Dancing plague of 1518

Medieval villagers performing a nose dance during a celebration. In 1518, a dancing plague hit Strasbourg, France.
Wikipedia - "The dancing plague (or dance epidemic) of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace, in the Holy Roman Empire in July 1518. Around 400 people took to dancing for days without rest and, over the period of about one month, some of those affected collapsed or even died of heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion. The outbreak began in July 1518 when a woman, Mrs. Troffea, began to dance fervently in a street in Strasbourg. This lasted somewhere between four and six days. Within a week, 34 others had joined, and within a month, there were around 400 dancers, predominantly female. Some of these people would die from heart attacks, strokes, or exhaustion. One report indicates that for a period, the plague killed around fifteen people per day. However, the sources of the city of Strasbourg at the time of the events did not mention the number of deaths, even if there were fatalities. ..."
Wikipedia
Guardian - Keep on moving: the bizarre dance epidemic of summer 1518
Mass-anxiety in Strasbourg: what was the dancing plague of 1518?

Dancing fever … people affected by St Vitus Dance.

Free Associations: Collages - Janet Malcolm, with Hilton Als

Temperature of World Cities, 2011.
"Janet Malcolm: Last winter, I came into possession of the papers of an émigré psychiatrist who practiced in New York in the late 1940s and 1950s. The archive included a collection of manila envelopes, around six by ten inches, stuffed with folded sheets of thin paper covered with single-spaced typing: the notes the psychiatrist made after seeing patients (many of them fellow émigrés) in his office. As I studied the sheets with their inky typewriting and 60-year-old paper clips holding them together and leaving rust marks on the surface, my collagist’s imagination began to stir. I began to 'see' some version of the collages on view here. The scraps of paper I collect are largely black and white (preferably yellowing white) and have an archaic and melancholy air about them. They hark back to the 19th century and its technological and scientific vernacular. The case studies, with their sad old appearance, were of a piece with this backward-looking aesthetic. Further, in their sometimes almost parodic Freudian interpretations, they summoned a period in psychiatry that is as remote from today’s practice as the manual typewriter is from the Macintosh computer. These collages arose—I’m not sure how—from this encounter with the past. ..."
NYBooks

The Sun with Spots Big Enough to Swallow the Earth, 2011.

Poet of the People: The partisan world of Pablo Neruda

"The poet Pablo Neruda was born in 1920 at the age of 16. It was in October of that year, anyway, that a young man whose unsuspecting parents had baptized him Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto first signed with the name Neruda the poems that he felt he existed in order to write. Already, at 15, Neftalí (as his familiars addressed him until he escaped to college in the big city) had described himself, in excited drafts, not just as a poet but the poet, Mark Eisner points out in his new biography, Neruda: The Poet’s Calling. A sonnet titled 'The Poet Who is Neither Bourgeois nor Humble' alluded to his potent, unknown poet-ness: 'The men haven’t discovered that in him exists / the poet who as a child was not childish.' Neruda as an adolescent poet amounted almost to a parody of the type, worryingly thin, melancholy and shy, and got up, unlike other local boys, all in black. Sickly and frail, he was unsuited to the physical labor done by most of his neighbors, and, a lazy pupil at school, he did not suggest a country doctor or lawyer in the making. He appreciated the splendors of the natural world and mooned over pretty girls but otherwise showed little aptitude or interest for anything outside of books. Among the men who didn’t recognize his promise was the poet’s own father, a former dockworker with a hard demeanor. ..."
New Republic
Pablo Neruda’s Extraordinary Life, in an Illustrated Love Letter to Language

Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People

February 2009: Pablo Neruda, 2011 November: 100 Love Sonnets, 2015 November: The Body Politic: The battle over Pablo Neruda’s corpse, 2015 December: In Chile, Where Pablo Neruda Lived and Loved, 2016 May: Windows that Open Inward - Pablo Neruda. Milton Rogovin, Photographing., 2018 March: What We Can Learn from Neruda’s Poetry of Resistanc

Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Earth (2018)

"The line last Thursday to see Kamasi Washington perform at Leimert Park’s the World Stage wasn’t just around the block. It was the block. Organizers for the sort-of secret show, dubbed the Heaven and Earth Block Party in honor of Washington’s new album, roped off the entire back-alley entrance and parking lot of the saxophonist and composer’s old home-base nightclub. They set up couches and an outdoor projection screen for the hundreds of fans who couldn’t fit inside the tiny jazz venue’s main room. Washington, commanding yet gentle at center stage, led his band of best friends and L.A.’s jazz elite through two different two-hour sets, drawing from his quadruple-LP 'Heaven and Earth,' which was released June 22. The crowd was a mix of veteran L.A. jazz heads, curious hipsters and Leimert Park locals who grew up alongside Washington and this scene. It was sweaty and slammed cheek-to-cheek in a way no one minded. ... The show made the case not just for the continued vitality of L.A. jazz, which has melded with hip-hop, funk and the avant-garde. It was a model for music as the centerpiece of a community. A physical space, but also a mental and spiritual one. That’s the 'Heaven and Earth' of Washington’s album, and in a time when so much of American life seems isolated or irredeemably fractured, it’s a place for hope as well. ..."
LA Times: Kamasi Washington's ‘Heaven and Earth’ proves jazz's vitality and political power
Pitchfork
Kamasi Washington Earns Every Minute of Heaven and Earth (Audio)
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: ''Street Fighter Mas" live on KCRW, "The Space Travelers Lullaby'' live on KCRW


