..."
Guardian
NYBooks: Naipaul’s Mysterious Africa
NY Times: The Nobelist and the Pygmies
amazon

2012 February: V. S. Naipaul, 2013 February: A Bend in the River (1979), 2015 July: Guerrillas (1975), 2016 March: In a Free State (1971).

What's In My Bag? - Marshall Crenshaw

"Accomplished musician, singer and songwriter Marshall Crenshaw started his career by playing in several high school bands in the Detroit area. In 1978 Crenshaw left Michigan for a role as John Lennon in the Broadway musical Beatlemania, performing and touring for over a year. He then started a New York-based trio with his brother Robert, recording the single "Something's Gonna Happen," which led to a deal with Warner Brothers. Crenshaw's eponymous debut album was released in 1982 and included the song 'Someday, Someway,' which reached #36 on the Billboard Top 100 chart. He has released albums consistently ever since, most recently two EPs in 2014, Red Wine and Move Now. ..."
Amoeba (Video)

The Pizza Show

"The inaugural episode of The Pizza Show kicks off in Brooklyn. Our host Frank Pinello, a born and bred Brooklynite, remembers the importance of his neighborhood pizzeria growing up. We start at Roberta's in Bushwick, a pizzeria that has truly changed an entire neighborhood. Then we spend some time with Mark Iacono, owner of Lucali in Carroll Gardens, who built his restaurant by hand and is working tirelessly to preserve the tradition of his neighborhood through pizza. And what would any pizza show be without visiting the king: Dom DeMarco of Di Fara in Midwood? Dom is a legend, and even when great pizzaiolos visit him, like Frank and Mark, they can end up questioning their own pies. ..."
Munchies (Video)
The Pizza Show - Full Episodes (Video)
Welcome to The Pizza Show (Trailer) (Video)

2014 June: Pizza, 2014 October: Viva La Pizza! The Art of the Pizza Box (NYC), 2016 July: Q&A: Antoinette Balzano and Cookie Cimineri of Totonno’s

Pet Shop Boys – Left To My Own Devices / The Sound of the Atom Splitting (1988)

"... This song is about a day in the life of a very ordinary person, its lyrics from the school of Alan Bennett, its music from the opera via the rave. Tennant woke up one morning with its title in mind, ready to write a song that contained elements of his own life. The 'party animal' mentioned at the start of the song, for example, his music writer friend Jon Savage, who used to call him every morning. (Tennant said in the liner notes to the 2001 reissue of Introspective that Savage wasn’t quite that rowdy, 'but in the 80s he did go out more'.) The 'brochures about the sun' were ones Tennant had picked up from a travel agent and were lying on the table in front of him as he wrote. He had also recently talked to his mother about his enjoyment of solitude as a boy, about 'a world of my own at the back of the garden', although in his secret life he was a Cavalier, not a 'roundhead general'. ..."
Guardian: Pet Shop Boys – 10 of the best
W - Left To My Own Devices
YouTube: Left To My Own Devices, Left to my own devices - live @ Wembley 1989, Left To My Own Devices (Live), The sound of the atom splitting

2008 September: Pet Shop Boys, 2010 November: Pet Shop Boys - 1985-1989, 2011 January: Behaviour, 2011 May: Very, 2011 December: Bilingual, 2012 March: "Always on My Mind", 2012 August: Nightlife, 2012 September: "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)", 2012 December: Release, 2013 March: Pandemonium Tour, 2013 November: Leaving, 2014 April: Introspective (1988), 2014 August: Go West, 2015 January: "So Hard"(1990), 2015 February: "I'm with Stupid" (2006), 2015 July: Thursday EP (2014), 2016 May: "Twenty-something" (2016).

