How a Group of Journalists Turned Hip-Hop Into a Literary Movement

"Sitting in a homely bistro on Malcolm X Boulevard, music journalist Greg Tate is bundled up in a peaked beanie, bright yellow scarf, and plenty of padded layers. His threads offer protection from the chill setting down on the Harlem streets outside, streets that have offered a home to a galaxy of Black American icons—from Duke Ellington to Cam’ron—across the last century. When a little-known mixtape track by local rapper Vado starts to pour out of the speakers, Tate breaks from his salmon salad to shake from side to side. At 60, one of the most influential hip-hop writers to ever strut these curbs still keeps his ears wide open. It was 1981 when Tate jumped on an Amtrak from Washington D.C. to New York City to cover Harlem rap group the Fearless Four’s show at the Roxy, his first assignment for The Village Voice. The following year, he moved to the city, accelerating a blistering career with the Voice that’s included dozens of lengthy columns on culture, politics and, of course, the snowballing hip-hop scene. ..."
Pitchfork

A Slightly Embarrassing Love for Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” was (supposedly) written on one continuous, hundred-and-twenty-foot scroll of typing paper—a savage and unmediated burst.
"Every year on or around March 12th, acolytes of the Beat writer Jack Kerouac cluster at the Flamingo Sports Bar in St. Petersburg, Florida, to celebrate his birthday. Kerouac would have turned ninety-six this week had he not died just three blocks south, at St. Anthony’s Hospital, on October 21, 1969. The official cause was an abdominal hemorrhage, made fatal by several decades of ferocious drinking. He was forty-seven. Two local acolytes, Pat Barmore and Pete Gallagher, have been organizing Jack Kerouac Night at the Flamingo for five years. Folk and jazz musicians play short sets, while poets read from battered notebooks. (Sometimes, in true Beat style, both things happen at once.) Patrons are encouraged to toss back 'a shot and a wash,' Kerouac’s preferred tipple. (When I texted a friend in New York a picture of a menu board displaying the price of the Kerouac Special—two dollars and fifty cents for a whiskey and a plastic cup of beer—he texted back, 'That should be illegal!') The Flamingo, which opened in 1924, is more of a pool hall than a literary salon. A sign warns against gambling, profanity, lifting tables, throwing pool balls, and snapping sticks. ..."
New Yorker

2009 November: Another Side of Kerouac: The Dharma Bum as Sports Nut, 2010 July: Kerouac's Copies of Floating Bear, 2011 March: Jack Kerouac on The Steve Allen Show, 2013 September: On the Road - Jack Kerouac, 2014 May: “Walker Evans and Robert Frank – An Essay on Influence by Tod Papageorge” (1981), 2015 March: Pull My Daisy (1959), 2015 December: Hear All Three of Jack Kerouac’s Spoken, 2016 July: Mexico City Blues (1959), 2017 February: The Jack Kerouac Collection (1990), 2017 May: The Subterraneans (1958), 2017 June: The Town and the City (1950), 2018 January: Big Sur (1962)

‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

"In the summer of 2014, New York City Transit intern Philip Betheil was finishing up his master’s in urban planning at Columbia University when his boss, David Greenberger, gave him a project. The two worked for NYCT’s operations planning division, and Greenberger tasked Betheil with looking into an arcane bit of subway minutiae called signal modifications and what effect they had on train service. They worked on the report on and off over that summer, tossing more than a dozen drafts back and forth. ... But now, more than three years later, the report, which was obtained by the Village Voice along with other internal documents, provides a radically different explanation for the subway’s declining performance than the one that MTA leadership has given the public. The root cause of the subway system’s decay, it turns out, isn’t budget cuts or overcrowding — rather, the collapse of the subway system appears to have been primarily self-inflicted by the authority itself, in response to a single accident two decades ago that set the transit system on a path to disaster. ..."
Voice

Pennsylvania Special Election Results: Lamb Wins 18th Congressional District

"Conor Lamb, a Democrat, pulled off a narrow but major upset by winning a special House election in the heart of Pennsylvania Trump country. Mr. Lamb won in the state’s 18th Congressional District, a reliably Republican seat in recent elections and an area that Donald J. Trump won by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016. The victory is an ominous sign for Republicans ahead of this year’s midterm elections. ... Now Mr. Lamb will have to decide soon which district to run in this year. The State Supreme Court threw out Pennsylvania’s current congressional map and recently issued a new map with redrawn boundaries. Tim Murphy, a Republican, resigned from the seat last year after reports that he encouraged a woman, with whom he had an affair, to have an abortion."

