The Irregular Outfields of Baseball

"In most professional sports, the playing surface and goal size are the same everywhere the game is played. Hockey nets are 178 feet apart. Basketball hoops are ten feet above the hardwood. And American football fields are 100 yards long. Not when it comes to baseball fields, though. Once you leave the infield, where the pitcher's mound is always 10 inches high, and the bases are always 90 feet from each other, the major leagues have few discernible rules regarding field size or fence height. Pro ballparks come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes due to the shape of the city block on which they were built, sometimes just to add character. Just check out how much variation exists in the fence heights of all 30 stadiums across left, center, and right field. ..."
The Data Face
Clem's Baseball: Side-by-side stadium comparisons
In the Same Ballpark (Audio)
Exploring Extreme Ballparks Past

Deep Blue

Wikipedia - "Deep Blue was a chess-playing computer developed by IBM. It is known for being the first computer chess-playing system to win both a chess game and a chess match against a reigning world champion under regular time controls. Deep Blue won its first game against a world champion on 10 February 1996, when it defeated Garry Kasparov in game one of a six-game match. However, Kasparov won three and drew two of the following five games, defeating Deep Blue by a score of 4–2. Deep Blue was then heavily upgraded, and played Kasparov again in May 1997. Deep Blue won game six, therefore winning the six-game rematch 3½–2½ and becoming the first computer system to defeat a reigning world champion in a match under standard chess tournament time controls. Kasparov accused IBM of cheating and demanded a rematch. IBM refused and dismantled Deep Blue. ..."
Wikipedia
Scientific American - 20 Years after Deep Blue: How AI Has Advanced Since Conquering Chess
A Brief History of Deep Blue, IBM's Chess Computer (Video)
Stanford (Video)
Kasparov vs. Deep Blue | The Match That Changed History
amazon: Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins by Garry Kasparov

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, 2018 December: The Last Chess Shop in New York City

Sharp suits, thin ties and the coolest musicians on Earth: Jazz 625 is back!

Singular vision … Bill Evans in the BBC studio.
"The camera holds its close-up on the pianist’s hands, his long fingers adding delicate inner voicings to the familiar melody of Come Rain or Come Shine. Then, very slowly, the camera tracks along the player’s arms and up his body until it reaches his head, which is lowered far enough to be virtually parallel with the keyboard. Nothing is intrusive, nothing is hurried, everything is keyed to the mood of rapt intensity. Captured in black and white because that’s all there was, the shot perfectly complements this music, the jazz of the 1960s. It’s a rare example of television finding a visual language to match a sound. Bill Evans was that pianist, and Jazz 625 was the programme. The hour of music he recorded for the BBC in London on that day in 1965 survives as a priceless document of one of the most influential jazz musicians of his era, a man whose singular vision played a key role in Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. ..."
Guardian (Video)
W - Jazz 625
YouTube: Jazz 625 At The BBC Live Concert Video, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Jazz 625, Dizzy Gillespie Quintet-(Jazz 625) 1966, OSCAR PETERSON TRIO at BBC, JAZZ 625, Jazz 625 - The Modern Jazz Quartet, Dave Brubeck Quartet Paul Desmond Jazz 625 Live Concert Video 1964, JAZZ 625 - Thelonius Monk 21-04-65 Part 1, Part 2, Coleman Hawkins Jazz 625, Jimmy Smith - Jazz 625, Part 2, Clark Terry Jazz 625, Ben Webster Jazz 625, Willie "The Lion" Smith - The Lion on BBC's "Jazz 625" - 1965, JAZZ 625.....FEATURES THE BRITISH BAND OF ALEX WELSH

On target … Cannonball Adderley in 1964 with his quintet, featuring Joe Zawinul on piano.