Cassini Flies Toward a Fiery Death on Saturn

An illustration showing Cassini above Saturn’s northern hemisphere before making a final dive into the planet’s atmosphere.
"The Cassini spacecraft that has orbited Saturn for the last 13 years would weigh 4,685 pounds on Earth and, at 22 feet high, is somewhat longer and wider than a small moving van tipped on its rear. Bristling with cameras, antennas and other sensors, it is one of the most complex and sophisticated spy robots ever set loose in interplanetary space. On Friday morning, the whole world will hear it die. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, the scientists of the Cassini mission will figuratively ride their creation down into oblivion in the clouds of Saturn. They will be collecting data on the makeup of the planet’s butterscotch clouds until the last bitter moment, when the spacecraft succumbs to the heat and pressure of atmospheric entry and becomes a meteor. So will end a decades-long journey of discovery and wonder. ..."
NY Times (Video)
W - Cassini–Huygens
Cassini: The Grand Finale
Discover Magazine
Saturn's icy rings up close

Independence Ska and The Far East Sound - Original Ska Sounds From The Skatalites 1963 - 65

"Unique new Soul Jazz Records’ Collectors Limited-Edition 7-inch box set special edition release from the greatest ska band of all time! Ten stone-cold classic, killer tracks from Studio One, brought together here on this one-off pressing limited-edition box set containing five mighty seven-inch singles which bring together seminal, rare and classic tunes collected together here for the first time ever. The Skatalites were the definitive Jamaican group, who first came together in Kingston in the late 1950s and featured the acknowledged finest musicians in the country - Tommy McCook Rolando Alphonso Lester Sterling, Lloyd Brevett Lloyd Knibb, Don Drummond, Jah Jerry Haynes, Jackie Mittoo, Johnny Moore and Jackie Opel. In 1963 they became the house band at Clement 'Sir Cosxone' Dodd's newly opened Studio One at 13 Brentford Road. ..."
Soul Jazz Records (Audio)
Discogs
amazon, Spotify
YouTube: Don Drummond & The Skatalites - Russian Ska Fever, Independent Anniversary Ska

Don Drummond and Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd in the studio

Morocco's Cinema City

"'Walk past ancient Egypt and then turn left at Tibet,' says Amine Tazi, general manager of Africa’s largest film and studio complex. 'That’s where we filmed the Saudi tv series Omar,' about the second caliph of Islam, Omar ibn al-Khattab. If the desert film sets look even vaguely familiar to a visitor, he explains, that’s because they probably are: Recently they were also backdrops for, among other things, episodes of the us television hits Homeland and Game of Thrones. But Omar took a full six months of shooting to produce 30 episodes, in Arabic. That was solid business for the two studios Tazi manages, Atlas and CLA, which were, until this year, solely responsible for making the town of Ouarzazate, poised between the Sahara desert and the Atlas Mountains in eastern Morocco, into a continental capital of cinema. ..."
AramcoWorld

The Customer is Always Wrong - Mimi Pond (2017)

"The Customer is Always Wrong is the saga of a young naïve artist named Madge working in a restaurant of charming drunks, junkies, thieves, and creeps. Oakland in the late seventies is a cheap and quirky haven for eccentrics and Mimi Pond folds the tales of the fascinating sleaze-ball characters that surround young Madge into her workaday waitressing life. Outrageous and loving tributes and takedowns of her co-workers and satellites of the Imperial Cafe create a snapshot of a time in Madge’s life where she encounters who she is, and who she is not. Told in the same brash yet earnest style as her previous memoir Over Easy, Pond’s storytelling gifts have never been stronger than in this epic, comedic, standalone graphic novel. Madge is right back at the Imperial with its great coffee and depraved cast, where things only get worse for her adopted restaurant family while her career as a cartoonist starts to take off. ..."
Drawn and Quarterly
The Comics Journal
Mimi Pond
amazon