NY Times
NY Times: Conor Lamb Wins Pennsylvania House Seat, Giving Democrats a Map for Trump Country (Video)
NPR: Democrat Conor Lamb Appears To Have Won Pa. Special Election. Here's What It Means (Audio)

Like an Old Fashioned Waltz - Sandy Denny (1974)

"Like an Old Fashioned Waltz is the third solo album by Sandy released in June 1974. The album marked her first release that contained none of the folk influences seen on her recordings thus far and for this reason it divided her fans into those that preferred the traditional elements of her earlier work and those that followed her development as a singer songwriter. Work began on the album whilst Sandy was still promoting her previous LP Sandy. The first track recorded was ‘No End’ at Walthamstow Assembly Hall on 3rd December 1972 in a solo version accompanying herself on the piano (this version was subsequently discarded in favour of a new recording with a band and strings). Sandy embarked on a month long tour of the US in April 1973 stopping off at the famous studios at A&M Records to record four songs; ‘Friends’, ‘Solo’, ‘At the End of the Day’ and the new version of ‘No End’ prior to a week long residency at the Troubadour, Los Angeles. ..."
Sandy Denny Official
W - Like an Old Fashioned Waltz
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Like an Old Fashioned Waltz - Full Album 9 videos

2009 March: Sandy Denny, 2013 January: "A Sailor’s Life" - Fairport Convention, 2013 May: The North Star Grassman and the Ravens

The 2018 March Madness Cinderella Guide

"Chalk is for teachers and boring brackets. Sure, picking all teams with tiny numbers next to their names may give you the best chance of winning your office bracket pool. But it’s not called March Calmness. As famed American philosopher Jon Rothstein once said—actually, he’s said it several hundred times—college basketball is where the unexpected becomes the ordinary. You’re going to want to pick an underdog to root for once games tip off. But you likely haven’t spent much time watching the America East, Big West, Southland, or Big Sky conferences. Use this as your resource; I’ve studied up on the 23 one-bid leagues in search of the best teams, players, and, of course, mascots to be aware of as you fill out your bracket. ..."

The Ringer (Video)
How To Build A Bracket For This Wide-Open NCAA Tournament
Penn Is History’s Best No. 16 Seed. Can It Pull Off The NCAA Tournament’s Greatest Upset? (Video)
The black coaches in the NCAA tournament (Video)

2011 June: American Basketball Association, 2012 July: Doin’ It In The Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC, 2012 November: Your Guide to the Brooklyn Nets, 2013 March: March Madness 2013, 2013 October: Rucker Park, 2014 January: History of the high five, 2015 February: Dean Smith (February 28, 1931 – February 7, 2015), 2015 June: Basketball’s Obtuse Triangle, 2015 September: Joint Ventures: How sneakers became high fashion and big business, 2015 October: Loose Balls - Terry Pluto (2007), 2015 November: The Sounds of Memphis, 2015 December: Welcome to Smarter Basketball, 2015 December: New York, New York: Julius Erving, the Nets-Knicks Feud, and America’s Bicentennial, 2016 January: The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams (1994), 2016 January: A Long Hardwood Journey, 2016 March: American Hustle - Alexandra Starr, 2016 November: 2016–17 College Basketball, 2017 November: 2017-18 College Basketball, 2017 March: N.C.A.A. Bracket Predictions: Who the Tournament Experts Pick, 2017 June: The Rise and Fall of the High-Top Sneaker, 2018 January: Chaos Is This College Basketball Season’s Only Constant, 2018 February: Heaven is a Playground, 2018 March: The End of March Madness?

Fruitvale Station - Ryan Coogler (2013)

Wikipedia - "Fruitvale Station is a 2013 American biographical drama film written and directed by Ryan Coogler. It is Coogler's first feature-length film and is based on the events leading to the death of Oscar Grant, a young man who was killed in 2009 by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale district station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in Oakland. The film stars Michael B. Jordan as Oscar Grant with Kevin Durand and Chad Michael Murray playing the two BART police officers involved in Grant's death, although their names were changed for the film. Melonie Diaz, Ahna O'Reilly and Octavia Spencer also star. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: A New Year, and a Last Day Alive (Video)
Slate: How Accurate Is Fruitvale Station? (Video)
YouTube: Fruitvale Station - Official Trailer

Havana’s Symphony of Sound

A courtyard in front of Iglesia del Santo Angel Custodio in Old Havana.
"... Yet this odd feeling of defeating space and time came as much from our destination as anything. Cuba, that elusive island unfurling across the Caribbean like a tangled flag, sits barely 100 miles south of Key West. 100 miles! And yet, in some respects, it might as well be 10,000 miles. The country’s complex identity is inherently bound up in the duality of this proximity, in its ability to feel both so close and yet so far away at the same time. Our visit came at a strange time for Cuban-American relations, as the country languishes in a period of post-Fidel, post-Obama uncertainty. Many Cubans we talked to cited President Obama’s 2015 visit as a watershed moment, a critical first step in normalizing relations between the two countries. ..."
NY Times (Video)

