Iraq’s Post-ISIS Campaign of Revenge

Watch “The Backstory”: Ben Taub on the future of Iraq, following the Islamic State’s defeat in Mosul. (Audio)
"A September morning in Baghdad. Traffic halted at checkpoints and roadblocks as bureaucrats filed behind blast walls and the temperature climbed to a hundred and fifteen degrees. At the Central Criminal Court, a guard ran his baton along the bars of a small cell holding dozens of terrorism suspects awaiting trial. They were crammed on a wooden bench and on the floor, a sweaty tangle of limbs and dejected expressions. Many were sick or injured—covered in scabies, their joints twisted and their bones cracked. Iraqi prisons have a uniform code—different colors for pretrial suspects, convicts, and those on death row—but several who had not yet seen a judge or a lawyer were already dressed as if they had been sentenced to death. Down the hall, the aroma of Nescafé and cigarettes filled a windowless room, where defense lawyers sat on couches, balancing stacks of paper on their laps. Most were staring at their phones; others sat in silence, arms crossed, eyes closed. In terrorism cases, lawyers are usually denied access to their clients until the hearing begins. ..."
New Yorker (Audio)
YouTube: Iraq’s Post-ISIS Campaign of Revenge | The Backstory | The New Yorker (Video)

Thousands of men and boys have been convicted of ISIS affiliation, and hundreds have been hanged. But these cases make up only a small fraction of the detainees. Thousands of families have been sent to camps in the desert, cast out from society.

2018 July: NY Times: Caliphate (Audio), 2014 August: The Islamic State, 2014 September: How ISIS Works, 2015 February: The Political Scene: The Evolution of Islamic Extremism, 2015 May: Zakaria: How ISIS shook the world, 2015 August: ISIS Blows Up Ancient Temple at Syria’s Palmyra Ruins, 2015 November: Times Insider: Reporting Europe's Refugee Crisis, 2015 November: Three Teams of Coordinated Attackers Carried Out Assault on Paris, Officials Say; Hollande Blames ISIS, 2015 November: The French Emergency, 2015 December: A Brief History of ISIS, 2015 December: U.S. Seeks to Avoid Ground War Welcomed by Islamic State, 2016 January: Ramadi, Reclaimed by Iraq, Is in Ruins After ISIS Fight, 2016 February: Syrian Officer Gave a View of War. ISIS Came, and Silence Followed., 2016 March: Brussels Survivors Say Blasts Instantly Evoked Paris Attacks, 2016 April: America Can’t Do Much About ISIS, 2016 June: What the Islamic State Has Won and Lost, 2016 July: ISIS: The Cornened Beast, 2016 October: Archaeological Victims of ISIS Rise Again, as Replicas in Rome, 2016 December: Battle Over Aleppo Is Over, Russia Says, as Evacuation Deal Reached, 2017 January: Eternal Sites: From Bamiyan to Palmyra, 2017 February: Tour a City Torn in Half by ISIS, 2017 March: Engulfed in Battle, Mosul Civilians Run for Their Lives, 2017 May: Aleppo After the Fall, 2017 July: Iraqi forces declare victory over Islamic State in Mosul after grueling battle, 2017 July: The Living and the Dead, 2017 October: ISIS Fighters, Having Pledged to Fight or Die, Surrender en Masse, 2018 August: After ISIS, Iraq Is Still Broken, 2018 September: Fight to Retake Last ISIS Territory in Syria Begins

A Rorschach of Extended Abstraction - Szymon Kaliski

"There are drones, and they are varied, and amid those drones are drones that are something else in disguise. Sometimes that something else is a trick of the ear, a figment surfacing in the sonic Rorschach test of extended abstraction. Sometimes it’s something buried just below the surface. If ambient music inherently explores the liminal, presenting a still surface that suggests untold action underneath, then a track like Szymon Kaliski’s superb '2018-12-13' plays with the ear by introducing elements hinting at a more formal music that never comes into focus. ... Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/szymonkaliski. More from Kaliski, who is from Poznań, Poland, at szymonkaliski.com."
disquiet (Video/Audio)
Szymon Kaliski

The Physical and Spiritual Art of Capoeira

Mestre Lua Santana playing at Permangolinha, the three-day retreat run by Mestre Cobra Mansa.
"VALENÇA, Brazil — The white-bearded, dreadlocked master and his bushy-haired student face off in an open-sided compound set amid cacao trees and coffee bushes. The two are in constant motion, swinging back and forth in what is called the ginga — the fundamental movement of the Brazilian combat game capoeira. At times, the way they feint and kick, and roll under and over and around each other, looks like choreographed dance. But then one side does something the other is not expecting, and it becomes clear that this is a game of strategy, not a planned dance. Mestre Cobra Mansa’s ginga transforms into the movement of a staggering drunk, then a marionette whose puppeteer has suddenly let the string go slack. Then he’s in a handstand. From there, a leg strikes out like a lightning bolt, stopping just short of hitting his opponent’s face. ..."
NY Times

Capoeira instruments at Kilombo Tenondé.