Three Decks, Six Minutes, Twelve Layers

"If you were to just hear — rather than also watch — this track by the artist known as Amulets, you might wonder about the little clickety clacks that occur six times, first at five seconds in, then at half a minute in, and then at just past the minute-and-a-half marker, and then again in quicker succession, within 30 seconds of each other, toward the track’s end. These clicks, sharp and fragile, appear amid and yet apart from the otherwise wooly-lush six minutes of music. ... This is the latest video I’ve added to my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music. Video originally posted at youtube.com. More from Amulets, aka Randall Taylor, at amuletsmusic.com and amulets.bandcamp.com."
disquiet - THREE FOUR TRACKS (LIVE TAPE LOOP AMBIENT / EXPERIMENTAL) (Video)
AMULETS shows how to make a tape loop out of a cassette (Video)
Amulets (Video)
facebook
YouTube: LIVE AMBIENT MUSIC MADE FROM CASSETTE TAPE LOOPS - THE SUITCASE OF DRONE, SUITCASE OF DRONE - AMBIENT / DRONE TAPE LOOPS, KORG VOLCA KEYS CV SYNC WITH TASCAM 4 TRACK TAPE LOOP (AMBIENT/EXPERIMENTAL), AMBIENT WALKMAN SYMPHONY (LIVE IMPROVISED TAPE LOOPS), AMULETS - KNOW YOUR AMERICA // NPR TINY DESK CONTEST 2016 [LIVE CASSETTE TAPE LOOPING]

Midnight Cowboy - John Schlesinger (1969)

"Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 American drama film based on the 1965 novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. The film was written by Waldo Salt, directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Jon Voight alongside Dustin Hoffman. Notable smaller roles are filled by Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Salt and Barnard Hughes. The film won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was the first gay-related Best Picture winner. In addition, it was the only X-rated film ever to win Best Picture, though its rating has since been changed to R. It has since been placed 36th on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films of all time, and 43rd on its 2007 updated version. In 1994, the film was deemed 'culturally, historically or aesthetically significant' by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. ..."
Wikipedia
AMC: Filmsite
Guardian - The film that makes me cry: Midnight Cowboy
15 Uncensored Facts About Midnight Cowboy (Video)
Midnight Cowboy: The “X-rated” film that won 3 Academy Awards
NY Times (By Vincent Canby May 26, 1969)
YouTube: Trailer - HQ, Opening Scene

Lords of the Flea

Spring rolls, from a vendor at Smorgasburg.
"It’s an unseasonably warm day in early November, the ground wet and puddle-speckled from showers that blew over earlier. Everyone’s removing hats, folding up scarves, tucking jackets under armpits. Though the day is just an anomaly in Brooklyn’s steady descent into winter (the next day would be gray and chilly), it has the exuberant feel of early spring. It’s ideal weather for Smorgasburg, the outdoor food market. Today being Saturday, Smorgasburg is at East River State Park in Williamsburg, a bare-bones space facing the water. (On Sundays, the fair moves to the Brooklyn Bridge Park in DUMBO.) Food vendors have set up their stalls in the shade of a waterfront high-rise, their chalk signs advertising freshly made offerings: pupusas with pickled cabbage, organic beef hot dogs topped with sesame slaw, blood-orange donuts, beet burgers. Near one stall, a boy chows down on some sort of fusion taco; pulled pork and pickled radish dangle ominously, but he expertly cradles the tortilla, managing not to add any new stains to his soccer jersey. ..." (Dec. 19, 2013)
BKLYNR

What to Make of the Red Sox’s Apple Watch Scandal

Sign-stealing has long been a strategy for baseball teams to predict how a pitcher will throw, but the controversy about the Red Sox’s behavior underscores the litigiousness of modern sports.
"In 1948, while locked in a tight pennant race, the Cleveland Indians resorted to some shady maneuvers, what the team’s owner, Bill Veeck, later cheekily described in his memoir as 'gamesmanship—the art of winning without really cheating.' The team had its groundskeeper mess with the height of the grass and the pitcher’s mound to better suit its players, moved the outfield fence in or back depending on each day’s opponent, and, most deviously, instituted a system of sign-stealing. A team employee, sitting in the center-field scoreboard, would use a portable telescope to spy on the opposing catcher’s fingers, decipher the code he was using with his pitcher to call pitches, and signal the next pitch to the batter by putting up a white or dark card in an opening in the scoreboard, where the hitters knew to look. ... Veeck, who died in 1986, would have approved of the stratagem copped to by the Boston Red Sox this week. On Tuesday, the team admitted to using an Apple Watch as part of a ploy to steal signs from opposing teams during recent home games, including those against their archrival, the New York Yankees. ..."
New Yorker
NY Times: How Red Sox Used Tech, Step by Step, to Steal Signs From Yankees
The Ringer: The Red Sox Have Given Us Spygate 2.0 and I Am Abso-Freaking-Lutely Thrilled (Video)
Vanity Fair: Sports Media Slam Red Sox for High-Tech Cheating
SI (Video)
ESPN: Dustin Pedroia downplays scandal: 'Don't think this should be news' (Video)

Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia sits in the dugout prior a game against the Cleveland Indians.