The Greatest Week in the History of Avant-Garde Jazz

"... In the early summer of 1969, the group recorded a pair of albums, A Jackson in Your House in late June and People in Sorrow in early July, earning enough money to get a place of their own 18 kilometers north of Paris. That’s where they were living when another horde of expatriates arrived in August. But first, that group was in Algiers. 2,600 kilometers to the south, musicians were taking part in the week-long Pan African Cultural Festival. The event saw poets, photographers and musicians from 31 countries commingling with activists like Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers and Stokely Carmichael of the Black Power movement. ... A star of the festival was saxophonist Archie Shepp, a man with a blistering tone on his tenor and the temperament to match. As the Vietnam War raged, Shepp once remarked that he regarded his horn as akin to a machine gun in the hands of the Viet Cong. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)

Notes on Italy’s Election

Five Star Movement candidate premier Luigi Di Maio attends a press conference at the party headquarter on March 5, 2018 in Rome, Italy.
"The Italian election results, which produced a hung parliament, are surprising but not exactly shocking. While the campaign was mostly lifeless, the Five Star Movement (M5S) achieved far greater support than expected. It won around 31 percent of votes, rather than the mid to high twenties suggested by pollsters. As widely forecast, he right-wing coalition proved the largest single bloc, with the extra poison that the hard-right Lega (18 percent) for the first time surpassed Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (14 percent). Their electoral pact (including two smaller parties) failed to secure a majority of seats and now risks a split. This historic shift of power within the Right — the now-nationwide Lega secured four times more votes than in 2013, while Berlusconi’s party is weaker than ever — marks a further collapse of what is loosely called the 'center.' ..."
Jacobin
W - Italian general election, 2018
NY Times: Italy Has Dumped America. For Russia.

2018 January: The Fate of the Party, 2018 March: In Italy Election, Anti-E.U. Views Pay Off for Far Right and Populists

Fireside chats

Wikipedia - "The fireside chats were a series of 30 evening radio addresses given by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (known colloquially as 'FDR') between 1933 and 1944. Roosevelt spoke with familiarity to millions of Americans about the promulgation of the Emergency Banking Act in response to the banking crisis, the recession, New Deal initiatives, and the course of World War II. On radio, he was able to quell rumors and explain his policies. His tone and demeanor communicated self-assurance during times of despair and uncertainty. Roosevelt was a great communicator on radio, and the fireside chats kept him in high public regard throughout his presidency. Their introduction was later described as a 'revolutionary experiment with a nascent media platform'. The series of fireside chats was among the first 50 recordings made part of the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, which noted it as 'an influential series of radio broadcasts in which Roosevelt utilized the media to present his programs and ideas directly to the public and thereby redefined the relationship between President Roosevelt and the American people in 1933.' ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: First Fireside Chat from FDR (March 12, 1933), FDR Fireside Chat- The Dust Bowl, FDR - Fireside Chat - Germany's Invansion of Poland 09-03-1939

Like A Cosmic Newspaper: Val Wilmer On Sun Ra

"Back in the mid-sixties, African and Eastern-style clothing was still relatively rare in New York, even in the East Village as it was then known. A light-skinned Black man, carrying a shopping bag and wearing a glittering tunic under his jacket, was bound to attract some attention on Second Avenue before noon, especially with his greased-down hair tied around with a star-spangled bandanna. He led the way up some stairs and into a room ablaze with light. The light came from inside a huge rubber ball suspended from the ceiling, and the room was filled with musicians and instruments of every description. Marshall Allen had been out to buy food for the occupants of 48 East Third Street, who included in their number the legendary pianist, poet and philosopher known as Sun Ra and several members of his Solar Arkestra. Another day at the Sun Studio was just beginning. ..."
The Quietus

Performance as a Life Science

"'As artists, we’re all contending with what to do at a time like this. I wanted to make a piece that can be seen as an alternative possibility of human behavior, where the values are cooperation, interdependence, and kindness, as an antidote to the values that are being propagated right now.' After a half-century as an influential figure in the creation of contemporary performance culture, Meredith Monk goes right to the heart of the challenge. Her spare new work, Cellular Songs, is conceived for five women performers—Monk and her vocal ensemble consisting of Katie Geissinger, Allison Sniffin, Ellen Fisher, and Jo Stewart. Dressed in layers of white and beige-toned clothes, the women sing, dance, play the piano together, and lie on the floor, all the while modeling behavior of care, comfort, companionship, and collaboration. ..."
BAM 150 Years

2008 March: Meredith Monk, 2009 September: Songs of Ascension - Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton, 2011 February: Meredith Monk: A Voice For All Time, 2011 August: Ellis Island, 2012 December: Turtle Dreams, 2013 February: Quarry: The Rally (Live, 1977), 2014 November; 10 Things You Might Not Know About Meredith Monk, 2015 April: Volcano Songs (1994), 2015 June: Ellis Island, 2016 April: 16 Millimeter Earrings and the Artist’s Body (1966/1998), 2016 December: Beginnings (2009), 2017 February: Book of Days (1988), 2017 May: Piano Songs (2014), 2017 December: Monk Mix: Remixes & Interpretations of Music By Meredith Monk (2012)

