Tugboat Jess Pulls Her Weight

The waters in and around New York Harbor that the tugboat works.
"On the icy deck of the Kings Point, a 94-foot tug based in New York Harbor, Jess Yeomans picked up a thick, heavy rope and flung it with the skill of a rodeo cowboy onto a steel post about 10 feet away, and then just as deftly flipped it free again. As a deckhand on a tugboat, being skilled with lines as thick as baseball bats is obligatory, and it is something that is picked up from other seamen. 'These are traditions that are passed down,' said Ms. Yeomans, who is aware of another tugboat tradition: It is mostly men who work on them. Her tasks include hustling around the deck and throwing and catching lines to fasten the tug to barges and large ships in need of guidance. At times, she directs the captain when his vision is blocked, coordinating with him via a radio. Sometimes this means scrambling up a ladder onto a fuel barge being guided by the tug 'on the hip,' or from the side. ..."
NY Times
W - Tugboats in New York City
NY Times: Gentlemen, Start Your Tugboats
WNYC: The Tugboat, Workhorse of New York Harbor (Audio)
YouTube: New York on the Clock: Chris Baker, Tugboat Captain

Sound of Joy - Sun Ra and his Arkestra (1955)

Wikipedia - "Sound of Joy is an album by Sun Ra and his Arkestra. It features the Arkestral lineup during the last few months of 1956, after trombonist Julian Priester left to join Lionel Hampton, Charles Davis became a regular member of the band, and Victor Sproles took over on bass. It was intended as the follow-up to Jazz By Sun Ra but Transition Records ceased to operate before it could be released. Four of the tracks were included on Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra Visits Planet Earth, released in 1966. The entire LP was eventually released in 1968 by Delmark Records, who also re-issued Jazz by Sun Ra. Two ballads, written by Sun Ra and sung by Clyde Williams, were left off the original album, however, because the president of Delmark Records, Bob Koester, 'felt they didn't fit with the other pieces on the session.' ..."
Wikipedia
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Sound of Joy 47:41

Wild Dog - John Hoopes, Ed Dorn, Drew Wagnon, and others

Wild Dog, vol. 3, no. 21 (March 1, 1966).
"In many respects—name, form, and content—Wild Dog boldly embodies much of what we identify as the 'mimeo revolution.' Preceded in Pocatello by A Pamphlet, Wild Dog, which joined the mimeograph revolution in April 1963, was the brainchild of Edward Dorn, who was familiar with the emergence of divergent American writing through his association with Black Mountain College, where he had studied under Charles Olson and Robert Creeley. The literary direction that Dorn brought to Wild Dog encompassed writing from diverse sources including, but not limited to, writers associated with The Black Mountain Review, the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beat generation, the New York School, and certain 'hip' European and South American publications and poets. ..."
From a Secret Location
Verdant Press
Jacket2: Twelve letters from Kenneth Irby to Edward Dorn

Nine Albums to Get You Ready for Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Professor Longhair – New Orleans Piano Music
"Mardi Gras in New Orleans is pure indulgent sensory overload. Smells of boudin balls and gumbo waft in the wind, strings of beads fly through the air and plenty of booze-fueled dancing set the holiday apart from any other in the country. With the start of Carnival season comes fanciful parades, colorful king cakes, and pretty Big Chiefs strutting with their krewes. It’s no surprise that musicians in the birthplace of Jazz have paid tribute to their home city with iconic Mardi Gras music. Carnival season is best spent immersing yourself in the music of New Orleans. With its quick rhythm, swampy cadence and brassy melodies, the style perfectly encapsulates the feeling of Mardi Gras. Like those first warm breezes rolling in from the Gulf of Mexico, the warm sound of vinyl is the perfect fit for these classic New Orleans’ albums. Get your feet dancing and funk up your Fat Tuesday with these picks. ..."
Discogs
W - Mardi Gras in New Orleans
NY Times: Navigating Mardi Gras in New Orleans
YouTube: Celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans | National Geographic, THE HISTORY & TRADITIONS OF MARDI GRAS PROMO, Mardi Gras World, New Orleans, LA - Travel Thru History Show

A float in the Rex parade in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day in 2013.