U.S.A. Trilogy - John Dos Passos (1930-36)

Wikipedia - "The U.S.A. trilogy is a series of three novels by American writer John Dos Passos, comprising the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932) and The Big Money (1936). The books were first published together in a volume titled U.S.A. by Harcourt Brace in January 1938. The trilogy employs an experimental technique, incorporating four narrative modes, fictional narratives telling the life stories of twelve characters, collages of newspaper clippings and song lyrics labeled 'Newsreel', individually labeled short biographies of public figures of the time such as Woodrow Wilson and Henry Ford and fragments of autobiographical stream of consciousness writing labeled 'Camera Eye'. The trilogy covers the historical development of American society during the first three decades of the 20th century. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked U.S.A. 23rd on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. ..."
Wikipedia
The Paris Review: John Dos Passos at the 92nd Street Y By Lydia Davis (Audio)
The Rumpus
LARB: The Great American Novel That Wasn’t
amazon: USA (The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money), The 42nd Parallel - Audible Audiobook

Kahil El’Zabar & The New Ethnic Heritage Ensemble - Ancient/Future/Music (2019)

"All the way from Chicago, we are delighted to welcome Kahil El’Zabar & The New Ethnic Heritage Ensemble for the launch of their new album, ‘Be Known - Ancient / Future / Music’. An artist truly in a league of his own, El’Zabar is a stalwart of spiritual and afro-futuristic jazz with a significant contribution in the continuation of the scene over the last four decades. His driving compositions - simple themes that gain complexity through repetition and improvisation - have been recorded with such jazz heavyweights including Pharoah Sanders, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre and 'Light' Henry Huff. Alongside multi-percussionist and vocalist El’Zabar, the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s current line-up includes Corey Wilkes on trumpet, who has worked with numerous jazz masters, including Wynton Marsalis, Kurt Elling and with El’Zabar for 15 years, multi-instrumentalist Alex Harding on baritone sax and a special guest on Cello. ..."
Party for the People
Kahil El’Zabar on the Expansiveness of Music History (Video)
Norman Records (Audio/Video)
YouTube: Live in Baltimore, 2/21/18 14:02, Black is Back

Universe Symphony - Charles Ives (1911 and 1928)

"The premiere of Johnny Reinhard’s realization of Charles Ives’s Universe Symphony, at Alice Tully Hall on June 6, 1996, is still justly remembered as counting among the great concerts of the 1990’s. It included dozens of 'downtown' performers, including flautist Andrew Bolotowsky, percussionist Slip La Plante, violinist Tom Chiu, and pianist Joshua Pierce, most of them working out of an appreciation of Reinhard’s effort to produce Ives’s final, purportedly unfinished piece. Though Ives lived to be eighty, he had his first debilitating heart attack around the age of forty-five and thus spent decades in semi-retirement, not only from composing but from insurance retailing, at which he and his partner Julian Myrick were so successful. Legendarily, he spent decades working on a magnum opus that was simply too ambitious for an invalid to complete, especially since his earlier compositions were rarely performed until Ives was in his late fifties. ..."
Brooklyn Rail: Charles Ives’s Universe Symphony, Finally
W - Universe Symphony
allmusic
amazon
YouTube: Universe Symphony 1:04:31

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), 2018 December: Three Places in New England (1911/14)

Myst (1993)

Wikipedia - "Myst is a graphic adventure puzzle video game designed by the Miller brothers, Robyn and Rand. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Brøderbund, and released as a PC game for the Macintosh platform in 1993. In the game, players are told that a special book has caused them to travel to Myst Island. There, players solve puzzles and, by doing so, travel to four other worlds, known as Ages, which reveal the backstory of the game's characters. After the development of several games aimed at children, the Miller brothers conceived of Myst as a game for adults. Development began in 1991 and was Cyan's biggest undertaking to date. ... Myst was a surprise hit, with critics lauding the ability of the game to immerse players in its fictional world. ... Multiple remakes and ports of the game to other platforms have been released, and Myst helped drive adoption of the then-nascent CD-ROM format. Its success spawned numerous ports, remakes, spin-off novels and other media. It was followed by several sequels in the Myst series of games. ..."
Wikipedia
Grantland: Lost to the Ages (Video)
15 Things You Might Not Know About Myst
Myst: Masterpiece Edition (Steam)
YouTube: A Brief History of... Myst

The Sound of Architecture and Design | Bauhaus, Piezo Microphones and FX

"Documentation of a performance I was part of at Baushaustfest Dessau 2017. Filmed by Anja Dietz, David Weber and me. Thx to the Bauhaus Dessau, TU Berlin and Initiative Neuer Zirkus E.V. and especially Karlo, Andrea and Lukas for making this fun to do!"
YouTube: The Sound of Architecture and Design | Bauhaus, Piezo Microphones and FX