2014 June: Capoeira

Castles as Coffins

Cape Coast Castle—Cape Coast. 1653 Sweden, 1665 Britain, 2004–05 and 2017, emele wood and enamel, 45″ x 133″ x 88″.
"The artist makes coffins. But these aren’t your standard-issue pine boxes—they are red snappers, Spalding basketballs, giant shoes. In the Ghanaian tradition of abeduu adekai (roughly translated, 'receptacles of proverbs'), the dead are honored via figurative coffins that reflect the lives of those interred. A street vendor might be buried in a soda bottle, a gynecologist in a casket shaped like a uterus. In 2004, Joe veered from his typical fare and created thirteen large-scale models of the still-standing slave castles and forts on the coast of Ghana. These buildings served as processing centers for the more than six million people enslaved and sent to the Americas and the Caribbean between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Seven of Joe’s sculptures are on view until February 24 at the American Folk Art Museum, in New York, for the exhibition 'Gates of No Return,' named for the doors through which countless souls passed on their entry into forced servitude. 'Nobody would be buried in a slave castle coffin,' Joe has said, but these miniatures signify death just the same, looming as reminders of the millions of lives lost to and the histories decimated by the slave trade. ..."
The Paris Review
Folk Art Museum - Paa Joe: Gates of No Return
W - Paa Joe
YouTube: Fantasy Coffins | Paa Joe Ashong // 60 Second Docs, Ghana's Coffin Art: Paa Joe Waits For Your Last Dream...

Eric Rohmer - Nadja à Paris (1964), André Breton - Nadja (1928)

"Occasionally, unintentionally, triggered by a smell or an old tune, my mind drifts to that time when Paris didn’t resemble the USA at all, when life on the street and screen was similar and our days appeared like the films of the nouvelle vague. There was something breezy about reasons then, why you did this or that, no clear motivation or Hollywood endings. Of course there were American films around but many were quite good, nothing like the bang-bang violence we now dump all over the globe. Those films didn’t crush or overwhelm others in quantity (a reason why they were so admired) and you could also see French, Italian, Polish, Czech, or Russian films any time. There was a cinematheque, which for students was one franc. Most of us were poor and so we worried about three essentials—a room, the student restaurant, and a subway card. ..."
NYBooks (Video)
W - Nadja
[PDF]Andre Breton – Nadja
amazon: Nadja André Breton

2010 February: Eric Rohmer, 2018 April: A Cinematic Journey Through Paris, As Seen Through the Lens of Legendary Filmmaker Éric Rohmer: Watch Rohmer in Paris

The Solace of Birds in Winter

On the wing after a snowfall in Nevsehir, Turkey, last week.
"In the search for comfort in the face of so many 21st-century dangers — to democracy in the age of fake news, to the natural world in the age of climate change — I don’t normally think of winter as offering much in the way of consolation. Many of the most interesting creatures have gone to ground now. The cheery chipmunks are asleep in their tunnels beneath my house. The queen bumblebees have made themselves a little sleeping chamber deep in the soil of my garden. Somewhere nearby, the resident rat snake is also sleeping underground, and, at the park, the snapping turtles and bullfrogs have settled themselves into the mud at the bottom of the lake. All the loveliest insects are gone now, too. The honeybees are huddled up in their hives, vibrating their wings to keep warm and feeding on the honey they’ve stored for just this reason. The monarch butterflies have long since migrated to their Mexican wintering grounds. My flower beds are nothing but a jumble of dried stems and matted clumps, a collection of dead vegetation I’ve left undisturbed for my tiniest neighbors to shelter in. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Let Your Winter Garden Go Wild (Margaret Renkl - Feb. 10, 2018)

Hugh Mundell – The Blessed Youth (2007)

"Hugh Mundell was born in East Kingston, Jamaica, on the 14th July 1962, and shot dead there on October 14, 1983 while sitting in a car with a very young Junior Reid. Mundell was extremely young when he recorded his first tune for producer Joe Gibbs, the unreleased 'Where Is Natty Dread'. However, his recording career really took off when his precocious talent impressed Horace Swaby better known as Augustus Pablo. The latter produced the blessed youth’s first single release 'Africa Must Be Free' in 1975. ... The (now defunct) French label Makasound has unleashed a great Hugh Mundell set rightfully called 'The Blessed Youth'. This compilation cd culls all the tracks from the “Time & Place” and 'Blackman’s Foundation' albums – although some are actually the rare extended versions & deejay cuts of the album tracks – with the solid album opener 'Rastafari Tradition' lifted from Augustus Pablo’s 'Earth’s Rightful Ruler'. ..."
Reggae Vibes (Audio)
Discogs
YouTube: The Blessed Youth Compilation [Full Album]

2010 September: Hugh Mundell, 2015 June: Hugh Mundell & Augustus Pablo - Jah Will Provide + Hungry (Dub Version), 2015 August: Africa Must Be Free By 1983 + Dub (1978)