How Sexual Harassment Shapes Politics in Washington

"Eight Essays On Sexual Discrimination And Harassment In D.C., Across Politics, Policy, And The Media. February 8, 2018. Elizabeth Drew - Ana Marie Cox - Sarah Jones - Eve Fairbanks - Heather Boushey - Ai-jen Poo - Monica Potts - Jill Abramson. ... Domestic Workers, Too by Ai-jen Poo. Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. As the United States faces up to the prevalence and impact of sexual misconduct in the workplace, the consistent story we have heard from survivors, time and again, is one of power imbalance. Actual or perceived, the distance between power held by men and by women in this country has directly resulted in cycles of harassment, misconduct, and abuse from which our society has looked away for decades. Imagine, then, the breeding ground for abuse created in the nation’s capital by some of the world’s most powerful men—and it is usually men—for the domestic workers laboring behind the closed doors of their Washington residences. ..."
New Republic

The History of 121 Chambers

No. 121 Chambers ran through the block to No. 103 Reade (left). The James Gilbert building, abutting, was designed to visually include No. 103, the center section being a near-match to the Chambers Street facade.
"... When Nicholas Gilbert purchased the property at No. 121 Chambers Street in 1835, the area was still a respectable, residential one. At the same time, he bought the three lots directly behind, at Nos. 103 through 107 Reade Street. Gilbert and his family moved into the Chambers Street house; but would not stay appreciably long. By Gilbert’s death in 1851 his former home was being run as a boarding house, and the three Reade Street houses were rented to blue collar workers and servants. By 1860 the area was seeing the rise of handsome commercial buildings and lofts. That year Gilbert’s two sons divided up the property and set about to replace the old houses with modern money-making business buildings. Frederick Gilbert, who was a ship chandler by trade, took the family home and the house directly behind it at No. 103 Reade. ..."
Tribeca Citizen
Landmarks Approves Expansion of 121 Chambers Street, TriBeCa

2017 July: Seeking New York: The Stories Behind the Historic Architecture of Manhattan, 2017 October: The History of 452 Greenwich Street

Bob Dylan World Tour 1966

Wikipedia - "The Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 was a concert tour undertaken by American musician Bob Dylan, from February to May 1966. Dylan's 1966 World Tour was notable as the first tour--actually a continuation of his late 1965 U.S. tour--where Dylan employed an electric band backing him, following his 'going electric' at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The musicians Dylan employed as his backing band were known as The Hawks; they subsequently became famous as The Band. The 1966 tour was filmed by director D. A. Pennebaker. Pennebaker's footage was edited by Dylan and Howard Alk to produce a little-seen film, Eat the Document, an anarchic account of the tour. ... There are also many unofficial bootleg recordings of the tour. Dylan's 1966 Tour ended with his motorcycle accident late on Friday afternoon, July 29, 1966. ..."
Wikipedia
World Tour 1966: The Home Movies Through the Camera of Bob Dylan's Drummer
Pitchfork
11 beautifully restored images of Bob Dylan's 1966 tour (Video)
“Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings” is Available Now!
Skeleton Keys - Bob Dylan 1966
amazon
NY Times: Bob Dylan On Tour in 1966 (Video)
YouTube: BD & The Band - Live 1966 Concert Film 32:49

Jean Dubuffet

Vicissitudes, 1977
Wikipedia - "Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called 'low art' and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making. He is perhaps best known for founding the art movement Art Brut, and for the collection of works—Collection de l'art brut—that this movement spawned. Dubuffet enjoyed a prolific art career, both in France and in America, and was featured in many exhibitions throughout his lifetime. ...  Dubuffet achieved very rapid success in the American art market, largely due to his inclusion in the Pierre Matisse exhibition in 1946. His association with Matisse proved to be very beneficial. Matisse was a very influential dealer of contemporary European Art in America, and was known for strongly supporting the School of Paris artists. Dubuffet's work was placed among the likes of Picasso, Braque, and Rouault at the gallery exhibit, and he was only one of two young artists to be honored in this manner. A Newsweek article dubbed Dubuffet as the 'darling of Parisian avant-garde circles,' and Greenberg wrote positively about Dubuffet's three canvasses in a review of the exhibit. ..."
Wikipedia
MoMA, PACE
NYBooks: The Art of Instinct
Sotheby's: Jean Dubuffet – The Butterfly Man (Video)
YouTube: A Short History of Artist Jean Dubuffet, Jean Dubuffet The Asylum. Helly Nahmad London at Frieze Masters 2015, Jean Dubuffet - The Deep End, Jean Dubuffet at Sotheby's, NYC (Nov 2009)

Jean Dubuffet in his studio in Venice, France, 1959.