Carnival of the Grotesque: Kara Walker’s Insistent Resistance in New Orleans

"The enemy was in sight. It was chugging back up the broad Mississippi, its majestic paddle wheel churning the waters, returning the day-trippers to the dock at the edge of the French Quarter. On the opposite bank, facing downtown New Orleans where the river’s curve forms the promontory called Algiers Point, Kara Walker was waiting. Her antagonist was the steamboat Natchez, a tourist fixture of the Crescent City that purveys nostalgia for a gracious antebellum South — the belles, gamblers, and cotton traders traveling between market towns, steaming past forests and plantations. A replica of its nineteenth-century ancestors, the Natchez does harbor cruises, weddings, and special events. In 1988, when New Orleans hosted the Republican National Convention, nominee George H.W. Bush and family made their triumphant arrival aboard the vessel. Now, under threatening skies on a mild Friday in late February, Walker, the celebrated artist who has made the violence and grotesque of America’s racial history her central theme, was about to deliver some counterprogramming, months in the making. ..."
Voice
W - Kara Walker
Walker
SF MoMA: Kara Walker explains her interest in “demoted” art forms (Video)

2011 May: Kara Walker

The Mystery Of Cabin Island - The Hardy Boys

Wikipedia - "The Mystery Of Cabin Island is Volume 8 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap. This book was written for the Stratemeyer Syndicate by Leslie McFarlane in 1929. Between 1959 and 1973 the first 38 volumes of this series were systematically revised as part of a project directed by Harriet Adams, Edward Stratemeyer's daughter. ... A series of adventures begins for the Hardy Boys and their friends Chet and Biff after they are invited to spend Christmas vacation on Cabin Island at the invitation of its owner, Elroy Jefferson, as a reward for recovering Jefferson's car in The Shore Road Mystery. While they are collecting the keys to the cabin from Mr. Jefferson they meet Mr. Hanleigh who is interested in purchasing the island. As well, Mr. Jefferson asks the Hardy boys to locate his grandson Johnny who has gone missing. As the boys try to enjoy themselves, someone seems determined to spoil their fun. ..."
Wikipedia
[PDF] The Mystery Of Cabin Island

2010 October: The Hardy Boys

Recycled Funk Episode 13 (Blend Special)

"For as long as I’ve been a DJ, I’ve incorporated the blend, aka live remix into my sets as often as possible. It has become a lost & forgotten aspect of most DJ sets. The art of mixing, like really mixing and putting your personal touch on a set of music. What is a blend exactly. Well, if you’re an oldschool DJ like myself then the label “blend” is synonymous with a) extended/long mixes of 2 songs, or b) mixing an acapella of 1 song with a beat/instrumental of another. In this instance I am showcasing the acapella blend. For the record, I do not, never have used the sync feature to execute a blend mix, or any mix for that matter, and there is no overdubbing involved here, except for my vocals/ID tags. One continuous mix from start to finish. This mix showcases primarily Hip-Hop vocals, with a couple of R&B acapella’s included. I hope you enjoy this Recycled Funk vibe!"
Brooklyn Radio (Audio)

Rent party

Harlem Rent Party (1929) Mabel Dwight
Wikipedia - "A rent party (sometimes called a house party) is a social occasion where tenants hire a musician or band to play and pass the hat to raise money to pay their rent, originating in Harlem during the 1920s. The rent party played a major role in the development of jazz and blues music. The Oxford English Dictionary states that the term skiffle means 'rent party', indicating the informality of the occasion. Thus, the word became associated with informal music. However, many notable jazz musicians are associated with rent parties, including pianists Speckled Red, James P. Johnson, Willie 'the Lion' Smith, and Fats Waller, although rent parties also featured bands as well. The OED also gives boogie as a term for rent party. Rent parties were often the location of so-called cutting contests, which involves jazz pianists taking turns at the piano, attempting to out-do each other. ... Culturally rent parties are a places for the middle class African Americans to go on their nights off to get away from the everyday struggle. During this time the African Americans face high rent prices due to discrimination large numbers of people would be forced to live in small spaces for very high rent prices. ..."
Wikipedia
House Rent Parties : The Vintage Swing & Blues Era (Video)
Open Culture: Discover Langston Hughes’ Rent Party Ads & The Harlem Renaissance Tradition of Playing Gigs to Keep Roofs Over Heads
With Its 'No Dancing' Law Verging On Repeal, New York Legitimizes Its Nightlife

Dancing in a Harlem nightclub, sometime in the late 1930s. The Cabaret Law was originally intended as a tool for cracking down on jazz clubs in the Manhattan neighborhood.

