Existential Comics

"Philosophy wouldn’t exactly seem like the kind of subject matter that lends itself well to comics, let alone comics will millions of readers. But that’s exactly what Corey Mohler has managed to do over at Existential Comics. Corey, a software developer, sees himself as a philosophy popularizer and has done an incredible job—you’ve probably already seen his wildly popular posts 'The Germans play Monopoly' or 'World Cup Philosophy: Germany vs France.' Or since you’re reading this site—perhaps you’ve seen his Stoicism inspired fare. We reached out to Corey to get his thoughts on existentialism, Stoicism, the difference between the two and how philosophy has changed his life. ..."
Existentialism & Stoicism: An Interview With Comic Artist Corey Mohler
Existential Comics
Dungeons & Dragons & Philosophers
W - Existential Comics
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(YouTube: Monty Python Football)

Afro-Atlantic Histories

Dalton Paula, Zeferina, 2018. João de Deus Nascimento, 2018.
"In the most violent and uncertain times of its recent history, Brazil is revisiting the origins of its racial frictions: the slave trade. 'Histórias afro-atlânticas' (Afro-Atlantic Histories) is a massive, 380-work survey of African, Latin American, and European art from the past five centuries, chronicling the largest diaspora in modern history. Nearly half of all Africans captured by slave traders were brought to Brazil, from the time the Portuguese arrived, in the sixteenth century, all the way through the nineteenth century. The show is a sequel to 'Histórias mestiças' (Mestizo Histories), staged four years ago at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake, the cultural center that is also cohosting the current exhibition. Its scope is far-reaching, with pieces by colonial-era Dutch master Albert Eckhout and modern greats Théodore Géricault and Paul Cézanne, as well as contemporary art-world darlings Glenn Ligon, Kara Walker, and Hank Willis Thomas. A fully illustrated catalogue and companion reader will help sharpen our perspective on it all."
ARTFORUM
NY Times: Brazil Enthralls With an Art Show of Afro-Atlantic History
Afro-Atlantic Histories by Juliana Dos Santos
e-flux: MASP - Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand

José Alves de Olinda, a Brazilian artist, created “Eshus’s Barge,” from wood, vegetal fiber and metal, at the Tomie Ohtake Institute. Figures of two dozen Yoruban divinities, armed, have taken charge of a miniature slave ship.

A Cultural History of the Baseball Card

"In a garage roughly 3,000 miles from where I’m writing this, there’s a long, white cardboard container filled with hundreds of cardboard rectangles—all the baseball cards I amassed as a child. I don’t think about that container very often these days, but somewhere in my mind lies the assumption—childish but still deeply held—that decades from now I’ll be able to sell the contents of that box for a modest fortune. Baseball cards, it strikes me now, were my first taste of capitalism. Sure, individual cards held sentimental value to me, but I also was conditioned to see my collection’s worth in monetary terms. It was a portfolio with training wheels. The series of historical events that led to the existence of this cardboard box—one of countless such boxes in countless garages—was catalyzed by a man named Sy Berger, who passed away last weekend. ..."
The Atlantic
W - Baseball card
amazon: The Comic Book Story of Baseball, The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball 2nd Edition

1933 Goudey Babe Ruth #144

The House Springsteen Built: An Oral History of the Stone Pony

"It’s Memorial Day Weekend, 1976, and nearly 1,000 people pack a tiny club in Asbury Park, N.J., to watch a local band and a local legend named Bruce Springsteen, share their mix of rock and soul with a wider world that had all but written off this struggling seaside city for good. Fast forward to this past summer: More than 4,000 crowd the club’s lot three nights in a row to see another local band return home. The crunch of guitars and pounding punk rock reverberate off the nearby luxury condominiums that are signs of the city’s rising economic fortunes. Since it opened in 1974, the club, the Stone Pony, has been the beating heart of Asbury Park, a beacon for musicians and fans alike. But its survival, much like that of its host city, has been a constant battle, a story of resilience and revival, of sold-out shows and shuttered windows. Here is the renowned club’s history, as told by the owners, musicians, staff and fans who have called its dark black interior and low-slung stage home. ..."
NY Times (Video)
W - The Stone Pony

Andrei Rublev - Andrei Tarkovsky (1966)