2013 March: Outsider Art

2018 Winter Olympics

Wikipedia - "The 2018 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games  and commonly known as PyeongChang 2018, is a major international multi-sport event scheduled to take place from 9 to 25 February 2018 in Pyeongchang County, South Korea. ... The torch relay started on 24 October 2017 in Greece and will end at the start of the Olympics on 9 February 2018. On 1 November 2017 the relay entered Korea. The relay will last 101 days. There will be 7,500 torch bearers to represent the 75 million population living in Korea. There will also be 2018 support runners. The support runners will guard the torch and be messengers. ... The 2018 Winter Olympics will feature 102 events in 15 sports, making it the first Winter Olympics to surpass 100 medal events. Four new disciplines in existing sports were introduced to the Winter Olympic programme in Pyeongchang, including big air snowboarding, mixed doubles curling, mass start speed skating, and mixed team alpine skiing. ,,,"
Wikipedia
NY Times
CBS
NBC
Competition Schedule

Arto Lindsay ... Simply Are

"Arto Lindsay (b. 1953) is an American guitarist and experimental composer based between Rio, Berlin and New York whose signature combination of velvet voice and noise guitar is an energetic hybrid of post punk, free jazz and Tropicalia styles. He has stood at the intersection of music and art for more than four decades. As a member of DNA, he contributed to the foundation of No Wave. As bandleader for the Ambitious Lovers he developed an intensely subversive pop music, a hybrid of American and Brazilian styles. He contributed to groups such as The Flying Lizards and the Golden Paliminoes and has collaborated with both visual and musical artists, including Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, Animal Collective, Matthew Barney, David Byrne, Caetano Veloso, Rirkrit Tiravanija and many others. ... Off The Page offers a unique opportunity to gain insight into Lindsay's extensive and diverse artistic career in an exclusive artist talk."
Off The Page - NY Musikk (Video)
Bandcamp (Audio)

2009 October: Arto Lindsay, 2012 July: Lounge Lizards, 2015 October: The Golden Palominos - The Golden Palominos (1983), 2015 November: Love Of Life Orchestra ‎– Extended Niceties EP (1980), 2017 October: The Lounge Lizards - Lounge Lizards (1981)

Counter Intelligence: Montréal

"There’s something to be said about a city that boasts two official languages. Known for its charming European flair, the creative weave of Montréal’s bilingual and multicultural fabric is a breeding ground for alternative culture. Combined with an affordable cost of living, the city is a hotbed of artists who sustain a strong DIY community and a healthy nightlife scene, so it only makes sense that Montréal record shops are thriving in parallel. Avid and casual collectors alike are privy to a solid network of new and used record stores scattered across the city, each offering a unique selection to a loyal following. In anticipation of the first ever Montréal edition of the Red Bull Music Academy Weekender this fall, we dug into the dust of the bins belonging to a handful of these shops. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily

Anthology: You've Got to Have Freedom - Pharoah Sanders (2005)

"Anthology: You've Got to Have Freedom is exactly what it says but is also more. This two-disc set is culled from Pharoah Sanders' Impulse! catalog; it is these recordings that gave him his place in jazz history -- apart from the years he spent with John Coltrane. Sanders was unfairly pegged with carrying on the Coltrane legacy in free jazz; he was often called 'the new Coltrane.' This set confirms and underscores Sanders' reputation for being a truly restless and creative force in jazz. What makes this anthology so utterly special is that it is the first one of its kind to cross-license tracks from a number of labels. ... Given that listeners have no Pharoah Sanders box set -- and Impulse! should get it together and release one -- this collection is as good as it gets. Some will have trouble with the edits and that's to be expected; others would have chosen some different tracks and that is as well. But when all is said and done, this offers a multidimensional portrait of a musician who has never gotten his proper due. ..."
allmusic
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: You've got to have Freedom (Live)

2015 December: Maleem Mahmoud Ghania With Pharaoh Sanders - The Trance Of Seven Colors (1994), 2016 January: Ptah, The El Daoud - Alice Coltrane & Pharoah Sanders (1970), 2016 November: Tauhid (1967), 2017 May: The Pharoah Sanders Story: In the Beginning 1963-1964, 2017 November: Let Us Now Praise Pharoah Sanders, Master of Sax