2015 December: The Epic - Kamasi Washington (2015), 2016 December: Throttle Elevator Music featuring Kamasi Washington (2016), 2017 April: Harmony of Difference (EP - 2017), 2017 June: "The Rhythm Changes", 2017 August: What's in my Bag?, 2017 August: Harmony of Difference EP (2017)

Opening a fire hydrant is a city summer tradition

"The first fire hydrant in New York was installed in 1808 at William and Liberty Streets downtown. By the end of the 19th century, city streets were dotted with iron hydrants, the kind we’re used to seeing today. The hydrants were certainly important when it came to fighting the deadly fires that beset the city in those days. But it didn’t take long for residents of the tenement districts to start wrenching open hydrants during heat waves and using the high-pressure spray for cooling off in blistering heat. Who led these activities? New York kids, of course. ..."
Ephemeral New York

Broadcasting from Home - Penguin Cafe Orchestra (1982)

"The Penguin Cafe Orchestra is as eclectic as prog gets, way beyond the usual parameters of the genre, far removed from bubbly Moog runs, blistering Rickenbacker bass rumbles, laser-guided electric guitar solos and thrashing Hammond organ. Quite the opposite, PCO was formed in that glorious period of 1973, when music from all genres were actively incorporated into the progressive fold, a laboratory of incredible adventure (and stamina) , still ear-friendly in the 21st Century. Not really surprising as the classically trained young 70s musicians flocked to the Rock idiom en masse, wanting to be part of this youthful exuberant cultural movement that had taken over the artistic world. Simon Jeffes was a gifted composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist who wished to put into music the dreams he slept through, very much in a neo-classical mode using an array of stringed instruments (violin, viola, cello) as well as the rare and bizarre such as Harmonium, Spinet, Ukulele, Cuatro, Soloban, Dulcitone, Omnichord etc'..."
Progarchives
W - Broadcasting from Home
amazon
YouTube: White Mischief & In the Back of a Taxi, Music by Numbers, Heartwind, Now Nothing, Isle of View (Music for Helicopter Pilots)

Jorge Amado

Wikipedia - ""Jorge Leal Amado de Faria (10 August 1912 – 6 August 2001) was a Brazilian writer of the modernist school. He remains the best known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in film, notably Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands in 1978. His work reflects the image of a Mestiço Brazil and is marked by religious syncretism. He depicted a cheerful and optimistic country that was beset, at the same time, with deep social and economic differences. ... On his return to Brazil in 1954, Amado abandoned active political life, leaving the Communist Party one year later. From that period on he dedicated himself solely to literature. His second creative phase began in 1958 with Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, which was described by Jean-Paul Sartre as 'the best example of a folk novel'. Amado abandoned, in part, the realism and the social themes of his early works, producing a series of novels focusing mainly on feminine characters, devoted to a kind of smiling celebration of the traditions and the beauties of Bahia. ..."
Wikipedia
The 12 Best Books By Jorge Amado You Must Read
amazon: Jorge Amado

What It Costs to Be Smuggled Across the U.S. Border

Mr. Cruz crossed into Guatemala legally with his national identity card.
"MATAMOROS, Mexico — Shortly before dawn one Sunday last August, a driver in an S.U.V. picked up Christopher Cruz at a stash house in this border city near the Gulf of Mexico. The 22-year-old from El Salvador was glad to leave the one-story building, where smugglers kept bundles of cocaine and marijuana alongside their human cargo, but he was anxious about what lay ahead. The driver deposited Mr. Cruz at an illegal crossing point on the edge of the Rio Grande. A smuggler took a smartphone photograph to confirm his identity and sent it using WhatsApp to a driver waiting to pick him up on the other side of the frontier when — if — he made it across. The nearly 2,000-mile trip had already cost Mr. Cruz’s family more than $6,000 and brought him within sight of Brownsville, Tex. The remaining 500 miles to Houston — terrain prowled by the United States Border Patrol as well as the state and local police — would set them back another $6,500. It was an almost inconceivable amount of money for someone who earned just a few dollars a day picking coffee beans back home. But he wasn’t weighing the benefits of a higher-paying job. He was fleeing violence and what he said was near-certain death at the hands of local gangs. ..."
NY Times