Wikipedia - "Andrei Rublev (Russian: Андрей Рублёв) is a 1966 Soviet biographical historical drama film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and co-written with Andrei Konchalovsky. The film is loosely based on the life of Andrei Rublev, the 15th-century Russian icon painter. The film features Anatoly Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Sergeyev, Nikolai Burlyayev and Tarkovsky's wife Irma Raush. Savva Yamshchikov, a famous Russian restorer and art historian, was a scientific consultant of the film. Andrei Rublev is set against the background of 15th-century Russia. Although the film is only loosely based on the life of Andrei Rublev, it seeks to depict a realistic portrait of medieval Russia. Tarkovsky sought to create a film that shows the artist as 'a world-historic figure' and 'Christianity as an axiom of Russia’s historical identity^' during a turbulent period of Russian history that ultimately resulted in the Tsardom of Russia. The film's themes include artistic freedom, religion, political ambiguity, autodidacticism, and the making of art under a repressive regime. Because of this, it was not released domestically in the officially atheist Soviet Union for years after it was completed, except for a single 1966 screening in Moscow. ... Even more since being restored to its original version, Andrei Rublev has come to be regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, and has often been ranked highly in both the Sight & Sound critics' and directors' polls. ..."
Wikipedia
Voice: The Secret of “Andrei Rublev”
senses of cinema - The Passion According to Andrei: Andrei Rublev
amazon
YouTube: Andrei Rublev | Trailer | Opens August 24

Bring Back Cortázar

"Sometimes I think the only thing we did in school was read Julio Cortázar. I remember taking tests on 'The Night Face Up' in each of my last three years of school, and countless were the times we read 'Axolotl' and 'The Continuity of Parks,' two short stories that the teachers considered ideal for filling out an hour and a half of class. This is not a complaint, since we were happy reading Cortázar: we recited the characteristics of the fantasy genre with automatic joy, and we repeated in chorus that for Cortázar the short story wins by knockout and the novel by points, and that there was a male reader and a female reader and all of that. The tastes of my generation were shaped by Cortázar’s stories, and not even the xeroxed tests could divest his literature of that air of permanent contemporaneity. ..."
The Paris Review

2011 November: Blow-Up (1966) - Michelangelo Antonioni, 2016 March: Cronopios and Famas (1969), 2017 October: Julio Cortázar, The Art of Fiction No. 83

The Magdalen Reading - Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1435–1438)

Rogier van der Weyden, The Magdalen Reading. c. 1435–1438
Wikipedia - "The Magdalen Reading is one of three surviving fragments of a large mid-15th-century oil-on-panel altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The panel, originally oak, was completed some time between 1435 and 1438 and has been in the National Gallery, London since 1860. It shows a woman with the pale skin, high cheek bones and oval eyelids typical of the idealised portraits of noble women of the period. She is identifiable as the Magdalen from the jar of ointment placed in the foreground, which is her traditional attribute in Christian art. She is presented as completely absorbed in her reading, a model of the contemplative life, repentant and absolved of past sins. ... The background of the painting had been overpainted with a thick layer of brown paint. A cleaning between 1955 and 1956 revealed the figure standing behind the Magdalene and the kneeling figure with its bare foot protruding in front of her, with a landscape visible through a window. ..."
Wikipedia
Virgin and Child with Saints by Rogier van der Weyden

Various - Ghana Soundz (2009)

"Ghana Soundz was the first ever Soundway compilation and became recognised worldwide due to the licensing of the Oscar Sulley track, ‘Bukom Mashie’ to the soundtrack of Hollywood blockbuster, ‘Last King of Scotland’. Pounding rhythms, blaring horns and pumping vocals – the music is a document of a time forgotten when flares and Cuban heels strutted the streets and night-spots of Accra, the sizzlingly hot and humid capital of Ghana. Influenced as much by traditional rhythms and local highlife as by the music of Fela Kuti, James Brown and Santana, these tunes had almost become extinct – until now! Ghana Soundz was the first of three collections of rare afro-beat, afro-funk and afro-fusion that Miles Cleret painstakingly travelled the length and breadth of Ghana to assemble, the third compilation to be released late 2009."
soundwayrecords (Audio)
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Afro-beat Funk & Fusion in 1970's Ghana - Heaven, Make It Fast, Make It Slow - Rob, Honey and the Bees Band - Psychedelic Woman, the african brothers - self reliance, 3rd Generation Band - Because of Money, Oscar Sulley & The Uhuru Dance Band - Bukom Mashie