Your Groove • DeForrest Brown, Jr. on Kevin Beasley and Underground Resistance

"The rigged sound of Techno is a language, dense with sentiment and context. In October, as part of its ongoing 'Posthuman' series, Performance Space New York hosted 'Man Machine,' a conversation between the Detroit-based electronic music collective Underground Resistance and artist Kevin Beasley. Founded in 1989 by Jeff Mills and 'Mad Mike' Banks, later joined by Robert Hood, Underground Resistance was militant in its rejection of 'programming by mediocre mainstream music and public institutions.' Now they are the inheritors and protectors of the 'original' techno sound. They were anti–status quo, citing Detroit radio personality Electrifying Mojo’s eclectic song selections as a starting point for the voracious techno sound. Mojo’s programs introduced inner-city Detroit to a broad spectrum of music, weaving entire narratives connecting the B-52s to Kraftwerk to Prince. Techno is more than the sum of its mechanical processes; like any machine, it also includes an operator, an inspired soul spurring it into motion. At Performance Space, Underground Resistance was represented by label manager Cornelius Harris and DJs Mark Flash and John Collins. ..."
ARTFORUM
Guggenheim: Kevin Beasley
Whitney - Kevin Beasley: A view of a landscape
twitter - DeForrest Brown, Jr. | Speaker Music
Kepla & DeForrest Brown Jr. reunite for The Wages Of Being Black Is Death on PTP, premiere “Black Icarus, Or Uncle Tom” (Audio)

Neruda - Pablo Larraín (2016)

Wikipedia - "Neruda is a 2016 internationally co-produced biographical drama film directed by Pablo Larraín. Mixing history and fiction, the film shows the dramatic events of the brutal suppression of Communists in Chile in 1948 and how the poet Pablo Neruda had to go on the run, eventually escaping on horseback over the Andes. After winning the 1946 election with the support of the Communists, Chile's president turns against them, bans the party and orders mass arrests. The senator Pablo Neruda, former ambassador and well-known poet, speaks out forcefully against the repression. Warned that he is in danger, with his wife Delia he takes the road through the mountains to Argentina, but they are turned back at the frontier and have to go into hiding. A keen young policeman, Óscar Peluchonneau, is appointed to lead the hunt for the fugitives. ..."
Wikipedia
Guardian - Fast, loose and lyrical: Pablo Larraín's Neruda anti-biopic
NY Times: Why the Movie ‘Neruda’ Is an ‘Anti-Bio’
YouTube: Neruda Official Trailer 1 - Gael García Bernal Movie, NERUDA Interview with Gael García Bernal & Pablo Larraín


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, 2018 July: Poet of the People: The partisan world of Pablo Neruda

Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today

"Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today examines how the internet has radically changed the field of art, especially in its production, distribution, and reception. The exhibition comprises a broad range of works across a variety of mediums—including painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and web-based projects—that all investigate the extensive effects of the internet on artistic practice and contemporary culture. Themes explored in the exhibition include emergent ideas of the body and notions of human enhancement; the internet as a site of both surveillance and resistance; the circulation and control of images and information; possibilities for new subjectivities, communities, and virtual worlds; and new economies of visibility initiated by social media. ..."
Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston
Brooklyn Rail
Yale Books: Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today
YouTube: Art in the Age of the Internet at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston | Connecting Point, Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today

Istanbul Sessions - Ilhan Ersahin (2015)

"Confusion is good sometimes. It’s a way to start thinking about whatever you are confused about. This is what Ilhan Ersahin’s Istanbul Sessions do since 2008. They managed to fire the stages all across the world: from New York to Istanbul, from Paris to Sao Paolo, from London to Skopje... Questions they spread all these years where like: are they really turkish? is this really jazz? doesn’t it sound like a rock band? how come a jazz ensemble can really be like a band? How can they be so able to jam with any musician they meet on stage? And so on... It’s a simple fact Ilhan Ersahin, being one of the rare moguls of New York City underground scene via his club and record label (nublu), is traveling all around the world. It’s possible to see him jamming with Red Hot Chili Peppers in Sao Paolo, featuring Bugge Wesseltoft in Blue Note Tokyo and/or playing a beautiful oriental set with turkish gypsies in an elegant concert hall somewhere in Europe. His newyorker energy is with him all the time. How about Istanbul Sessions then? It’s a summary of all you read above. Master level musicianship meets a high eclecticism where the cliché of 'east-to-west crossover' finds its true sense and power. ..."
Ilhan Ersahin (Video (Live) / Audio)
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: ILHAN ERSAHIN'S ISTANBUL SESSIONS - MCCOY (Live), VISA FOR MUSIC - ILHAN ERSAHIN'S ISTANBUL SESSIONS «SARIYER» en session acoustique (Live)

Sun Ra – Of Abstract Dreams (2018)

"Sun Ra‘s Of Abstract Dreams is a previously unreleased album from jazz pianist and bandleader’s archives. This four-piece recording (released in March by Strut Records) was performed for WXPN-FM radio station between approximately 1974 and 1975. The compositions i the album are always surprising and contrasting, led by Sun Ra on the piano before morphing in beautiful and unexpected ways. The album feels conversational between the instruments, weaving stories and calm mania. The recordings also have the vibe of a smoky music room of band members really enjoying playing together and having time collectively. ..."
Rhythm Passport (Video)
boomkat (Audio)
Discogs (Audio)
YouTube: Island In The Sun, Unmask The Batman, New Dawn, I'll Wait For You