"Habibi Funk 001 Mix" by Jannis of Jakarta Records (Mix of Arabic 60s & 70s)

"Thru the "Sawtuha" project and Blitz The Ambassador playing quite some shows in Morocco I've had the pleasure to travel North Africa quite frequently lately and whenever possible I did some record shopping. This is a selection of some of the finds, music from the 60s and 70s from Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. Some known, some not yet. Here is the tracklist: 01. Assa'd Khoury - Al Gaba 02. Sabah - Dek El Kaff 03. Karim Shourhy & Andrea Rayder - Take Me Back To Cairo 04. Fadoul - Sid Redad (Papa's Got A Brand New Bag)* 05. Ziad Rahbani - Intro Instrumental 2 06. Sharifa Fadel - Mawal El Ashak 07. Salah Ragab and The Cairo Jazz Band - Egypt Strut 08. Golden Hands - Take Me Back 09. Elias Rahbani & His Orchestra - Moonlight Melody 10. Mahmoud Megri - Tefham 11. Elias Rahbani - Dance Of Maria 12. Abdou El Omari - Rajaat Laayoun ..."
YouTube: "Habibi Funk 001 Mix"
Soundcloud: "Habibi Funk 001 Mix"

2017 June: Ahmed Malek and Other Treasures From Habibi Funk’s North African Crate - Digging Expeditions, 2017 July: Lebanon: Various artists - Jakarta Radio 010 Mix, 2017 December: From the Counter: Beirut

Private Gestural Language, Unfolding Poetically

Trisha Brown Dance Company, with Dai Jian, center, Elena Demyanenko, left, and Tamara Riewe, in “Foray Forêt” at Dance Theater Workshop.
"About halfway through Trisha Brown’s 'Foray Forêt,' two men and a woman suddenly run from different corners of the stage toward the center and simultaneously jump and collide, legs splitting in the air. The woman is spun around, midflight, as if caught in a revolving door, while the men rush seamlessly offstage. It’s a moment, seen on Wednesday night when the Trisha Brown Dance Company began a two-week engagement at Dance Theater Workshop, that sums up a great deal about Ms. Brown’s work and its effects. It is unexpected, virtuosic, funny, arbitrary, subtle, detailed, poetic. It shows how movement uninflected by personal drama or emotional content can resonate with both of those by virtue of juxtaposition and association. And it reveals, too, that while Ms. Brown’s slippery, silky style can look so casual as to feel pedestrian, it’s full of precise intention. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Trisha Brown: Simplicity Within Complexity By Anna Kisselgoff
Trisha Brown Company - Foray Foret
vimeo: Foray Forêt (1990), performed in 1993, Workshopshowing Trisha Brown Repertoire: Foray Forêt

2008 May: Trisha Brown, 2010 December: “A Walk Across the Rooftops”, 2011 January: Trisha Brown - Floor of the Forest (1970), 2011 March: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s, 2012 February: Dance/Draw, 2016 January: Dance, Valiant & Molecular, 2016 February: Set and Reset (1983), Newark (1987), Present Tense (2003), 2017 March: Trisha Brown, Choreographer and Pillar of American Postmodern Dance, Dies at 80, 2017 April: From Stage to Page: Unpacking a Shelf of New Dance Publications, 2017 June: Accumulated Vision: Trisha Brown and the Visual Arts By Susan Rosenberg

Tarot Mythology: The Surprising Origins of the World's Most Misunderstood Cards

A selection of trump cards (top row) and pip cards (bottom row) from the first edition of the Rider-Waite deck, circa 1909.
"The Empress. The Hanged Man. The Chariot. Judgment. With their centuries-old iconography blending a mix of ancient symbols, religious allegories, and historic events, tarot cards can seem purposefully opaque. To outsiders and skeptics, occult practices like card reading have little relevance in our modern world. But a closer look at these miniature masterpieces reveals that the power of these cards isn’t endowed from some mystical source—it comes from the ability of their small, static images to illuminate our most complex dilemmas and desires. Contrary to what the uninitiated might think, the meaning of divination cards changes over time, shaped by each era’s culture and the needs of individual users. This is partly why these decks can be so puzzling to outsiders, as most of them reference allegories or events familiar to people many centuries ago. Caitlín Matthews, who teaches courses on cartomancy, or divination with cards, says that before the 18th century, the imagery on these cards was accessible to a much broader population. But in contrast to these historic decks, Matthews finds most modern decks harder to engage with. ..."
Collectors Weekly