French Quarter

Wikipedia - "The French Quarter, also known as the Vieux Carré ('Old Square') or Vieux Carré Historic District, is the oldest section of the City of New Orleans. Founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, New Orleans developed around the Vieux Carré, the city's central square. Today, the district is commonly known as the French Quarter, or simply 'the Quarter,' a reflection of the diminished French influence after the Louisiana Purchase. Most extant historical buildings were constructed in the late 1700s, during a period of Spanish rule, or during the early 1800s, after U.S. annexation and statehood. The district is a National Historic Landmark, and numerous contributing buildings have received separate designations of significance. The French Quarter is a prime destination for tourists and local residents. Compared to other areas of the city, the Quarter experienced relatively light flood damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The district was protected by its distance from breached levees and the strength and height of the nearest river levees and flood walls. ..."
Wikipedia
Things to Do in the French Quarter | A Self-Guided Tour (Video)
YouTube: Welcome to The French Quarter!

Protect the Right to Vote in Your Community

Voters wait in line to cast their ballots in Austin, Texas, March, 2016.
"This week’s Take Action Now focuses on stopping the Trump administration from bullying immigrants for using crucial public programs, making phone calls to get out the vote for the midterms, and volunteering to protect the right to vote in your community. Take Action Now gives you three meaningful actions you can take each week, whatever your schedule. Sign up here to get actions like these in your inbox every Tuesday. While families remain separated and children are forced to represent themselves in court, the Trump administration continues to think of new ways to harm immigrants. ..."
The Nation
NY Times: Are You a Democratic Socialist?

The Young Funs: How the NHL’s New Generation of Superstars Is Changing Hockey’s Unwritten Rules

"Late in the third period of a free-wheeling, high-flying tilt between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Chicago Blackhawks this season, Leafs forward Auston Matthews needled the Chicago-centric United Center crowd. Twenty-two seconds earlier, Blackhawks winger Patrick Kane had tied the game, 5-5, sending the notoriously loud building into its typical 'Chelsea Dagger'–blaring hysterics. But with 1:02 left on the clock, Matthews responded with his second goal of the night. As the home crowd went silent, he cupped his hand up to his ear and wiggled his fingers, like Hulk Hogan on skates or Phil Kessel in college. The move was low-key audacious, harmlessly obnoxious, and just plain great. ..."
The Ringer (Video)

Fela Kuti live in England, 1984 Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense

"Best of them all was Wally Badarou's Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense. It adopted a markedly different aesthetic to the one Kuti typically used, and it was a triumph. The album was recorded shortly after Kuti had been released from jail, where he'd served 20 months on the smuggling charges (son Femi had kept Egypt 80 rehearsed during the incarceration). Badarou's production is richer and more burnished than was the norm for Kuti. Indeed, it's almost orchestral. The sound is smoother, the beat more chilled, and the arrangement denser, with layers of keyboards, a serpentine horn chart, and the backup choir placed well forward in the mix. In the lyric for the title track, Kuti tells the oyinbos (white men) to stop foisting sham versions of democracy on Africa, allowing 'democratic' rulers to line their own pockets at the expense of the people, just so long as foreign-owned multi-nationals are permitted to strip the continent of its natural resources for a pittance. ..."
All About Jazz
YouTube: Fela Kuti live in England, 1984 Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense

Seven Square Miles

Seven-square-mile views of Manhattan; Chaganbulage Administrative Village in Inner Mongolia; Venice, Italy; and farms in Plymouth, Washington
"Spending time looking at the varying and beautiful images of our planet from above in Google Earth, zooming in and out at dizzying rates, I thought it would be interesting to compare all of these vistas at a fixed scale—to see what New York City, Venice, or the Grand Canyon would look like from the same virtual height. So, the following images are snapshots from Google Earth, all rectangles of the same size and scale, approximately three and a half miles (5.6 kilometers) wide by two miles (3.2 kilometers) tall—showing seven square miles (18.1 square kilometers, or 4,480 acres) of the surface of our planet in each view. ..."
The Atlantic

Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy

"For the last fifty years, artists have explored the hidden operations of power and the symbiotic suspicion between the government and its citizens that haunts Western democracies. Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy is the first major exhibition to tackle this perennially provocative topic. It traces the simultaneous development of two kinds of art about conspiracy. The first half of the exhibition comprises works by artists who hew strictly to the public record, uncovering hidden webs of deceit—from the shell corporations used by New York's largest private landlord, interconnected networks encompassing politicians, businessmen, and arms dealers. In the second part, other artists dive headlong into the fever dreams of the disaffected, creating fantastical works that nevertheless uncover uncomfortable truths in an age of information overload and weakened trust in institutions. ..."
Metropolitan Museum of Art (Video)
Guardian - Everything is connected: new exhibition on art and conspiracy
Connecting the Dots in the Met Breuer’s Show About Conspiracy Theories
amazon
YouTube: Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy

Against Everything: Thoreau Trailer Park

"... This excerpt is taken from his concluding essay 'Thoreau Trailer Park - The Meaning of Life, Part IV', in which Greif reflects on Thoreau, public parks, and the Occupy Movement. It is hard to remember what Thoreau said because it is all so disturbing. It is easier on us to think of a thin man who erected a cabin with his own hands on the shores of a lovely pond. Thoreau deliberately didn’t build his cabin from scratch. He hacked a free timber frame from someone else’s trees, got friends to help him raise it, and recycled the rest from a laborer’s bivouac, buying cheap, for boards and roof, 'the shanty of James Collins, an Irishman who worked on the Fitchburg Railroad.' This was philosophical, with all its shortcuts and offenses. ..."
Verso

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, 2018 March: A Map of Radical Bewilderment, 2018 April: On Tax Day, Reread Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience’

Bloomsday Explained

"'Bloomsday,' the James Joyce scholar Robert Nicholson once quipped, 'has as much to do with Joyce as Christmas has to do with Jesus.' The celebrations of Ulysses every June 16—the date on which the novel is set—attract extreme ends of the spectrum of literary enthusiasm. Academics and professionals mingle with obsessives and cranks, plus those simply along for the ride. The event can be stately and meticulous or raucous and chaotic—or, somehow, all of the above. A telling instance came a few years ago, when the Irish Arts Center arranged a Bloomsday picnic in New York’s Bryant Park, under the rueful shadow of the Gertrude Stein statue. (Stein disliked Joyce.) Aspiring Broadway types were enlisted to circulate in period costume before bursting into popular songs from 1900-era Ireland. I spoke to one of the performers, a young Irish actor who had recently moved to New York. Had she read Ulysses? ..."
The Paris Review
Exploring The Dublin of James Joyce: A Guide Map

2011 March: Passages from James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" (1965-67), 2010 March: Ulysses Seen, 2013 February: ULYSSES “SEEN” is moving to Dublin!, 2013: Dubliners, 2014 May: The Dead (1987 film), 2014 May: “Have I Ever Left It?” by Mark O'Connell, 2014 July: Digital Dubliners, 2014 September: Read "Ulysses Seen", A Graphic Novel Adaptation of James Joyce’s Classic, 2015 January: The Mapping Dubliners Project, 2015 February: Davy Byrne’s, 2016 January: Port and Docks, 2016 February: Hear James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake Read Unabridged & Set to Music By 17 Different Artists, 2016 April: Nassau Street, 2016 May: Stephen’s Green, 2016 October: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), 2016 November: Skerries, 2017 January: Walking Ulysses | Joyce's Dublin Today

The Roches Are Back (Kind of) With a New, Posthumous Solo Album From a Dearly Departed Sister

"If you don’t know The Roches, you really need to stop what you’re doing and listen to, say, 'Hammond Song.' The Roches were three sisters from what they described as 'deepest New Jersey' who learned to sing harmony in the back of their parents’ car on the New Jersey Turnpike and then grew up to sing songs that were so clear and sure and so not like other songs in the early ’80s in New York City. The first Roches album was born of failure: Maggie and Terre Roche had gone to England to record as a duo. They’d gotten a record deal thanks to one of their mentors, Paul Simon, who they sang backup for on There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. Record companies wanted a certain kind of album from two women in the early ’80s—i.e., something with an equal amount of power chords and frizzed-out hair—and when the Roches did not appear to be delivering, they were called back from England. ..."
Vogue (Video)
W - The Roches