Transforming Nature with James Schuyler

"... James Schuyler’s poem suggests an alternative, more potentially rescuing aspect to our human impulse to impose humanness on the natural world. While this impulse—or curse, as Charlotte Smith would have it in her 'Sonnet, On being Cautioned against Walking on a Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It was Frequented by a Lunatic'—can be a reminder of our estrangement from wilderness, its transformative power can make of wilderness a comfort, a stay against the metaphysical fears that Smith’s lunatic can never know, and that John Clare hints at in his reference to melancholy moods in 'To the Fox Fern.' 'The Bluet' is a poem straight from the Transcendental school of thinking, wherein the natural world was believed to be shot through with divine meaning. ..."
Poets House

2008 January: James Schuyler, 2009 October: James Schuyler: Six New Recordings Added, 2011 March: Broadway: A Poets and Painters Anthology, 2011 December: An Anthology of New York Poets, 2012 July: A Schuyler of urgent concern, 2013 July: In Fairfield Porter / James Schuyler country: Penobscot Bay, Maine, 2014 November: Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler 1951-1991, 2015 October: The Morning of the Poem (1980),June 2016: New Video of James Schuyler’s Legendary Debut Reading in 1988, 2016 August: A few of Schuyler's revisions - Charles North, 2016 December: James Schuyler - “December”, 2017 February: A day like any other (PoemTalk #85) - James Schuyler, 'February'

Funk Spectrum - Real Funk For Real People Vol. I / II / III

"Scottish DJ and record collector Keb Darge is perhaps the biggest name on the U.K.'s deep funk scene, respected for his encyclopedic knowledge of rare funk 45s and his impeccable taste as a compiler. Originally released as a double-vinyl set in 1997, Keb Darge's Legendary Deep Funk, Vol. 1 is the compilation that first established that reputation, and it still stands as a landmark collection in the rediscovery of deep funk. No longer was it the exclusive domain of obsessive collectors paying triple-digit prices for obscure records, or club patrons who knew where to hear their favorite DJs spin jealously guarded tunes in a live setting. Legendary Deep Funk, Vol. 1 certainly wasn't the first such compilation, but it was probably the highest-profile up to that point; it also benefited from Darge's taste for the harder, heavier end of the spectrum, which gives it a fairly unified sound and a crackling energy throughout -- much like a smartly paced DJ set. ..."
Holland Tunnel
Discogs - Vol. I (Video), Vol. II (Video), Vol. III (Video)
amazon - Vol. I, Vol. II, Vol. III
YouTube: DJ Shadow - Funk Spectrum -4th Coming, Deep Heat - Do It Again, The Third Guitar - Baby Don't Cry, Total Experience - Contradiction, Luther Davis Group - To Be Free, The Chosen Few - We Are The Chosen Few

Yellow vests movement

Wikipedia - "The yellow vests movement (French: Mouvement des gilets jaunes, pronounced [ʒilɛ ʒon]), also referred to as the yellow jacket movement, is a protest movement that started online in May 2018 and led to demonstrations that began in France on 17 November 2018 and rapidly spread to Wallonia, the formerly heavily industrialised, French-speaking, southern part of Belgium. The yellow vest was chosen as a symbol, because all French motorists had been required by law (since 2008) to have high-visibility vests in their vehicles when driving (as a safety measure should the driver be required to exit the vehicle on the roadside). As a result, reflective vests have become widely available, inexpensive and symbolic. By early December 2018, the symbol had become increasingly common from Europe to Iraq, as different groups made use of their high-visibility vests to draw attention to their agendas. Motivated by rising fuel prices, the high cost of living and claims that a disproportionate burden of the government's tax reforms were falling on the working and middle classes (especially those in rural and peri-urban areas), protesters have called for reductions in fuel taxes, the reintroduction of the solidarity tax on wealth, the raising of the minimum wage, and the resignation of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: The Power of the Yellow Vest (Dec. 4, 2018)
NY Times: Learning With: ‘French Police Crack Down on ‘Yellow Vests’ With Tear Gas and Over a Thousand Arrests’ (Video)
Jacobin: Macron’s Climate Tax Is a Disaster
Jacobin: Can the Yellow Vests Speak?

2018 December: Paris Burning

MADONJAZZ #148: Deep, Spiritual World Jazz Sounds

"MADONJAZZ #148: deep, spiritual world jazz sounds. An 1hr journey across various cultures around the world, from French-Chinese avant-garde electronica, to spiritual world jazz from Don Cherry and French folk, to deep jazz afro-grooves from Mongo Santamaria and Chico Hamilton, to African percussion jazz from Lulumba and the Family of Percussion. Broadcasted live 27 OCT 2018."
Mad On Jazz (Audio)