’77 Music Club

"After Kendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize, the Washington Post blubbered that 'Kids aren’t starting garage bands' anymore, and 'Electric guitar sales are down 30 percent over the past decade!' Rock and Roll is not dead, former Rolling Stone writer Marc Weingarten declared, but it 'continues to lose traction with anyone under 40,' and 'it seems unmoored from its commitment to social engagement, especially among the young….' But to Carly Jordan and Carrie Courogen, both 26, rock and roll, particularly that music created three to five decades ago, still resonates. Their podcast, ’77 Music Club, is an homage to the music from roughly 1965 to 1985, with ’77 chosen as the name 'because 1977 is our favorite year in music history, period,' said Carly. I met them at former Television guitarist Richard Lloyd’s show at Bowery Electric, where they were singing along to the classic Television song, 'See No Evil', from Television’s debut album, 'Marquee Moon', often considered one of the greatest 'punk' albums of all time. ..."
Quiet Lunch (Video)

Recycled Funk Episode 14 (Live @ APT 2.9.04)

"If you lived in NYC in the early 2000’s and were part of the 'in-crowd', chances are you experienced a night or two, or twelve at APT. For several years APT was 'the' spot to be at on any night of the week. An indiscreet black door at 419 W.13th st. with no name or address. If you were lucky enough to get it, it might change your life. It did for me… The two nights that really put APT on the map where Monday and Wednesday nights. Every week Bobbito Garcia aka Cucumber Slice held court on Monday’s with his 'Waffles & Falafel’s' party (they actually sold waffles at the party). On Wednesday nights the almighty Rich Medina reigned supreme with his 'Lil Ricky’s Rib Shack'. Ad the that the likes of supremely talented DJ’s, Akalepse, Emskee & Monk One, who graced the decks on the upper level, and you were in for a musical treat all night long on either floor. ..."
Brooklyn Radio (Audio)
mixcloud (Audio)

Iraq's First Archeologist

Hormuzd Rassam
"When Hormuzd Rassam went to work in January of 1846 as an assistant to Austen Henry Layard, Rassam was 19 years old and eager to help the man who had come from England to dig out a buried palace near Rassam’s home town of Mosul. Six years earlier, while en route to visit an uncle in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Layard had passed through Mosul, in northern Iraq and then under Ottoman control. There Layard met the British vice-consul for Mosul, Christian Rassam, who showed his guest around the area. The men got along well. Of all he saw, Layard wrote, nothing intrigued him more than the two great sets of mounds called Nabi Younis and Koyunjik that lay across the Tigris river from Mosul, on its east bank, said to be the ruins of ancient Assyrian Nineveh. Days later and a few kilometers downriver, Layard saw the towering cone of Assyrian Nimrud, 'and the impression that it made upon me was one never to be forgotten.' The scenes were so compelling, he wrote, that 'my thought ran constantly upon the possibility of exploring with the spade those great ruins.' ..."
Aramco World
W - Hormuzd Rassam
BBC: The men who uncovered Assyria

This artist’s depiction of the grand entrance to a four-chambered temple built by Ashurnasirpal II at the northwest part of Nimrud was excavated under Layard and Rassam in 1846. It shows the human-headed lions that today stand on display in London (next); the artist also showed the palace in the vivid colors that may have resembled its original condition.

The Death of a Once Great City

"New York has been my home for more than forty years, from the year after the city’s supposed nadir in 1975, when it nearly went bankrupt. I have seen all the periods of boom and bust since, almost all of them related to the 'paper economy' of finance and real estate speculation that took over the city long before it did the rest of the nation. But I have never seen what is going on now: the systematic, wholesale transformation of New York into a reserve of the obscenely wealthy and the barely here—a place increasingly devoid of the idiosyncrasy, the complexity, the opportunity, and the roiling excitement that make a city great. As New York enters the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is in imminent danger of becoming something it has never been before: unremarkable. It is approaching a state where it is no longer a significant cultural entity but the world’s largest gated community, with a few cupcake shops here and there. For the first time in its history, New York is, well, boring. ..."
Harpers

2018 FIFA World Cup

Wikipedia - "The 2018 FIFA World Cup is the 21st FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament contested by the men's national teams of the member associations of FIFA. It is currently ongoing in Russia starting from 14 June and will end with the final match on 15 July 2018. Russia was awarded the hosting rights on 2 December 2010. This is the first World Cup to be held in Eastern Europe, and the eleventh time that it has been held in Europe. For the first time the tournament takes place on two continents – Europe and Asia. All but one of the stadium venues are in European Russia in order to keep travel time manageable. ... Of the 32 teams, 20 make back-to-back appearances following the last tournament in 2014, including defending champions Germany, while both Iceland and Panama make their first appearances at a FIFA World Cup. ... The English Football Association and others raised concerns of bribery on the part of the Russian team and corruption from FIFA members. They claimed that four members of the executive committee had requested bribes to vote for England, and Sepp Blatter had said that it had already been arranged before the vote that Russia would win. The 2014 Garcia Report, an internal investigation led by Michael J. Garcia, was withheld from public release by Hans-Joachim Eckert, FIFA's head of adjudication on ethical matters. ..."
Wikipedia