NYCTrust Radio #18

"Showcasing the sounds, styles & influences of the Brooklyn-based record label, Names You Can Trust. With over 35 vinyl releases from Brooklyn to Bogotá, NYCT Radio is an eclectic, intergalactic window into the variety that helps make up the NYCT sound. The Quality Controls, Roberto Carlos, Zilla Mayes, Freddy Scott Orchestra, Eddie Bo and more. Monk-One & Boogieman are back at it and bring you a bunch of rarities, that are dying to be chopped up in your sampler or simply enjoyed on a sunny sunday afternoon!"
Mixcloud (Audio)
Brooklyn Radio (Audio)

Down These Mean Streets: Community and Place in Urban Photography

Winston Vargas, Barbershop, Washington Heights, New York, 1961
"America’s urban streets have long inspired documentary photographers. After World War II, populations shifted from the city to the suburbs and newly built highways cut through thriving neighborhoods, leaving isolated pockets within major urban centers. As neighborhoods started to decline in the 1950s, the photographers in this exhibition found ways to call attention to changing cities and their residents. Down These Mean Streets: Community and Place in Urban Photography explores the work of ten photographers—Manuel Acevedo, Oscar Castillo, Frank Espada, Anthony Hernandez, Perla de Leon, Hiram Maristany, Ruben Ochoa, John Valadez, Winston Vargas, and Camilo José Vergara—who were driven to document and reflect on the state of American cities during these transformative years. Rather than approach the neighborhoods as detached observers, these artists deeply identified with their subject. ..."
SAAM (Video)
NY Times: Piri Thomas, Spanish Harlem Author, Dies at 83
[PDF] Down These Mean Streets
amazon
YouTube: Down These Mean Streets: Community and Place in Urban Photography

Hiram Maristany, Hydrant: In the Air, 1963

The Soul of Black Peru: Afro-Peruvian Classics (1995)

"The Afro-Peruvian style heard on The Soul of Black Peru compilation originated hundreds of years ago from the Spanish slave trade. The music is a mix of African, Spanish, and Andean traditions, due to the fact that the slaves who came to Peru were not from one specific region, so they did not have a common language to communicate with. It's easy to break the music down and see which culture contributed what -- the lyrics are all sung in Spanish (Spain), have a slight melancholy approach (similar to the Yaravi form from the Andes), and boast interesting rhythms (Africa). The musical form is just starting to catch on in other parts of the world, and deservedly so. ..."
allmusic (Audio)
W - Afro-Peruvian Classics: The Soul of Black Peru
W - Afro-Peruvian
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Afro-Peruvian Classics: The Soul of Black Peru

Son de los Diablos, an Afro-Peruvian dance which is based in the Diablada and African rhythms. Painting by Pancho Fierro

A Map of Every Building in America

South of New Orleans
"Most of the time, The New York Times asks you to read something. Today we are inviting you, simply, to look. On this page you will find maps showing almost every building in the United States. Why did we make such a thing? We did it as an opportunity for you to connect with the country’s cities and explore them in detail. To find the familiar, and to discover the unfamiliar. So … look. Every black speck on the map below is a building, reflecting the built legacy of the United States. Use the search bar to find a place and explore the interactive map below. There was a time when every car's glove compartment was crammed with tattered fold-out road maps, trim rectangles that became table-size monsters that challenged you to refold them neatly. We traced our proposed routes ahead of time, seeing that, say, after New Jersey would come Pennsylvania, which would take forever to cross, and then Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and beyond. ..."
NY Times

Mesa, Ariz.