The Guardians and the War on Truth

"The stout man with the gray goatee and the gentle demeanor dared to disagree with his country’s government. He told the world the truth about its brutality toward those who would speak out. And he was murdered for it. Every detail of Jamal Khashoggi’s killing made it a sensation: the time stamp on the surveillance video that captured the Saudi journalist entering his country’s Istanbul consulate on Oct. 2; the taxiway images of the private jets bearing his assassins; the bone saw; the reports of his final words, “I can’t breathe,” recorded on audio as the life was choked from him. But the crime would not have remained atop the world news for two months if not for the epic themes that Khashoggi himself was ever alert to, and spent his life placing before the public. His death laid bare the true nature of a smiling prince, the utter absence of morality in the Saudi-U.S. alliance and—in the cascade of news feeds and alerts, posts and shares and links—the centrality of the question Khashoggi was killed over: Whom do you trust to tell the story? ..."
TIME (Video)

Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done

"For a brief period in the early 1960s, a group of choreographers, visual artists, composers, and filmmakers gathered in Judson Memorial Church, a socially engaged Protestant congregation in New York’s Greenwich Village, for a series of workshops that ultimately redefined what counted as dance. The performances that evolved from these workshops incorporated everyday movements—gestures drawn from the street or the home; their structures were based on games, simple tasks, and social dances. Spontaneity and unconventional methods of composition were emphasized. The Judson artists investigated the very fundamentals of choreography, stripping dance of its theatrical conventions, and the result, according to Village Voice critic Jill Johnston, was the most exciting new dance in a generation. ..."
MoMA (Video)

Peter Moore’s photograph of Trisha Brown and Steve Paxton in Brown’s Lightfall. Performed at Concert of Dance #4, Judson Memorial Church, January 30, 1963.

2017 August: Judson Dance Theater

In a Transplanted Final, Even the Copa Libertadores Is Sanitized

River Plate celebrating with the Copa Libertadores trophy after the victory over Boca Juniors, their intracity rivals from Buenos Aires, on Sunday in Madrid.
"MADRID — Pity Martínez, his legs like lead, took a deep breath. After 120 minutes of impossible tension, after a journey of 6,000 miles, after a game that had lasted a month, there was one more run to make. So he ran. Away from the last vestiges of resistance Boca Juniors could muster, away from all the turmoil and strife that had enveloped the final of the 2018 Copa Libertadores, and into the wide green expanse of Santiago Bernabéu, toward the unguarded goal, toward a place in eternity. Behind him, a sea of red and white bounced and broiled, urging him on, waiting for that moment of release, of certainty: for the third goal that would seal River Plate’s 3-1 victory — and, just as important, Boca’s defeat — and ensure that, for the fourth time in its history, River would be the South American champion. This one, though, will always mean the most. Nothing else will ever really compare. How could it? It was all too perfect: beating Boca, its counterweight in the Great Schism that defines Argentine soccer, its opposite pole in perhaps the fiercest rivalry in world sport; seizing the chance — in that moment that Martínez rolled the ball into an empty net — not only to savor its own ecstasy but to taste Boca’s pain, each sensation feeding on the other, swirling, metastasizing. ..."
NY Times
W - 2018 Copa Libertadores Finals

Buenos Aires deployed a significant police force on Sunday around the Plaza de la República.

2018 November: NY Times: In Buenos Aires, a Rivalry Stretches Passions to the Limit

Zafraan Caravan : The Joujouka International

"The Joujouka International tells the story of a musical tradition of The Master Musicians of Joujouka dating back more than six centuries. It explores the current state of this ritualistic Sufi music consisting of percussion and traditional pipe instruments by looking and listening to the people continuing to practice it in its spiritual birthplace – the village of Joujouka, in the Rif mountain region in Northern Morocco. The story of Joujouka has many unexpected twists and turns throughout their long history. From explicits reference in the cut-up novels by William Burroughs, through tales of Islamic mysticism and even featuring on the Pyramid Stage of Glastonbury Festival, the unique sound of The Master Musicians of Joujouka’s pipes and drums have resonated far and wide. This radio piece attempts to retrace some of these key steps, and to understand why people — as distinct as Brian Jones and Ornette Coleman — have flocked to the mountains of Northern Morocco to experience this utterly singular music. ..."
Cashmere Radio (Audio)

2015 December: Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (1971), 2017 Saturday: Boujeloud - Master Musicians of Joujouka (2008)

The Sheck Wes story

"Sheck Wes is a 19-year-old chart topping rapper from Central Harlem in New York City. He grew up on 116th Street and Lenox, right in the heart of a neighborhood that has come to be known as 'Le Petit Senegal.' The area has been rapidly gentrifying since the early 2000s, but even today if you walk the area surrounding 116th street you can pass a plethora of stores run by a largely Francophone population of African immigrants, serving Manhattan’s uptown population. African restaurants, tailors, bakeries, Islamic centers and music shops were once regular fixtures in a neighborhood now filling up with condos and coffee shops. Wes’s father is a tailor (who once worked for legendary hip hop stylist Dapper Dan) and his mother a hair braider in the area. Their community’s story is an important lens through which to understand African immigrant culture that is not yet widely recognized. The largest single group in Little Senegal are the Mourides—members of an entrepreneurial branch of Sufi Islam which has its roots in late 19th century colonial French West Africa. ..."
Africa Is a Country
W - Le Petit Senegal
Little Senegal on Harlem's 116th Street shrinks as gentrification takes hold
NY Times: A One-Woman Welcome Wagon in Le Petit Sénégal
NY Times: In Harlem's Fabric, Bright Threads of Senegal
Dapper Dan
How Little Senegal Became Harlem’s West African Hub