2018 October: Distressed Tape, 2019 February: Sandpaper Is a Form of Change, 2019 February: Hainbach - Gear Top 7: My Personal Favorites In 2018

New York Rain: Vintage Sights and Sounds of a Soaked City

The last semi-dry moment for a pedestrian in Times Square. April 5, 1984.
"When a hard rain descends on New York, the whole city feels it. Traffic stands still, puddles get deceptively deep and even the most intrepid of us cowers in the wakes of passing cabs. Any object an unsuspecting pedestrian is carrying quickly becomes a makeshift umbrella, and actual umbrellas quickly become hazards themselves, catching the wind or flipping inside out. Until recently, whenever news was slow, The New York Times sent photographers out to take 'day shots' — slice-of-life images arresting enough to carry the front page. Weather, and people dealing with it, often made great subjects. 'When it rains, it’s a whole different scene,' said Bill Cunningham, the renowned Times staff photographer, in the 2010 documentary 'Bill Cunningham New York.' ..."
NY Times (Audio)

Sudden downpour, outside the old New York Times building on West 43rd Street. Aug. 1, 1963.

2011 November: Bill Cunningham, 2014 March: No Coupons at Chanel

"I Remember Clifford" - Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers (feat. Lee Morgan) (1958)

"... Trumpeter Lee Morgan hit the big time in 1956 at age 18 with the Dizzy Gillespie big band and his first album as a leader. His star burned brightly through his tenures with Art Blakey, Jackie McLean, Andrew Hill, John Coltrane and others until it was extinguished at age 33 when he was shot and killed in Slug’s Saloon by his wife. In addition, we will hear Morgan with Jimmy Smith, Wynton Kelly, Hank Mobley, Elvin Jones, Jackie McLean, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Joe Henderson. Alan Broadbent, Medeski, Martin & Wood and Harold Mabern will play Morgan’s compositions. ... The video is of Lee Morgan playing Benny Golson's 'I Remember Clifford' in Paris in 1958 with the Jazz Messengers of Art Blakey (d) Benny Golson (ts) Bobby Timmons (p) and Jymie Merrit (b)"
The Music of Lee Morgan (Video)
Soundcloud: Lee Morgan - I Remember Clifford (feat. Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers)
YouTube: I Remember Clifford by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers (feat. Lee Morgan)

2018 January: I Called Him Morgan (2017), 2015 December: Art Blakey - Paris Jam Session (1959)

A downtown alley’s Belgian block paving stones

"Franklin Place is another one of those delightfully hidden alleys you stumble upon in Lower Manhattan—a one-block thread connecting Franklin and White Streets between Church Street and Broadway. Somehow, a new luxury condo managed to get an address on Franklin Place. But no other business or residence opens onto this former 19th century lane, known as Scott’s Alley until the early 1850s, according to the Tribeca Citizen. Long lined with loft buildings used for manufacturing, Franklin Place is actually a private street, owned by the property owners whose buildings run along either side of the alley, the Citizen reported in 2017. ..."
Ephemeral New York
FRANKLIN PLACE, Tribeca

"The Bottle" - Gil Scott-Heron/Brian Jackson (1974)

Wikipedia - "'The Bottle' is a song by American soul artist Gil Scott-Heron and musician Brian Jackson, released in 1974 on Strata-East Records in the United States. It was later reissued during the mid-1980s on Champagne Records in the United Kingdom. 'The Bottle' was written by Scott-Heron and produced by audio engineer Jose Williams, Jackson, and Scott-Heron. The song serves as a social commentary on alcohol abuse, and it features a Caribbean beat and notable flute solo by Jackson, with Scott-Heron playing keyboards. ... It became an underground and cult hit upon its release, and the single peaked at number 15 on the R&B Singles Chart. ..."
Wikipedia
Genius - The Bottle (Audio)
Discogs
YouTube: The Bottle Original 12 inch, The Bottle 13:30 Version (Live)

2017 January: Pieces of a Man (1971), 2017 April: Winter in America - Gil Scott-Heron / Brian Jackson (1974), 2018 February: I'm New Here (2010)