How we roasted Donald Duck, Disney's agent of imperialism - Ariel Dorfman

Donald Duck in The Three Caballeros, 1944
"I should not have been entirely surprised when I saw How to Read Donald Duck, a book I had written with the Belgian sociologist Armand Mattelart, being burned on TV by Chilean soldiers. It was mid-September 1973 and a military coup had just toppled Salvador Allende, the country’s president, terminating his remarkable experiment of building socialism through peaceful means. I was in a safe house when I witnessed my book – along with hundreds of other subversive volumes – being consigned to the inquisitorial pyre. One of the reasons I had gone into hiding, besides my fervent participation in the revolutionary government that had just been overthrown, was the hatred the Donald Duck book had elicited among the new authorities of Chile and their rightwing civilian accomplices. ..."
Guardian
W - How to Read Donald Duck
[PDF] How to Read Donald Duck
vimeo: Rodrigo Dorfman - How to Read Donald Duck Redux
W - 1973 Chilean coup d'état, W - Salvador Allende

‘As amusing as the Duck we were disparaging’ … a strip from How to Read Donald Duck by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart.

Jennifer West - Serpentine Dance, (2014)

"Los Angeles-based artist Jennifer West will premiere the first in a series of interactive cinematic installations at this year’s TBA Festival. Originally conceived as a swan song to celluloid, her project presents a screen-less, communal viewing space where audiences can playfully explore the art of projection. ... For the first time, West worked with the last remaining 70mm optical printer at her lab in North Hollywood to blow up sections of the filmstrips to 70mm for the installation. Two nights of live choreographed flashlight projection performances are accompanied by Theremin and live music taking place inside the installation. A dancer will enact the infamous pre-cinematic Serpentine Dance (created by Loïe Fuller in the 1890’s) – where the dancer’s billowing silk costume becomes a screen for the filmstrip projections. ..."
Mousse Magazine
Film Strips Shining Like Stained Glass (vimeo)
W - Jennifer West
vimeo: Exhibition VIDEO from PICA TBA Fest 14, Portland, Oregon

Paterson - William Carlos Williams (1946 to 1958)

Wikipedia - "Paterson is an epic poem by American poet William Carlos Williams published, in five volumes, from 1946 to 1958. The origin of the poem was an eighty-five line long poem written in 1926, after Williams had read and been influenced by James Joyce's novel Ulysses. As he continued writing lyric poetry, Williams spent increasing amounts of time on Paterson, honing his approach to it both in terms of style and structure. While The Cantos of Ezra Pound and The Bridge by Hart Crane could be considered partial models, Williams was intent on a documentary method that differed from both these works, one that would mirror 'the resemblance between the mind of modern man and the city.'  While Williams might or might not have said so himself, commentators such as Christoper Beach and Margaret Lloyd have called Paterson his response to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Pound's Cantos. The long gestation time of Paterson before its first book was published was due in large part to Williams's honing of prosody outside of conventional meter and his development of an overall structure that would stand on a par with Eliot and Pound yet remain endemically American, free from past influences and older forms. ... Paterson is set in Paterson, New Jersey, whose long history allowed Williams to give depth to the America he wanted to write about, and the Paterson Falls, which powered the town's industry, became a central image and source of energy for the poem. ..."
Wikipedia
amazon


2017 December: Paterson - Jim Jarmusch (2016)

Laila Je T'Aime

"Laila Je T'Aime is a compilation of guitar music from the Western Sahel - including Mauritania, Senegal and Mali. Selected from three years of field recordings, the compilation highlights guitarists and guitar bands and the vast differences in interpretation of the instrument. Recorded on location from the riverside houses of the Niger to the desert campfires of Northern Malian desert. Beautiful field recording compilation of guitar music from the Western Sahel. A wide spectrum of styles is covered here in stripped down variations of regional styles ranging from the deep acoustic ballads and nostalgic folk songs to Western pop cover songs. Street musicians and professional stage bands are featured in intimate and informal sessions in village houses or around desert campfires, complete with the occasional car horn or motorcycle rumble in the distance. Highlights of over three years of field recordings, includes a full color booklet with many photos and liner notes by Christopher Kirkley. ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
bandcamp (Audio)
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Le Marchand Du Soleil, Le Dental Orchestra - Penda, Hamadth Kah - Ce Weeti