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

"Robert Plant called her his 'favorite singer out of all the British girls there ever were.' But a compliment of her singing alone undercuts the holistic talents of the musician Sandy Denny. To be sure: Her sublime voice stands on its own in the Anglo-folk canon, but her songwriting and lyricism are equally impressive. Both aspects of her talents remain essential to the fabric of the British folk-rock movement of the 1960s and ‘70s. Though the modern music press frequently portrays Denny as a cartoon-ish caricature of a temperamental singing faerie, she in fact endures, 40 years after her death, as an unexampled lyricist and songwriter, and an equally magnetic performer. ..."
Reverb LP (Video)

2009 March: Sandy Denny, 2013 January: "A Sailor’s Life" - Fairport Convention, 2013 May: The North Star Grassman and the Ravens, 2018 March: Like an Old Fashioned Waltz (1974), 2018 April: Seven and a Half Short Notes on Sandy Denny

Songs of the Underground Railroad

John Osler
Wikipedia - "Songs of the Underground Railroad were spiritual and work songs used during the early-to-mid 19th century in the United States to encourage and convey coded information to escaping slaves as they moved along the various Underground Railroad routes. As it was illegal in most slave states to teach slaves to read or write, songs were used to communicate messages and directions about when, where, and how to escape, and warned of dangers and obstacles along the route. One reportedly coded Underground Railroad song is 'Follow the Drinkin' Gourd'. The song's title is said to refer to the star formation (an asterism) known in America as the Big Dipper and in Europe as The Plough. The pointer stars of the Big Dipper align with the North Star. In this song the repeated line 'Follow the Drinkin' Gourd' is thus often interpreted as instructions to escaping slaves to travel north by following the North Star, leading them to the northern states, Canada, and freedom: The song ostensibly encodes escape instructions and a map from Mobile, Alabama up the Tombigbee River, over the divide to the Tennessee River, then downriver to where the Tennessee and Ohio rivers meet in Paducah, Kentucky. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Follow the Drinkin' Gourd
Underground Railroad - Songs
PBS: Coded Spirituals (Video)
YouTube: Steal Away: Songs of the Underground Railroad 16 videos

John Coltrane - YouTube: Song Of The Underground Railroad

Liminal: Sigur Rós

"Liminal is an ‘endless’ Sigur Rós ambient playlist which is live today [May 8, 2018], brought to you by Jónsi, Alex Somers and Paul Corley. It will be built over linear time into a never-finished project. Albums will be released, volumes added to. Liminal, both live and locally, takes the listener to a place neither here nor there; a 'liminal' space. Liminal + Liminal 2 + Liminal 3 = approximately 3 hours of ambient 'chill-out' music from Iceland, both original compositions and remixes of works by this trio and others. ..."
Sigur Rós (Video)
Bandcamp: Liminal, Liminal 2, Liminal 3
YouTube: liminal [Full Album Stream], liminal 2 [Full Album Stream], tónandi liminal
YouTube: Sigur Rós - Route One [Part 1 - 1080p], Route One [Part 2 - 1080p], Route One [Part 3 - 1080p]

1900 - Bernardo Bertolucci (1976)

Wikipedia - "1900 (Italian: Novecento, 'Twentieth Century') is a 1976 Italian epic historical drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and featuring an international ensemble cast including Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Francesca Bertini, Laura Betti, Stefania Casini, Ellen Schwiers, Sterling Hayden, Alida Valli, Romolo Valli, Stefania Sandrelli, Donald Sutherland, and Burt Lancaster. Set in Bertolucci's ancestral region of Emilia, the film chronicles the lives and friendship of two men – the landowning Alfredo Berlinghieri (De Niro) and the peasant Olmo Dalcò (Depardieu) – as they witness and participate in the political conflicts between fascism and communism that took place in Italy in the first half of the 20th century. The film premiered out of competition at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.  ... Born on the day of the death of renowned composer Giuseppe Verdi – 27 January 1901 – Alfredo Berlinghieri and Olmo Dalcò come from opposite ends of the social spectrum. Alfredo is from a family of landowners led by his populist grandfather (also called Alfredo), while Olmo is an illegitimate peasant. Olmo's grandfather, Leo, is the foreman and peasants' strong man who verbally and spiritually carries out a duel of wits with the elder Alfredo. As Alfredo is somewhat rebellious and despises the falseness of his family, in particular his weak but abusive and cynical father Giovanni, he befriends Olmo, who was raised as a socialist. ..."
Wikipedia
Voice - Between Revolution and Reflection: Bertolucci’s Italian Films Return
NY Times - Screen: ‘1900,’ Bertolucci's Marxist Saga (Nov. 4, 1977)
Guardian - Bernardo Bertolucci: the brilliant last emperor of highbrow cinema
YouTube: "1900-Novecento", Da Novecento, nati lo stesso giorno