The Long Brazilian Crisis

"Wednesday, January 24, 2018 might prove to be an infamous day in the history of Brazil. That day, a regional court of appeals in the southern city of Porto Alegre voted unanimously to uphold former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s corruption conviction, sentencing him to twelve years in prison. For many, Lula’s conviction marks a victory against the culture of elite impunity and criminality that scars Brazilian politics. For most of the Left, this judgment represents another nail in the coffin of Brazilian democracy, as a reactionary judiciary seeks to ban Brazil’s most popular politician from competing in the upcoming 2018 elections. ..."
Jacobin

What Trump’s Speech Says About His Mental Fitness

"As part of the discussion about Donald Trump's lack of fitness for the presidency, some have argued that his linguistic capacities have worsened, suggesting significant cognitive decline. In interviews in the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Trump speaks in complete sentences, using mature vocabulary and expressions. There aren’t the endless digressions that make his current mode of expression a kind of vocal fantasia. America has certainly never experienced a commander in chief who expressed himself in this fashion. In public, at least. However, the distinction between public and private speech is key here, so I am unconvinced that his current speech patterns can be analyzed as evidence of dementia. Instead, they’re characteristics of casual speech as it has always existed. It is easy to forget how much casual speech in general differs from writing. We tend to imagine our speech is tidier than it often is. The complete sentences and logical throughlines of writing are a stylization of speech, rather than a mirror image. Take this famous Trump utterance from July 2016. ..."
NY Times (Video)
GQ: It’s Officially Fair to Question Donald Trump’s Mental Fitness - Jan. 8, 2018 (Video)

His Master's Voice - Stanisław Lem (1968)

Wikipedia - "His Master's Voice (original Polish title: Głos Pana) is a science fiction novel on the "message from space" theme written by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. It was first published in 1968 and translated into English by Michael Kandel in 1983. It is a densely philosophical first contact story about an effort by scientists to decode, translate and understand an extraterrestrial transmission. The novel critically approaches humanity's intelligence and intentions in deciphering and truly comprehending a message from outer space. ... Throughout the book Hogarth—or rather, Lem himself—exposes the reader to many debates merging cosmology and philosophy: from discussions of epistemology, systems theory, information theory and probability, through the idea of evolutionary biology and the possible form and motives of extraterrestrial intelligence, with digressions about ethics in military-sponsored research, to the limitations of human science constrained by the human nature subconsciously projecting itself into the analysis of any unknown subject. ..."
Wikipedia
conceptual fiction
amazon

2011 June: Stanisław Lem, 2017 March: Pilot Pirx (1979-1982), 2017 April: The Star Diaries (1971)

Augustus Pablo Presents Rockers International (2015)

"Originally issued as two separate album releases this 2CD remastered edition collects up 28 Augustus Pablo classic from the golden age of Rockers. Melodica masterpieces, deep dubs and classic vocal sides from the likes of Jacob Miller, Junior Delgado, Earl Sixteen etc. all built on Augustus Pablo signature rock solid drum and bass foundations. The sound is very good--clean, warm, organic, and fairly crisp. The 10 page booklet has an essay on Pablo and the music, plus a list of musicians, a few period photos, and a list of tunes on each original album. These are the original albums with no extra tracks added. But none are really needed--Pablo's production along with King Tubby's mixing efforts make these tracks some of Pablo's best work. There's a lot to like here utilizing Pablo's production skills, and mixing by Tubby, Prince Phillip Smart, Prince Jammy, and a couple of others. Mixing was done at King Tubby's, Channel One, and Harry J's studios. ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
amazon
YouTube: Augustus Pablo Presents Rockers International - 28 videos

why tapes matter

"I’m pretty obsessed with contemporary cassette culture. Over the last few years, countless young and ambitious efforts have adopted the format – sculpting one of the most vibrant contexts of new music I’ve encountered, yet it seems – caught by the object itself (or simply not having a tape deck), people often miss what makes it so special. It feels reductive to mention the all mighty dollar – but it counts, and is generally downplayed in narrative of seminal music. Art is supposed to come first – and it does, but particularly for those of us who have shuffled through a frustrating flux in formats during the last three decades, it has played a significant role. Though everyone has their preferences and reasons, a largely unspoken factor which contributed to the vinyl revival we are currently witnessing, is that for many years (the 90’s and the first half of the 2000’s) LPs were the cheapest way to buy music. ..."
the hum