2017 April: Baseball color line, 2017 June: Racist taunts stir up ancient pains in Boston

Horace Silver Trio and Art Blakey - Sabu (1953)

"Several early-'50s sessions were culled to produce this must-have collection of pianist Horace Silver in a rare trio setting. Together with longtime partner Art Blakey on drums and the likes of Gene Ramey, Curly Russell, and Percy Heath on bass, Silver masterfully swings through several of his most famous compositions and a few standards. Classic tunes like 'Horoscope,' 'Quicksilver,' 'Ecaroh,' and 'Opus de Funk' are given superb readings here as Silver and Blakey display their legendary kinship. Silver's powers of interpretation are in full stride as well, with great standards like 'Thou Swell,' 'I Remember You,' and 'How About You' getting sparkling, fresh-sounding treatments. Also included in this set are two startling all-percussion jams from Blakey and conga master Sabu Martinez that foreshadow Blakey's groundbreaking Orgy in Rhythm sessions a few years later."
allmusic
W - Horace Silver Trio and Art Blakey - Sabu
amazon
YouTube: Horace Silver Trio & Art Blakey + Sabu [1953] | Full Album

2017 March: A Night at Birdland Vol. 1 - Art Blakey (1954)

Namwali Serpell

"Namwali Serpell was born in Zambia in 1980. She lives in San Francisco. Her first novel, The Old Drift, is forthcoming with Hogarth Press (Penguin Random House) in 2018. Serpell won the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story, 'The Sack.' In 2014, she was chosen as one of the Africa 39, a Hay Festival project to identify the most promising African writers under 40. In 2011, she received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Serpell's first published story, 'Muzungu,' was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009, shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize, and anthologized in The Uncanny Reader. ..."
Namwali Serpell
NYBooks: Namwali Serpell
W - Namwali Serpell
The 2015 Shortlist (Audio)
Namwali Serpell on "The Sack"
YouTube: Namwali Serpell on Short Stories, Lunch Poems: Namwali Serpell

NYBooks: Glossing Africa - Côte d’Ivoire, 1972

Holger Czukay (1938-2017)

"Holger Czukay, the co-founder and bassist of the iconic Krautrock band Can, has died, Cologne newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger reports. He was 79. He was reportedly found dead in the original Can studio in Weilerswist (formerly a movie theater) near Cologne, where he had allegedly been living. His cause of death is unknown. The band released a statement Wednesday via Facebook—read it below. Czukay’s death marks the second loss for the band this year; founding drummer Jaki Liebezeit passed away in January. A prolific inventor, Czukay helped pioneer sampling, which at the time involved the laborious process of manually cutting tape. Aside from his work with Can, he released several solo albums, including his most recent, 2015’s Eleven Years Innerspace. ..."
Pitchfork (Video)
Can hero Holger Czukay on Stockhausen, shortwave radio and being “too intriguing” (Video)
Rolling Stone: Can Co-Founder Holger Czukay Dead at 79 (Video)
YouTube: Krautrock: Holger Czukay's Take, Eurythmics - Never Gonna Cry Again (Live Holger Czukay 1981), Träum Mal Wieder, On The Way To The Peak Of Normal - Ode to Perfume

2011 September: Can, 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), 2017 April: Jah Wobble, The Edge, Holger Czukay - Snake Charmer (1983), 2017 June: The Legend Lives On… Jah Wobble In Betrayal (1980), 2017 July: Can - The Singles (2017).