2008 July: Bernardo Bertolucci, 2011 November: The Last Emperor (1987), 2016 June: La commare secca (1962)

Manafort, Cohen, and Individual 1 Are in Grave Danger

A protest in Los Angeles, California
Ken White - Attorney and former federal prosecutor: "Federal prosecutors filed three briefs late on Friday portending grave danger for three men: the former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, the former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, and President Donald Trump. In an age when Americans usually get mere squibs of breaking news from Twitter, Facebook, and red-faced cable shouters, many started their weekend poring over complex legal filings and peering suspiciously at blacked-out paragraphs. The documents were stunning, even for 2018. In brief No. 1, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office argues that Paul Manafort breached his cooperation agreement with the government by lying to the FBI and the Special Counsel’s Office in the course of 12 meetings. ..."
The Atlantic
The Atlantic: Mueller’s Memos and the Alleged Lies of the Trump Lieutenants

The Last Chess Shop in New York City

“'I came here to get a Ph.D. in American literature, and here I am, with pictures of American writers on the wall—a chess vendor.' That’s Imad Khachan, the owner of Chess Forum, the only remaining chess shop in New York City. A Palestinian refugee with no family of his own, Khachan has become 'the father of everybody' to a community of chess enthusiasts, those curious to learn more about the game, and those whom Khachan describes as the city’s 'invisible people.' 'When no other place will welcome you, you have a seat [here],' Khachan says in Lonelyleap’s short documentary, King of the Night. The film depicts the chess shop as more than a home for chess players; Khachan’s open-door policy has provided a haven for many patrons who have a difficult home life. According to Brass, some Chess Forum regulars have no home at all. ... In the chess shop’s early days, it was open 24 hours. Khachan, working the graveyard shift, would often take breaks to roam the streets. He still practices the nocturnal habit. ..."
The Atlantic (Video)

2008 October: World Chess Championship 1972, 2009 January: Sicilian Defence, 2009 February: Mikhail Tal, 2009 February: Garry Kasparov, 2009 April: Vasily Smyslov, 2009 August: Chess960, 2009 November: Bent Larsen,2011 November: The Lewis Chessmen, 2012 July: 40 Years Ago Today: Chess Rivals Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky Meet in the ‘Match of the Century’, 2015 September: The Subtext Buried In Seven Great Movie Chess Scenes

Three Places in New England - Charles Ives (1911/14)

Wikipedia - "The Three Places in New England (Orchestral Set No. 1) is a composition for orchestra by American composer Charles Ives. It was composed mainly between 1911 and 1914, although sketches for the work date from 1903, and the latest revisions were made in 1929. The piece is famous for its use of musical quotation and paraphrasing. Three Places consists of three movements in Ives' preferred slow-fast-slow movement order:

1. The "St. Gaudens" in Boston Common (Col. Shaw and his Colored Regiment)
2. Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut
3. The Housatonic at Stockbridge

The three movements are ordered with the longest first and the shortest last, and a complete performance of the piece lasts eighteen or nineteen minutes. As he does in his Orchestral Set No. 2, Ives inverts the fast-slow-fast movement order typical of most three-movement works, using instead a slow-fast-slow order. The piece has become one of Ives' most commonly performed compositions. It exhibits most of the signature traits of his style: layered textures with multiple, sometimes simultaneous melodies, many of which are recognizable hymn and marching tunes; masses of sound including tone clusters; and sudden, sharp textural contrasts. Each of the three movements is named for a place in New England. ..."
Wikipedia
Three Places in New England Notes
YouTube: Three Places in New England [Audio + Score], Three Places in New England - Ensemble intercontemporain (Live)

Housatonic River

2008 September: Charles Ives, 2010 December: Holidays Symphony, 2012 August: Symphony No. 2, 2012 December: Decoration Day, 2014 March: Central Park in the Dark (1906)

New Pedal at Dusk

"This elegant, beautiful video tracks from various angles a test drive by one member of the act Lullatone on a newly acquired reverb pedal. As the sun sets, the pedal is put through its initial paces, segments played on a keyboard and then through the reverb, all set to layer as loops. Those individual layers are barely distinguishable from each other, so peacefully do they accrue as a singular, solitary spaciousness. At times the high notes bring to mind Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois’ production for U2. Throughout, both the video and the performance it documents are marvels of simplicity. This is the latest video I’ve added to my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music. Video originally posted at YouTube channel. More from Lullatone, the duo of Shawn James Seymour and Yoshimi Tomida, who are based in Japan, at lullatone.com and lullatone.bandcamp.com."
disquiet (Video)

Windows to the World: At WS Merwin’s Old French Farmhouse

Dordogne River from of the Castle of Beynac
"... Nearly 70 years ago WS Merwin, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and translator, was exploring the south of France when he came across a derelict stone farmhouse in the Midi Pyrenees region between Toulouse and Bordeaux. The rustic building, which was being used for drying tobacco, caught his attention less for its condition than for its location perched high above the Dordogne river, with views to the north and west across the broad valley below. This building and its surroundings would significantly influence his writing—and by extension much of American poetry—for decades to come. The life he started building here offers a model of an alternative literary life perhaps unavailable now. Over the past several years I’ve been incredibly fortunate to spend time at this home, moving for days among its artifacts and old buildings, its gardens, wandering pastures and paths. ..."
LitHub

Paris Burning

People protesting in Paris on Saturday.