Qat Coffee & Qambus: Raw 45s from Yemen

"Compiled by Chris Menist, Qat, Coffee & Qambus: Raw 45s from Yemen features vintage oud and vocal music inspired by the qat-chewing, coffee-sipping, qambus-playing culture of Yemen. Although part of the classical Arabic musical tradition, the music of Yemen takes its rhythmic lead as much from the East African coast (a mere 20 miles across the Red Sea) as the surrounding Arab Peninsula. Little has been written about the music and culture of one of the world’s oldest civilizations, and each 45rpm disc gives a small glimpse of the poetic tradition, the unique local oud styles as well as an insight into people’s day-to-day lives, or the highs and lows of human relationships. Overall, the compilation gives a flavor of the sights and sounds of Yemen, with detailed notes that tell the story of the hunt for music that has mostly lain forgotten in the antique markets of the capital, until now."
Dust Digital (Audio)
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Qat, Coffee & Qambus: Raw 45s From Yemen : Folk, World, Country Music Collection Arabic 39:47

A Map of Radical Bewilderment

"Although he is now remembered mostly as a romantic nature writer, in his own time and place Henry David Thoreau was a highly trained, well regarded, disciplined though eccentric land surveyor. In the summer of 1859, he stood under a willow beside the Concord River contemplating a gash he had cut low in the tree’s trunk, to gauge the water level. In 22 miles the Concord fell only 32 inches — it was very nearly a pond — and any additional water heaved the river up and over its banks, before gravity’s current slowly siphoned it out to sea. Yet flooding wasn’t necessarily a problem. Indeed, the annual springtime deluge was the town’s lifeblood, because the waters always rolled back, leaving behind a thick, black, nutrient-rich muck spread all across the bottomlands, whose field grasses grew fat and sleek on nature’s bounty, perfect fodder for the farming town’s livestock. But in 1798, in the predawn haze of the industrial era, the Middlesex Canal Corporation downstream at Billerica raised the height of an old mill dam that had been slung across the river, setting off a century-long fight for control of this resource. ..."
Places Journal

Thoreau’s drafting tools and surveying chain, exhibited at the Concord Museum.

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, 2017 July: Walden, a Game, 2017 October: Walden Wasn’t Thoreau’s Masterpiece, 2017 December: Walden on the Rocks - Ariel Dorfman

The Entire Archives of Radical Philosophy Go Online: Read Essays by Michel Foucault, Alain Badiou, Judith Butler & More (1972-2018)

"On a seemingly daily basis, we see attacks against the intellectual culture of the academic humanities, which, since the 1960s, have opened up spaces for leftists to develop critical theories of all kinds. Attacks from supposedly liberal professors and centrist op-ed columnists, from well-funded conservative think tanks and white supremacists on college campus tours. All rail against the evils of feminism, post-modernism, and something called 'neo-Marxism' with outsized agitation. ... Radical Philosophy has published essays and interviews with nearly all of the big names in academic philosophy on the left—from Marxists, to post-structuralists, to post-colonialists, to phenomenologists, to critical theorists, to Lacanians, to queer theorists, to radical theologians, to the pragmatist Richard Rorty, who made arguments for national pride and made several critiques of critical theory as an illiberal enterprise. The full range of radical critical theory over the past 45 years appears here, as well as contrarian responses from philosophers on the left. ..."
Open Culture
Radical Philosophy
Radical Philosophy - Issues
W - Radical Philosophy

International Women's Day

Karabo Poppy Moletsane's Ntsoaki’s Victory
Wikipedia - "International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 every year. It commemorates the movement for women's rights. March 8 was suggested by the 1910 International Socialist Woman's Conference to become an 'International Woman's Day.' After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there. The day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted in 1975 by the United Nations. The earliest Women's Day observance, called 'National Woman's Day,' was held on February 28, 1909 in New York, organized by the Socialist Party of America at the suggestion of Theresa Malkiel. Though there have been claims that the day was commemorating a protest by women garment workers in New York on March 8, 1857, researchers have described this as a myth. ... Delegates (100 women from 17 countries) agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights including suffrage for women. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: Women We Overlooked in 167 Years of New York Times Obituaries
Guardian: Feminists have slowly shifted power. There’s no going back
Jacobin: The Socialist Origins of International Women’s Day
Vogue: International Women’s Day 2018: The History of IWD’s Socialist Roots
Yale: Women Artists in Paris, 1850-1900

Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick (Swedish, 1855-1932) Beach Parasol, Brittany

Gumba Fire - Bubblegum Soul & Synth-Boogie in 1980s South Africa

"Soundway has announced a new compilation collecting bubblegum soul and synth boogie from 1980s South Africa. Get a taste of the compilation above via The Survivals' 'My Brother'. Entitled Gumba Fire, the compilation has been put together by Soundway's Miles Cleret and DJ Okapi of Afrosynth Records. None of the tracks on the compilation have been reissued or made available digitally before. 'The music captures a period on the record in which the disco-boom was slowing and mutating and morphing into something else, something entirely new,' a press release explains. 'The sound that was forged was often ubiquitously described as bubblegum - usually stripped down and lo-fi with a predominance of synths, keyboards and drum-machines and overlaid with the kind of deeply soulful trademark vocals and harmonies that South African music is famous for.' The album takes its name from the band Ashiko’s track of the same name that features on the compilation. The music featured on the record precedes the Kwaito and house sounds that took over South African dancefloors in the 1990s."
The Quietus (Audio)
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Gumba Fire - Bubblegum Soul & Synth-Boogie in 1980s South Africa 15 videos

The End of March Madness?