Ambient Framework - Anna Martinova

"A slowly undulating sine wave of an undercurrent. Synthesized strings that echo to infinity. And lots of sonic space in between. That combination, that provisioning of an audio environment, is the elegant framework of the track 'Noir' by Amsterdam-based Dusha. That distinct combination alone could provide a gentle, soothing — yet still potent with drama — background listen. Martiova, however, doesn’t stop there. She eventually insinuates the space with a soft melody, efficiently in that it doesn’t so much intrude as emerge, like a slowly cycling carousel coming out of the receding mist. ... Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/tulpa-portal. More on the proposed school at kickstarter.com. More from Martinova at chipeky.com and tudu.bandcamp.com."
Disquiet (Audio)

Lonnie Liston Smith & the Cosmic Echoes - Astral Traveling (1973)

"Lonnie Liston Smith was familiar to Bob Thiele through his role as the pianist in Pharoah Sanders’ group, but it wasn’t until Lonnie had become a member of Miles Davis’ band that Thiele decided it was time to sign him to his own deal. By this time Lonnie had been on the scene for the best part of a decade playing with Art Blakey and Roland Kirk. He had come into his own with Sanders but there was nothing in jazz to compare with being in the piano seat for Davis’ group. For his Flying Dutchman debut Lonnie went into the studio with George Barron on saxophone, Cecil McBee on bass and a host of percussionists including two Indian players. The sound was atypical of his later recordings in that it was a largely acoustic set – featuring electric piano but no synths – but it fitted in with Lonnie’s cosmic jazz philosophy. The title track set the scene for an album with a mellow, spacey feel that today would be called spiritual jazz. The album was an immediate success and led to a long term contract with Flying Dutchman. -Dean Rudland ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
allmusic
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Astral Traveling (1973) full album

Flags in the Dust - William Faulkner (1973)

Wikipedia - "Flags in the Dust is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, completed in 1927. His publisher heavily edited the manuscript with Faulkner's reluctant consent, removing about 40,000 words in the process. That version was published as Sartoris in 1929. Faulkner's original manuscript of Flags in the Dust was published in 1973, and Sartoris was subsequently taken out of print. ... In the autumn or winter of 1926, William Faulkner, twenty-nine, began work on the first of his novels about Yoknapatawpha County. Sherwood Anderson had told him some time before that he should write about his native Mississippi, and now Faulkner took that advice: he used his own land, and peopled it with men and women who were partly drawn from real life, and partly depicted as they should have been in some ideal mythopoeic structure. A year later, on September 29, 1927, the new novel was completed. It was 596 pages long in transcript, and he called it Flags in the Dust. ..."
Wikipedia
[PDF] Flags in the Dust
amazon

2011 September: Southern Gothic, 2014 February: William Faulkner, 2015 October: William Faulkner Draws Maps of Yoknapatawpha County, the Fictional Home of His Great Novels, 2015 November: Interviews William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12, 2016 April: Absalom, Absalom!! (1936), 2016 May: The Sound and the Fury (1929), 2016 October: The Snopes Trilogy (1940, 1957, 1959), 2016 December: Light in August (1932), 2017 February: As I Lay Dying (1930), 2017 June: The Wild Palms (1939), 2017 August: Sanctuary (1931). 2017 September: The Unvanquished (1938), 2017 October: 20 Pieces of Writing Advice from William Faulkner, 2017 November: Yoknapatawpha County, 2018 February: Go Down, Moses (1942)

The British jazz explosion: meet the musicians rewriting the rulebook

"Every so often, British jazz pops its head above the parapet, gets a Mercury nomination, and has a noodle on telly to remind everyone that it’s still there, like it’s always been, parping away from mainstream view. For many of us, jazz has seemed like something other people listened to. But in the past few years, the genre has had a serious overhaul. When Kendrick Lamar released his landmark album To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015, one of its most extraordinary aspects was its liberal use of jazz, which dovetailed with hip-hop and opened it up for a new generation. Not only did it immediately feel more accessible but, played by the likes of strikingly cosmic characters such as Thundercat and Kamasi Washington, it looked commandingly cool. In the UK, a new and thrilling jazz movement has evolved. ..."
Guardian (Audio)

A City at the Crossroads Examines Migration, Through Art

“Theater of the Sun,” a mixed-media installation by Fallen Fruit, is among the works presented at Manifesta 12 in Palermo, Sicily. Human interaction with nature is one of the event’s central themes.
"PALERMO, Sicily — Political art and world politics seldom dovetail in real time, but as the twelfth edition of the Manifesta contemporary art biennial approached, its host city of Palermo found itself walking its talk. Titled 'A Planetary Garden: Cultivating Coexistence,' the exhibition, which opened June 16, takes migration as one of its themes. And days before the international art crowd descended on the Sicilian capital, Italy’s new interior minister, Matteo Salvini, closed the country’s ports to rescue boats — including the Aquarius, a ship looking to dock in Italy with 629 migrants aboard. Resisting the national announcement, Palermo’s mayor, Leoluca Orlando, offered to open the local port to the vessel, but the Italian Coast Guard declined to escort it in and the migrants were rerouted to Spain. Mr. Orlando, who often personally greeted migrants who arrived in Palermo’s harbor before Mr. Salvini’s decision, is famous for fighting the Sicilian mafia in multiple terms as mayor since the 1980s. ..."
NY Times

“Pteridophilia” by the Chinese artist Zheng Bo, also emerges from the foliage at the botanical garden.