Major League Baseball on the radio

Station WRUF microphone belonging to Red Barber - B-4-94
Wikipedia - "Major League Baseball on the radio has been a tradition for almost 80 years, and still exists today. Baseball was one of the first sports to be broadcast in the United States. Every team in Major League Baseball has a flagship station, and baseball is also broadcast on national radio. ... During the Golden Age of Radio, television sports broadcasting was in its infancy, and radio was still the main form of broadcasting baseball. Many notable broadcasters, such as Mel Allen, Red Barber, Harry Caray, Russ Hodges, Ernie Harwell, and Vin Scully, started in this period. However, broadcasting still did not look like the way it does today—recreations of games based on telegrams, the original means of broadcasting, were still widely used. ... However, as the Golden Era wound down, radio was gradually eclipsed by television. The World Series continued to be broadcast on the radio, with NBC Radio covering the Series from 1960–1975, and CBS Radio from 1976–1997. However, after Mutual's Game of the Day ended in 1960 there would not be regular-season baseball broadcast nationally on the radio until 1985, when CBS Radio started a Game of the Week..."
Wikipedia
How Radio Changed Baseball Fandom Forever (Video)
SABR: Only the Game Was Real: The Aesthetics and Significance of Re-created Baseball Broadcasting
SABR: Al Helfer and the Game of the Day
The Best Major League Baseball Announcers of All Time (Video)
Voices of the Game
YouTube: Baseball - 1950's 27 videos, Classic Baseball on the Radio

1940's KXOK radio, Harry Caray on right, Jack Buck on Left.

Worker Cooperatives

"Part 1: Widening Spheres of Democracy. The 21st century has seen an explosion in Worker Cooperatives—particularly since capitalism's 2008 crisis. In Part 1 of this 2-part series, we'll explore how worker coops present a radically different kind of ownership and management structure—one that has the power to bring democracy into the workplace and into the economy as a whole. We'll take a deep dive into the cooperatively owned and run bike/skate shop Rich City Rides, exploring how they have created a community hub that puts racial & economic justice front and center. ... Part 2: Islands Within a Sea of Capitalism. The second episode in our Worker Cooperative series takes a deep dive into the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, the largest network of federated cooperatives in the world. We take listeners on a journey through the Basque region of Spain where Mondragon is located, and explore Mondragon's successes and challenges through candid conversations with several worker-members at Mondragon headquarters and at various cooperatives within the federation. ..."
Part 1: Widening Spheres of Democracy (Audio), Part 2: Islands Within a Sea of Capitalism (Audio)
​

Tonada Baile Cantado - Rueda de Bullerengue (Volume 2)

"Names You Can Trust presents the second installment of Rueda de Bullerengue, a collaborative series with NY-based Bullerengue collective, Bulla En El Barrio. Named after the group’s ongoing monthly performance and workshop in Brooklyn, Bulla’s collaborative spirit and dedication to the tradition of los bailes cantados has made an indelible mark on the bubbling tropical music scene of New York City, and in turn, found their way into the crates and sets of DJs and vinyl aficionados via their first 7-inch release on NYCT in 2017. Since those initial moves, Bulla has continued to grow and add working members while maintaining a philosophy and connection grounded in the traditions of their Colombian origins. ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
iTunes
YouTube: Papa Lopez, Vamos Pa Venecia, La Hamaca, La Suerte

Modernism Awakening

"With multimillion-dollar art sales now almost routine around the world, it was not much publicized when, last spring at a London auction, “Fille à l’imprimé” ('Girl in a printed dress'), painted in 1938 by Mahmoud Said, fetched $664,951. Said (pr. sy-EED) was one of Egypt’s leading Modernists, and although he grew up in a privileged, European-style family, he rooted his work in his country’s Pharaonic heritage and committed himself to the social and political realities of his era. In this painting, Said portrays a fellaha, or female peasant, who appears reflective, dignified and ultimately enigmatic. It inspired a commentator of the time, Youssef Kamal, to write, 'Perhaps the model is expressing Oriental mystery in contradiction to the Occidental mystery of the Mona Lisa.' Such high-priced sales of Arab and Middle Eastern Modernist works have become even more robust in Dubai, a rising hub for art sales of all kinds for more than a decade. Collectors of Modernist works now include museums, both established and new, as well as individuals and galleries across the region and beyond. ..."
AramcoWorld

Chant Avedissian (Egypt), “Gamal Abd El Nasser,” 2008, gouache on cardboard, 49 x 69 cm.