Death and Feminism in a Nutshell

"Homicide. Suicide by hanging. A great deal of drinking, mainly of whiskey, mainly by men. Blood pooled on the floor. Chairs overturned. Many weapons: guns and knives and ropes. Burned Cabin, where a burned skeleton is barely visible, Dark Bathroom, which contains a dead woman in a bathtub beside an empty liquor bottle, and Unpapered Bedroom, in a boarding house where an unknown woman has been found dead. In Frances Glessner Lee’s dioramas, the world is harsh and dark and dangerous to women. 'The Nutshell Series of Unexplained Death,' her series of nineteen models from the fifties, are all crime scenes. Glessner Lee built the dioramas, she said, 'to convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell.' ..."
The Paris Review
Murder Is Her Hobby: Frances Glessner Lee and The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death (Video)
NY Times: Heiress Plotted 19 Grisly Crimes. Investigation Underway.
W - Frances Glessner Lee
NPR: The Tiny, Murderous World Of Frances Glessner Lee (Audio)

Red Winter - Anneli Furmark (2018)

"Timed perfectly to our snow day here in Montreal, Anneli Furmark's Red Winter hits stores today, and I can't think of a better book to curl up on the couch with. Set in northern Sweden in the late seventies, where the political climate is tense, and the harshness is exasperated by the relentless chill, Red Winter is a visual masterpiece, with a cold blue and orange watercolour palette that enhances Anneli's already incredibly expressive cartooning style. Though the story revolves around Siv, a married mother of three, and her young lover, Ulrik, a communist recently arrived from southern Sweden, with a mission to infiltrate the local steelworkers union, at its core, it's the story of a mother reclaiming her sense of self. ..."
Drawn and Quarterly
Anneli Furmark
amazon

Carlos Henriquez - The Bronx Pyramid (2015)

"There is topographical significance in the musical architecture of Carlos Henriquez’s record, The Bronx Pyramid and it is a bold thesis, one that has gained considerable momentum in recent years. It attempts to create a quadrangular base that stretches from Havana, New Orleans, The Bronx and San Juan with Mother Africa as its apex. While the idea of such a cultural nexus may not be new, Mr. Henriquez has, like a musical architect of considerable talent, created something truly noteworthy. It is music, that is, rooted in a dramatically enriched cultural sod and the bassist’s roots run very deep. Tito Puente (though not the first protagonist) had a great deal ‘to say’ about this in his music when he was alive. And like this illustrious ancestor, Carlos Henriquez has added not just to the conversation, but to the musical language as well. ..."
Latin Jazz Network
NPR - Carlos Henriquez: The Bronx Pyramid (Audio)
amazon, iTunes
Soundcloud: The Bronx Pyramid - Carlos Henriquez (feat. Pedrito Martinez), Descarga Entre Amigos - Carlos Henriquez (feat. Rubén Blades)
YouTube: The Bronx Pyramd Live at Dizzy's 2016 - PART1, PART2
YouTube: The Bronx Pyramid (full album) 10 videos

Flash Mob: Revolution, Lightning, and the People’s Will

Detail from La Liberté Triomphante (1792), showing Liberty brandishing a thunderbolt in one hand and a Phrygian cap on a stick in the other
"It is often observed that the French Revolution was a revolution of scientists. Nourished by airy abstractions and heartfelt cries to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, its leaders sought a society grounded, not in God or tradition, but in what Edmund Burke decried as 'the conquering empire of light and reason'. To be sure, if we tallied the professional affiliations of the members of the first National Assembly, we would find it overwhelmingly populated by lawyers. But the revolution’s symbols and motifs were not derived from legal practices and traditions, and it was not as men of law that Maximilien Robespierre and Jean-Paul Marat called for the death of their king and the creation of a democratic republic. Rather, they did so as scientists—middle class intellectuals who saw in government a field ripe for experimentation, innovation, and improvement. ..."
Public Domain Review

2014 February: French Revolution Digital Archive, 2015 July: A Guide to the French Revolution, 2016 April: Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France, 2017 March: Paris Commune 1871, 2017 June: BBC: Paris - City of Dreams

Harold Budd: Ambient drifting in London

"... An invitation to support the legendary American minimalist pianist Harold Budd in a forthcoming London show was a real joy this week. Described as an ‘ambient music master’ by the Guardian newspaper, I remember hearing his work for the first time as a teenager. The Pavilion of Dreams was released back in 1978 on Brian Eno’s exploratory record label, Obscure, bringing forth this warm, organic world, bridging the avant-garde and dream worlds. Looking over the credits now many years later I realise that it features the playing of several musical friends, Richard Bernas, Michael Nyman and Gavin Bryars. Nor would I ever have imagined my world connecting to these folks all those years ago, whilst I sat quietly in my bedroom listening to this exquisite music. ..."
Scanner (Video)
W - Harold Budd
The Sound-Painted World of Harold Budd
YouTube: The Pavilion Of Dreams (1978) FULL ALBUM