The Essential Guide to Soca

"The musical engine driving today’s Caribbean Carnival celebrations from Barbados to St. Vincent, soca began its life as an experiment in 1970s Trinidad & Tobago. Seeking to create a musical unity between his twin-island republic’s East Indian and African populations, Trinidadian music icon Lord Shorty inserted the dholak and dhantal into the Afro-Creole rhythm of calypso on 1973’s 'Indrani,' sketching out a new hybrid sound he first dubbed 'the soul of calypso.' Other calypsonians would follow Shorty’s lead, putting aside the pointed political commentary of Trinidad’s original musical export to turn up the party vibes. It would be a decade, however, before soca crystallized into its modern form, incorporating – and then digitizing – the sounds of the street-level brass brands and iron-beating rhythm sections heard at Carnival time to create a sound specially geared for masqueraders to 'chip' and jump up to. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)
W - Soca music
How Soca Is Absorbing Afrobeats To Create A New Subgenre (Video)

Borough Hall Ceiling Collapse Shows How Badly Subway Is Deteriorating

"Back in January, the city’s Department of Transportation prepared a list of 'priority' subway stations that ought to be renovated. At the time, a few members of the MTA Board, including DOT commissioner Polly Trottenberg, were opposing an MTA project originating from Governor Cuomo’s office called the Enhanced Station Initiative (ESI). There were several points of contention, including a failure to propose installing elevators or finding other ways to make stations accessible, but Trottenberg and others also complained that the MTA wasn’t clear on how it had chosen the 33 stations for the $1 billion project. So, DOT prepared their own list and compared it with the stations chosen by the MTA. There was almost no overlap between the two lists. Yet, Borough Hall was on neither of them. This is worth revisiting now, because the ceiling at Borough Hall collapsed this afternoon. A giant pile of roof stuff fell onto the Manhattan-bound platform a couple of hours before the evening rush hour. ..."
Voice

Matt "Guitar" Murphy

Wikipedia - "Matthew Tyler Murphy (December 29, 1929 – June 15, 2018), known as Matt 'Guitar' Murphy, was an American blues guitarist. He was associated with The Blues Brothers and Howlin' Wolf. Murphy was born in Sunflower, Mississippi, and was educated in Memphis, Tennessee, where his father worked at the Peabody Hotel. Murphy learned to play guitar when he was a child.In 1948, Murphy moved to Chicago, where he joined the Howlin' Wolf Band, which at the time featured Little Junior Parker. In 1952, Murphy recorded with Little Junior Parker and Ike Turner, resulting in the release, 'You’re My Angel'/'Bad Women, Bad Whiskey'(Modern 864), credited to Little Junior Parker and the Blue Flames. Murphy worked a lot with Memphis Slim, including on his debut album At the Gate of Horn (1959). ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Matt Murphy - Murphy's Boogie 1963 (live), Memphis Slim & Matt Murphy - Matt's Guitar Blues, I'm lost without you - Memphis Slim, Matt ''Guitar'' Murphy ~ ''Born Under A Bad Sign''&''Going Down'' Live 1986, Matt ''Guitar'' Murphy ~ ''Low Down And Dirty'' & ''Blue Walls'' 1990

How Nietzsche Explains Turkey

"In 1989, a small Islamist party called Refah, or 'Welfare,' holds a conference titled 'National Consciousness.' In the crowd are mustached men with lean faces; many of them are old, wearing skullcaps Muslims use during prayer. Soon, a tall, thin young man dressed in a well-tailored suit rises to speak. 'May the peace of God be upon all believers,' he says. His polite bearing, however, belies his firm message. He invokes the ur-enemies of Turkishness— 'Agop,' the Greeks, and 'Jacques' and 'Hans,' a reference to the Europeans. They distribute birth control to the villages, corrupt the youth, and scoop up Turkey’s national wealth, he claims, adding that Turkey’s bureaucrats, farmers, widowers, and orphans are all forced to pay them interest, 'that which will facilitate the reign of the Jew.' Meanwhile, the ruling class lies around on nude beaches, sips fancy alcohol, and gawks at exotic dancers from the far corners of the earth, he says. All the evil, theft, and corruption in the country, the man says, can be traced to a mentality of surrender to the West. But Turkey’s true heirs will eventually take their country back. ... In the years to come, the young man, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, would be elected mayor of Istanbul, prime minister of Turkey, and, in 2014, president. ..."
The Atlantic
NYBooks: Will Turkey’s Voters Give Erdoğan the Imperial Presidency He Seeks?