"This week we got a dope show. We talk to sportswriter and friend of the program Patrick Hruby in-depth about the political economy of revenue sports and it’s racialized superstructure, why athletes deserve a piece of the income pie, and the FBI investigation into professional agents and their relationship with schools and collegiate athletes. We also have some Choice Words about the courage and perseverance of gymnast Aly Raisman in seeking justice for assault victims, and a Just Stand Up and a Just Sit Down award for a WNBA coach and a national politician. All that and much more!"
The Nation (Audio)

2011 June: American Basketball Association, 2012 July: Doin’ It In The Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC, 2012 November: Your Guide to the Brooklyn Nets, 2013 March: March Madness 2013, 2013 October: Rucker Park, 2014 January: History of the high five, 2015 February: Dean Smith (February 28, 1931 – February 7, 2015), 2015 June: Basketball’s Obtuse Triangle, 2015 September: Joint Ventures: How sneakers became high fashion and big business, 2015 October: Loose Balls - Terry Pluto (2007), 2015 November: The Sounds of Memphis, 2015 December: Welcome to Smarter Basketball, 2015 December: New York, New York: Julius Erving, the Nets-Knicks Feud, and America’s Bicentennial, 2016 January: The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams (1994), 2016 January: A Long Hardwood Journey, 2016 March: American Hustle - Alexandra Starr, 2016 November: 2016–17 College Basketball, 2017 November: 2017-18 College Basketball, 2017 March: N.C.A.A. Bracket Predictions: Who the Tournament Experts Pick, 2017 June: The Rise and Fall of the High-Top Sneaker, 2018 January: Chaos Is This College Basketball Season’s Only Constant, 2018 February: Heaven is a Playground

The meaning behind two Gramercy lampposts

"Four Gramercy Park West, with its ornamented white doors and iron lace terrace, is about as breathtaking as a New York City townhouse can get (number four is at left). Built in 1846 soon after Gramercy Park was transformed from a swamp to an elite neighborhood, the Greek Revival home “features sun-filled rooms, high ceilings, and elaborate crown molding, and it comes with a coveted key to the park,” writes 6sqft. It also features two cast-iron lampposts flanking the front entrance on the sidewalk. Oddly, the mirror image townhouse next door, Three Gramercy Park West, has no lampposts. So what’s the significance? The lampposts are remnants of a mayoral tradition leftover from Dutch colonial days. ..."
Ephemeral New York

"Miss You" - Rolling Stones (1978)

Wikipedia - "'Miss You' is a song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It was released as a single by The Rolling Stones on Rolling Stones Records in May 1978, one month in advance of their album Some Girls, and peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number three on the UK Singles Chart. An extended version, called the 'Special Disco Version', was released as the band's first dance remix on a 12-inch single. 'Miss You' was written by Mick Jagger jamming with keyboardist Billy Preston during rehearsals for the March 1977 El Mocambo club gigs, recordings from which appeared on side three of double live album Love You Live (1977). ..."
W - "Miss You"
YouTube: Rolling Stones - Miss You (Long Outtake)

2015 August: Exile on Main Street (1972), 2015 October: "Let's Spend the Night Together" / "Ruby Tuesday" (1967), 2015 December: Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (1971), 2016 January: Some Girls (1978), 2016 January: The Rolling Stones (EP), 2016 March: Five by Five (EP - 1964), 2016 May: "The Rolling Stones: Charlie Is My Darling — Ireland 1965", 2016 December: Singles Collection: The London Years (1989), 2017 June: Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967), 2017 September: "Sister Morphine" - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Marianne Faithfull (1969)

Fear and Loathing in Cascadia

"In 1995, a Portlander named Alexander Baretich was in Eastern Europe studying nationalism when he conceived a flag for Cascadia, an area encompassing the Pacific Northwest and sometimes beyond, depending on who you ask. He designed it with three horizontal stripes of blue, white, and green for the colors of nature, expressing the conviction among Oregonians that Cascadia is perfect in its natural state. Then he overlaid these stripes with a Doug fir to symbolize resilience against 'catastrophic change,' reaffirming the region’s long-standing fear of contamination and dislike of interlopers. It’s no surprise that the Pacific Northwest produced a man like Baretich who’s proud of his birthplace and enraged over threats to the land. In September, while I was visiting my family in Oregon, a fifteen year old from Vancouver recklessly threw fireworks into the Eagle Creek Canyon along the Columbia River Gorge. Forty-eight thousand acres of Cascadia burned in a fire that now has its own Wikipedia page. ..."
The Baffler
W - Cascadia (bioregion)
W - Cascadia (independence movement)
Award-Winning Cascadia Map - David McCloskey