Bambara Mystic Soul - The Raw Sound Of Burkina Faso 1974-1979

"For its commemorative 10th release, Analog Africa indulges in Burkina Faso, one of the jewels of the Sahel, a harsh and arid strip that straddles the southern Sahara, stretching from Dakar in the west to Djibouti in the east. Formerly known as Haute Volta, Burkina Faso's sound was organized and nurtured during the country's time as part of a vast patchwork making up French colonial West Africa. The rise of a post-independence urban middle class willing to invest in the Burkinabe arts spawned a cadre of singers, bands, orchestras and, most importantly, competitive record labels who all played their part in ushering in a golden age of music in their landlocked nation during the 1970's - a decade marred by political instability in the country and an era of artistic enlightenment empowering the whole of Africa. The Sahelian climate fortunately bore no influence on the Burkinabé sound, which is cosmopolitan as it was raw. ..."
Analog Africa (Audio)
The Quietus
amazon, iTunes
Discogs
YouTube: VA ‎– Bambara Mystic Soul - The Raw Sound Of Burkina Faso 1974-79 Afrobeat Funk Highlife Compilation 1:02:14

Turkish Officials Say Khashoggi Was Killed on Order of Saudi Leadership

"Top Turkish security officials have concluded that the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on orders from the highest levels of the royal court, a senior official said Tuesday. The official described a quick and complex operation in which Mr. Khashoggi was killed within two hours of his arrival at the consulate by a team of Saudi agents, who dismembered his body with a bone saw they brought for the purpose. ... Saudi officials, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have denied the allegations, insisting that Mr. Khashoggi left the consulate freely shortly after he arrived. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has demanded that the Saudis provide evidence proving their claim. ..."
NY Times
NY Times - A Journalist’s Disappearance: Where Jamal Khashoggi Was Last Seen

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, 2018 June: How Nietzsche Explains Turkey, 2018 August: The West Hoped for Democracy in Turkey. Erdogan Had Other Ideas.

The Fearless Rise of the Black Southern Progressive

"Last December, at the election-night watch party for Doug Jones in Birmingham, Alabama, LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright were among the last to arrive. The founders of the Black Voters Matter Fund had worked throughout 2017 to register and turn out rural voters in the state for the former U.S. attorney’s long-shot U.S. Senate bid against evangelical stalwart and accused child molester Roy Moore. They had moved souls to the polls until they closed, then met up in Birmingham to join their fellow activists and Democrats. ..."
New Republic

the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down - Director Robert Wilson to music by Philip Glass, David Byrne, Gavin Bryars and others (1980s)

Wikipedia - "the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down is an opera created in the early 1980s by director Robert Wilson to music by Philip Glass, David Byrne, Gavin Bryars and others. The vast five-act work has never been performed whole. Originally, The Civil Wars was conceived as a single daylong piece of music theatre to accompany the 1984 Summer Olympics. Six different composers from six different countries were to compose sections of Wilson's text inspired by the American Civil War. After initial premieres in their countries of origin, the six parts were to be fused in one epic performance in Los Angeles during the games, a parallel to the internationalist ideals of the Olympic movement. ... A documentary on the work's creative process, Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars, was released in 1987. It is out of print. ..."
Wikipedia
Glass/Wilson (The) Civil Wars
W - Music for "The Knee Plays"
Pitchfork
amazon - Glass: The Civil Wars - A Tree is Best Measured When it is Down, The Knee Plays - David Byrne
YouTube: Philip Glass the CIVIL warS Rome as performed in Amsterdam 19 June 2014, The Knee Plays

Distressed Tape

"Just yesterday, the musician Hainbach released a short video, barely five minutes long, of a noise-informed, texture-rich ambient performance. The instrumentation on this is simple: cassette playback, which Hainbach controls four channels on, and an effects unit. The piece develops in two primary ways: as the relative levels of those channels are adjusted, and as the various effects are put into effect. A loop of murky, sodden, melting melody, seemingly on piano, is warped beneath the distressed qualities of the tape on which it was first recorded. ... This is the latest video I’ve added to my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music. Track originally posted at Hainbach’s YouTube channel. More from Hainbach, aka Stefan Paul Goetsch, who is based in Berlin, at hainbachmusik.com and hainbach.bandcamp.com.
disquiet (Video)