L'Eclisse - Michelangelo Antonioni (1962)

Wikipedia - "L'Eclisse (English: "Eclipse") is a 1962 Italian drama film written and directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Alain Delon and Monica Vitti. Filmed on location in Rome and Verona, L'Eclisse is about a young woman who breaks up with an older lover and then has an affair with a confident young stockbroker whose materialistic nature eventually undermines their relationship. The film is considered the last part of a trilogy, and is preceded by L'Avventura (1960) and La Notte (1961). ... While Antonioni's earlier film L'Avventura had been derided upon its 1960 premiere, it was quickly reevaluated to the extent that L'Eclisse became 'the most eagerly awaited film of the 1962 Cannes Film Festival'; critics had begun to believe that Antonioni's approach 'was perhaps one way forward for an artform that was in danger of endlessly repeating itself.' ..."
Wikipedia
Guardian: L'Eclisse review – Antonioni's strange and brilliant film rereleased
The Film Sufi
New Yorker: Movie of the Week: “The Eclipse” By Richard Brody (Video)
The Emotional Historiography of Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse

2011 September: Red Desert (1964), 2014 December: The Passenger (1975), 2017 April: Blow-Up (1966), 2017 October: L'Avventura (1960), 2017 December: La Notte (1961)

The Subway Is Next Door. Should New Yorkers Pay Extra for That?

"Ever since August Belmont Jr. arranged the financing for a four-track 'underground railroad' more than a century ago, the subway has fueled New York City’s economy, delivering workers from homes in distant neighborhoods to jobs in Manhattan and enriching landlords and real estate developers near stations. Today, with the subway in precipitous decline and the city enjoying an economic boom, some policymakers think the time has come for the subway to profit from the financial benefits it provides, including its considerable contribution to property values. Proponents point to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where co-op and condominium prices in a 10-block stretch near the Second Avenue subway have risen 6 percent since it opened in January 2017, according to figures from the Corcoran Group, a large real estate firm. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Your Train Is Delayed. Why? (Video)

Brazil Classics 1 - Beleza Tropical (1988)

"Brazilian popular music plays a larger role in the cultural life of Brazil than popular music seems to elsewhere. It wasn’t until the second half of the of twentieth century that a majority of the population was literate. And a large majority of Brazilians still live below the poverty line. Perhaps these facts contribute to the importance of oral tradition in Brazil. Brazilian Portuguese is constantly evolving, and its speakers maintain a very playful relationship with it. Despite the poverty and isolation of much of Brazil, the literate portion of the population is exceptionally informed. They have an acute awareness of cultural developments in the rest of the world. ... - David Byrne, June 1988"
Luaka Bop
amazon, iTunes
Discogs
YouTube: Brazil Classics 1: Beleza Tropical (Video)

2017 January: The Rise and Rise of Forró – The Couples’ Dance from Northeast Brazil

28 Days, 28 Films for Black History Month

Francine Everett as Gertie La Rue, a nightclub performer who flees Harlem for a Caribbean island.
"It has been almost a year since Barry Jenkins’s 'Moonlight' won the Oscar for best picture. This awards season, Jordan Peele’s 'Get Out' and Dee Rees’s 'Mudbound' have received multiple nominations and accolades, optimistic signs that black filmmakers are receiving more opportunities in the movie industry. ... The critical and box-office success of 'Get Out' and the very existence of big-studio productions like 'Black Panther' are good reasons to revisit the remarkable, complex story of black filmmaking in America. For Black History Month, we have selected 28 essential films from the 20th century pertaining to African-American experiences. These aren’t the 28 essential black-themed films, but a calendar of suggested viewing. We imposed a chronological cutoff in an effort to look back at where we were and how we got to here. ..."
NY Times (Video)

Lou Reed - Street Hassle (1978)