New York Counterpoint - Steve Reich (1985)

Wikipedia - "New York Counterpoint for amplified clarinet and tape, or 11 clarinets and bass clarinet is a 1985 minimalist composition written by American composer Steve Reich. The piece, intended to capture the throbbing vibrancy of Manhattan, is notable for its ability to imitate electronic sounds through acoustic instrumentation. The piece was commissioned in 1984 by clarinetist Richard Stoltzman for nine B-flat clarinets and three bass clarinets. This was the second in Reich's 'counterpoint' series, preceded by Vermont Counterpoint (1982) for flutes, and followed by Electric Counterpoint (1987), for electric guitars. Each of these works are scored for one live performer who plays against up to a dozen recordings of the same instrument. The canonic interplay in the composition creates multiple layers of sound, akin to Reich's earlier phase pieces. Out of the series, New York Counterpoint is considered the most rhythmically intricate and one of Reich's most well known works. The second movement of the piece was featured as a set work for Edexcel music A level between 2008 and 2016. New York Counterpoint is divided into three movements known only by their suggested tempi: fast, slow and fast. ..."
Wikipedia
Boosey & Hawkes
YouTube: New York Counterpoint

2008 February: Steve Reich, 2010 October: Double Sextet, 2010 December: South Bank Show, 2011 February: Different Trains, 2011 June: Music for pieces of wood, 2011 October: Maximum Reich 2.0, 2011 November: A New Musical Language (documentary, 1987), 2012 May: Influences: Steve Reich, 2017 March: Steve Reich’s Celebration of the Lineage of Minimalism

Josef Albers in Mexico

An untitled photograph, circa 1940, of the Grand Pyramid in Tenayuca, Mexico. Albers took thousands of photographs during his trips south of the border with his wife, the artist-weaver Anni Albers.
"During their first visit to Mexico, in the winter of 1935–36, Josef and Anni Albers knew that they were in a 'country for art like no other.' The couple returned to Mexico thirteen times by the late 1960s, developing a passion for pre-Columbian art and architecture that would influence Josef’s abstract painting and prints and fuel his innovative approach to photography. In 1933, after the Nazis closed the Bauhaus, the German art and design school where they both were instructors, the Alberses moved to North Carolina to teach at Black Mountain College. On their frequent trips to Mexico, they drove to archaeological sites throughout the country—from Monte Albán and Teotihuacán to Uxmal and Chichén Itzá—studying the monumental constructions and amassing a large collection of sculptures and ceramics. For Josef, the complex abstract vocabulary of pre-Columbian art and architecture embodied the principles he and Anni espoused in their work and teaching. ..."
Guggenheim (Video)
NY Times - Homage to Mexico: Josef Albers and His Reality-Based Abstraction
Brooklyn Rail
artbook

2009 May: Josef Albers, 2010 September: The Full Spectrum: Josef Albers

Twelve Illustrated Dust Jackets

"We’ve all been told told not to judge a book by its cover, but what about judging a decade, an artistic moment, or a society? In his latest collection, The Illustrated Dust Jacket: 1920–1970, illustration professor Martin Salisbury traces the history of the book jacket from its origins as a simple dust guard for expensive bound books to its evolution as a promotional tool meant to catch the eye. The middle of the twentieth century marked a high point for the medium, as the period’s leading illustrators brought contemporary visual styles into readers’ hands. A selection of these covers, in chronological order, appears below along with Salisbury’s captions. ..."
The Paris Review

RA Sessions: E Ruscha V

"Making sense of LA takes a lifetime. Ed Ruscha channels the city's endless freeways, hazy light and bewildering energy through his synthesizers. Though he's just released his first album under his given name—which he shares with his father, the acclaimed artist—Ruscha first gained an audience in the early '90s as a member of the shoegaze band Medicine. Since then, his output has moved in multiple directions, mirroring LA's endless sprawl. He's been a resident at the weekly Dub Club event, founded a dub-punk band called Future Pigeon and collaborated with the likes of Suzanne Kraft (as Blasé), Willie Burns, Thomas Bullock and, most recently, the cult British act Woo. All the while, he's been combing the city's garage sales and thrift stores, collecting gear, clothing, records, books, art and ephemera in his studio, which is situated close to Dublab, where he hosts a monthly radio show. ..."
Resident Advisor (Video)
Discogs

In Italy Election, Anti-E.U. Views Pay Off for Far Right and Populists

Supporters wave flags during a rally held by Northern League party leader Matteo Salvini in Rome, on February 28, 2015.
"ROME — Italians registered their dismay with the European political establishment on Sunday, handing a majority of votes in a national election to hard-right and populist forces that ran a campaign fueled by anti-immigrant anger. The election, the first in five years, was widely seen as a bellwether of the strength of populists on the continent and how far they might advance into the mainstream. The answer was far, very far. After Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France beat back populist and far-right insurgencies in the past year, Europe had seemed to be enjoying a reprieve from the forces threatening its unity and values. That turned out to be short lived. In Sunday’s vote, preliminary results showed, the parties that did well all shared varying degrees of skepticism toward the European Union, with laments about Brussels treating Italians like slaves, agitation to abandon the euro and promises to put Italy before Europe. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Italy’s Five-Star Electoral Performance****
CNN: Italy's voters choose populists, deliver stinging rebuke to Europe (Video)
The Atlantic: Italy's Messy Politics Are No Longer Local
NY Times: What to Watch For in Italy’s Election on Sunday
Washington Post: Who and what to watch in Italy’s election
NY Times: Anti-Fascist Protesters Rally in Italy as Mussolini’s Heirs Gain Ground
NY Times: Women Could Decide Italy’s Election, but They Feel Invisible
Jacobin: Italy Is the Future
Jacobin: The Experiment
Jacobin: Italy’s Past Glories

Though Italy has fewer migrants per capita than most European countries, immigration has emerged as the election campaign’s major theme.

2018 January: The Fate of the Party

Complete Communion: Jazz Roundup - UK Special

Moses Boyd
"The first Complete Communion of 2018 is a UK special: not out of patriotism or any such nonsense, but mainly cos I’ve been inundated with interesting new music from Britain-based artists. And it’s not all about London: there’s a huge amount happening across the UK, from Manchester and Sheffield to Coventry and Glasgow. From good-time grooves to the outer limits of free improvisation, jazz’s freedom message continues to resonate. The music’s liberatory potential points to a better, more radical Britain, distinct from the rainy fascist hellscape of the Daily Mail and the 1997-forever banality of the centrist dads. From Stormzy’s Brit Awards excoriation of Theresa May to the widespread solidarity shown towards the university pensions strike, there’s a genuine sense that the old order is falling. In culture, grime is leading the charge, but jazz and improv are right in there too, suggesting new ways of engaging with art and life. ..."
The Quietus (Audio)

A Beginner’s Guide to the Southern Hemisphere Sky

The Alpha Centauri systems lies in the Southern Hemisphere constellation of Centaurus.
"How and when to see Alpha Centauri, southern star patterns such as the Southern Cross, and many other celestial sights on a trip south of the equator. If you regularly spend time with the night sky in the Northern Hemisphere but you've never travelled south of the equator, you only know half the story. Visiting the Southern Hemisphere just to go stargazing isn’t something most of us have the resources to do very often. Yet the southern sky is disorientating, surprising, and utterly transfixing — well worth the trip if you can make it. You’ll see arguably some of the greatest celestial sights: the nearest stars to our solar system, two close dwarf galaxies, and some drop-dead gorgeous clusters. Here are a few reasons why you should visit southerly latitudes at least once in your life. ..."
Sky & Telescope

David Sedaris Creates a List of His 10 Favorite Jazz Tracks: Stream Them Online

"You can't read far into David Sedaris' writing without encountering his father Lou, a curmudgeonly, decades-and-decades-retired IBM engineer with a stiffly practical mind and a harsh word for everybody — especially his misfit son, dedicating his life as he has to the quasi-occupation of writing while living in far-flung places like Paris and rural England. Even now, solidly into his nineties, Sedaris père keeps on providing the sixtysomething Sedaris fils with material, all of it — once polished up just right — a source of laughter for the latter's many readers and listeners. But Lou has also given David something else: a passion for jazz. ..."
Open Culture (Audio)

Meet the Salvadoran New Yorkers Trump Wants to Deport

Yehovani Villalobos fled El Salvador during its civil war and says gangs there make it still unsafe to return.
"When the Trump administration announced in January that nearly 200,000 Salvadorans living in the United States would lose their immigration status in September 2019 and face deportation to Central America, families across New York State began to panic. In 1990, Congress established the Temporary Protected Status program, which provided immigrants from specified countries afflicted by environmental devastation or civil war with the right to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation. But though the program was renewed several times since then with little fanfare, President Trump has sought to end the protections for 300,000 U.S. residents from El Salvador, Haiti, and other countries next year, as part of his sweeping immigration policies that reverse many Obama-era orders. These individuals are living in a kind of immigration limbo — they have had permission to live and work in the United States legally for nearly two decades, but their status was at risk of revocation on the whims of the president. ..."
Voice