Patti Smith’s Most Notable New York City Gigs

"New York City has been home base to Patti Smith and her band since the very beginning. The Patti Smith Group — the 'group' qualifier was added at Patti’s insistence not long after she was signed by Arista, to try to counteract the label’s immediate Seventies instinct to soften her image — was always a live band. That’s probably because Patti herself was always about performing in front of people no matter what shape her art was taking at any particular moment. She enlisted Lenny Kaye to accompany her at her earliest stage performance and kept coming back to their duo until she felt like she got it right, and then kept adding to that combination as she built the band, piece by piece. ... She could woodshed here to get ready for a tour, or try out new ideas and know there would be a receptive audience; she’s played shows in clubs and churches, theaters and cabarets, university auditoriums and museums, private lofts and rooftop bars. ..."
Voice (Video)

The Heart Asks Pleasure First, by Michael Nyman

"In 1991, after the release of the soundtrack to Prospero’s Books, the fifth full length movie collaboration with director Peter Greenaway, Michael Nyman needed a little break from film scoring. After more than a decade of establishing one of the best composer-director relationships in the history of cinema, Nyman broke off with Greenaway when the director added electronic music over the composer’s score without consulting with him. In interviews following the release of the film Nyman was disillusioned: 'I’ve been talking about Greenaway for seemingly my whole bloody life, and basically, I don’t want to talk about Greenaway because he never talks about me.' Nyman went back to working with his ensemble, releasing an album of songs with Ute Lemper and writing orchestral works. ..."
The Music Aficionado
W - The Piano (soundtrack)
YouTube: The Heart Asks Pleasure First / The Promise

2008 April: Michael Nyman, 2010 August: Decay Music, 2010 December: After Extra Time, 2011 August: Michael Nyman Band, 2011 December: The Draughtsman's Contract - Peter Greenaway, 2012 March: Time Lapse, 2013 July: Composer in Progress, In Concert (2010), 2015 September: An Eye for Optical Theory (Live at Studio Halle, 2010), 2016 January: Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds, 2017 April: Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (1972)

An Excellent Year for the Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower

The Eta Aquariid radiant is shown here from latitude 30° north (Houston, Cairo, Delhi, Shanghai) 90 minutes before sunrise. Farther north, the radiant is lower when the sky starts to get light. Shower members can appear anywhere across the sky, but they all trace their paths backwards to the radiant.
"If you haven't paid much attention to the Eta Aquariid shower due to its early hour, it's time to commit. These speedy spitballs from the constellation Aquarius may be the last good meteor show for the remainder of the year. You can blame the Moon. The richest showers — the August Perseids and December Geminids — will take a severe hit from moonlight this year. In both cases, the Moon will be at or near full and up most of the night. Even October's Orionids will only limp along thanks to a last quarter Moon. ... Maximum occurs Sunday morning, May 5th, in the wee hours before the start of dawn. That means you'll need to be outside watching from about 3–4:30 a.m. To make sure you don't miss that window, click here for your sunrise time and back up about 1 hour and 40 minutes to figure the start of morning twilight. Then back up one more hour to allow time to view the shower under a dark sky. ..."
Sky & Telescope
W - Eta Aquariid
YouTube: Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower- Early May 2019

Eta Aquariids are dribs and drabs of Halley's Comet. Perturbations by planets and the Sun have caused the particles to spread out into a ribbon centered on Halley's orbit. Earth plows through the debris in the outbound leg of the comet's orbit every May and the inbound leg every October.