Wikipedia - "Street Hassle is the eighth solo studio album by American musician Lou Reed, released in February 1978 by Arista Records. Richard Robinson and Reed produced the album. It is the first commercially released pop album to employ binaural recording technology. Street Hassle combines live concert tapes (with overdubs) and studio recordings. All of the songs on Street Hassle were written by Reed, including 'Real Good Time Together', a track that dates back to his days as a member of the Velvet Underground. The album was met with mostly positive reviews, with AllMusic's Mark Deming writing, 'Raw, wounded, and unapologetically difficult, Street Hassle isn't the masterpiece Reed was shooting for, but it's still among the most powerful and compelling albums he released during the 1970s, and too personal and affecting to ignore.' ..."
Wikipedia
Babe, I’m On Fire: the Making of Lou Reed Street Hassle
Genius (Audio)
Lou Reed found his voice again on “Street Hassle”
Discogs
Scratch The Surface :: Lou Reed, Street Hassle (MP3)
YouTube: Street Hassle live Firenze 1980, Street Hassle (music video)
YouTube: Street Hassle (Full Album)

2010 August: Heroin, 2011 June: All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground, 2011 June: The Velvet Underground, 2012 November: Songs for Drella - Lou Reed and John Cale, 2013 October: Lou Reed (1942 - 2013), 2014 June: The Bells (1979), 2014 August: New York (1989), 2015 June: Capitol Theatre Passaic, NJ 9/25/1984, 2015 October: The Blue Mask (1982), 2016 March: New Sensations (1984), 2016 May: Coney Island Baby (1976), 2017 March: Celebrating Lou Reed: 1942–2013, 2017 November: Watch Footage of the Velvet Underground Composing...

How Muslim Women Use Fashion To Exert Political Influence

Muslim women wearing modest fashion in (from left to right) Turkey, Iran, and Indonesia
"I have been researching Muslim women’s fashion since 2004. My comparative investigation has taken me to three locations: Tehran, Iran; Yogyakarta, Indonesia; and Istanbul, Turkey. While there have been studies of Muslim women’s clothing in many individual countries, there are few cross-cultural and transnational comparisons. As I undertook such a comparison over the next dozen years, I found surprise, pleasure, and delight in pious fashion. My conversations about modest clothing with women around the world also challenged those neat intellectual boxes to which I had grown overly accustomed in the United States. Each of the three Muslim-majority, non-Arab countries where I conducted my ethnographic research has its own history of regulating women’s clothing through official dress codes. These regulations reflect the idea that women’s modest clothing is a sign of something else—whether a 'bad' sign that Muslim women need saving or a 'good' sign of the honor and moral health of an entire nation. For much of the last 100 years, battles over these signs have been instigated by male elites to further political agendas that have had little to do with improving the lives of actual women. ..."
The Atlantic
W - Women in Iran
W - Women in Indonesia
W - Women in Turkey

Indonesia

The Democrats’ Massive, Foolish Omission

Joe Kennedy III
"Immediately following President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Senator Bernie Sanders was staring into a video camera, wearing his usual exasperated frown. Sanders had a right to be frustrated with the president. Record-breaking hurricanes, extreme flooding, and raging wildfires wreaked emotional, economic, and environmental havoc on America last year. Each of these horrors were fueled by climate change—a problem caused by humans, but which is also fixable by humans, if there’s the political will. ... The official response to Trump from the Democratic Party, by Congressman Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts, didn’t mention climate change once. Neither did Virginia state lawmaker Elizabeth Guzman, who gave the Spanish-language response. ..."
New Republic
NY Times: Joseph P. Kennedy III Gives Democratic Response to State of the Union (Video)
Democrats Ignore Climate Change In State Of The Union Rebuttal (Video)
Who Is Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy III? (Video)
W - Joe Kennedy III

Burlington officials grapple with controversial mural

The mural, along an alley off Burlington’s Church Street Marketplace, was painted in 2012 to mark the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s arrival in the Champlain Valley in 1609.
"City officials have begun the process for deciding what to do with a controversial downtown mural that has been called inaccurate, non-representative and racist. When Burlington activist Albert Petrarca spray painted the words 'Off the Wall' on the prominent Church Street mural meant to depict the history of Burlington last October, he likely sparked the events that led to Monday’s city council decision to have the city attorney report on the legal ramifications of its removal. Petrarca was making a political statement at the time, and through his act of vandalism was attempting to show the lack of racial and historical representation in the mural. ..."
VT Digger
W - Samuel de Champlain