"The violent protests of the 'yellow vests' in France have inevitably prompted comparisons with insurrections past, most notably the unrest of 1968 that effectively shut down the French government, and the tribulations of presidents from Charles de Gaulle through François Hollande who have fallen victim to street uprisings. There are similarities, partly expressed in the stereotype that the French favor change in the abstract but abhor it in practice. But it is the differences with the past that pose the major challenge as President Emmanuel Macron tries to find a way to defuse the anger without abandoning his needed reforms. One difference is Mr. Macron himself, who was not yet 40 when he was elected 18 months ago to a five-year presidential term. His own victory and the host of deputies he brought into the National Assembly were the product of a popular discontent with all established parties of right and left. ..."

NY Times
NY Times: How France’s ‘Yellow Vests’ Differ From Populist Movements Elsewhere
NY Times: France Suspends Fuel Tax Increase That Spurred Violent Protests (Video)
Al Jazeera: Hundreds arrested in Paris as 'yellow vest' protests turn violent (Video)
NY Times: Macron’s Moment of Truth***
YouTube: Raw footage as Paris' Yellow Vest protest turns violent

Tear gas surrounds riot police as they clash with “yellow vest” protesters near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Saturday.

RIP Jean Karakos

"On February 24, 1988, the film To the Extreme hit the cinemas in France – an artificially stylized thriller surfing on the ’80s trend of 'cops in blue jeans.' The movie was hardly a classic and would have quickly been forgotten if the critics had been less harsh. Journalists were already well acquainted with its director, though. Olivier Lorsac had previously been a much-feared press officer with a bad reputation. Journalists had been privately sharpening their claws, waiting for their moment to strike back. When he put down his copy of Libération that day, Lorsac knew he would never make another full-length feature. Crucified in its pages, his dreams of motion picture glory were over. He could only think of one solution to this situation: He was ready to blow his brains out. Before putting his plan into practice, he called up an old friend, Jean Karakos, a man with whom he had worked on projects like the legendary Amougie music festival 20 years beforehand. Karakos, head of New York label Celluloid and a man who had also fallen upon hard times, suggested Lorsac join him in Brazil, where he was looking for artists for a new imprint called Breziloïd. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)
W - Jean Karakos

YouTube: Material - I'm The One, Memories (Hugh Hopper, Whitney Houston, Archie Shepp), Bad Cat Records

2010 June: Celluloid Records

State of the Slice, Part 2: The 27 Pizza Spots That Define New York Slice Culture

".... I wrote that in November of 2002 in the New York Times. The title of the story said it all: 'The State of the Slice.' A few months ago, I started wondering about the state of the slice in 2018. So much has changed in the last 16 years. While we've certainly witnessed a revival of the New York slice, you could also argue that it's been reinvented, all because of five perhaps inseparable factors. ... Take Frank Pinello, who may be one of the best examples of this convergence of most, if not all, of the points above. When he opened Best Pizza in 2010, it set the standard for what I and my like-minded pizza obsessives have come to call the 'revival slice shop'—that is, an establishment that specializes in selling pizza by the slice, the old-school way, but with particular attention paid to the ingredients used and the techniques employed. ..."
Serious Eats

2014 June: Pizza, 2014 October: Viva La Pizza! The Art of the Pizza Box (NYC), 2016 July: Q&A: Antoinette Balzano and Cookie Cimineri of Totonno’s, 2017 September: The Pizza Show, 2017 November: A Priceless Pizzeria in Brooklyn

And the Beat Goes On

Hundreds gather on Sundays at the Branch Brook Roller Skating Center in Newark, N.J.
"NEWARK — 'Clear the floor,' said Nile Ahmid, a D.J. at the Branch Brook Roller Skating Center in New Jersey. It was around midnight on a recent Sunday, and he had been spinning house and hip-hop tracks for the past three hours. 'The next skate is for trains only,' he added. The lights came on, and 400 skaters brought their wheels to a halt. On cue, they linked arms in prearranged groups of three to 10 rollers to form so-called trains, a hallmark of the skating style specific to New York and New Jersey. Rollers ranged in age from late teens to 60s, and were both gay and straight. But in terms of race, about 95 percent were African-American, a demographic that has both defined and given historical context to similar adult-night skating events in scores of cities nationwide. ..."
NY Times
YouTube: The Whispers - And the Beat Goes On (Official Music Video)

Jack (playing card)

Wikipedia - "A jack or knave is a playing card which, in traditional French and English decks, pictures a man in the traditional or historic aristocratic dress generally associated with Europe of the 16th or 17th century. The usual rank of a jack, within its suit, plays as if it was an 11 (that is, between the 10 and the queen). As the lowest face (or "court") card, the jack often represents a minimum standard — for example, many poker games require a minimum hand of a pair of jacks ("jacks or better") in order to continue play. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, Bob Dylan
Soundcloud: Lily Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts (Original New York Session)
YouTube: Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts