Coming Home - Pat Thomas

"Ghanaian highlife master and “The Golden Voice Of Africa”, Pat Thomas, returns with his first full career retrospective on Strut this Autumn, covering his late ‘60s big band highlife recordings through to the 'burger highlife' movement of the early ‘80s. Growing up with music around him ('my uncle, King Onyina, was an important highlife musician'), Thomas was inspired to become a singer after hearing vocalist Joss Aikins: 'He sang with Broadway Dance Band and Decca in Ghana chose him to sing with any group that came into their studios.' When a new incarnation of Broadway Dance Band was created in ‘67, led by Ebo Taylor, Thomas received his first big break. 'Ebo started to write new songs. I added the lyrics and sang them and it worked well.' The partnership with Taylor would become one of the enduring forces in Ghanaian music during the ‘70s, creating a fresh, progressive new highlife sound. ..."
bandcamp (Audio)
Pitchfork: Coming Home (Original Ghanaian Highlife & Afrobeat Classics 1967-1981) (Audio)
amazon
YouTube: Pat Thomas & Marijata - i need more, Broadway Dance Band - "Go Modern", Pat Thomas - Yamona, Ebo Taylor Feat. Pat Thomas - No Money, No Love

How Pharoah Sanders Brought Jazz to Its Spiritual Peak with His Impulse! Albums

"With Ayler's statement about jazz's so-called 'New Thing,' the metaphor was cast. Of course John Coltrane – the giant of the tenor saxophone who brought Eastern thought to bear on his own music – was deemed the father. It was ‘Trane who gave his blessing to the next generation of players: Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, John Tchicai, Dewey Johnson, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler and more before Coltrane left his earthly body in 1967. And it was Ayler who best embodied the fiery cast of free jazz, burning bright only to burn out, dragged out of the East River at the age of 34. Yet as he nears his 75th year, Sanders’ body of work does not enjoy nearly the same reverence, awe and praise as the others in the holy trinity of spiritual jazz. Coltrane continues to be the subject of colossal box sets and deluxe reissues, Ayler has had every scrap of recorded music culled and collected, while Sanders’ oeuvre stands in disarray. His eleven Impulse albums – from 1967’s Tauhid to 1974’s Love in Us All – comprise arguably the greatest run on the label. Yet outside of 1969’s Karma, none of Pharoah’s Impulse albums are currently in print in the U.S. Half of them are unavailable on CD or vinyl, the other half are bundled as two-for-one budget imports, with no remastering or bonus tracks. Most of the ink given to Sanders appears at the tail end of Coltrane bios, noting that Sanders was the lone horn player to share the bandstand with Coltrane at the end of his life. In Ornette Coleman’s estimation, Sanders is 'probably the best tenor player in the world.' And while Sanders has released many albums on many labels, nothing matches his Impulse years. The music he made with large ensembles in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s drew from the jazz tradition, but elevated the form so as to embrace gospel, soul, African folk, R&B and what would soon be deemed world music, weaving it all into a tapestry that spoke of African-American identity, spiritual realization and world peace. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)
YouTube: Pharoah Sanders (Live Video - 1968) Festival France. Lonnie Liston Smith - piano: Sirone - bass

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, 2018 February: Anthology: You've Got to Have Freedom - Pharoah Sanders (2005), 2018 February: James Blood Ulmer & Pharoah Sanders - Live 2003

Germinal - Émile Zola (1884-85)

Wikipedia - "Germinal is the thirteenth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Often considered Zola's masterpiece and one of the most significant novels in the French tradition, the novel – an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s – has been published and translated in over one hundred countries and has additionally inspired five film adaptations and two television productions. Germinal was written between April 1884 and January 1885. It was first serialized between November 1884 and February 1885 in the periodical Gil Blas, then in March 1885 published as a book. The title (pronounced [ʒɛʁminal]) refers to the name of a month of the French Republican Calendar, a spring month. Germen is a Latin word which means 'seed'; the novel describes the hope for a better future that seeds amongst the miners. ..."
Wikipedia
Guardian: Rereading Zola's Germinal
Germinal - Émile Zola
amazon

Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790

"The vitality and inventiveness of artists in eighteenth-century New Spain (Mexico) is the focus of this exhibition, which presents some 110 works of art (primarily paintings), many of which are unpublished and newly restored. The exhibition surveys the most important artists and stylistic developments of the period and highlights the emergence of new pictorial genres and subjects. It is the first major exhibition devoted to this neglected topic. The eighteenth century ushered in a period of pictorial splendor in Mexico as local schools of painting were consolidated, new iconographies were invented, and painters explored new ways to invigorate their art. Attesting to their extraordinary versatility, the artists who created mural-size paintings to cover the walls of sacristies, choirs, and university halls were often the same ones who produced portraits, casta paintings (depictions of racially mixed families), painted folding screens, and finely rendered devotional imagery. The volume of work produced by the four generations of Mexican artists that spanned the eighteenth century is virtually unmatched elsewhere in the Spanish world. ..."
Metropolitan Museum of Art
NY Times - ‘Painted in Mexico’: When a New Art Flourished Far From Mother Spain

Bookchin: living legacy of an American revolutionary

"Below you will find an interview with Debbie Bookchin, daughter of the late Murray Bookchin, who passed away in 2006. Bookchin spent his life in revolutionary leftist circles, joining a communist youth organization at the age of nine and becoming a Trotskyist in his late thirties, before switching to anarchist thought and finally ending up identifying himself as a ‘communalist’ after developing the ideas of ‘libertarian municipalism’. Bookchin was (and remains) as influential as he was controversial. His radical critiques of deep ecology and ‘lifestyle anarchism’ stirred up a number of heated debates that continue to this day. Now that his revolutionary ideas have been picked up by the Kurdish liberation movement, who are using Bookchin’s works to build a democratic, gender-equal and ecologically sustainable society in the heart of the Middle East, we are seeing a renewed interest in the life and thoughts of this great political thinker. For this reason ROAR is very excited to publish this interview with Debbie Bookchin, which not only provides valuable insights into her father’s political legacy, but also offers a glimpse into the life of the man behind the ideas. ..."
ROAR

2016 February: The Feminist, Democratic Leftists Our Military Is Obliterating - Debbie Bookchin, 2016 May: Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn, 2016 July: How Turkey Came to This, 2017 March: As repression deepens, Turkish artists and intellectuals fear the worst, 2017 July: mRadical Municipalism: The Future We Deserve

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

Florida Funk 1968-1975

"Formally, Florida Funk is a sequel to Texas Funk and Midwest Funk, Jazzman Records' other collections of R&B rarities from the late '60s and early '70s. Informally, it's part of a much longer list of recent regional funk reissues. There's Southern Funkin' on the Beat Goes Public label, Funky Funky Chicago and Funky Funky Detroit and Funky Funky Houston on Funky Delicacies, and the ever-growing Eccentric Soul series from the Numero Group. Good as this deeply obscure music can be, I'm almost as fascinated by the fanatics who assemble these collections, not just of funk but of soul, punk, psychedelia, Jesus rock, and other forms of 30-to-40-year-old Americana. These tiny record companies, many of them based abroad, are retracing the steps of the people who spearheaded the folk revival in the '50s and early '60s, searching out forgotten records, tracking down and interviewing the people who made them, and imagining a mythological American past. Part DJ Shadow and part Harry Smith, their efforts add up to an enormous Anthology of American Funk Music. There's a danger, in anthologies like these, that this mystique will overwhelm the actual music. Pop archaeologists have been known to prize a record's rarity more than its actual vitality, as though a privately pressed 45 of a freshman trying to sound like Sly Stone is more valuable than Stone's own recordings. Florida Funk avoids that trap: This CD might not be filled with musical innovations, but nearly all the tracks are enjoyable, and a few shine brighter than that. Extensive liner notes add valuable context, painting a portrait not just of the people who produced the music but of the place that produced the people. ..."
No Depression
amazon
YouTube: Florida Funk 1968-1975 21 videos

Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise

"60-minute portrait of visionary artist Sun Ra and his avant-garde jazz Arkestra filmed in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. in 1978 and 1980. One of jazz music's most entertaining and eccentric figures is profiled in Robert Mugge's hourlong, 1980 profile of the late bandleader-keyboardist-composer Sun Ra. 'I don't consider myself one of the humans,' he once said. 'I'm a spiritual being,' who was reputed to eschew the usual jazzman's indulgences of drugs and sex and who, despite the weird trappings (he and his big band, the Intergalactic Omniverse Arkestra, usually performed in glittery costumes that combined African, alien, and thrift-shop styles), infused his music with a strong sense of discipline and precision. Here we see Ra and the band rehearsing and performing; their 'joyful noise' is free, sometimes chaotic, but also clearly blues-based, somewhat reminiscent of Monk or Mingus (there's even a rendition of 'Round Midnight'). Ra is also interviewed surrounded by the Egyptian artifacts and antiquities that were an important element of his 'mythocracy.' He clearly loves having an audience-and how can you not enjoy listening to a guy who also chooses the White House as a backdrop for solemn pronouncements like 'I'm not a part of history-I'm more a part of mystery, which is my story'? -- Sam Graham"
UbuWeb (Video)

Montreal Expos

Wikipedia - "The Montreal Expos (French: Les Expos de Montréal) were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in the National League (NL) East Division from 1969 until 2004. Following the 2004 season, the franchise relocated to Washington, D.C., and became the Washington Nationals. Immediately after the minor league Triple-A Montreal Royals folded in 1960, political leaders in Montreal sought an MLB franchise, and when the National League evaluated expansion candidates for the 1969 season, it awarded a team to Montreal. Named after the Expo 67 World's Fair, the Expos originally played at Jarry Park Stadium before moving to Olympic Stadium in 1977. The Expos failed to post a winning record in any of their first ten seasons. The team won its only division title in the strike-shortened 1981 season, but lost the 1981 National League Championship Series (NLCS) to the Los Angeles Dodgers. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: The Montreal Expos play their first-ever home game in 1969, The Montreal Expos Win A Playoff Series!, 1981 NLCS Gm3: White's three-run homer breaks tie, Remembering Montreal Expos legend Rusty Staub

Historically Compromised

The body of Aldo Moro discovered in the center of Rome on May 9, 1978.
"Forty years ago, the most intense drama in Italy’s postwar political history reached its climax. On the morning of May 9, 1978 the commandos of the Red Brigades abandoned a stolen Renault 4 on Rome’s via Michelangelo Caetani, not far from the river Tiber. In the trunk was the bullet-riddled body of former prime minister Aldo Moro. Secretary of Italy’s ruling Christian Democratic party (DC), Moro was the highest-profile victim of the political violence that engulfed 1970s Italy. The fifty-five-day crisis in which he was held hostage by the Red Brigades, ending in his murder, also decisively undermined attempts at a pact between the DC and the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The Red Brigades were hostile to the PCI and targeted Moro because he had been one of its leading interlocutors in the ruling party. The DC had been in office continuously since 1944, but faced with parliamentary deadlock after the 1976 election, PCI secretary Enrico Berlinguer pushed a 'historic compromise' to unite the two parties in government. ..."
Jacobin

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

The World Cup of Transit Maps, 2018

"Let’s have some fun! Presented here are 32 cities from around the world (12 from the Americas, 12 from Europe and 8 from Asia), representing a wide range of rail-based rapid transit map design. They’re arranged into four groups of eight: the Red and Blue Lines contain cities from the Americas, while the Green and Orange Lines are comprised of European cities. The 8 Asian cities have been spread evenly across the four groups and seeded so that they can’t knock each other out before the quarter finals (if they make it that far!). The mechanics are simple: it’s a straight knock-out tournament. Win your match and you’re through to the next round. Lose and you’re out. ..."
Transit Maps

Nioque of the Early-Spring: Francis Ponge

"For those unaware of the French poet Francis Ponge, this new translation by Jonathan Larson offers a glimpse into a realm of glimpses, a fraction of poetic marvels in a realm of mere fractals. As a single work surrounded by many others, this book on its own is ultimately a gentle, inviting framework through which Ponge’s work and endurance, seasoned and lightened at once, can explore the gradients of concept and theme. It is filled with openness and propulsion. It is a thorough radicalism and also a challenge to the immensity of time and space. Knowing and to be known, the process and the result, a spiraling enthusiasm, wondrous, an investment, and an engagement. It is relational and intentional. Time, nature, knowledge. These are key spaces of the macrocosmic warp and wordplay Ponge iterated originally though Nioque, as explored by its translator’s introduction. Through a significant treatment, Jonathan Larson has recrafted a book capable of encountering time in the umbrella of the creative process. Poems of 1950-1953, entries and explorations into and out of the wrapped, frolicking springtime. Nature as a reflection of seasons, perhaps with Spring serving as keystone, and nature as spirit, as something remarkably anew, consciously reverberating in circumspection. Nioque provides a portrayal of significance in its self-referential patterning. At what better, triggering instance does a poetics have an opportunity to grow, does a mode of thought lead to future elevations? ..."
Yellow Rabbits Review #41: Nioque of the Early-Spring by Francis Ponge
Jonathan Larson On His Translation Of The Poetry Of Francis Ponge
Two Poems by Francis Ponge
LitHub
amazon

Mayan Letters: Soap

Joe Bataan - Riot! (1968)

"A real killer from the legendary Joe Bataan – an album of righteous power that really lives up to the dynamic promise of the title and cover! Joe Bataan's in top form throughout – serving up a blend of Latin grooves and 60s soul influences that few other artists of the time could touch – soaring and upbeat one minute, but mellow and laidback the next. There's a number of longer tracks on here that really move past the standard Latin Soul modes – bringing in bits of descarga jazz, instrumental soul, and mellower ballads to Joe's already-great blend of styles. The depth here is tremendous, and nearly every track's a winner! Titles include the slamming 'It's A Good Feeling (Riot)', 'Muneca', and 'Mambo De Bataan' – plus the soul tracks 'What Good Is A Castle', 'My Cloud', 'Daddy's Coming Home', 'Ordinary Guy', and 'For Your Love'."
dusty groove
Joe Bataan talks about his iconic LP Riot and starting Ghetto Records
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: Riot! (Full Album )

2018 April: Salsoul (1994)

A Brooklyn Barkeep’s Illustrated Guide to New York Watering Holes

"
"John Tebeau lives the kind of life you thought was extinct in New York City. He spends three days a week behind the bar at Red Hook’s Fort Defiance, tending to a cast of regulars and visitors, many of whom have wandered in after a trip to IKEA, in dire need of booze. When he’s not at Fort Defiance, Tebeau’s in his Brooklyn Heights studio working as a freelance illustrator. He combines his two areas of expertise in his new book, Bars, Taverns, and Dives New Yorkers Love: Where to Go, What to Drink, which features his hand-drawn renderings of fifty bars from around the five boroughs, along with recipes and short essays on all things hospitality: whether to sit at the bar or a table, advice on engaging with your fellow drinkers, and quotes overheard at his regular Atlantic Avenue tavern, ChipShop. The importance of a good bar was established in his life early on, as a kid in North Muskegon, Michigan. ..."
Voice
amazon: Bars, Taverns, and Dives New Yorkers Love: Where to Go, What to Drink - John Tebeau

Gloria / Baby, Please Don't Go - Them (1964)

"'Gloria' is a song written by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison and originally recorded by Morrison's band Them in 1964 and released as the B-side of 'Baby, Please Don't Go'. The song became a garage rock staple and a part of many rock bands' repertoires. It is particularly memorable for its 'Gloria!' chorus. It is easy to play, as a simple three-chord song, and thus is popular with those learning to play guitar. Morrison said that he wrote 'Gloria' while he performed with the Monarchs in Germany in the summer of 1963, at just about the time he turned 18 years old. He started to perform it at the Maritime Hotel when he returned to Belfast and joined up with the Gamblers to form the band Them. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Baby, Please Don't Go
W - Them
Genius (Audio)
YouTube: "Gloria" (Live 1965), Baby, Please Don't Go

Europe After the Rain: Watch the Vintage Documentary on the Two Great Art Movements, Dada & Surrealism (1978)

"'Dada thrives on contradictions. It is creative and destructive. Dada denounces the world and wishes to save it.' So says one narrator of journalist-filmmaker Mick Gold's Europe After the Rain, a 1978 Arts Council of Great Britain documentary on not just the international avant-garde movement called Dada but the associated currents of surrealism churning around that continent during the first half of the twentieth century. 'Dada wanted to replace the nonsense of man with the illogically senseless. Dada is senseless, like nature. Dada is for nature, and against art. Philosophers have less value for Dada than an old toothbrush, and Dada abandons them to the great leaders of the world.' Of the many bold and often contradictory claims made about Dada, none describe it as easily understood. But Dada has less to do with intellectual, aesthetic, or political coherence than with a certain energy. ..."
Open Culture (Video)

2016: DADA Companion, 2016: The Growing Charm of Dada, 2009 February: Charles Baudelaire, 2012 December: Impressionism and Fashion, 2017: How Baudelaire Revolutionized Modern Literature, 2017: The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology - Mary Ann Caws

Jonas Mekas - Scrapbook of the Sixties: Writings 1954 - 2010

"Scrapbook of the Sixties is a collection of published and unpublished texts by Jonas Mekas, filmmaker, writer, poet, and cofounder of the Anthology Film Archives in New York. Born in Lithuania, he came to Brooklyn via Germany in 1949 and began shooting his first films there. Mekas developed a form of film diary in which he recorded moments of his daily life. He became the barometer of the New York art scene and a pioneer of American avant-garde cinema. Every week, starting in 1958, he published his legendary 'Movie Journal' column in The Village Voice, writing on a range of subjects that were by no means restricted to the world of film. He conducted numerous interviews with artists like Andy Warhol, Susan Sontag, John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Erick Hawkins, and Nam June Paik. Some of these will now appear for the first time in his Scrapbook of the Sixties. Mekas’s writings reveal him as a thoughtful diarist and an unparalleled chronicler of the times—a practice that he has continued now for over fifty years. Jonas Mekas (*1922, Semeniškiai / Lithuania), lives and works in New York. Film-maker, writer, poet and co-founder of the Anthology Film Archives one of the world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde film. Mekas’s work has been exhibited in museums and festivals worldwide. ..."
Motto
amazon

2014 May: Anthology Film Archives, 2014 October: Captured: A Film/Video History of the Lower East Side, 2016 February: Jonas Mekas, 2017 July: Patti Smith Sang Some Lou Reed at a Gala For Anthology Film Archives’ Expansion, 2017 August: Jonas Mekas talks about Movie Journal

Foundation for Arabic Music Archiving and Research

CD – Salama Higazi
"AMAR is a Lebanese foundation committed to the preservation and dissemination of traditional Arab music. AMAR owns 7,000 records, principally from the 'Nahda' era (1903 – 1930s), as well as around 6,000 hours of recordings on reel. To safeguard this rare collection, AMAR has acquired a state-of-the-art studio specifically dedicated to the digitization and conservation of this music. In early 2010, AMAR built a multi-purpose hall that hosts up to eighty people. The launch of AMAR took place on August 17th – 19th, 2009 at its premises in the Qurnet el-Hamra Village, Metn District, Lebanon. ... The CD is a reliable format for the sale and distribution of music so long as it is part of a more informative package. The package should include one or more CDs unveiling the works of multiple singers such as Yûsuf al-Manyalâwî or ̕Abd al-Hay Hilmî, together with a booklet that provides historical, musical and pictorial information about them and their work. The first proposed package was an ambitious one. In October 2011, AMAR released the integral Yûsuf al-Manyalâwî records, which were the ultimate reference in art singing at the beginning of the 20^th century.  A total number of approximately sixty-two 78 rpm (rounds per minute) disks, were reproduced on 10 CDs (after being digitized, restored and re-mastered) representing all facets of Manyalâwî:  dawr,  qasîda,  mawwâl,  muwashshah and layâli type improvisations, among others. The choice of this vocalist as a first priority is justified by his artistic significance, as well as the technical quality of his recordings (particularly during the campaign of May 1910). ..."
AMAR: About - Lebanese
AMAR
AMAR - Products
AMAR - Timeline