Southern Gothic Literature

"Southern Gothic is a mode or genre prevalent in literature from the early 19th century to this day. Characteristics of Southern Gothic include the presence of irrational, horrific, and transgressive thoughts, desires, and impulses; grotesque characters; dark humor, and an overall angst-ridden sense of alienation. While related to both the English and American Gothic tradition, Southern Gothic is uniquely rooted in the South’s tensions and aberrations. During the 20th century, Charles Crow has noted, the South became 'the principal region of American Gothic' in literature. The Southern Gothic brings to light the extent to which the idyllic vision of the pastoral, agrarian South rests on massive repressions of the region’s historical realities: slavery, racism, and patriarchy. Southern Gothic texts also mark a Freudian return of the repressed: the region’s historical realities take concrete forms in the shape of ghosts that highlight all that has been unsaid in the official version of southern history. Because of its dark and controversial subject matter, literary scholars and critics initially sought to discredit the gothic on a national level. ..."
Oxford
Guardian: Why southern gothic rules the world
Why People Love Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic: The Present Haunted by the Past -- Part I, Short Stories, Southern Gothic: Wrestling With Our Demons -- Part 2, Novels
YouTube: Southern Gothic Project

Read ‘Escape From New York,’ From Ellen Willis’s Award-Winning Anthology

"On March 12, the National Book Critics Circle awarded the late Ellen Willis the top prize in its criticism category for The Essential Ellen Willis, a collection of over 40 years’ worth of Willis’s writing. Willis, who served as the first-ever pop critic for the New Yorker in the early Sixties, died of lung cancer at the age of 64 in 2006. She began writing for the Village Voice in the early Seventies, and became a staff writer here in 1979, where she remained as a writer and senior editor for the next decade. ... On the next page, you can read a piece she wrote for the cover of the July 29, 1981, issue, 'Escape From New York,' which appears in the anthology. ..."
Voice

Juju – Siouxsie and the Banshees (1981)

"In 1981, British rock was in a transitional phase. Punk had, by then, all but completely faded out, and new wave and post-punk were shaping fresh ideas of how rock could sound. It was in this environment that Siouxsie and the Banshees were set to record their fourth album Juju. After going through a lineup change before their previous release, and with guitarist John McGeoch now cemented as an official member, the band was ready to experiment with their sound, to create lyrical and melodic concepts that would mesh together cohesively as one work. The band created and molded the songs for Juju while on tour, working the songs out live and letting them take the dark, theatrical, romantic shape that would give the album its singular sound, the final product of which would help define the subset of post-punk that would come to be known as 'goth rock.' In this episode, we discuss this move from punk to post-punk, detail the Banshees’ stylistic choices and conceptual soundscapes, and (surprise) have a conversation about feminism and punk rock. ..."
77 Music Club (Video/Audio)
Dissecting the deathly mystique of Siouxsie And The Banshees (Video)
Why Siouxsie And The Banshees’ ‘Juju’ Casts Such A Potent Spell (Video/Audio)
Siouxsie And The Banshees: “We were losing our minds”
W - Juju
amazon
YouTube: Spellbound (Live), Arabian Knights (Live), Voodoo Dolly (Live)
vimeo: Juju 41:10

2017 April: "Hong Kong Garden" / "Voices (On The Air)" (1978), 2017 September: "Playground Twist" (1979)

Looking for the Way Out of Brazil’s Crisis

Signs in Sao Paulo protesting the far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro. 
"After thirteen years of Workers’ Party (PT) government, the last two years have witnessed Brazil sink into deepening economic and institutional crisis. In 2016 an 'institutional coup' against PT president Dilma Rousseff saw the establishment of a new government under conservative lawyer Michel Temer, her own former vice-president. Fresh elections are taking place today. Former president Lula da Silva, jailed earlier this year, had hoped to run again and had a strong lead in opinion polls. But he has been barred from running, and the PT is instead fielding Fernando Haddad. Haddad currently trails the 'Brazilian Trump,' the far-right former army officer Jair Messias Bolsonaro, in what threatens to be a fresh electoral shock. The stakes are extremely high, at a moment when it cannot even be assumed that there is any peaceful way out of the crisis. In recent months, violence has exploded in several cities and regions, and there is an ever more imposing army presence in the streets. ..."
Jacobin
Jacobin: Brazil’s Ultra-Politics

2018 February: The Long Brazilian Crisis