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: A Long March for Justice in Turkey, 2017 July: Radical Municipalism: The Future We Deserve, 2017 September: Istanbul: Memories and the City - Orhan Pamuk, 2018 January: Turkey’s State of Emergency, 2018 April: The Unlikely New Hero of Turkeys, 2018 June: How My Father’s Ideas Helped the Kurds Create a New Democracy

Horace Silver Quintet - Song for My Father (1962)

"One of Blue Note's greatest mainstream hard bop dates, Song for My Father is Horace Silver's signature LP and the peak of a discography already studded with classics. Silver was always a master at balancing jumping rhythms with complex harmonies for a unique blend of earthiness and sophistication, and Song for My Father has perhaps the most sophisticated air of all his albums. Part of the reason is the faintly exotic tint that comes from Silver's flowering fascination with rhythms and modes from overseas -- the bossa nova beat of the classic 'Song for My Father,' for example, or the Eastern-flavored theme of 'Calcutta Cutie,' or the tropical-sounding rhythms of 'Que Pasa?' Subtle touches like these alter Silver's core sound just enough to bring out its hidden class, which is why the album has become such a favorite source of upscale ambience. Song for My Father was actually far less focused in its origins than the typical Silver project; it dates from the period when Silver was disbanding his classic quintet and assembling a new group, and it features performances from both bands. ..."
allmusic
W - Song for My Father
amazon
YouTube: Recorded live in Copenhagen, Denmark, April 1968. Song for My Father

Separating Migrant Families Is Barbaric. It’s Also What the U.S. Has Been Doing to People of Color for Hundreds of Years.

Woman and child on auction block, 1800s
"Like most of you reading this, I am deeply appalled at what I see happening right now in the United States — immigrant children being snatched away from their parents and sent to separate detention centers, often locked in cages with strangers, with no real idea of when they’ll ever be reunited with their families. It’s an abomination. But I often see two troubling responses to this crisis that show just how aloof and asleep millions of Americans are right now. The first is a statement that goes something like this: This is not the America I know and love. The second is a question, rooted in the same ignorance, that goes something like this: How could this ever happen in the United States? What’s happening right now in our country is, without question, a human rights catastrophe. Yet every deeply entrenched mechanism used in these policies and the spirit fueling this catastrophe are as American as Facebook and Disneyland. Let me break it down. At least five troubling factors are at play here. All five were fully and completely present before this current crisis ever began. They set the tone and created the culture in which something so heinous could ever take place. ..."
The Intercept
The Atlantic: Watch the U.S. Turn Away Asylum Seekers at the Border (Video)

The Byrds - The Original Singles: 1965–1967, Volume 1

Wikipedia - "The Original Singles: 1965–1967, Volume 1 is a compilation album by American rock 'n' roll band The Byrds. Originally released in 1980, it offered, for the first time, all of the mono single versions of the Byrds' singles released between 1965 and early 1967. The tracks on the album are laid out chronologically by release date of the single, and features the A-side first, then the B-side. For example, the Byrds' first single was 'Mr. Tambourine Man' with 'I Knew I'd Want You' on the B-side. The next single was 'All I Really Want to Do' with 'I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better' on the B-side, and so forth. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Columbia 45 RPM Records - 1965 - 1967 1:08:56

There’s More Than One Way to Strike the Boss

"Sorting the Mail" by Reginald Marsh at the Ariel Rios Federal Building, Washington, D.C.
"Last month, bus drivers in Okayama, Japan began an unusual work action. They didn’t walk off the job or stop driving their bus routes, and they continued to pick up passengers as normal. But, in a subversive twist, they covered their fare collection boxes and refused to take money from those who boarded. Riders would still get where they needed, but the company would not profit from the trip — with the drivers unilaterally imposing free fares for all. In the United States, teachers on the picket line this spring have set a high bar for militancy, showcasing the importance of the conventional strike. Whether in West Virginia or Oklahoma, North Carolina or Kentucky, these red-state teachers have provided an inspiring example of how working people can use well-planned collective actions to demand respect and win gains previously considered out of reach. There is no doubt that if the US labor movement is to reverse its declining fortunes, it must revive the strike as a feared and frequently deployed tactic. ..."
Jacobin

Photos: A Tent City for Detained Children in Texas

"Twenty miles outside of El Paso, Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border, sits the Tornillo Port of Entry, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility which was selected by the Trump administration to be the first site for temporary housing for the overflow of unaccompanied minors and the children of detained migrant parents, under the new 'zero-tolerance' policy. A quickly erected tent city inside the facility is currently set up with 450 beds, according to NBC reporting, but is built for expansion. At the moment, it is unclear how many children are being held in Tornillo, but Reuters photographer Mike Blake was able to photograph several dozen teenage boys moving between tents yesterday as he flew over. Via NPR, the reporter John Sepulvado attempted to have a look inside the new tent city, but officials asked him to leave. He spoke with Texas State Representative Mary Gonzalez, who had toured the facility, saying that the tents were air-conditioned and she 'felt the kids were at least safe.' The extended weather forecast for Tornillo predicts high temperatures up to 106 degrees Fahrenheit. For further coverage in the Atlantic, see also 'Audio: Hear the Voices of Children Detained at the Border' and 'The Outrage Over Family Separation Is Exactly What Stephen Miller Wants.'"
The Atlantic