CD – Qasabgi. Muḥammad al-Qaṣabgī

Clash: An Urban Collective

"Detour Gallery is pleased to announce CLASH: An Urban Collection an exhibition of works by such artists as DAIN, BNS, Cleon Pederson, and Stikki Peaches among others. CLASH pushes the boundaries of sensibility while maintaining its order in the commonality that all of the works root themselves firmly in the grit of the urban art spirit. The exhibit places a combination of both emerging and established urban artists together in the spirit of a happy accident. Place the best representation of works conceived by artists who hail from such diverse sections of the world as Brooklyn and LA to Oslo and Germany and see what happens. Their work shouts loud colors, iconic images, and bold lines. The artwork emulates an urban city landscape through its multifaceted layers of expression consisting of layers of spray paint, photography, ink, silkscreen acrylic and pop culture characters. ..."
Carpe Diem
StreetArtNYC: Red Bank’s Detour Gallery Presents “CLASH: An Urban Collective” with Dain, Cleon Peterson, Ashleigh Sumner, Ståle Gerhardsen, Stikki Peaches, Faile and more
artsy

Black and White and Black: On the Comics of Chris Reynolds

"Around the start of the first millennium, a territory on the northern coast of Africa fell under control of the Romans, who dubbed it 'Mauretania,' possibly derived from a native word or from the Greek for 'dark' (or 'obscure')—the root that eventually informed the term Moor. Centuries later, the Cunard Line affixed the name to a giant ship, built in Newcastle and launched in 1906, which for several years enjoyed distinction as both the world’s fastest and largest ocean liner, beloved by many, though called by Kipling 'the monstrous nine-decked city.' It was scrapped between 1935 and 1937, and parts of the interior found a home in a pub in Bristol. Eight decades after the RMS Mauretania’s maiden voyage, Chris Reynolds, a Welsh-born artist in his mid twenties, embarked on what would be his life’s work, a beguiling series of loosely connected stories that he called Mauretania Comics. The work had nothing to do with that remote place or with seafaring vessels of yore, and the name was just one of its many elusive mysteries. The stories were and are easy to consume but tantalizingly difficult to characterize. ..."
The Paris Review
The Paris Review: Endless Summer Wells
amazom: Chris Reynolds

Maximum Joy - I Can't Stand It Here On Quiet Nights: Singles 1981-82

“I Can’t Stand It Here On Quiet Nights is centred around the trio of singles the band released on Dick O’Dell’s Y Records between 1981-1982. Their first, ‘Stretch’, was licensed to seminal American label 99 Records and soon after became an anthem on the New York club underground, a cult staple at Danceteria and on late-night radio. Closer to home and a shared personal favourite is their first B-side, ‘Silent Street / Silent Dub’: a languid, haunting tribute to long summer nights in St Pauls (where the Idle Hands shop presently resides), and specifically the Black & White Cafe, “where dub-reggae reigned supreme, 24/7”. Llewellin’s mesmerising one-drop kit and Catsis’s outrageously heavy bassline anchor the track, allowing Rainforth’s exquisite vocal and Wrafter’s trumpet to soar within the intense, expressionistic dub mix. In both subject matter and execution it is the definitive Bristol tune. ... Listening today, three-and-a-half decades later, it’s easy to hear Maximum Joy as a relic of their era. The defining characteristics of their music—rope-like basslines, squalls of dub delay, and alternately soaring and honking horn parts—peg them to the early 1980s, when punk rock, funk, disco, and reggae were all mixing together. But the Bristol, UK, group has never enjoyed the acclaim of contemporaries like Rip Rig and Panic, Pigbag, or the Pop Group (with whom they shared members), to say nothing of New York acts like ESG or Liquid Liquid (with whom they rubbed elbows on the roster of New York’s 99 Records). ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
silent street (Audio)
Pitchfork (Audio)
Discogs
W - Maximum Joy
YouTube: Stretch, Silent Street & Silent Dub, Building Bridges (Building Dub)

Cecil Taylor - Jazz Advance (1956)

"The Transition label and the then new music of Cecil Taylor were perfectly matched, the rebellion in modern jazz was on in 1956, and the pianist was at the forefront. Though many did not understand his approach at the time, the passing years temper scathing criticism, and you can easily appreciate what he is accomplishing. For the reissue Jazz Advance, you hear studio sessions in Boston circa 1956, and the legendary, ear-turning set of 1957 at the Newport Jazz Festival. A young Steve Lacy is included on several tracks, and while revealing Taylor's roughly hewn façade, the few pieces as a soloist and with his trio of bassist Buell Neidlinger and drummer Dennis Charles are even more telling. ... With Jazz Advance, the revolution commenced, Taylor was setting the pace, and the improvised music world has never been the same. For challenged listeners, this LP has to be high on your must-have list."
allmusic
W - Jazz Advance
Guardian
Discogs
amazon, iTunes, Spotify
YouTube: Jazz Advance (1956) - Complete Album

2018 April: RIP, Cecil Taylor (1929-2018)

The 30 Ugliest Skyscrapers in the World

HypoVereinsbank, Munich, Germany
"Designing anything, let alone a massive building, is not a simple task. It requires pragmatic decision-making coupled with bold creativity. As with any form of art, the designer ultimately strives to make something striking and original. Sometimes this effort pays off in the form of a lasting structure—a work that transcends time and place. While other times, well, not so much. Of course, it's not always the architect's fault. In some instances, like Tour Montparnasse in Paris, the designers are a bit unlucky. Had they erected their work in any other location other than the City of Light, maybe it wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. But, alas, architecture, like all creative endeavors, is a cruel venture. As such, AD rounds up the 30 ugliest skyscrapers from around the world, ones that began with high intentions but eventually didn't quite meet the mark. ..."
Architectural Digest

In Which Our Tragic Effects Remain Purely Professional

"In every relationship, romantic or otherwise, one of the two people feels slightly closer to the other, if only by a matter of degrees. So it was with Gustave Flaubert and his hypochrondriac, flaky friend Ivan Turgenev. These two barnacles met when Flaubert was 40 and Turgenev was three years older. From the tenor of their conversations, which Flaubert seemed to treasure above all else, we can deduce that their spirits remained substantially youthful. Flaubert's self-professed love of literature was so all-encompassing it almost crowded out other parts of himself; Turgenev shared his friend's basic interest but saw the underlying reality for what it was. (Turgenev called his friend, 'the only man in existence really devoted to literature.') Turgenev would visit Flaubert at his retreat in Croisset in the summer, or in Paris during the winter season. Many of the hours they passed together consisted of Flaubert reading his novels or plays aloud, a difficult task even for one of his most central admirers. The written correspondence between the two in the 1860s leaves the mortal plane behind; it can be classified as the first bubbles of modernity to enter the universe. ..."
This Recording

2012 August: On Cataloguing Flaubert, 2013 March: Sentimental Education - 1(1869), 2016 December: Three Tales (1877), 2017 August: The Sentimental Education (1869)

Rukmini Callimachi on Audio’s Power to Reveal the Truth of the ‘Caliphate’

Rukmini Callimachi, The Times’s terrorism correspondent, at a church in western Mosul that had been converted into the headquarters of the Islamic State’s morality police.
"Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. 'Who are they?' This seemingly simple question drives “Caliphate,” The Times’s first documentary audio series, as Rukmini Callimachi, a foreign correspondent, searches for a deeper understanding of the Islamic State. 'Caliphate' debuted in April, with Ms. Callimachi, who has covered Al Qaeda and ISIS for The Times since 2014, serving as its guide, deftly aided by the producer Andy Mills. Their 10-part series centers on the story of 'Abu Huzayfah,' a former ISIS member living in Canada who, like many jihadists, uses a nom de guerre. The podcast complements 'The ISIS Files,' Ms. Callimachi’s investigation into thousands of internal Islamic State documents that her team recovered from Iraq. New chapters of 'Caliphate' are released every Thursday afternoon, and subscribers can listen a week early. ..."
NY Times (Audio)
NY Times: Caliphate (Audio) Apple Podcasts - RadioPublic - Stitcher - Spotify

A soldier of the pesh merga, the Iraqi Kurdish military force, handed over a man suspected of being an Islamic State militant to security officials near Kirkuk, Iraq, in October 2017.
twitter
NY Times: Caliphate - newsletters
2018 April: The ISIS Files

Fleeing Iraqi civilians walked past the Al Nuri Grand Mosque in Mosul, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq, in July 2017.

Latin American Boom

Wikipedia - "The Latin American Boom (Boom Latinoamericano) was a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s when the work of a group of relatively young Latin American novelists became widely circulated in Europe and throughout the world. The Boom is most closely associated with Julio Cortázar of Argentina, Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru, and Gabriel García Márquez of Colombia. Influenced by European and North American Modernism, but also by the Latin American Vanguardia movement, these writers challenged the established conventions of Latin American literature. Their work is experimental and, owing to the political climate of the Latin America of the 1960s, also very political. 'It is no exaggeration,' critic Gerald Martin writes, 'to state that if the Southern continent was known for two things above all others in the 1960s, these were, first and foremost, the Cuban Revolution and its impact both on Latin America and the Third World generally, and secondly, the Boom in Latin American fiction, whose rise and fall coincided with the rise and fall of liberal perceptions of Cuba between 1959 and 1971.' ... In general—and considering there are many countries and hundreds of important authors—at the start of the period, Realism prevails, with novels tinged by an existentialist pessimism, with well-rounded characters lamenting their destinies, and a straightforward narrative line. In the 1960s, language loosens up, gets hip, pop, streetwise, characters are much more complex, and the chronology becomes intricate, making of the reader an active participant in the deciphering of the text. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Magic realism
New Yorker: The Woman Behind Latin America's Literary Boom
Guide to the Latin American Boom
Avon Bard Latin America
Looking Back on 50 Years of Latin American Literary Rock Stars
These are the Latin American authors you should be reading this summer

[From left to right] Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa

Impressionism: Art and Modernity

The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne, Alfred Sisley, 1872
"In 1874, a group of artists called the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc. organized an exhibition in Paris that launched the movement called Impressionism. Its founding members included Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro, among others. The group was unified only by its independence from the official annual Salon, for which a jury of artists from the Académie des Beaux-Arts selected artworks and awarded medals. The independent artists, despite their diverse approaches to painting, appeared to contemporaries as a group. While conservative critics panned their work for its unfinished, sketchlike appearance, more progressive writers praised it for its depiction of modern life. Edmond Duranty, for example, in his 1876 essay La Nouvelle Peinture (The New Painting), wrote of their depiction of contemporary subject matter in a suitably innovative style as a revolution in painting. The exhibiting collective avoided choosing a title that would imply a unified movement or school, although some of them subsequently adopted the name by which they would eventually be known, the Impressionists. Their work is recognized today for its modernity, embodied in its rejection of established styles, its incorporation of new technology and ideas, and its depiction of modern life. ..."
Metropolitan Museum of Art

La Grenouillère, Claude Monet, 1869

Pina Bausch & Clairice Lispector

Pina Bausch in "Cafe Müller"
"When realism isn’t real, where is a writer to go? Meaning, the sentence is a construction which feels at least as habitable as the bus which carries a poet to an unfamiliar town, and the couch upon which the poet sleeps later that night. When realism isn’t enough, isn’t authenticated or represents a fractional or purely outward series of events, poets turn to the body of the sentence upon which to recline, repose, deconstruct and reject any sort of frame which insists upon the 'real' being limited to finite perceptions. A sentence may break, with the force of bodily gesture, something more fluid. When I think of the poet’s novel I think of an oblique truthfulness. The choreography of Pina Bausch comes to mind, as an example of art which echoes the interior and bodily aspects of the real. What is the difference between realism and the real? I’d like to preface these remarks by saying that this commentary is in no way a critique of realism, but instead a depiction of a category of the real which attempts something entirely different then say, a realistic novel evoking a specific time and place. In the work of Pina Bausch we are called to question: how does the real manifest in the body? How does the real impel a body to move? How do we represent the unsayable? Take the following quiz to find out some of your own preconceptions and expectations about modern dance. ..."
Jacket2
W - Cafe Müller (1978)
YouTube: Café Muller 3:06
YouTube: Café Muller 49:18

Mo Salah, Breaking Down Cultural Barriers, One Goal at a Time

"LIVERPOOL, England — Mohamed Salah’s routine is familiar now. As Anfield, the atmospheric home of Liverpool F.C., erupts joyously around him, celebrating yet another of the Egyptian’s goals, he runs to the fans closest to him, arms outstretched. He stands stock still, soaking in the adulation. Once his teammates have congratulated him, he walks slowly back to the center circle. 'Then there is this pause,' said Neil Atkinson, host of The Anfield Wrap, a Liverpool fans’ podcast, and a regular at the stadium. Mr. Salah raises his hands to the sky and then kneels on the field, prostrating himself in a deeply personal demonstration of his Muslim faith. 'The crowd goes a little quieter, allows him that moment of reflection,' Mr. Atkinson said. There is another roar as he stands up, 'and then everyone celebrates again.' ... His faith — and his public displays of it — have also made him a figure of considerable social and cultural significance. At a time when Britain is fighting rising Islamophobia, when government policy has been to create a 'hostile environment' for illegal immigrants, he is a North African and a Muslim who is not just accepted in Britain, but adored. ..."
NY Times (Video)

Bay Ridge Offers Small-Town Spirit Beneath a Soaring Bridge

Since 1964, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge has been the defining feature of the Bay Ridge skyline.
"Once upon a time in the nineteenth century, what we now know as Bay Ridge was something of a resort area. In its pre-Brooklyn days, the village, then known as Yellow Hook (before the yellow fever epidemic wrecked that color’s brand), attracted wealthy industrialists seeking a respite from New York life. You can’t blame them: Even today, there’s something peaceful about Brooklyn’s southwesternmost corner. After you emerge from whatever fresh hell the notoriously unreliable R train just put you through, you’ll notice that the air off the river is fresh. The buildings are low. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, stretching out to Staten Island, soars above the horizon. Today, Bay Ridge is a neighborhood of immigrants. The first to arrive around the turn of the twentieth century were Scandinavians, whose influence can be seen at Leif Ericson Park or during the annual Norwegian Day Parade. After the arrival of the subway in 1916, Italians and Irish families populated the area, followed, in the mid-twentieth century, by Lebanese, Syrian, and Greek immigrants. These days, the neighborhood is also home to Latino and Chinese communities and is renowned as the heart of Arab New York, boasting the largest population of Arabic speakers in the city. Lately, more families have started migrating from elsewhere in Brooklyn, as well. ..."
Voice
W - Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

Balady Halal Foods offers shelves stacked high with dates, olive oil, and other Middle Eastern foodstuffs.

Thelonious Monk - Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (2017)

"Any occasion for unreleased Thelonious Monk recordings is one for celebration. The discovery of his excellent soundtrack sessions for Roger Vadim's film Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960, an adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' 18th century novel, happened by accident. Producers Zev Feldman, François Le Xuan, and Frederic Thomas found these tapes while searching French saxophonist Barney Wilen's manager's archives in search of unreleased material. What they found were the original soundtrack and full sessions cut in New York during a single day in 1959 -- the same fertile year that yielded the Monk's At Town Hall; 5 by Monk by 5, and Thelonious Alone in San Francisco. Like these recordings, this soundtrack showcases Monk at the very top of his game. For various reasons including health issues and legal troubles, Monk had no time to travel or compose original music for the film. For this session he brought along tunes from his repertoire -- as was his wont throughout his career -- and reinvented them for the film with his working quartet of saxophonist Charlie Rouse, drummer Art Taylor, and bassist Sam Jones, with the addition of Wilen (who should be far better known to American jazz fans). The album is one of the only occasions in the pianist's discography where he employed two tenor players: the other was Thelonious Monk at the Blackhawk, with Harold Land alongside Rouse. ... This handsome package contains a plethora of liner essays including one by Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. There are loads of photos in black-and white and color; all are intimate, and as revelatory as the music. This was made available during the centennial anniversary of Monk's birth; and given its quality, it makes for one of the most important jazz discoveries in recent years."
allmusic
Discogs
A Lost Soundtrack Uncovered At Last: Thelonious Monk | Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (Video)
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: Rhythm-a-Ning [Alternate], Crepuscule with Nellie, Six in One, Well, You Needn’t

2012 September: Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, 2013 August: Five Spot Café, 2014 February: Thelonious Monk - Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1, Vol. 2, 2015 February: "Epistrophy" - Thelonious Monk / Kenny Clarke (1941), 2016 November: Underground (1968), 2017 May: The Thelonious Monk Quartet: The Complete Columbia Studio Albums Collection (2012)

Mueller Has Dozens of Inquiries for Trump in Broad Quest on Russia Ties and Obstruction

"WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia’s election interference, has at least four dozen questions on an exhaustive array of subjects he wants to ask President Trump to learn more about his ties to Russia and determine whether he obstructed the inquiry itself, according to a list of the questions obtained by The New York Times. The open-ended queries appear to be an attempt to penetrate the president’s thinking, to get at the motivation behind some of his most combative Twitter posts and to examine his relationships with his family and his closest advisers. They deal chiefly with the president’s high-profile firings of the F.B.I. director and his first national security adviser, his treatment of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between campaign officials and Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. But they also touch on the president’s businesses; any discussions with his longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, about a Moscow real estate deal; whether the president knew of any attempt by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to set up a back channel to Russia during the transition; any contacts he had with Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser who claimed to have inside information about Democratic email hackings; and what happened during Mr. Trump’s 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: The Questions Mueller Wants to Ask Trump About Obstruction, and What They Mean
NY Times: Opinion | What Robert Mueller Knows****

Doc Martens Boots Adorned with Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights”

"As in cuisine, where peasant food can become trendy and expensive overnight, so it is in fashion: how else to explain the way a humble working-class boot went from the factory floor to stylistic statement. The original 1960’s Dr. Martens boot, the one with the cushioned sole, fancy tread, and yellow stitching, was designed to be affordable. That’s why the punks loved it, that’s why the ska/Two Tone guys and gals loved it, and that’s why rich rockers like Pete Townshend showed his solidarity by wearing them along with his boiler suit. But that was then, and this is...the Tate Gallery of London’s specially commissioned series of arty Docs. The '1460' boot above shows details from Hieronymus Bosch’s 'Garden of Earthly Delights' (the hellish third panel), which you have to admit is pretty cool. For the lover not the fighter among us, you can also go for the more debauched second panel from 'Garden' printed on a '1461' style shoe. ..."
Open Culture

Capitalism and the Family

Victor Berger, Bertha Hale White, and Eugene V. Debs in 1924.
"Issues of gender and sexuality are dominating the American public in a way that has few precedents in the recent past. From the alarmingly open misogyny of the president to the cascading revelations of sexual attacks in the workplace on one side, to the energy behind the historic women’s marches on the other, gender relations have risen to the top of the political debate. In a wide-ranging conversation, historian Stephanie Coontz places the current juncture in historical perspective, and offers her thoughts on how gender relations have been affected by the recent stagnation in working-class incomes and skyrocketing inequality. She closes with an eloquent plea to integrate gender politics into a broader progressive political vision. ..."
Catalyst: Capitalism and the Family
Socialism: An American Story (Video)
The Nib - Socialism: As American As Apple Pie
Red State: Does Socialism Have a Future in Texas?
When Socialism was Popular in the United States
Jacobin: Beyond Social Movement Unionism
Jacobin: Socialism and Black Oppression
The Nation: America Has a Long and Storied Socialist Tradition. DSA Is Reviving It.
The Nation: The Next Generation of Democratic Socialists Has Started Winning Local Elections

DSA members at the Women’s March in New York City on January 21, 2017. 

2016 April: Bernie Sanders and the History of American Socialism, 2014 September: Anarchism in America (1983), 2015 August: The Prophet Farmed: Murray Bookchin on Bernie Sanders,  2017 January: Reason, creativity and freedom: the communalist model - Eleanor Finley, 2017 February: Socialism’s Return, 2017 July: Don’t March, Organize for Power, 2017 December: Vermont Progressive Party, 2017 December: The 2017 Progressive Honor Roll, 2018 February: Catalyst, 2018 April: Are You Progressive?