Why Culture Matters

Sun Records Studio
"New York Times op-ed columnist Bari Weiss recently decried what she calls the 'increasingly strident left' for its 'separate-but-equal' rhetoric around the question of cultural appropriation. According to Weiss, 'charges of cultural appropriation are being hurled at every corner of American life: the art museum, the restaurant, the movie theater, the fashion show, the novel and, especially, the college campus.' Cultural appropriation has become a flash point for debate. From sites as ordinary as dining rooms to those as lofty as the opera house, conflict has erupted over perceived power imbalances in cultural exchange. But Weiss seems unaware that the Left is hardly unified on this matter, with debates on cultural appropriation and identity politics perpetually starting feuds and ending friendships. ..."
Jacobin

An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017

Annette Lemieux (b. 1957), Black Mass, 1991.
"Through the lens of the Whitney’s collection, An Incomplete History of Protest looks at how artists from the 1940s to the present have confronted the political and social issues of their day. Whether making art as a form of activism, criticism, instruction, or inspiration, the featured artists see their work as essential to challenging established thought and creating a more equitable culture. Many have sought immediate change, such as ending the war in Vietnam or combating the AIDS crisis. Others have engaged with protest more indirectly, with the long term in mind, hoping to create new ways of imagining society and citizenship. ..."
Whitney
Whitney (Audio)
Guardian: A brief history of protest art from the 1940s until now - in pictures

The Bronx

Wikipedia - "The Bronx (/ˈbrɒŋks/) is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City, within the U.S. state of New York. It is geographically south of Westchester County; north and east of the island and borough of Manhattan to the south and west across the Harlem River; and north of the borough of Queens, across the East River.  ... About a quarter of the Bronx's area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center. ... In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Bronx received many immigrant groups as it was transformed into an urban community, first from various European countries (particularly Ireland, Germany, and Italy) and later from the Caribbean region (particularly Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic), as well as African American migrants from the southern United States. This cultural mix has made the Bronx a wellspring of both Latin music and hip hop. ..."
Wikipedia
The Perfect Day in The Bronx
NYCgo - The Bronx
NPR: Forget 'The Bronx Is Burning.' These Days, The Bronx Is Gentrifying (Video)
Hip-hop history began in the Bronx 44 years ago today (Video)
YouTube: Street Scenes of the Bronx, New York City, Insider Guide: The South Bronx's Grand Concourse, Arts: South Bronx Rising, Da South Bronx - da Old Soundview Neighborhood Today

2009 June: City Island, Seaport of the Bronx, 2015 January: Anna Matos on WallWorks NY — A New Gallery Space in the South Bronx, 2015 July: ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York, 2015 November: Bronx Cheer, 2016 February: Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture (2014), 2016 May: The Birth of the Bronx's Universal Hip Hop Museum, 2016 June: Who Makes the Bronx, 2017 March: New York by New Yorkers: A Local's Guide to the City's Neighborhoods, 2017 August: From Lagos to the Bronx, Photographer Osaretin Ugiagbe Documents the In-Between

Big Box Of Surfin' USA

"Over 200 (!!) tracks of vibrato-laden guitars, thwackin' drums, root-note bass, rough-toned tenor sax and plaintive pleas to former beach bunnies. This is the best of original era American Surf music. Including THE BEACH BOYS, JAN & DEAN, DICK DALE, DUANE EDDY, LINK WRAY and loads more! Time to polish your board, and gas up the Woody!"
Wayside

John Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017)

Paris, 1959. Photo by Walter Silver.
"The greatest American poet of the last fifty years has died. I read and taught John Ashbery for years, and occasionally wrote about him. The idea of greatness clung about him as it does to only a handful of writers alive at any time. His early work was serene and beautiful; he then became rather frantic and trippy. He had a period of majesty unrivalled in recent poetry, stretching from the seventies through the nineties. His last phase was a kind of inventory of his mind, among the most interesting anyone has ever known. His method was to 'snip off a length' of his consciousness, he said. It was, in part, a strike against the solemnities of achieved reputation, which confronted him everywhere in the forms of syllabi and colloquia. ..."
New Yorker - Postscript: John Ashbery