Epic Vinyls from Brazil

"Based in Copenhagen, Epic Vinyls from Brazil is set to bring you new sounds from the past in the shape of DJ sets and mixtapes consisting of outstanding Brazilian songs that you most likely haven’t heard before. The EVFB tracks are without exception from a collection of vinyl records in which the major part has been found on numerous travels to Brazil since the year 2000. Since 2014, EVFB has played festivals, toured in Europe and Brazil, and supported Brazilian icons such as Jorge Ben, Marcos Valle, Azymuth and Emicida. Currently in the pipeline is the completion of the third mix in a trilogy of 'compacto mixes' with strictly Brazilian 7-inches and launching the second Afro Brazil Orixá mixtape. ..."
Discogs Mix 65 – Epic Vinyls from Brazil (Audio)
Travelling off the grid with Epic Vinyls from Brazil (interview) (Audio)
Soundcloud: Schack - DJ SCHACK
YouTube: Epic Vinyls From Brazil • Vinyl Set 100% Brazilian 7" records • Le Mellotron

Thimar - Anouar Brahem (1997)

"A strikingly attractive 'transcultural' project initiated by Tunisian oud virtuoso Anouar Brahem, who is both an innovator and a traditionalist in the deepest sense (he has been credited with 'restoring the sovereignty of the oud' in Tunisian music). There is no glib fusion of traditions on Thimar but rather a coming together of three very distinctive musicians who sacrifice none of their individuality in the search for common ground. Arab classical music and jazz are the reference points here, but Anouar Brahem, John Surman and Dave Holland meet as improvisors not limited by genre definition."
ECM
W - Thimar
All About Jazz
Discogs
amazon
DailyMotion: Thimar with Dave Holland and John Surman, Montreal International Jazz Festival 2011
YouTube: Talwin (Full)

2012 April: Le Pas Du Chat Noir, 2014 June: Astrakan Café (2000)

Crisis in Venezuela: What We Know So Far

Opposition demonstrators taking cover from tear gas near the Generalisimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base, also known as La Carlota, in Caracas on Tuesday.
"A day after Venezuela’s opposition declared a rebellion against President Nicolás Maduro, nervous uncertainty gripped the nation on Wednesday, with both sides calling for legions of supporters to take to the streets. Antigovernment demonstrators, accompanied by members of the security forces, heeded calls by the opposition leader Juan Guaidó to rise up against Mr. Maduro, in what he called the 'final phase' in the ousting of the socialist leader. Each man appealed to his supporters to make a major, public show of strength on Wednesday, raising the risk of violent confrontation. ..."
NY Times (Video)
New Republic: The Venezuela Coup’s Risky Dependence on Foreign Opinion

Juan Guiadó

2016 November: Venezuela, a Failing State, 2017 July: The Battle for Venezuela, Through a Lens, Helmet and Gas Mask, 2018 November: The Politics of Food in Venezuela, 2019 February: Venezuela’s Very Normal Revolution, 2019 March: Venezuela’s Deadly Blackout Highlights the Need for a Negotiated Resolution of the Crisis

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - View at Guernsey (1883)

"In the fall of 1883, Renoir spent a month on Guernsey, an island off the coast of Normandy. This vibrant work depicts one of the island’s most picturesque locations. The path along the bottom of the painting shows the route taken by visitors to admire the bay’s rocky coastline. Renoir’s energetic brushstrokes record the foliage, water, and clouds, all animated by a fresh breeze and brilliant sunlight."
The Clark
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

2010 February: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 2010 July: Late Renoir, 2012 February: Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting, 2012 September: Renoir: Between Bohemia and Bourgeoisie, 2014 December: Dance at Le moulin de la Galette (1876), 2015 June: Dance at Bougival (1883), 2015 December: Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880-81)

The SoHo Memory Project: A Conversation with Yukie Ohta

"'The story of SoHo is sort of the original story of adaptive reuse,' says Yukie Ohta, who was born and raised in the extraordinary New York neighborhood, which was ushered by artists from industrial to residential in the span of a few decades. Walking today among the painstakingly restored cast-iron buildings such as the 143-year-old “commercial palace” that is home to The Apartment by The Line, it is difficult to believe that SoHo was once viewed as an enormous slum ripe for demolition by the expressway that, thanks to locals and other urban activists, remained a gleam in Robert Moses’s eye. Ohta, who lives in SoHo today with her husband and young daughter, remembers her childhood neighborhood not as a glamorous haven for artists but as a small community of families, all doing their best to domesticate industrial lofts. These were places of makeshift kitchens and bathrooms, typically installed through a bartered exchange with a handy neighbor; wintertime rituals of stapling tarps to the windows as insulation; and blackout curtains to conceal illegal living situations from the eyes of passing authorities. ..."
The Line

Opened in 1920 by Neapolitan immigrants Nunzio and Jennie Dapolito, Vesuvio was a Prince Street institution. The beloved bakery closed in 2008 and reopened the following year as the Birdbath Neighborhood Green Bakery, preserving the lime-hued storefront of the original, which is pictured here in 1990.