History Refused to Die

Thornton Dial, “History Refused to Die” (2004)
"This exhibition presents thirty paintings, sculptures, drawings, and quilts by self-taught contemporary African American artists to celebrate the 2014 gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art of works of art from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. The artists represented by this generous donation all hail from the American South. History Refused to Die features the mixed-media art of Thornton Dial (1928–2016)—whose monumental assemblage from 2004 provides the exhibition's title—and a selection of the renowned quilts from Gee's Bend, Alabama, by quilters such as Annie Mae Young (1928–2012), Lucy Mingo (born 1931), Loretta Pettway (born 1942), and additional members of the extended Pettway family. Among other accomplished artists to be featured are Nellie Mae Rowe (1900–1982), Lonnie Holley (born 1950), and Ronald Lockett (1965–1988). ..."
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Exhibition Objects
NY Times: At the Met, a Riveting Testament to Those Once Neglected

Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing (1968)

"While many texts are readily available chronicling the Black Power Movement, the same cannot be said for its 'aesthetic and spiritual sister,' the Black Arts Movement. Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing is a rare exception that documents and captures the social and cultural turmoil of the period. Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal, co-editors and contributors to this volume, saw Black Fire as a manifesto to bring about change in Black thought and action, generated from a Black aesthetic. Often considered the seminal work from the Black Arts Movement, Black Fire is a rich anthology and an extraordinary source document, presenting 178 selections of poetry, essays, short stories and plays from cultural critics, literary artists and political leaders. Many of the contributors became prominent, nationally and internationally. Others receded into the cultural landscape, even before Black Fire's first publication in 1968. Included in this groundbreaking volume are the essays of John Henrik Clarke, Kwame Ture (Stokely Charmichael), Harold Cruse and A.B. Spellman; the poetry of Askia Toure, Sonia Sanchez, Gaston Neal, Stanley Crouch, Calvin C. Hernton, and suprisingly Sun Ra; the fiction of Julia Fields and drama from Ed Bullins. Sixty-three additional contributors round out this comprehensive work."
Africa World
ChickenBones: A Journal - Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing
amazon

Afro-Soultet - Afrodesia (2011)

"Afrodesia is the lone album by the Afro-Soultet, which may or may not have been officially released by Banyon sometime between 1968 and 1971 (no one still breathing can remember the exact date). What we do know is that Johnny Kitchen (aka Jack Millman) licensed the record to Banyon's Betty Chiappetta (Vee-Jay Records), and the record received a test pressing. The Afro-Soultet originally hailed from Texas and recorded several albums under the name Afro-Blues Quintet +1, who had previously recorded three albums and seven 45s. After some personnel changes, the band relocated to L.A., where Millman caught them playing the Living Room. ... Afrodesia is a true lost classic and belongs in any soul or Latin jazz collection, as well as in any serious groove digger's crate. ..."
allmusic
amazon
YouTube: Afrodesia, Afro Revolt, Mozamba, Chocolate Drop, Soul Rockin'

Searching for Soul: Soul Funk & Jazz Rarities from Michigan 1968-1980

"Alcohol is a killer vice, and Robert Jay knows it. When the Detroit funk legend wrote the infectious 'Alcohol' in 1969, he was hungover and mad as hell. Yet Jay’s blues-funked 'Alcohol' became one of the most beloved, and nearly impossible-to-find sides in the funk music canon. While a few 7-inch singles can still be located, California’s Luv N’ Haight, a Ubiquity Records offshoot, just made the process much easier. With the release of this insane comp, jazz, funk, and breakbeat lovers finally have access to some of the rarest grooves from Michigan’s funk underground. Jay’s 'Alcohol' is featured, as is the Detroit Sex Machine’s 'Rap it Together.' Many songs are from rhythm sections overshadowed by Motown; yet some here were more skilled than the Funk Brothers and Parliament. ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Searching for Soul: Soul Funk & Jazz Rarities from Michigan 1968-1980 49:28

Taking it to the Streets

Pick-up soccer on 61st St.
"Energized by freedom from schoolwork and drawn out of homes by the streetside squeals (and text messages) of friends, Brooklyn’s children, in the summer months, bound down stoops and dash onto pavement, with soccer balls, checkerboards, and pool toys in tow. On a recent weekend, I patrolled the borough’s blocks, on the lookout for kids doing what they do best."
BKLYNR