Ingram Marshall's Fog Tropes Reissued

"Arc Light Editions, the reissue label curated by The Wire's Jennifer Lucy Allan, have announced the details of their second release, following last year's first ever vinyl pressing of Arthur Russell's Another Thought album. Released on 12th April, it will be a vinyl reissue of American composer Ingram Marshall's 1984 release Fog Tropes/Gradual Requiem, originally released through Foster Reed's New Albion label and not repressed on vinyl since. The two pieces it gathers, 1981's Fog Tropes and 1980's Gradual Requiem, are among Marshall's best-known, drawing together environmental field recordings, brass instruments and voice into extended, exquisitely slow-to-unfold musical movements. You can listen to clips from its six tracks via the embed below. ..."
The Quietus (Audio)
Discogs
W - Ingram Marshall
amazon
YouTube: Fog Tropes, Gradual Requiem
YouTube: Fog Tropes (Live)

Americans - Smithsonian

Likenesses of American Indians have been used to sell everything from cigars to station wagons.
"Festooned with a colorful collection of movie posters, magazine spreads, supermarket products, college merchandise and more, the towering walls of the 3,000-square-foot gallery space at the heart of the National Museum of the American Indian’s new 'Americans' exhibition are initially downright overwhelming. Here, a sporty yellow Indian-make motorbike; there, a bullet box from the Savage Arms gun company. Here, an ad for Columbia Pictures’ The Great Sioux Massacre; there, scale models of the U.S. military’s Chinook, Kiowa and Apache Longbow helicopters. It’s a dizzying blizzard of pop cultural artifacts with nothing at all in common—save for their reliance on Native American imagery. ..."
Smithsonian: Probing the Paradoxes of Native Americans in Pop Culture (Video)
Americans - Smithsonian (Video)

Hollywood milked the cowboys-and-Indians genre for all it was worth.

Slapp Happy - Ça Va (1998)

"Released in 1998, Slapp Happy's Ça Va was the first album issued by the trio of Dagmar Krause, Peter Blegvad, and Anthony Moore since the mid-'70s collaboration with Henry Cow, Desperate Straights. The arty instrumentation and arrangements of the early days -- which ranged from a rather twisted version of British folk-pop to avant cabaret to (in collaboration with Henry Cow) confrontational art rock and even pure sonic experimentation -- are gone, replaced by a more commercial blend of pop music sounds, including looped samples. Nearly everything is played by Blegvad and Moore, whose vocals sound as engaging as they ever have, with Blegvad the literate and somewhat eccentric transatlantic singer/songwriter and Moore mining moodier John Cale-styled pop/rock territory. ..."
allmusic (Audio)
W - Ça Va
Discogs
YouTube: Scarred for Life, Working At The Ministry (Montage), Coralie, Silent The Voice, Powerful Stuff

2013 January: Desperate Straights - Slapp Happy / Henry Cow, 2015 May: Acnalbasac Noom - Slapp Happy and Faust (1973)

Hipster Culture and Instagram Are Responsible for a Good Thing

Jason Coatney works on the Spotify mural.
"Some punk kids have no dreams at all. Paul Lindahl was a skater and a drummer in a band when he found himself dreaming of painting advertisements. 'There was a paint production company in Portland, Oregon,' he said. 'I was like, oh my God, that’s amazing. Big-format murals, I want to do that.' Before the advent of low-cost vinyl plotters, large-format hand-painted murals were the norm for advertisements in cities across America. Mural painting was a trade passed on through a system of informal apprenticeship, much like plumbing or tattooing. By the mid-1990s, when Mr. Lindahl started dreaming, opportunities for new painters were few and far between. Hand-painted ads had become a niche product, an expensive last resort in landmark districts with strict signage laws. ..."
NY Times

Hunting for the Lost River of Paris

"La Seine, immortalized by artists and adored by lovers dangling their feet over the quay, harbours a dark secret. Under the fifth and thirteenth arrondissements grumbles la Bièvre, the Seine’s younger sibling who was banished to the netherworld exactly one hundred and one years ago. Starting thirty-three kilometers away in the Yvelines and feeding into the Seine at Gare d’Austerlitz, the Bièvre was once a vibrant river that attracted people way back in the Neolithic period. It was eventually named after the beavers that lived on its banks (derived from the Gaul bèbros). In the beginning, the Bièvre followed the course that the Seine follows now. ..."
Messy Nessy Chic

2007 July: Paris Walking Tours, 2011 February: La Seine, 2016 June: Crowds Are Out, Crates Are In as Louvre Takes Flood Precautions, 2017 November: Paris Wants to Build a Few Garden Bridges