2014 November: Is this the most wonderful sign in Soho?, 2013 September: SoHo, 2017 August: Two Prince Street relics on a pre-SoHo building

The Premier League’s Parity Problem

Liverpool and Manchester City have raced away from their pursuers. But is a top-heavy table good for the Premier League?
"LONDON — A few weeks before Leicester City clinched its improbable, unforgettable Premier League title in the spring of 2016, an executive from one of English soccer’s dominant Big Six clubs was in a basement conference room at a four-star London hotel, explaining that it must not be allowed to happen again. He was not immune to the romance of it all, he explained; he admired how Leicester had made the most of its comparatively scant resources to take its once-in-120-year shot. He even hoped that the international affection and attention the club had generated would benefit the league as a whole. But a repeat, another uplifting underdog tale, he said, could not be sold as prima facie evidence of the Premier League’s strength, its innate competitiveness, its much-trumpeted unpredictability. It would, instead, be a sign of weakness, proof that the superpowers, for all their vast wealth, had fallen back to Earth. ..."
NY Times

Tottenham Hotspur’s bets on young stars and a new billion-dollar stadium are already paying off.

Summoning the servants in the Frick mansion

"Today, the former Henry Clay Frick mansion on Fifth Avenue and 70th Street is a spectacular art museum featuring Frick’s extensive collection of Old Masters paintings and 19th century decorative arts, among other treasures. Frick always intended his mansion to become a museum after both he and his wife (bottom right) died—and as he planned, the museum opened to the public in 1935. (Frick died in 1919; his wife, Adelaide Childs Frick, in 1931.) Since then, the second-floor family rooms where Frick lived with his wife and daughter, Helen (with her father at left in 1910) have been off-limits to the public, and just about all remnants of the family life of this titan of industry have vanished. ..."

Ephemeral New York

Mur Murs - Agnès Varda (1980)

Wikipedia - "Mur Murs is a 1980 documentary film directed by Agnès Varda. The film explores the murals of Los Angeles, California. The vast majority of the scenes of the film are shots of murals, all of which are located in the city of Los Angeles, often with the mural's painter or model staged in front of the mural for dramatic effect. The film alternates between voiceover narration by Agnès Varda and commentary about the murals provided by the murals' creators, as well as commentary provided by locals living in the area. The film also includes several musical performances, including by Chicano punk band Los Illegals. A significant amount of the film's attention is focused on work by Chicano artists, although artists from other backgrounds are also covered extensively. The film also dwells on the role of state violence, both as it affects the communities the murals are situated in and the murals themselves. The film's title is a pun: literally 'Wall Walls' in French, Varda suggests that the murals on the walls are in fact murmuring to each other. ..."
Wikipedia
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Marshall Shaffer on Agnès Varda’s ‘Mur murs’
NY Times: AGNES VARDA'S MURALS (Oct. 2, 1981)
MUBI: Mur Murs

May 2011: The Beaches of Agnès, 2011 December: Interview - Agnès Varda, 2013 February: The Gleaners and I (2000), 2013 September: Cinévardaphoto (2004), 2014 July: Black Panthers (1968 doc.), 2014 October: Art on Screen: A Conversation with Agnès Varda, 2015 September: Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Plaisir d’amour en Iran (1976), 2017 April: Agnès Varda’s Art of Being There, 2017 April: AGNÈS VARDA with Alexandra Juhasz, 2017 August: Agnès Varda on her life and work - Artforum, 2017 October: Agnès Varda’s Ecological Conscience, 2018 March: Faces Places - Agnès Varda and JR (2017), 2018 July: Vagabond (1985), 2019 March: Agnès Varda, Influential French New Wave Filmmaker, Is Dead at 90