"John Ashbery, an enigmatic genius of modern poetry whose energy, daring and boundless command of language raised American verse to brilliant and baffling heights, died early Sunday at age 90. Ashbery, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and often mentioned as a Nobel candidate, died at his home in Hudson, New York. His husband, David Kermani, said his death was from natural causes. Few poets were so exalted in their lifetimes. Ashbery was the first living poet to have a volume published by the Library of America dedicated exclusively to his work. His 1975 collection, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, was the rare winner of the American book world’s unofficial triple crown: the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle prize. In 2011, he was given a National Humanities Medal and credited with changing 'how we read poetry'. ..."
Guardian: Poet John Ashbery dies age 90

Guardian: The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery’s Early Life by Karin Roffman
Guardian: John Ashbery obituary (Video)
NY Times: John Ashbery, a Singular Poet Whose Influence Was Broad, Dies at 90
W - John Ashbery
PennSound (Video)

Photograph: Eamonn McCabe

Istanbul: Memories and the City - Orhan Pamuk

Wikipedia - "Istanbul: Memories and the City is a largely autobiographical memoir by Orhan Pamuk that is deeply melancholic. It talks about the vast cultural change that has rocked Turkey – the unending battle between the modern and the receding past. It is also a eulogy to the lost joint family tradition. Most of all, it is a book about Bosphorus and Istanbul's history with the strait. ... The personal memories of the author are intertwined with literary essays about writers and artists who were connected in some way to Istanbul. A whole chapter is dedicated to Antoine Ignace Melling, a 19th-century Western artist who made engravings about Constantinople. Pamuk's favourite Istanbuli writers, who meant inspiration for him and also became figures of his book, are Yahya Kemal Beyatlı, Reşat Ekrem Koçu, Abdülhak Şinasi Hisar, Ahmet Rasim and Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar. His favourite Western travelogue writers play a similar role like Gérard de Nerval, Théophile Gautier and Gustave Flaubert. The book is illustrated by the photographs of Ara Güler, among other professional photographs, chosen by Pamuk because of the melancholic atmosphere of his pictures. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul
amazon
YouTube: Prose reading by Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Laureate in Literature

2012 April: The Museum of Innocence (2008)

"There Is Power in a Union" - Traditional, arranged by Billy Bragg

Wikipedia - "'There Is Power in a Union' is a song written by Joe Hill in 1913. The Industrial Workers of the World (commonly known as the Wobblies) concentrated much of its labor trying to organize migrant workers in lumber and construction camps. They sometimes had competition for the attention of the workers from religious organizations. The song uses the tune of Lewis E. Jones' 1899 hymn "There Is Power in the Blood (Of the Lamb)". 'There Is Power in a Union' was first published in the Little Red Songbook in 1913. The song has been recorded several times. Billy Bragg recorded a song with the title 'There Is Power in a Union' on the Talking with the Taxman About Poetry album; this has different words and is set to the tune of 'Battle Cry of Freedom'. ..."
Wikipedia
"There Is Power in a Union" Lyrics (Audio)
YouTube: "There Is Power in a Union" (With intro + Live), "There Is Power in a Union"

2011 November: Billy Bragg, 2012 November: Strange Things Happen (Live on The Tube 1984), 2012 December: The Internationale, 2013 May: Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, 2014 June: Tooth & Nail (2013), 2014 September: Peel Session, 2014 December: Don't Try This at Home (1991), 2015 April: Between the Wars EP (1985), 2016 August: Workers Playtime (1987), 2016 November: A love letter to the lyrics of Levi Stubbs’ Tears.

Get NYPL Digital Collections Tab for Your Browser

"A month ago, we released Surveyor—a new tool for geotagging photos in our collections. Thousands of people have already helped us put the history of New York City on the map (but we still need your help). To make exploring our beautiful, historical street photos of NYC even easier, we’re releasing a new tool: the NYPL Digital Collections Tab. NYPL Digital Collections Tab is a browser extension that shows a curated image of New York City from our Digital Collections every time you open a new tab. Inspired by Google’s Earth View—which shows global satellite imagery in new tabs—adding the extension to your browser is a great way to discover photos from the Library’s collections. And if you think you know where in New York City the photo in your tab was taken, one click will bring you to Surveyor! ..."
New York Public Library

2015 May: Mapping the New York That Once Was